Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 9: Reign
Supergirl's mid-season finale is actually... a fair bit more satisfying than Flash and Arrow for the simple fact that, well, it's not messy! Sure, that's that whole subplot with Supergirl/Mon-El/Imra love triangle with a multiple-year gap bullshit going on, which is... somewhat cringey at times but probably the best love triangle development I've seen in a CW superhero show. Which admittedly wasn't a particularly high bar to clear, but yeah. Sure, the Flash had the long-built-up confrontation with the Thinker, but the episode itself mostly played out like... well, just any other episode right up to the end.
"Reign" played out like a proper buildup to the confrontation between Supergirl and the main villain, while the B-plot revolves around the mystery surrounding Mon-El and Saturn Girl, slowly building up that Legion of Super-Heroes mythos. And to top it off, the final five minutes of the episode is a particularly awesome one-on-one fight between Supergirl and Reign on the streets of National City. Perhaps I could've done without the little kid with the puppy-dog eyes, but it's otherwise pretty well done.
There's also a B-plot to ship James and Lena, but it's mostly kinda harmless. And also extremely dry. James at least gets to swing out his Guardian shield for the first time in forever.
And to top it off, the way Reign is introduced is pretty cool. It's clear to the audience who Reign's secret identity is, while the entire cast remains blissfully unaware... but this time around, with Reign being a completely separate personality that possesses Samantha Arias' body, it doesn't matter quite as much as "which of my allies is Prometheus" question that plagued Arrow's last season. I definitely could do without the over-usage of the 'dun dunn dunnn who is this mystery person' shots, though. And while last episode seemed to have Reign just take over Samantha's body, here it's revealed that Reign apparently allows Samantha to return back to her house, just without any memory of what's happened. Up until the last episode, where she seems to be in her Reign persona while Ruby is super-confused what's going on with her mommy.
That Christmas party with M'yrrn J'onzz being excited about cocoa and the celebration of an 'evergreen being' and J'onn and Winn geeking out over the Empire Strikes Back ("You probably don't know what Star Wars is." "EXCUSE ME?") was pretty awesome. And J'onn insisting for nearly a full minute that by god his father will learn that his favourite Christmas music of all time is Jingle Bells Rock? It's all pretty damn good. But the actual meat of the episode quickly happens, and it's pretty damn good and superhero-y.
Reign is an interesting villain for Supergirl in that unlike the previous villains Supergirl has faced, Reign is far more... religious? Mythological? Less concrete? As Reign's symbol is burnt into fields and buildings everywhere with heat vision, Supergirl is absolutely confused by the fact that her mother's recordings -- the full knowledge of planet Krypton -- has no record of that symbol. She's then summoned by Thomas Corville, the cult leader, who apparently has 'seen things' that Kara hasn't during his pilgrimage,where he talks to a bunch of banished Kryptonian priestesses from Fort Rozz, and delivers an apocalyptic prophecy about the Worldkiller. First comes the signs, then comes the deaths, then 'she will reign', painting Reign as this demonic figure that will herald Armageddon if Supergirl doesn't stop her. Coville also reveals that the religion built around Reign is a remnant of an artifact of prehistoric Krypton, before they are coalesced under the banner of one sun god, Rao, which is probably not a necessary detail, but a very interesting one that makes why the Kryptonian archives have no data work well.
But in practice, as we see in more 'Samantha is a busy mommy but feels bad' scenes, Reign seems to be lashing out against whoever Samantha feels angry -- like Morgan Edge. In fact, out of the people that the episode explicitly tells us that Reign murders with her heat vision, it's the One-Seven Gang and an attempted murder on Morgan Edge. So there's some layers behind what Reign's modus operandi is, and if not for the whole prophecy thing, she just seems like an 'evil' version of Supergirl that goes all murdery on her targets.
And bringing back past villains like Morgan Edge and Thomas Coville is definitely a great way to tie in some continuity while at the same time making Reign look badass without resorting to the Worf Effect.
And then, well, Reign finally answers Supergirl's roof-burning call by showing up and the two go to town on each other. With a festive Christmas soundtrack playing in the background as they go through an office party, and Reign shooting her (RED!) eye laser beams... add that to the very cool speech from Alex that Kara needs to "embrace your alien-ness" and be a cold fighting machine, and Kara's boast that she beat Superman when she had too, it makes Supergirl's battered and bloodied aftermath look far more surprising than before. I think this is the worst Supergirl's been damaged by a huge, huge margin, and seeing her thrown from the top of the building to slam down onto the curb is just a great, great cliffhanger. Of course Supergirl's not going to die, but how she'll bounce back and how Mon-El and Saturn Girl is going to be involved in all this is going to be very interesting.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- We talked about the Legion of Super-Heroes last episode, and both Mon-El and Imra explicitly mention that they founded and are members of a 31st century superhero group with alien members called 'The Legion' (which is what Legion of Super-Heroes tends to be shortened too) and Winn goes "A Legion... of Super-Heroes?" And, of course, in the comics, the Legion of Super-Heroes were also founded by using Superman (and later Supergirl) as role models.
- Lots of continuity nods to previous episodes here. We have callbacks to last season where Mon-El became bartender of the alien pub, Fort Rozz from season one, as well as Thomas Coville returning.
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