Supergirl S03E16 Review: The Surgeon God

Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 16: Of Two Minds

After two episodes that were well-executed but ultimately just there to stall for time to allow the Worldkiller subplot to build, it's about time that we kick Supergirl back into high gear. And this episode focuses on the third Worldkiller, the being known as Pestilence, and the unique nature of Pestilence as a threat that would, in the 30th Century, be a world-ending threat for the Legion of Super-Heroes, puts her in a unique place that I felt was far, far more interesting than Purity had been. Of course, I'm not a big fan about how Imra has suddenly gotten a lot more douchier because the show needs to paint her as the naysayer to Kara's "thou shall not kill" mentality. It's not quite as bad as, say, Arrow was in turning every member of the cast into being unreasonable bastards, but it was still somewhat grating.

Both Kara and Imra make good points on why they should kill Pestilence against trying to reason with her, but on the other hand the argument just feels tired and repetitive. Thankfully Kara and Imra make up at the end of the episode, avoiding another 'allies being pissy at each other because of a love triangle' situation. The actual detective work to hunt down who the true identity of Pestilence is well-executed, if not particularly interesting. Dr. Grace is a very interesting foil to the human identities of Purity and Reign, however, because Grace has wholeheartedly embraced the gifts of Pestilence, and is about to take her fight initially to punish the evil pharmaceutical overlords. Her ability of spreading disease via her nail is also a neat breath of air compared to Reign (Supergirl power clone) and Purity (Black Canary power clone).

The fight between Pestilence, Supergirl, Imra and Mon-El is also pretty damn cool, and when Purity swoops in to save her 'sister' it a big 'ooooh shit' moment. The Sam/Reign stuff also unexpectedly come to a head here because while Lena and Sam spends the majority of the episode just sort of stalling as they figure out how the split personality works (Sam/Reign is tied to some alternate dimension where Sam gets shunted whenever Reign takes over) and... I dunno, I feel that this plotline has been stretched out for so long that it's sort of lost the impact that it has, but of course Purity and Pestilence swoop in to abduct Reign, finally bringing all three World-killers together while exposing Lena going behind everyone's backs to try and 'cure' Sam.

Overall, it's a pretty neat and solid episode, if not too spectacular. I am particularly enamoured with Pestilence's rather weird anti-hero leanings and how she's not someone that Kara can negotiate with (easily, anyway) so it's not going to be a matter of 'talk her down' as will inevitably happen with Purity and Reign.

Oh, and Brainiac 5 has ditched the silly makeup. I would definitely have preferred Briany to have that makeup 24/7, but CW's costuming department hasn't really given Brainiac 5 that good of a face-paint makeup, so I think I prefer this way where presumably Brainy will act like J'onn -- remaining human most of the time but reverting to his 'true' alien form when required. S'not ideal, but definitely preferable than giggling at the bad face paint every time Brainy pops up on screen.