Supergirl S03E21 Review: Exit Reign

Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 21: Not Kansas

Yeah, these last few episodes have been... pretty insanely weird in pacing terms. We're technically moving at a breakneck speed as far as plot progression is concerned, but at the same time all the developments that went on in this episode felt very lukewarm and pretty unpolished. Take the fight against Reign, for example, which quite literally lasts for all of two minutes before Reign is quickly expelled from Samantha in no uncertain ways. It's honestly very jarring considering how Reign has been the main villain for nearly 20 episodes to be defeated in what's honestly an anticlimactic "get plot device, use plot device" way. At least Sam and Ruby are reunited, though, and that's very, very heartwarming. 

And Supergirl ends up treating this as a huge event by having a farewell party, but maybe I'm used to how emotional Supergirl tended to get, but this really just feels very underwhelming as Supergirl and Mon-El bugger off to Argo City and leave the DEO behind, with the two of them attempting to acclimatize to a supposed utopia where everything is peaceful and Kryptonian. It's treated with way too little impact for what it should be. Add that to the oddity that no one bothers mentioning this to Superman, not even with a "he's busy fighting Brainiac or some shit" handwave, adds some real questions directed to the writers of this episode. 

It honestly feels like Supergirl wanted to build up to the Argo City storyline, but in doing so attempted to really rush the Legion of Super-Heroes/Reign storylines. The Legion at least got a proper, slower-paced send-off that felt organic. Reign just feels really bad. Oh, sure, with the next episode's title she's probably not quite done just yet, but the execution of this episode, and just how bland and uninteresting Argo City really ends up being... I dunno. It feels so bland. Again, I'm going to compare this with how Kara and Alura's relationship is dealt with in the first season, and that's a fake Alura. Here their relationship honestly feels like a parent/child pair that's been apart for a year or two, not one that thought the other dead for decades. It feels less of Kara rediscovering a civilization that she thought lost forever, but more like "oh gee whiz, I get to visit my hometown and strike up awkward conversations with my high school classmates". 

There's some attempts to make it feel like Kara's trying to adapt from being a superhero and a warrior her entire life to a life of peace, and maybe she's just jumping at shadows and coincidences, but of course the sinister hooded lady is evil and part of the Cult of Rao. There's also some very awkward and genuinely bland attempts at resolving the Mon-El/Supergirl storyline, which is a very lukewarm "Yep. They like each other. Woo." scene. Supergirl and Mon-El's actors genuinely have good chemistry together, but the way that Mon-El's internal conflict and Supergirl's attempts to move on have both been handled pretty well this season, only for them to drop the ball hard on the resolution of this one. There's also a lot of weird attempt to go "oh, Supergirl's dream is exactly the same with this greenhouse scene" which is... just weird and goes nowhere. 

There's a great subplot with M'yrnn sensing that his death is impending, which is all sorts of depressing, and he begs J'onn to perform a Martian rite that allows a dying elder to pass all his knowledge to the next generation, something that J'onn initially refuses to accept. But after going through this episode's painfully in-your-face gun control debate, J'onn... decides to accept that he has to move on and accept his father's dying? Um, what? Neither of those subplots really correlate to each other, honestly. 

And, yes, the B-plot for this episode is the gun control subplot. I'm not that guy who goes around to say that shoehorning morals into a story is bad, but the execution of this particular shoehorn just gets the entire episode grinding to a halt without any real attempt to integrate it into the show's actual story. It also makes the very bizarre connection that J'onn enforcing gun control on the DEO somehow getting him to accept that his father is dying, which is super weird. Just because James and Lena have a conversation and go "I respect your views" doesn't mean that the show doesn't make it clear where Supergirl stands on the debate, because J'onn makes a huge decision to suddenly disarm the DEO from all its lethal weapons. Now I'm all for not selling assault rifles or even handguns to random Joe Schmoe, but holy shit, the DEO regularly deal with monstrous alien psychopaths with superpowers! It's absolutely silly, trying to graft the real-world issue of gun control into a series where a group of soldiers try to fight superpowered aliens and metahumans. It's one thing to have J'onn talk down the gun seller or the crazy dude that tries to shoot up his old workplace. It's another to have him prevent an entire army force from basically doing their job.

Oh, and Alex decides to adopt when she realizes that Ruby's found her real mom. Okay?

Overall, a very clunky episode in both its main plot and its B-plot, and probably one of the worst Supergirl has been since its original season. We'll see if any of the weird pacing problems of this episode ends up panning out in the final two episodes, but I honestly doubt it. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Thara Ak-Var in the comics is indeed Kara Zor-El's best friend, but she was scarred for life when she was trapped in the bottle city of Kandor as it was abducted by Brainiac. When Kandor was revived by Superman and Supergirl, while initially an ally to the heroes, Thara became increasingly disillusioned and at one point allied with several Phantom Zone criminals. In remorse for letting out these Kryptonians, she adopted the identity of Flamebird in rooting out the criminals. 
• I tried to half-heartedly google the names of the other Kryptonians, but they all seem to be original to the show, unlike the cast of Krypton. 
• The effects of the Black Rock, literally splitting Reign from Samantha, seem to be a homage to Smallville's Black Kryptonite, which would separate a Kryptonian into two persons with different personalities. 
• Eve Tessmacher being revealed to be a scientific genius, and later on assigned to work with Lena Luthor, is a reference to how the character is a ditzy genius working as Lex Luthor's main minion in Superman: The Movie.