Supergirl S03E22 Review: Space Witches

Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 22: Make it Reign

So we're in the home stretch now, with this penultimate episode of Supergirl's third season, and as my reviews have been probably hammering home, it's not the most well-paced season ever. Particularly in these past few episodes. The whole coven of Kryptonian witches that are apparently an organization called the Daughters of Juru, servant of the forgotten Kryptonian god Yuda-Kal, isn't completely out of nowhere. Thomas Coville and the mysterious witches have been a constant presence throughout the season. But to say that they're well-developed at all? It's a completely different thing. They basically hijack the plot, become both main villain and villain-of-the-week in the same breath, and wreak havoc on Earth as they attempt to bring Reign back. Which means that apparently Samantha Arias becomes weaker because she has some vague magical connection with Reign, and also they needed the blood of Purity and Pestilence. And despiet knowing this, they never left a memo for Coville to keep those blood around in case of emergency? It feels weird. 

The rest of the episode is also inconsistent, stranding Supergirl, Mon-El and Alura on New Krypton as they sort of fumble around in confusion with a subplot about Selena's home that blows up with a bomb. The Kryptonian squad is basically unable to contact Earth until the second act of the episode. Oh, and of course, the non-exposition lines that Supergirl has to discuss is the shipping between Mon-El and Supergirl instead of any sort of identity crisis about Supergirl being a child of two worlds or something along those lines. I dunno. Lena and Alex try their best to figure out what's wrong with Samantha as her cells get weaker, and Winn also develops some super-invulnerable belt forcefields and gives it to Agent Demos, who gets a lot of screentime in this episode. 

The actual fight of the three Kryptonian witches in the DEO is pretty fun, though, involving some neat showcases of Winn's new technology, Demos's dramatic heroic sacrifice (albeit telegraphed from a mile away) and the badass scene of Alex drop-kicking a pair of Kryptonians while wielding a Kryptonite gun. Does it make sense that after the huge plot tumour about non-lethal weapons, Alex shows up and proves that a gun that shoots Kryptonite bullets -- both objects that Supergirl have been frowning upon in recent episodes -- as one of the more effective weapons against the bad guys? Yeah. 

And anyway, after a bunch of weird mumbo-jumbo and because Kara actually throws the blood at the witches instead of just crushing it in her own hands, Reign is brought back to life as a separate entity with a ritual involving some sub-par CGI, Samantha is sent back to the 'Dark Valley', which is just straight-up a physical place now instead of Samantha's consciousness, and the stakes now involve terraforming and Reign's new crooked sword. As someone who reads comic books on a daily basis, none of these are sillier than the concept of a billionaire that runs around dressed as a bat to beat up criminals, but the lack of buildup and the fact that these are all just piled on top of each other like very clumsy video game exposition -- and in the second-to-last episode of a season, no less -- makes this episode really feel sub-par. 

What this episode does get right, though, is J'onn and M'yrnn's storyline. It does have its problems, with the Reach being introduced last episode, but the buildup is done relatively well and the episode, unlike everything else that goes on, decides to focus on the emotional core of this subplot with M'yrnn's tearful farewell with Alex, and later the dialogue exchanged as they go through the memories both painful and joyful, are all well done. Of course, though, all the crisis happens, and both J'onn and M'yrnn are forced to interrupt their ritual to save the earth, with M'yrnn even offering a dangerous-sounding solution that makes it look like he's going to have a dramatic sacrifice. 

Overall, though, despite some good parts of this episode (Alex drop-kicking the Kryptonians, the martian subplot, the emotional focus on Sam/Ruby) the ending's really ratcheting up to be quite messy. We'll see if it manages to at least stick the landing, eh?

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The most famous wielder of a force-field generating belt in the DC comics is Brainiac 5, which I assume is what Winn's design is supposed to homage. 
• We get a nod to the martian god H'ronmeer in M'yrnn's speech. 
• The Witches of Juru is a reference to the very obscure DC characters the Wizards of Juru, an ancient sect of Kryptonian magic-wielders who live in a secluded valley and featured in the Phantom Zone miniseries.