'Supergirl' Recap: 'The Last Children of Krypton'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Over the course of one year, and a couple of episodes, Supergirl has established itself as one of the finest superheroine shows out there. It's hopeful, uplifting and outright inspirational as it provides us with unique and challenging storylines week in and week out. But despite the incredible strides that the show has made over the past year, there is one glaring issue that honestly I had not noticed until last night's episode, the sheer fact that this series is lacking the one thing every good story in this genre happens to have...a true threat for our heroine to face.  

Sure, we had the Kryptonians last year and their plan to create a zombie like utopia with Project Myriad, but...there was always a prevailing sense that Kara would overcome them and that part of the secret to her success would be Astra's loyalty to her family. But beyond that, there has never been a true villain on this show, or a big bad that Kara has had to square off against and while that's not necessarily a bad thing...every heroine needs her nemesis and it seems at long last, Supergirl has found hers. Because this week's episode 'The Last Children of Krypton' gave the mysterious Cadmus a face, and a nefarious purpose...in what turned out to be the most action packed and comic book-esque episode of the show to date.

As it turns out, Cadmus is nothing like it's counterpart in print. Whereas in the comics Project Cadmus is all about in depth genetic research that manages to churn out a couple of heroes, this Cadmus is all about the protection of mankind, firmly believing that an invincible pair of aliens on earth is going to lead to disaster, even going so far as to claim that someday Superman and Supergirl will eventually make the decision to abandon their goals of keeping humanity safe...in order to rule it. Which means they must lead the way in protecting mankind, and unleash Metallo, a pair of abominations that are fueled by Kryptonite to make like hell for the Man of Steel and the Girl of Tomorrow and this led to some outright incredible fight scenes as Kara and Kal did their best to subdue these evil beings and foil Cadmus' master plan to remove Kryptonians from the face of the planet.

But while this episode was filled to the brim with thrills and super feats, Supergirl is a show that always finds a way to throw a little heart and humanity into the mix and thankfully that was present in this episode as well. The theme this go round was setting aside one's differences for the greater good and while I wasn't a fan of the storyline that involved a little jealousy from Alex, it just seemed petty in my humble opinion, she was able to let that go to help Kara and quite frankly, it was overshadowed by the fact that J'onn and Kal-El finally found a common ground and quit with their bickering to fight together and find a way to trust one another in the process since J'onn finally handed over the remaining Kryptonite in the DEO's possession to Superman so that the Man of Steel could find a safe place for it where it could do no harm to either him or his cousin.

However, despite all the victories achieved in this story, there was one bittersweet moment that well, changes the landscape of the show...the fact that Cat Grant is taking a leave of absence from CatCo. Clearly her speech to Kara last week inspired something within herself as she steps away from the business to find herself and take on new challenges and while that stays in line with the overreaching theme of independence and empowerment on this show...let's be honest, we are all going to miss seeing Cat on a weekly basis, because this is a character that helped Kara grow and in the process...won all of us over. But in the meantime, there's bigger fish to fry. Cadmus is clearly a force to be reckoned with and they will no doubt waste little time in regrouping and making another attempt to rid the world of Supergirl...

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