'Supergirl' Recap: 'Medusa'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

The DC Crossover event that pops up every fall on The CW is nothing short of magical. It's simply incredible to see all these iconic heroes find their way into one another's storylines and when it was announced that Supergirl would be joining the network...and eventually the crossover, well I was simply over the moon. Adding Supergirl into this already awesome mix would only make the crossover that much cooler and last night's episode, 'Medusa' signaled the beginning of this epic  four night event. 

But, I have to admit that as I settled in to watch this story, it dawned on me quickly that this celebration of geekiness that DC was blessing us with, actually managed at first to overshadow this particular chapter in Kara's life. After all, there were still some big storylines for this show to deal with and thankfully rather than get right into the return of Barry Allen to Kara Zor-El's world, this story took the time to pull together every loose plot thread left dangling this season and it started with the mystery of Medusa. As it turns out, this code word served as the name to a powerful biological weapon. One that when synthesized properly, would quickly kill any alien that in came into contact with and what made this virus so incredibly terrifying...is that it came by way of Krypton.

In fact, Kara's father was the engineer of this virus, creating it as an end all be all weapon to defend the planet from any threat that came their way and this revelation led to quite the thematic concept, that the sins of the father, or the mother for that matter as well...do not have to determine a child's future. Kara's part in that little piece of thoughtful storytelling was perhaps the easy way out since hey, she's Supergirl and saves the day...so the story took us into a different direction to hammer that point home by way of Lena Luthor, who finally confronted her mother about being the head of Cadmus and in a surprise twist...she seemingly aided her mother in her endeavors to rid the world of the alien menace by giving her what she needed to mass produce Medusa.

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All of this buildup led to quite the intense final act for the show where Cadmus executed its evil plan and for the first time ever, Kara was a second too late in saving the day...but this time around that didn't matter since she had a little help. Because in a second and equally awesome surprise twist, we found out that Lena indeed took a page from Kara's book and sabotaged the deployment of the virus...and even helped her mother find a new home in jail, sticking with the theme I made mention of a moment ago and Lena perhaps becomes the first Luthor in Superman/Supergirl lore to play the hero instead of an outright monster and thanks to Lena, for the moment...Cadmus is out of commission. 

But what would this series be without its tender moments, and there were plenty of those to be found last night as well. In fact, love was in the air on this show since Mon-El accidentally revealed his feelings for Kara in a vulnerable moment between the two of them and after dealing with the sting of rejection Alex finally 'got the girl' so to speak since Maggie's brush with death made her realize how silly it was to put a label on Alex and her journey and rather than waste any more time in life, the two of them should just go for it relationship wise and to top it all off...Alex came out to her mother and Eliza was completely fine with it and it was a nice touch to return to those softer moments since the last couple of weeks have had a heavy focus on action and adventure.

Of course we haven't talked about the crossover that much and with good reason...it was relatively immaterial to the plot and didn't even arrive until the final moments of the show, and while the true beginning to DC Week was brief...it was still absolutely awesome to see Barry and Cisco magically appear in Kara's apartment and to see the pure joy on Kara's face as she reunited with an old friend. Either way, this was another top notch episode for the series and I'm rather impressed that they wrapped up so many plot threads this week. It means we are likely in for some new and exciting adventures when the series returns from its winter break...but any speculation as to what comes next is going to have to wait...because it's crossover time! ​

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