'Supergirl' Recap: 'Homecoming'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

Buried deep in all of our minds is one important moment that we want to see come to fruition, one that would mean the world to us. It could be an apology from someone who hurt us years ago. Or an opportunity to set right a mistake we made, or...see someone that disappeared from our lives long ago come back to us at last.

But the downside to those wonderfully positive thoughts...is that we know deep down the chances of any of those things actually happening are slim to none, so we play the age old game of 'what if?' and move on with our days, but what would life look like if one of those scenarios came to fruition? Well it's something that Supergirl decided to explore in depth last night, because 'Homecoming' reunited the family Danvers at last with the return of Jeremiah and well, his return led to one heartbreaking and powerful episode that dug into what family means to all of us and how far some folks will go to keep the people they love, safe. 

If anything, Jeremiah's return actually made for some incredibly beautiful moments in this episode.  Being able to witness his return to the DEO and embrace his daughters and his friends was a misty eyed inducing occasion and to see the joy in Kara and Alex's eyes was simply the stuff of magic and it was equally as lovely to see them work extra hard to wipe away the pain of a fourteen year absence and integrate dad back into their lives as quickly as possible, and while Eliza Danvers was quick to point out that it was going to be a hard road ahead, clearly everyone was invested in putting their family together again. But despite the joy of seeing Jeremiah return home...one man was suspicious of the whole thing.  Mon-El had a funny feeling deep down that Jeremiah's rescue was too good to be true, that perhaps Cadmus was up to something far more sinister and let the DEO find him as part of their sinister plans. 

Of course, his suspicions led to plenty of conflict between Kara, her family and Mon-El for that matter...but his cynicism was not without merit and that's when the show went into some incredibly heartbreaking territory because as it turns out...Mon-El was right. Jeremiah Danvers was a sleeper agent after all and he was working to gain the trust of the DEO and his family in order to steal information from the DEO's mainframe and it led to one harrowing showdown between biological daughter and father, wherein dear old dad explained that all of this, was to keep his family safe and to know that he made a deal with a proverbial devil in the hopes of seeing his daughters grow up from afar...completely and utterly shattered Alex and Kara at their core. 

But regardless of the pain on display in this episode, a poignant moment in the finale served as a reminder, that heroes don't always get time to grieve and hurt properly. Because Kara now knows that Cadmus has the National Alien Registry, and we the audience now know they have a plan in place to commit genocide and 'cleanse the earth' of said aliens, which means that it's back to work for Kara and the DEO, regardless of the pain they carry in their hearts...so they can save as many lives as possible. As to how well they are able to bury that ache has yet to be seen because I'm certain they will run into Jeremiah once again and Lillian Luthor is no doubt hoping that emotion will force Kara and Alex and J'onn to make some grave mistakes. Either way, what a powerful episode, and I'm glad to see that the series is completely back on track because this was some outstanding storytelling and I cannot wait to see what comes next from this heartbreaking turn of events. Until next time. 

---