'Supergirl' Recap: 'Wake Up'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

​There is within all of us, a romantic element that firmly believes that people we love or have loved in our lives, the ones we’ve had to let go of for various reasons, will someday to return to us and the magic we once shared can begin anew. Sometimes, that part of our heart is one-hundred percent correct and we get exactly what we want. But more often than not, their return is a mere reminder of what once was since sometimes, people change and grow and move on and that’s unfortunately a lesson that Kara was forced to learn on last night’s episode of Supergirl.
 
Because ‘Wake Up’ featured what should have been a wondrous moment for Kara, in that, the ship beneath National City’s coast, the one that it’s safe to assume all of us believed was nefarious in nature, turned out to be so much more in that…it housed Mon-El and after seven months of strife in Kara’s heart, it seemed as though she would finally find some peace with her love returned to her. But this reunion was anything but joyful. Mon-El was detached from Kara and silent as to how he found his way back to Earth and how exactly he managed to develop an immunity to the lead in the air, and despite Kara’s pleas and attempts to get him to talk or even remotely acknowledge her, he refused to do so.
 
However, the true reasons for his silence and his general distance, were far more heartbreaking than I think any of us could have possibly imagined. Because aboard that ship, was someone incredibly important to him, his wife, and at last the truth about Mon-El was revealed. As it turns out, shortly after leaving our planet, he slipped through a wormhole and ventured 400 years into the future, where L-Corp was able to cure his illness and of course, the future is where he met his bride to be and well, I may never quite forget the look on Kara’s face when she saw the love of her life, kiss his wife with such joy upon his face, because in that moment, you could see Kara’s heart shatter.
 
To make matters worse, while Kara was dealing with all of that, Sam finally felt the need to explore her powers further and a re-affirmation of her invulnerability led her home to discuss with her true lineage with her adopted mother. As it turns out, mommy had quite the surprise waiting for Sam in the barn and in a twisted version of Superman’s origin story, Sam was able to retrieve a powerful crystal from the ship that brought her to Earth, and let it guide her to the desert, wherein a dry and desolate version of the Fortress of Solitude was constructed for her and inside its walls, she came to learn of her Kryptonian origin and despite her best efforts to resist the ugly fate that was laid out for her, she eventually succumbed and accepted her fate as the world killer…Reign.
 
So, if anything this episode was a stark contrast in tone and design from what the rest of season three has offered up so far and it was a touch surprising to see this episode take us to such bleak territory and also offer up little when it comes to social commentary this go round but the latter of those two surprises was a bit necessary. After all, at some point Kara needed some sense of closure when it came to Mon-El, and she definitely got it in the worst possible way and the show has also been toying with Sam and her destiny for some time now as well, so it was nice to see that plot line progress in such epic fashion. Either way, lack of commentary or not, this was still an engaging episode and it should be interesting to see how Kara deals with the loss of Mon-El all over again and I wonder how long it will take before Reign beings her assault on the people of Earth. Until next time.   

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