Since it first premiered back in the fall of 2015, Supergirl has always been a show about female empowerment. It’s a series that provides its audience with powerful, complex, and diverse female characters, and it’s not afraid to let those characters have strengths as well as weaknesses. The only time Supergirl has fumbled in the past with its feminist message is when it makes its characters speak that message instead of putting it into action. However, those instances mostly only occurred throughout the show’s somewhat uneven first season, and they’ve all but gone away in Season 2, leading to a richer, deeper, and more satisfying superhero series as a result.
“Alex” is Supergirl at its very best, when the series shows instead of tells, allowing its female characters to be actual people instead of mouthpieces. We don’t need to hear Kara, Alex, or Maggie talk about how smart or strong they are because we see it through their actions throughout the hour. Kara and Maggie are forced to work together to rescue Alex after she’s kidnapped by a villain from Kara and Alex’s hometown of Midvale, a person the two of them went to school with for years and knew to be a good, decent human being: Rick Malvern. After he captures Alex, Malvern gives Kara and Maggie a 36-hour time window to release his father from prison or else he will kill her.
On paper, it seems like a simple, straightforward plot, but even though we know that Supergirl won’t kill Alex off, the show is still able to milk an incredible amount of tension from the storyline. Each wrong decision that Kara or Maggie makes feels like it could be fatal, and that’s because the show raises the emotional stakes in a massive way by making Kara second-guess her superhero strategies after Maggie criticizes her at a dinner at Alex’s apartment and by providing Alex and Maggie with one of their most heartbreaking scenes yet, as Maggie won’t let Alex say goodbye to her because there are too many “firsts” the two of them still need to experience together.
Both of these initial scenes pay off in spectacular ways near the end of the episode. Kara proves to Maggie who Supergirl truly is when she’s able to convince Peter Thompson, Rick’s father, to help them rescue Alex so that his son won’t become a killer like he is. Kara uses her most important super power, her heart (it’s cheesy but it’s true), to connect with Thompson in a way that she wasn’t able to earlier in the episode when she lost control of her emotions. When it counts most, though, Kara is calm and compassionate, the true embodiment of a superhero, as she uses honesty and empathy to find out where Alex is being held and rescue her.
Meanwhile, the earlier Alex/Maggie scene, in which Maggie cuts off her girlfriend before she can deliver a final farewell of sorts, leads to their wonderful exchange of “I love you” in the episode’s final moments. It’s one of the sweetest and most authentic scenes that we’ve seen from Alex and Maggie yet, and Chyler Leigh and Floriana Lima play the moment beautifully, letting their characters’ somewhat hard exteriors melt away to showcase the pure and lovely vulnerability of the scene. These are two tough women who have to almost always have their guard up as they deal with life-or-death circumstances on a daily basis. But when they’re together, they’re able to be the truest versions of themselves and the love that Alex and Maggie have for another is incredibly displayed through Leigh and Lima’s performances and the terrific dialogue that the two of them are given.
As strong as the Alex/Maggie material in “Alex” is, though, what really makes this episode something special is the attention it gives to the Kara and Maggie relationship, a dynamic that we’ve rarely seen Supergirl explore before. What’s so great about this storyline (other than the fact that it lets Melissa Benoist and Floriana Lima get more screen time together) is that it examines Maggie’s problems with Supergirl, not specifically Kara, as we learn that some common criminals use what Maggie refers to as the “Supergirl defense” to get released from custody. This story also allows the two most important women in Alex’s life to learn from each other. Throughout “Alex,” we see Kara embrace Maggie’s more methodical way of thinking, and we also watch Maggie behave more like Kara typically does, using her emotions as both a strength and a weakness. Of course, “Alex” illustrates that a balance, a type of midway point between both Kara and Maggie’s strategies, is the best method for stopping crime in National City, and I do hope it’s a sign of things to come and that we’ll be treated to more of Kara and Maggie working together to take down villains in the future.
But any potential Kara and Maggie crime-solving storylines I have envisioned in my head will have to wait for a little while, because I’m predicting that Supergirl will be quite busy in the final three episodes of Season 2 now that Lena has agreed to work with Rhea on the transmatter portal. Of course, Lena has no idea just how evil Rhea is, and unfortunately, her acceptance and kindness towards aliens may come back to bit her in a major way if she doesn’t quickly figure out what Rhea is really planning.
Could this be the turn of events that causes Lena to become more like her mother, a betrayal that makes her turn against aliens of all kind and embrace her darker, more villainous Luthor roots? We’ll have to wait and see, but one thing is certain: when Kara finds out what Rhea and Lena are up to, she will not be happy, and it will definitely take a toll on the Kara/Lena friendship as Season 2 reaches its conclusion.
Other thoughts:
- Even though Alex spends the majority of this week’s episode in captivity, Supergirl never turns her into a damsel in distress. Every time we see her, she’s fighting, trying to figure out a way to escape or survive, whether that’s sending a signal to the DEO with her tracker, punching the glass to try to break it, or even turning her pants into a flotation device. I love how Supergirl never betrays Alex’s character throughout the entire hour and shows that, even in the most terrifying moments, Alex Danvers remains a true bada**.
- Similarly, Supergirl showcases Lena’s superb intelligence when she catches Rhea saying “Thank the gods” and immediately figures out that she’s an alien. Nowadays, you have to applaud a network show when it doesn’t sacrifice character to push the plot forward.
- How great is it seeing Kara use her super speed in this episode, as she runs and punches the glass to help save Alex? Super speed is the one power that I wish we would see more of from Kara on Supergirl. However, in “Alex,” we get to see her use pretty much every one of her abilities aside from super breath, so that’s just another reason to love this episode.
- “Alex” is a Supergirl episode that rightfully focuses on the show’s leading ladies, but I wanted to point out one excellent scene from the hour involving one of the show’s male characters. The scene in which Kara and J’onn admit to each other that they are both scared of losing Alex features some very strong writing and outstanding acting from both Melissa Benoist and David Harewood. It also has Kara mention that she can’t “fly fast enough to turn back time,” which is a fun nod to the original Christopher Reeve Superman film in the midst of a pretty heavy dramatic scene.
- I can’t decide which line made me smile more: Kara telling the bank robbers that she arrests at the beginning of the episode that meeting her “will be a fun story to tell your roommates in jail,” or Alex simply uttering, “That sucked,” after she cuts the tracker out of her shoulder. Both lines perfectly reflect who these characters are. That’s what we call good writing, folks.
What did everyone else think about this week’s episode of Supergirl? Did you enjoy it as much as I did? Comment below and let me know.
[Photo credit: Dean Buscher/The CW]
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