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Recap: SUPERGIRL Season 1, Episode 14: “Truth, Justice, and The American Way”

WARNING This review contains full spoilers from the episode.

First off I’d like to say thank you to Jason for covering the previous episode of Supergirl. He did an amazing job, and it’s greatly appreciated. Who knows maybe the multiverse will allow us to do this again someday.

Back in the world of Supergirl, we have Cat still holding a grudge because of the mess that happened in the last couple of episodes; Kara breaking up with Adam, J’onn doing a terrible Kara impersonation etc. Having Cat hire a new assistant because Kara can’t do her job was a interesting side story. The new assistant is named Siobhan Smythe (or assistant number one), and is truly terrible person. She is such a waste of space, hopefully she makes a better impression next week. She doesn’t add anything to the story, and she’s not even a good foil to Kara.

Kara is holding a grudge against Hank for because he killed Astra. This seems to be the episode of grudges. Non is having a funeral for Astra and invites Kara to the Kryptonian ceremony. Kara accepts and essentially preforms the eulogy. Non promises to give Kara the week off because that’s what classy villains do at a loved one’s funeral. In all seriousness this was just a way to get Non out of the story this week, but that’s not a bad thing.
We see Cat and her team of reporters try to figure out why Maxwell Lord disappeared. They can’t seem to find a solid lead until Lucy finds out that the D.E.O. might be holding Lord prisoner. Lucy tells James about her lead and wants him to pursue this story. James doesn’t want Lucy to get involved with the D.E.O. and tries to convince her to drop the lead. Of course this leads to James slipping up and revealing that he learned about the D.E.O. from Supergirl. Lucy has some major jealously when it comes to Kryptonians, and storms out in rage. Lucy is not a very good character, and always seems to bring the show down whenever she’s on screen. I don’t think she has been involved in a pleasant moment ever since she appeared. I understand that she’s upset that James has been spending time with Supergirl, but because she wasn’t a likeable character to start with we don’t really feel her pain. What James did was wrong, but I have a tendency to side with him because of my dislike for Lucy. If the character was handled better maybe this would have more of an impact.

James doesn’t agree with that the D.E.O. should be holding Lord prisoner, but Kara thinks that the world is safer with Lord in the custody of the D.E.O. James argues that Kara didn’t always believe in the D.E.O.’s methods. She believes in Truth, Justice, and the American way; and no one should be held hostage like that. This was the major theme of the episode, Kara’s values. After everything that’s happened in the first half of the season, it’s totally plausible that Kara has changed. Her entire outlook on the world has changed, but the one thing that stayed the same was her willingness to do the right thing. She thinks that keeping Lord in a cell is the right thing, and even if its wrong she’s still doing what she thinks is best.
Now on to the big bad of the episode, (Master Builde–) Master Jailer. Hank and Alex are trying to track down Master Jailer because he’s killing all of the escaped prisoners of Fort Rozz. We get scenes of Hank and Alex in action; something that I always enjoy. The chemistry between David Harewood (Hank) and Chyler Leigh (Alex) seems to get better and better every week, and it makes their scenes that much more enjoyable. The two go undercover as FBI agents and try to track down Master Jailer (worst name ever). Hank and Alex go to the police to see if they have any leads. This was a great scene between the cops and our D.E.O. agents. The cops don’t seem quite right so we know something is wrong as soon as we see them. That was a minor problem with this episode, every villain was kind of easy to spot right away. Siobhan and the two cops borderline campy in some moments, and at times it got ridiculous. Thankfully Master Jailer was a decent opponent for Kara as far as action sequences go. Their first encounter was a great scene! Sadly, we eventually have Kara lose and be taken prisoner only for Alex to rescue her.

With Kara trying to stop Master Jailer from killing his next target (prisoner 2445), she gets captured, and becomes his next kill. She meets prisoner 2445 and discovers that he isn’t a bad person, actually he’s a school professor. She learns that he’s only in Fort Rozz because he needed money to help his sick wife. This is what gets Kara back on the right path, she learns that most people do bad things out of fear. Lord is afraid of aliens, and this fear leads to him hating Supergirl; just like Lex Luthor hates Superman. This is also Batman’s motivation in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Fear leads to people doing things they wouldn’t normally do.
One of the things that was nice to see was the use of red sun light. it’s one Supergirl’s weaknesses, but it doesn’t make her ill like kryptonite, it makes her human. We rarely see this weakness used in other forms of media so this was a nice nod to the comic fans. We have Alex and a few D.E.O. agents come and free Kara and the professor. The last battle between Kara and Master Jailer is short but effective, it was still a fun scene. Kara lets the professor go back to his normal life, and lets Lord walk away free. This was a nice way to end the episode because we Lord back out there causing trouble.

Overall I really enjoyed this episode. It wasn’t as strong as the previous episode, but it was still solid. We have a new antagonist in Siobhan (fingers crossed that this works), and Kara learned not to strike fear into the hearts of people because that’s the (Green) Arrow’s thing. We have a great episode coming next week with Kara going to the Fortress of Solitude, and the highly anticipated X-Men crossover, wait what?

Supergirl airs Mondays at 8/7ct on CBS.

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