‘Supergirl’ 1.06 Recap: “There Is Anger Behind the Anger”

This week’s recap starts off with some good news. CBS has ordered seven more episodes of ‘Supergirl, meaning that the series will finish its first season with a full 20-episode order. That, of course, guarantees nothing as far as a potential Season 2 is concerned, but at least it looks like the network has no current plans to axe the Girl of Steel.

Our adventure in this episode gets underway with Supergirl flying over the city when her super-hearing picks up a pair of drivers involved in a road rage incident. Swooping down, she barely stops the cars before they speed into a group of schoolchildren in a crosswalk. One of the drivers gets out to argue with Supergirl and she breaks his hand when he tries to punch her. The kids look horrified. That night on the evening news, Maxwell Lord tells the people of National City that they should be worried about Supergirl.

The next day at work, Cat gets a visit from her mother (Joan Juliet Buck). As it turns out, the elder Ms. Grant treats her daughter pretty much the same way Cat treats her employees, which may say a lot about where Cat gets her attitude from. Cat’s mom isn’t the only visitor in town this week – Lucy’s father, General Sam Lane (Glenn Morshower from ’24’), also shows up. He wants Supergirl to test the Army’s new robotic weapon, dubbed the “Red Tornado.”

Supergirl takes on the robot, who – you guessed it – is able to create tornadoes as part of his arsenal, and quickly gets the better of him. However, when she’s told to stand down, she can’t control her temper and continues to pummel it, causing Red Tornado to fly off on his own. With National City now faced with the threat of a rogue robot, Gen. Lane puts all the blame on Supergirl for not being able to keep her anger in check.

Kara has anger issues outside her suit as well. At work, she snaps at Cat, asking why she’s so mean. Cat doesn’t fire Kara (whom she continues to call “Kira” even after six episodes), but instead takes her out for drinks. Cat tells Kara that she needs to find out what’s causing her anger if she’s ever going to be able to stop it.

Also out to dinner are Jimmy, Lucy and Gen. Lane. After Lucy excuses herself from the table for a moment, her father tells Jimmy that he’ll never be good enough for his daughter. He says that hanging around great people doesn’t make him great himself. Ouch.

When Jimmy, Lucy and Sam exit the restaurant, Red Tornado shows up nearby, and Supergirl gets another chance to stop him. However, the robot unleashes a tornado on the city as a distraction so it can escape. (How exactly Supergirl stops the tornado, I’m not quite sure; she flies up inside it and it just seems to dissipate). Once again, the General blames Supergirl for not being able to stop the robot.

The DEO figures out a few things about Red Tornado. First, Hank uncovers that it was created specifically to fight Kryptonians. Then, with the help of Maxwell Lord, Alex learns that the robot is being controlled by its creator, Morrow (Iddo Goldberg), whom General Lane fired when the first test went wrong. Kara does some learning about herself as well. She pours her heart out to Jimmy (during some stress exercise where he punches a heavy bag and she punches a car) that the reason she’s so upset is because she’s always felt abandoned by her parents and is incapable of ever having a normal life like other people.

The DEO is able to lure Red Tornado into a trap by using a hologram of Gen. Lane (which Hank points out is technology made available by the very Kryptonians Sam hates). While Supergirl swoops in for a third showdown with the robot, Alex tracks down Morrow and winds up having to shoot him. However, at this point, Red Tornado becomes self-aware and only Supergirl can stop it. Using her heat vision and putting all her pent-up anger behind it (in what is one of this series’ most emotional moments to date), Supergirl destroys the robot.

The next day, Kara and Alex learn from Winn (whom they’ve asked to hack into the DEO database) that Alex’s father Jeremiah Danvers didn’t die in a plane crash. He went missing while on a mission with another agent to investigate an alien in South America. That other agent was none other than Hank Henshaw. Alex now believes that Hank not only knows what happened to her father… but that he’s responsible for his death.

The final scene has Kara talking to Cat in her office. When she offers her boss some Advil for a headache, she accidently breaks a glass. Picking it up, Kara notices that she’s cut her hand. She’s bleeding!

Once again, I really liked this episode. Despite the show’s continued need to give us a new villain each week for Supergirl to fight, this episode has a lot of emotional and character growth as well. I enjoyed how Kara had to deal with her issues of abandonment, and think that next week’s entry will be interesting when Kara gets to see what it’s like to be vulnerable for a while. (It appears that she’s lost her powers from overloading them during the Red Tornado fight.)

4 comments

  1. I can’t side with you on this one, Shannon. I thought the episode was awful. That robot was cheesy and lame as hell. Its powers were stupid and the plot of the episode made no sense at all.

    The Army basically orders Supergirl to fight the robot, so she fights the robot, and they get upset at her for fighting the robot? Did they expect her to just stand there and let it kill her? Then Supergirl breaks the robot’s arm, so it goes into “self preservation” mode, which means that it automatically turns into an uncontrollable killing machine that will attack the city? What?! Who the hell programmed that function into it? “IF sustain damage, THEN murder everyone in sight.”

    The General’s not even surprised by this. “Oh great, you broke his arm. Now he’s going to have to murder everybody. Thanks a lot, moron.” Like he knew all along that might happen. Why can’t they just flip a switch and turn the stupid thing off?

    The General also had no motivation at all for hating Supergirl, other than that he’s a blatant rip-off of Gen. Ross from the Incredible Hulk comics and Ross hates the Hulk.

    Lucy disagrees with her father and tells him she’s quitting her position as his liason? I’m pretty sure that’s not how things work in the Army. Her superior officer gave her an order. She can’t just tell him to take this job and shove it. That’s grounds for a court martial.

    And, at the end of everything, we find out that Kryptonians can “use up” their powers like draining a cell phone battery. Since when is that a thing? Has that ever happened to Superman?

    This is by far the worst episode of the show so far.

    • Shannon Nutt
      Author

      Well, I won’t argue with you about the silly robot – only to say that the action scenes/’villain of the week’ is the least of the reasons I watch SUPERGIRL – I enjoyed last night’s episode for the emotional aspect/character growth it gave Kara. Although, in defense of the episode, Gen. Lane did order Supergirl to stand down and she kept on fighting.

      As for General Lane himself, he’s been a character in the comics since the 1950s, and in his current form as a gruff military leader who hates Superman since 1985 (the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS storyline). So while the character may resemble Gen. Ross from the HULK comics, his character here only reflects the way he’s been in comic books (and I believe he showed up on LOIS & CLARK and SMALLVILLE too) for years.

  2. Bryan

    I’m with Shannon on this one. I’m really enjoying Melissa Benoist’s performance as both Kara and Supergirl and how the two sides are conflicting and having an impact on the other. There’s just something fun about the show that makes it an enjoyable watch (even with the cheesy villains).

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