‘Supergirl’ 1.20 Recap: “You Saved the World… and I Saved You”

Even though it has yet to be officially renewed by CBS (although it’s hard to believe it won’t be), ‘Supergirl’ flies boldly through its first season finale, acting like this story is far from over. The show even leaves fans with a cliffhanger to mull over the summer.

Things pick up right where they left off last week, with Alex (donned in kryptonite-laced battle armor with a kryptonite sword) and Supergirl going at it in a knock-down, drag-out fight. When Alex gets the upper hand and it looks like she may stab her sister, Eliza Danvers (Helen Slater) shows up (thanks to an assist from J’onn) and begs her daughter to snap out of the mind-control trance. When she tells Alex that her father would have been proud of the woman she’s grown up to be, something clicks in Alex’s head and the effects of Myriad go away.

Realizing that a similar message of hope can free the minds of all those under Myriad’s control, Cat Grant has Supergirl broadcast a TV signal to the entire city, which shows the Supergirl emblem and thanks the people of the city for the support they’ve given her since she arrived. The pep talk revives everyone in National City, but Non and Indigo refuse to surrender. Instead, influenced by Indigo’s bad advice, Non decides to kill everyone and leave Supergirl with a dead world to watch over.

It doesn’t take long for Maxwell Lord to figure out what Non is up to. He observes that the Myriad effect is increasing, causing everyone in the city to get headaches that will eventually result in their brains exploding. With both J’onn and Superman out of action, Max tells Supergirl that this may be a suicide mission for her. It won’t be easy to defeat Non and Indigo on her own.

Knowing that she may only have a few hours left, Kara takes the opportunity to say goodbye to everyone she loves. She tells Winn that he’s been a great friend, tells Cat it’s been an honor to have her as a mentor, and tells Jimmy that they missed their chance to be together and it would be best for him to find someone else. She then goes to see J’onn at the DEO and tells him that she needed to say goodbye to everyone because it’s something that other people she’s lost never had a chance to say to her.

The DEO determines that the Kryptonians are using Ft. Rozz as both their hideout and a transmitter for Myriad. We also learn that Non has been using the Omagehedron (kind of a baseball-shaped globe) as a source of power. If that item sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it was also featured prominently in 1984’s theatrical ‘Supergirl’ movie. As Supergirl prepares to confront Non and Indigo, J’onn shows up and says he’s coming along as well. When they fly out to meet them, a big fight ensues, which results in J’onn literally tearing Indigo in half, while a heat vision battle between Supergirl and Non concludes with her burning his eye sockets out.

Indigo’s (final?) words to Supergirl and J’onn are that Myriad can’t be shut down, so Supergirl realizes she’ll have to lift Ft. Rozz into space. In a departure from what we’ve seen Superman do in prior movies and television series, Supergirl is told that she’ll die if she flies into space – since there’s obviously no oxygen up there for her to breathe. Making a final communication to her sister to say goodbye, Kara tells Alex what she’s about to do. She flies the ship safely out into space, then falls lifelessly back toward Earth. However, the space pod that Kara originally came to Earth in swoops out of nowhere to rescue her… and Alex is flying it. Don’t ask how she quickly mastered how to fly an alien spaceship. This isn’t that kind of TV show.

With Earth now safe once again, the President instructs General Lane to thank Supergirl and give J’onn a full pardon – even making him head of the DEO once again. At work the next day, Cat has Kara pack up the items from her desk in a box. Kara assumes she’s getting fired and doesn’t know why, but Cat actually moves Kara to her very own office, telling her that she needs to decide for herself what her new position will be. Cat also calls her “Kara” for the first time, rather than “Keira.”

The episode ends with a celebration at Kara’s place, with Eliza, Alex, Winn, J’onn and Jimmy all in attendance. Jimmy takes Kara aside and gives her a photograph that he took of her, then plants a kiss on her.

Suddenly, they hear a loud noise from outside and run to a window, where they see a meteorite streaking by. Going to investigate, J’onn and Supergirl find a space pod that looks exactly like the one Kara came to Earth in. Supergirl opens up the pod, looks at who’s inside and says, “Oh my god!” as the episode – and Season 1 – come to a conclusion.

Last week, I worried that this season would end with a fake-out “death” for Supergirl. I’m glad the writers didn’t go that way, since any such cliffhanger would have been silly. As we all know, the title character can’t get killed off. Instead, the writers give us something far more interesting.

Who’s in the spaceship? Is it someone we’ve seen before but think is dead, like Astra? Is it some kind of alternate universe/time travel deal with a young version of Kara in the ship? Or is it – and this is the most likely answer – actually Superboy?

Let’s just hope it’s not Les Moonves with a cancellation announcement for the show.

3 comments

  1. This was an awkward episode, and I frankly thought it kind of stunk. Kara finds out that she has only four hours to stop Myriad before everyone’s head explodes, so what does she do? She goes back to work delivering coffee to Cat Grant. Then later, with just minutes to spare, she stops again and gives a long-winded goodbye speech to her sister.

    Supergirl is repeatedly told that she’s going on a suicide mission and there’s no way she can stand up to all the other Kryptonians. Not to worry, as soon as she gets there, she discovers that everybody except Non and Indigo have conveniently decided to take a nap just then.

    J’onn defeats Indigo by ripping her body in half… even though we’ve seen on numerous occasions that Indigo’s body can dematerialize and rematerialize itself – such as when she survived J’onn blowing her up just last week.

    The whole thing about the message of hope being what snaps everybody out of their mind control was also extremely heavy-handed and cheesy.

    It’s my guess that the space pod contains Krypto, the Superdog.

    • Elizabeth

      How can I contact Warner Bros and push for it being Superdog in the pod? Maybe as a backdoor pilot for his own series.

  2. Bryan

    Agreed that it wasn’t the best episode of the season, but I still can’t help but love it.

    Really hoping CBS officially renews it sometime soon!

    As to my thoughts as to who/what is in the pod, I’m going with either an alternate universe young Kara or an alternate universe young Kal-El. Either way could provide some interesting storylines for next season.

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