Well, it only took 20 episodes into this season, but we finally get a Jimmy Olsen-centric story. While it’s far from this series’ best entry, the results are pretty good and make one wonder how this show might be if the character were featured more frequently.
As this week’s story gets underway, a pair of muggers assault a woman in some dark area of National City. Guardian arrives on the scene to take care of the bad guys. However, when he asks the woman if she’s all right, she screams out for him not to hurt her. James starts to realize that as much as he’s helping people, he’s not making a connection with them. Guardian is feared, not loved.
The next morning, James talks about these issues with Winn. During the conversation, the eyes of an alien in the crowd turn purple and all hell breaks loose, including an earthquake and winds strong enough to throw vehicles up into the air. James does his best to help, but Supergirl finally arrives to save the day. When the dust settles, the alien woman has disappeared.
Back at the DEO, Winn reveals that the alien in question is from a race with telekinetic powers, but they’re generally peaceful and have no record of criminal activity. James wants to help out, but J’onn tells him that this is strictly a DEO matter. That night, Guardian goes out on the streets again, this time to bust a drug deal. He grabs the alien selling the drugs (which turn out to be just a small amount of weed), but lets him go when the dealer tells him where the alien he’s looking for lives. James goes to the address and doesn’t find the woman, but does find her young son, a boy named Marcus who also has the power of telekinesis.
Lena Luthor and Queen Rhea continue to work on the teleportation portal that Rhea wants built (for reasons still unknown). While walking the streets of the city, Mon-El spots his mother, whom he believed had returned to their homeworld, exiting a restaurant. He gives pursuit, but loses her after being distracted. Returning to the DEO, he asks Winn to double check that the Daxam ship hasn’t returned to Earth orbit, and Winn confirms that it’s no longer there.
James tries to get Marcus to talk to him and tell him where his mother might be, but Marcus isn’t talking. James takes the young boy into work at CatCo and spends a few minutes showing him his cameras and talking about his past. From out of the blue, Marcus’s eyes turn purple, the building shakes, and he starts destroying things around him, much like his mother did earlier in the episode. Supergirl flies Marcus outside the building to save everyone inside, but once Marcus’s eyes return to normal, the CatCo building has suffered major damage. (Does this mean a new set for Season 3?) Viewers learn that Marcus’s powers went out of control at the same time Lena and Rhea tested their portal. Our heroes quickly figure this out as well, although it isn’t until Supergirl tries to call Lena and Rhea picks up the phone that everyone finds out who’s really behind everything.
Marcus finally tells James where his mother might be hiding. Winn has a device that should negate the effects of the portal on mother and son if used in close proximity to them. J’onn gives the go-ahead for James and Winn to go find the mother, but when they track her down, she’s hiding with dozens of other members of her race – and Winn’s device isn’t powerful enough to protect them all if the portal is turned on again… which of course it is.
Supergirl, Mon-El and J’onn head off to stop Rhea, but J’onn is quickly put out of commission by a mind-control device that Rhea obtained from a White Martian. Supergirl flies out to see if she can stop whatever Rhea is bringing through the portal. Mon-El pulls a gun on Rhea (Daxamites are not bulletproof because lead is one of their weaknesses), but he can’t bring himself to shoot his own mother, even after she lies to him and says that Mon-El’s father committed suicide.
Meanwhile, James tries to get through to Marcus, hoping it might allow all the aliens to regain control of their minds since they’re all mentally connected to one another. He finally gets through and, sure enough, all the others return to normal.
Despite all this, no one can stop Rhea’s plan. Hundreds of Daxamite spaceships fly through the portal and hover above National City. While this is happening, it appears that Lena Luthor, who had been knocked out during all the ruckus, is beamed up by one of the spaceships. (At the very least, some sort of green energy goes over her body.) As the episode comes to a conclusion, Rhea looks at her fleet of ships and proclaims, “Welcome to New Daxam.”
Uh oh. I think it might be time for Supergirl to give her cousin a call.
Episode Verdict
Obviously, the majority of this episode sets up the season’s big finale (only two episodes remain), which looks like it will deal with an alien invasion by the Daxamites… and probably lots of visual effects. (Now we know why the last handful of episodes were kind of sparse with the F/X budget). This would also seem like the perfect opportunity to bring both General Lane and daughter Lucy Lane back to the series, but I haven’t heard any buzz about that happening. (I don’t think either character has appeared in Season 2.)
I’m not sure yet how I feel yet about this Daxam storyline. I don’t find Rhea to be a particularly interesting villain, and it feels like this has all been done before on the series when Astra and Non were planning a Kryptonian takeover of the planet back in Season 1. I’m willing to wait and see on this one, but I’m kind of guessing that this will all lead to Mon-El agreeing to return to his home planet if Rhea will send her troops back there as well – hence giving fans a cliffhanger that probably few will care about.
