‘Supergirl’ 1.15 Recap: “Welcome to the Fortress of Solitude”

This week’s episode of ‘Supergirl’ is all about relationships – relationships ending, relationships beginning, and relationships mending. Sadly, the silly Villain of the Week part of this entry doesn’t allow the storyline to live up to its potential. The show has some nice moments this week, but some cartoonish ones as well.

After a brief flashback involving the Phantom Zone and young Kara in her pod 13 years ago (the details of which are made clear by episode’s end), Kara wakes up in her apartment to both her alarm clock and a knocking at her door. It’s Alex, who brings over a box of donuts to lure her sister back to the DEO. Kara takes the donuts, but she has no intention of returning to the organization.

That morning at CatCo, Cat calls a staff meeting. (Kara doesn’t get to go because she’s still the No. 2 assistant behind Siobhan Smythe.) Siobhan presents an envelope that has come for Cat. Inside are a thumb drive and a letter saying the drive contains the names of all the men in the city who have used an online hook-up site for cheaters (think Ashley Madison). Cat refuses to publish the list, which results in this week’s villain taking over the company’s computers. We’ll later learn that her name is Indigo (a.k.a. Brainiac 8), but more interestingly for fans, she happens to be played by the actress who portrayed Supergirl on ‘Smallville’, Laura Vandervoort.

As it turns out, Indigo actually lives inside computers, but is able to exit and take a bodily form that looks less like the comic book version of Brainiac 8 and a whole lot more like Mystique from ‘X-Men’. Indigo meets with Non at one point and tells him that she has a plan to take care of the humans. We’ll find out shortly that the plan involves using nuclear weapons.

Since Kara refuses to return to the DEO to get info on Indigo that might prove helpful in defeating her, Jimmy has an idea of where they can go to find out more. Flying north… way north… Jimmy shows her the location of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Kara gains access by lifting a large and heavy key with the “S” symbol on the end and pressing it up against the outside wall. Once inside, Kara is greeted by a robot who tells them all they want to know about Indigo’s background.

While this week’s main plot is unravelling, Jimmy continues trying to convince Kara to allow him to tell Lucy that she’s Supergirl. Kara still refuses, but does have a talk with Lucy about how great a guy Jimmy is. Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of relaying the story Jimmy told her about his father’s camera. Naturally, it’s a story that Jimmy has never told Lucy, and she’s ticked off. Meanwhile, a conversation between Winn and Siobhan reveals that her father cheated on her mother when she was young.

Kara and the others discover that Indigo hacking the affair website had nothing to do with getting a list of all of the cheaters, but was rather a search to find the digital footprint of a General Mathers, who’s responsible for the oversight of a nuclear missile facility. Getting inside the facility, Indigo kills all the guards there and gets the missile keys in order to launch the warhead. While Supergirl arrives to try and stop her, the missile actually launches. However, during their short fight, Indigo reveals to Kara that she was the one who guided her pod out of the Phantom Zone – meaning, if it wasn’t for her, Kara would have never made it to Earth.

Supergirl catches up to the warhead and tries to change its course, but the missile automatically reacquires its target. When she reaches out to the DEO, Hank gives Supergirl a key code to disable it. At the last second, she’s able to punch in the code, allowing the missile to fall harmlessly into the water.

While all of the above is happening, Winn has been brought into the DEO to use his hacking abilities against Indigo. Not only is he able to learn the alien computer code she’s using “in less time than it takes to watch an episode of Doctor Who,” he’s able to come up with a virus that destroys – or at least significantly disables – Indigo. Hey, maybe they’ll use Winn to defeat the aliens in the next ‘Independence Day’ movie?

As I mentioned at the outset of this recap, this episode is really about relationship changes. As things wrap up, Lucy meets with Jimmy to tell him that it’s over between them. She says it’s obvious that he’s in love with Kara and that she loves him in return. Meanwhile, Winn tries to comfort Siobhan about her family’s past by talking about his own family issues, which results in her planting a big kiss on him. Finally, Supergirl returns to the DEO where she tells Hank and Alex she’ll work with them again because they need each other. During this conversation, Alex confesses that she was the one – not Hank – who killed Astra. Supergirl starts to storm out the door, but then turns and embraces her sister in a big hug. Hank tries to exit to give the sisters some alone time, but Kara grabs his hand and holds it.

The above should have been the final shot of the episode, but the show-runners can’t resist tacking on a scene where Non pieces the digitally dismantled Indigo back together. Honestly, this is a villain I don’t care if I ever see again. She’s just not interesting at all.

3 comments

  1. Laura Vandervoort is very pretty, and she will always have a special place in my heart for her part in the gloriously bonkers series finale of V, but this Indigo was an exceedingly lame villain.

    Also, Superman leaves the key to the Fortress sitting outside the door, but James says it weighs 100 tons and only certain people can pick it up. Yeah, so, like Non or any other Kryptonian?

  2. Blaine Gillander

    Hey Josh,

    I think leaving the key outside the door makes sense because the theory would be that anyone that could use it would be strong enough to smash their way in anyway. It keeps random humans out, but any Kryptonian can just let themselves in, saving Superman a large insurance claim on his home insurance!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *