Supergirl – Ace Reporter

By: Michelle Lopez

Galpals, Nanobots, & Bluetooth Earpieces

Bored without a job, Kara (Melissa Benoist) is throwing herself completely into being Supergirl. The only problem with that plan is that the criminals of National City have decided to take a vacation to a city that isn’t under the protection of the Girl of Steel. J’onn (David Harewood), Alex (Chyler Leigh) and Winn (Jeremy Jordan) let Kara know that she’s free to do whatever until something comes up. Kara decides to use her free time to learn how to bake. It goes poorly. Thankfully, Lena (Katie McGrath) puts an end to Kara almost lighting her oven on fire with an impromptu visit. Lena’s ex-business partner and ex-boyfriend, Jack Spheer (Rahul Kohli), is in town to unveil Spheerical Industries newest product and he’s personally invited Lena to attend. Lena’s not keen on going alone because Jake, as she puts it, is her Kryptonite. Kara agrees because she’d never leave her best galpal hanging.

As Kara and Lena get settled into their seats for the unveiling, Snapper (Ian Gomez) finds himself a few seats away from Kara. He can’t help but throw some salt Kara’s way about her “career” as a blogger ala KaraDanvers.com. Kara’s not his employee anymore so she’s free to throw salt back in his face. She calls him and print media old and outdated while he settles for mocking millennials. Their bickering is halted when the presentation begins. Jack introduces Spheerical Industries CFO Beth Breen (Claudia Doumit) who releases a bunch of Biomax nanobots that heal Jack’s hand moments after he cuts it open. He opens the floor for questions and, of course, Kara jumps up to ask a question and prove to Snapper that she’s a good reporter. She asks about the company meeting FDA regulations while Snapper tries to cut in. Jack assures her that they’ve followed all FDA regulations and Biomax is good to go.

Outside the auditorium, Lena introduces Jack to “one of the best reporters in National City” and then gives Kara the signal to leave because she’s fine alone with her Kryptonite. Lena wants to know how Jack figured out the nano swarm stuff. He agrees to tell her, but only over dinner. She doesn’t accept the offer and before Jack can insist Beth approaches to inform him that he’s not there to flirt with an ex, but give the shareholders a little face time. On her way out, Kara is stopped on the stairs by a man who claims to have information about Biomax. He tells her to meet him in a specific parking garage tonight.

Kara meets with Joe Watkins (Andrew McNee) who used to be a lab technician at Spheerical Industries until he was fired the previous month. He discovered that there were no results from human trials leading him to believe they were faked. Before Kara can ask any questions a swarm of nanobots blow up the car.

After the explosion Kara decides she needs the Spheerical Industries lab results. She stops by Catco to ask James (Mehcad Brooks) to file a Freedom of Information Act request for her because Catco’s pull will get results faster. Snapper waltzes in and sends Kara packing. Once she’s out of the office he lets James know he’s got a meeting with a guy who supposedly was a test subject for Spheerical’s Biomax human trials. Kara makes a highly unethical move and uses her super hearing to find out about the meeting so she can further investigate.

At L-Corp, Jack saunters into Lena’s office unannounced to ask her out to dinner again. He guesses she’s denying him her company because she’s jealous of him succeeding without her. Lena ends his little rant because she’s a successful business woman who’s accomplished great success on her own. Yes, he managed to crack the nanobot technology they’d worked together on for five years, but Lena’s enjoying not having work and personal life overlapping. No more throwing microscopes at people’s heads. Jack makes his final plea that he misses her and would like to have dinner, but it’s her prerogative.

Elsewhere in National City Snapper is meeting with this lead, Derrick Simmons (Johnny Ghorbani), as Supergirl lurks outside. Derrick tells Snapper that he was paid to come in and sign a form, but never actually partook in any testing. Then, nanobots swarm the apartment and attack Derrick. Supergirl flies in to help, but is too late to save Derrick who is turned to dust. Supergirl uses her freeze breath to halt the nanobots while she and Snapper flee.

Kara is upset that two people have died in front of her and there was nothing she could do to save them. Mon-El (Chris Wood) suggests she talk to Lena since she’s having dinner with Jack. Lena called trying to get ahold of Kara so she would talk her out of having dinner with him. Kara decides she and Mon-El are going to crash their dinner.

Mon-El is not comfortable with stalking Lena under the guise of journalism, but his opinion really doesn’t matter when it comes to Kara and Lena’s relationship. Much to Lena and Jack’s surprise, Kara and Mon-El invite themselves to join their dinner. Lena is flattered that Kara ran across National City to rescue her, but she’s already falling for Jack again so tries get Kara to leave. First, Kara has a few questions for Jack. She asks how he knew Biomax was ready for market. He’s not going to go into it over what’s supposed to be a semi-romantic dinner with Lena so he tells her they’re public record and she can look them up. Lena wants to know how Jack cracked the nanobot technology. One day he was busy thinking about how he should have left for National City with Lena when he saw a flock of birds murmuring and realized his approach to the nanobots was wrong. He modeled it after the flock of birds and problem solved. Lena swoons over his story and Kara realizes it’s time to go. Before they leave Mon-El awkwardly hugs Jack as he rambles about feeling a serious man-nection with him. Everyone is confused by the awkwardness especially Kara until Mon-El shows her that he swiped Jacks security badge.

Kara and Mon-El break into Jack’s office and search his computer for evidence of the human trials. They find nothing about human trials, but they do find video of Jack injecting himself with the nanobots and becoming a swarm of nanobots himself. They begin transferring the video to a flash drive while back at Lena’s place a flame is rekindled. Jack apologizes for his behavior that led to Lena leaving and that breaks the damn for Lena and they kiss. Their kiss is interrupted when Jack’s nanobot spidey senses alert him to someone tampering with his computer. He abruptly runs out of the apartment to swarm his way to his office. Luckily for Kara and Mon-El the video finishes transferring moments before Jack arrives.

Kara heads over to Lena’s office to break the bad news to her about Jack. She apologizes for crashing Lena’s dinner and follows it up by telling her Biomax is dangerous. Lena doesn’t believe her because she’s known Jack for years and this doesn’t sound like him so Kara plays the video. Lena asks Kara to hold off going public until she has a chance to talk to Jack, but Kara is afraid he’ll turn on her. Lena promises to stay away, which is a blatant lie and they both know it.

Kara heads over to CatCo to hand over all her research to Snapper who’s confused as to why she’s giving him all her work. Kara knows that the public deserves the truth and CatCo will be able to spread that truth to the most people. She apologizes to Snapper for going behind his back to post the Cadmus story. Snapper is glad Kara finally apologized and they begin to discuss business. They’ve both confirmed that the human trials were faked, but Snapper has figured out that the company CFO, Beth, has more to lose than Jack. Kara realizes how Lena confronting Jack could go south real quick if Beth is controlling him so she rushes to go help.

Lena confronts Jack about faking the human trials, injecting himself with the nanobots and killing people who could stop the product launch. Jack is genuinely confused and denies all her accusations. Lena realizes that he isn’t the one behind it when Jack freezes and Beth walks up to give an evil monologue. She took advantage of Jack’s nanobot conversion to turn him into her unwilling minion controlled via evil Bluetooth earpiece. He was prepared to scrap the entire project because of the whole loss of free will thing, but Beth wasn’t about to accept fiscal losses over something so trivial. Beth plans on turning Lena into a nanobot minion, but before she can Supergirl flies in. She wants to get Lena out of there, but Lena would rather Kara distract the nanobots while she kicks Beth’s ass. Supergirl doesn’t fare well against the nanobots and ends up pinned down and helpless. Lena, after getting a few amazing hits in on Beth, cracks the mainframe and stops the nanobots which unfortunately kills Jack.

Kara stops by Lena’s office with some flowers. She wants to help Lena in any way possible, but Lena’s content with cuddling on the couch with Kara. Lena admits that she’s afraid that all the loss she’s faced will turn her into a monster like it did to her brother and mother. She’s afraid of who’ll she become when the shock passes and she’s able to feel again. Kara, the best galpal around, tells Lena she’ll always be her friend and will always protect her.

At Catco, Kara brings Snapper a peace offering in the form of a homemade pastry. Snapper offers his own peace offering with Kara sharing the byline with him on the Biomax story. Snapper is so impressed with Kara’s dedication to the Biomax story that he rehires her.

At LCorp Lena is sulking when Rhea (Teri Hatcher) walks in offering her a business opportunity.

Team Guardian

Guardian finishes off a few bad guys and heads back to the van only to find Winn and Lyra (Tamzin Merchant) in the middle of a heavy make out session. He’s pissed because Winn is supposed to be watching out for him. Winn plays it off as no big deal and Lyra congratulates James on a job well done. James is pissed that Winn told Lyra about him being Guardian, but Lyra is no dummy and figured it out on her own. She’s decided that she wants to join the team and be a good guy for once. She gives James and Winn a few minutes to mull it over. James doesn’t want her anywhere near their operation because she was a bad guy not too long ago, but Winn thinks she deserves a chance to make amends for that. James reluctantly agrees to test it out.

A few nights later Guardian and Lyra intercept an armed robbery. It turns out the robber is just a kid so Guardian wants to take it easy on him. Lyra, on the other hand, goes to the extreme and attacks the kid until Guardian pulls her away. He sends her to the van while he deals with the misguided kid. Later on at the alien bar, Winn tries to butter Lyra up with gifts and compliments because he’s about to fire her from Team Guardian. Lyra flips out with yelling, screaming and breaking things. She tells Winn to get lost while she goes to the bathroom.

The next night Winn is sulking in the van when Guardian pops in to apologize for how things went down with Lyra. He admits he didn’t want to share his best friend, but he understands that Winn cares about both of them. That’s why he invited Lyra back on the team and they head out to save a kitten.