Supergirl – City of Lost Children

By: Michelle Lopez

In a city full of superheroes and vigilantes you’d think criminals might consider laying low, but that’s not the case in National City. In the middle of the night, two creeps jump a woman in an alley. Guardian (Mehcad Brooks) jumps out and shuts them down before anything bad can happen. When it’s “safe,” he asks woman if she’s ok and in her “I almost got attacked” shock she shrinks away and begs him not to hurt her. Winn (Jeremy Jordan) let’s James know the cops are on route to cart off the creeps so they call it a night.

After cancelling on Kara (Melissa Benoist) three times, Lena (Katie McGrath) decides her best gal pal is worth the extra effort of stopping by CatCo for an “I’m sorry I’ve been MIA because I’m working with Mon-El’s (Chris Wood) evil mother on a contraption that will probably end the world” lunch. She explains that she’s working with a fantastic new partner on a project about polyatomic anions. Kara’s got no clue what Lena’s talking about, but is happy she’s is enjoying her work. Their date lunch is cut short when Rhea (Teri Hatcher) gives Lena a call.

Since Winn is concerned about James’s odd behavior the previous night he stalks him to the best falafel stand in National City. James admits that he’s bummed people don’t see Guardian, the vigilante in a dark metal suit with a ridiculous voice changer who only comes out at night, as a beacon of hope but rather something to fear. Lucky for Winn, who’s got no response, a woman (Lauren Gibson) walks into the park and starts telekinetically wrecking shop. Winn calls for backup while James rushes around trying to save folks. Supergirl finally shows and the crowd lets out a collective sigh of relief, but the woman is gone.

After watching news coverage on the attack, J’onn (David Harewood) and Alex (Chyler Leigh) are concerned the public is going to lose their marbles hunting the woman. J’onn is shocked to hear the woman is a Phorian since they’ve historically been peaceful aliens with telekinetic and telepathic powers. Alex throws some salt in James’s wound by giving Supergirl all the credit for keeping people safe during the attack and J’onn rubs the salt in by telling James to hit the bricks.

Over dinner Rhea tries to comfort a very distraught Lena. Their first attempt at crazy science was a flop and Lena’s afraid she won’t be able to figure it out. Having thrown all her eggs in this basket, Rhea gives Lena the pep talk she needs to keeping working on their doohickey. Rhea’s got a read on Lena so she tells her that she has confidence in her abilities and peaces out. As she hails a cab, Mon-El’s evening of strolling the streets enjoying an ice cream is ruined when he spots her and gets his dessert knocked out of his hand.

The next day James licks his wounds by busting up the sale of a bag of weed, so small the cops wouldn’t bother pressing charges. Brian (Josh Hallem) doesn’t want to get the snot kicked out of him so he offers up the location of the woman who went full Carrie in the park. James heads to the apartment and finds the woman’s son, Marcus (Lonnie Chavis). Marcus tries to run away from the Guardian, but James takes off his helmet to prove he’s not a monster.

At the DEO Alex tries to get info from Marcus about his mom by denying him a cheeseburger. The ploy doesn’t work because, as James points out, he’s a refugee, his mom is missing, he’s in an interrogation room and the news is full of people talking about how horrible his mom is. Alex agrees with James’s points and quickly realizes that Marcus has been ignoring her and staring at James through the camera the entire time. Since Marcus identified with James after he took off his helmet, she recommends James take the kid for the day and try to gleam some info.

Mon-El, still shaken from his loss of ice cream and possible mom sighting, visits the DEO to confirm with Winn that his parents ship is nowhere near Earth. Winn assures him that the ship is long gone and Mon-El relaxes despite his better instincts.

Lena still can’t get the doomsday contraption working and is losing her patience. Rhea spots an oncoming spiral so she jumps into mother mode. Lena’s confidence has taken a serious blow and she’s ready to go ask Lex for help. Rhea gets down to the root of Lena’s problem, she’s trying to prove she’s better than Lex by doing what Lex would do. She’s got to be her own person and do things her way. Lena has an epiphany and sets to fix the problem.

James brings Marcus to share some of his personal stuff to break through Marcus’s walls. He asks Eve (Andrea Brooks) to get them some milkshakes and curly fries while he shows Marcus his camera collection. He explains that the one his father gave him before passing away while in the army is the reason he became a photographer. Marcus finally speaks and tells James that his father was a soldier too and died while they were escaping their planet.

When Mon-El brings Kara Chinese for lunch, she’s wary because there’s a solid chance he’s trying to apologize for doing something stupid. He’s using lunch as an apology for not hating his mother. He tells Kara that he thought he saw his mother the previous night, but he didn’t feel the anger he’s supposed to feel. On Daxam it was customary to drug yourself so you didn’t feel any unwanted feelings so Mon-El doesn’t understand the concept of accepting feelings as they come. Kara explains that it’s ok to miss his mother despite their differences.

Over at Doomsday HQ Lena thanks Rhea for the pep talk as she plugs in the corrected algorithms to the system. At CatCo, Marcus notices his mom on the news and tells James that she’d never hurt anyone on purpose like the news is claiming. Eve pops in to asks James to grab their lunches from her.

With the updated algorithms entered, Lena boots up the device which happens to be some sort of portal. Lena is so caught up in the good this portal could do for Earth she never considers the multitude of ways it could be used to hurt Earth.

As the device turns on Marcus goes into a trance and starts going the full Carrie on CatCo. James tries to stop him but he gets thrown aside like a ragdoll. Kara rushes off to change into Supergirl while Mon-El works to get people out of the building. As Marcus begins to tear CatCo to the ground, Supergirl swoops in and flies him away from the building to minimize the damage. With a successful trial done, Lena and Rhea turn off the machine which ends Marcus’s “episode.”

At the DEO the team figures out that both Marcus and his mother were affected by an outside force which caused them to get aggressive. For Marcus’s safety and that of National City they’ve got him locked up in a cell with a telekinetic dampener, but his mother is still out there prime for another attack. J’onn wants James to go talk to Marcus to try and gleam where his mother is, but James is having a crisis of confidence. He brought Marcus over to CatCo and it almost destroyed it. He’s accepted that he’s never going to be able to do the same stuff Supergirl does and he’s ready to leave this case to the professionals, but Space Dad has some advice to share. J’onn didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life until his daughter came along and he saw himself in her and would do anything to protect her. Obviously, James has seen some of himself in Marcus and J’onn tells him to use it and find out the kind of hero he can be.

Alex and Winn discovered that a change in atmospheric energy can cause Phorians to go bananas and there happened to be two huge spikes in polyatomic anions coinciding with the attacks. Kara calls up Lena to see what’s going on, but Rhea answers her phone. Kara’s first concern is for her best gal pal’s safety., but Rhea’s got an evil monologue to deliver. She blames Kara’s selfishness for Mon-El not returning to Daxam and claims that Kara is driven purely by ego and doesn’t care about the Earth. Anything Rhea does is Kara’s fault for not letting her kidnap her son. Mon-El steps in to tell Rhea she’s gone off the deep end but she’s convinced that whatever her scheme is will wake Mon-El up.

At the doomsday lab Lena wants to know why Rhea’s got her phone. Rhea claims to have answered dealt with a telemarketer for Lena. It’s a horrible excuse and Lena doesn’t believe her but she’s too caught up in work to give it much thought.

When James stops by the holding cells, Marcus is too scared and worn down to question whether it’s a good idea to rat out his mom to the folks that locked him in a cell. Every planet Marcus has sought refuge on has treated his family like criminals and Earth isn’t looking much different. James explains that he had a similar experience being bullied in school. To protect himself he built a wall around himself. Eventually, he learned to trust one person who understood him and it changed his life. He wants to be that person for Marcus so he tells James that he can see his mom, but isn’t sure exactly where she is.

James rushes into the control room to explain that Marcus can lead them to his mom. J’onn is hesitant to let Marcus leave considering the state of the CatCo building, but James plays the daughter card J’onn handed him earlier. After Winn busts out a portable telekinetic dampener, J’onn relents. Marcus leads James and Winn to a decrepit building where they discover not only Marcus’s mom but a whole group of terrified Phorians.

Over at Doomsday HQ Lena is sad that their success means Rhea is going to be headed back to her home planet. Rhea gets real for a moment and lets Lena know that no matter what happens next her affection for Lena is real. Then she turns the doomsday device on full blast and Lena realizes she’s made a terrible mistake.

The DEO’s scanners go bonkers when they pick up the doomsday signal and pinpoint its origin.  So, Supergirl, J’onn and Mon-El head out to shut Rhea down.

With the device on full blast Winn and James are in a bit of pickle as the Phorians all lose their marbles. Stuff goes flying and Winn’s ready to bolt but James is hellbent on being a hero. If James breaks through to Marcus the rest will follow since they’re telepathically linked. He tries and fails a bunch of times until he miraculously breaks through and calms Marcus down and the rest follow.

While at Doomsday HQ Lena tries to shut down the portal when Supergirl and company bust in. Lena washes her hands of Rhea’s nonsense and gets knocked out. Mon-El figures out that Rhea’s using the portal as a beacon. Supergirl flies out to try and break the portal, but Lena’s good at her job so it’s useless. Rhea subdues J’onn with a White Martian device traps J’onn in his mind so it’s up to Mon-El to save the day. He pulls a gun on Rhea since Daxamites aren’t bulletproof on Earth. He wants to be able to kill her, but despite flaws he still loves her and can’t do it. Rhea revels in her victory and watches as hundreds of Daxamite ships enter Earth through the portal. Welcome to New Daxam.