Supergirl – Crossfire

By: Michelle Lopez

Following through on her promise to mentor Mon-El (Chris Wood), Kara (Melissa Benoist) has scored him an internship at CatCo. With a bright and early wake up call, Kara gives Mon-El a complete makeover including a heat vision haircut, glasses disguise and FICO credit score. Upon arrival at work, Kara explains Mon-El’s new job as an intern assistant and runs through the basics of office life. After a brief introduction to James (Mehcad Brooks) and his assistant Eve (Andrea Brooks), Kara leaves him to his own devices as she grabs coffee with James. She thanks him for hooking Mon-El up with a job. As they discuss Mon-El’s transition to life on earth an SUV nearly runs them over. A group of robbers hop out and head into the nearby bank. Kara jumps into action and confronts the robbers as Supergirl. One of them foolishly points a shotgun at her as they prepare their getaway and Kara explains that bullets don’t work on her. Another robber armed with an alien weapon sneaks up and with a single shot sends Kara flying. Seeing Kara’s in trouble, James jumps into action trying to fight off some of the robbers and fairs as well as Kara. The robbers get away, but not before destroying James’s father’s camera.

Down at the to-be-named alien bar, Alex (Chyler Leigh) is kicking Maggie’s (Floriana Lima) ass in pool. In some lighthearted gloating Alex brings up Maggie’s girlfriend and learns that Maggie got dumped. Alex attempts to comfort her, but Maggie doesn’t feel like talking about it and decides it’s time to go home and wallow with something harder than beer for a while.

At the DEO, Kara identifies the gun as an Anndrannian Photon Cannon. J’onn (David Harewood), Winn (Jeremy Jordan) and Alex try to figure out how the thieves got ahold of such a weapon and how to track it. Their discussion is cut short when a Cadmus broadcast comes through. The message warns of the danger aliens pose to humans and predicts everyone will be begging Cadmus to save them from aliens since their first warning was not heeded. The Danvers sisters piece together that Cadmus probably gave the alien weapons to the robbers in order to damage human-alien relations.

Over at CatCo, Kara and another reporter are having the exact debate Cadmus wanted. The reporter believes that humans should be armed with alien guns as the second amendment states. Kara almost breaks her cover explaining that Cadmus are the people handing out the weapons, but James steps in to end the discussion. James confides to Kara that he feels like he can’t do anything to help as head of CatCo. Kara jumps in to comfort him, but is disrupted by Eve fumbling over a pile of paperwork. It turns out Mon-El has taken advantage of Eve’s infatuation with with him and offloaded all his work on her. Kara runs over to lecture Mon-El on his sexist attitude, but is disrupted when Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) walks up and invites her and Mon-El to a gala.

Back at the DEO, Winn explains to a very distracted Alex that he’s come up with a way to track the alien weapons. Alex has been texting Maggie and can’t help but express her concerns. Winn suggests she stay out of other people’s relationship drama, but Alex points out that he’s king of butting into other people’s relationships after the Kara and James drama from last season. Winn’s defense is that he only got involved because he was interested in Kara and Alex isn’t into Maggie. Before Alex can give that concept too much thought, Winn gets a notification of an alien attack and they send Kara out to deal with it. The same group of robbers is at it again, this time armed with an alien antigravity gun. When Kara arrives the robbers shoot a cop car, hurling it toward space and forcing her to go save the occupant as they get away.

The head of Cadmus (Brenda Strong) meets with the robbers and scolds them for being reckless and warns them that if they continue to make such a large spectacle of themselves Supergirl will stop them. She armed them with the alien weapons to breed fear and animosity toward aliens in an effort to turn the human population to her side. Without the support of the majority, Cadmus will not be able to take the reigns and eradicate aliens from earth. She warn them to be careful and sends them on their way.

At the scene of the most recent heist, Alex checks in with Maggie. She explains the DEO is trying to find and use any electromagnetic residue from the newest alien weapon to track the robbers down. With business talk out of the way, Alex invites Maggie to go out to “celebrate singledom.” Maggie’s not up for celebrating being dumped, but Alex doesn’t won’t give up on them going out. Maggie interprets Alex’s enthusiasm and persistence as a come on. She mentions that she didn’t realize Alex was into girls and Alex is quick to reassure her that she is not gay. Maggie apologizes for the presumption, but note that she’s heard that line from many gays girls. Alex gets a little uncomfortable and makes a hasty retreat with the promise of an update on the case later.

At CatCo, James sadly let’s Kara know that because of recent violence 63% of people are against the Alien Amnesty act despite CatCo publishing a piece about groups like Cadmus spreading fear through social media. Kara’s been tasked with writing an objective piece on the topic, which she isn’t sure she can do since she’s far from unbiased. Noticing all of Mon-El’s work still undone at his desk Kara uses her super-hearing to locate him. Unfortunately for us all, that power backfired as we hear Mon-El and Eve getting friendly in the copy room. Kara runs over to shut that down much to Mon-El’s dismay. She lectures him on appropriate work behavior and Mon-El really isn’t enjoying all the rules Kara has. She tells him to get in line or find another mentor.

James stops by the DEO under the guise of visiting Winn. He asks about any leads the DEO has on where the robbers will attack next. Winn explains their system for determining the most likely targets and uses the Federal Reserve as an a example. It’s not the highest risk location so the DEO is scoping out more likely targets. James takes that information and goes to stake out the Federal Reserve armed with a ski mask and baseball bat. As luck would have it, that is the location of the next robbery. James confronts the robbers and holds his own against two of them until the third comes out of the Reserve firing another alien gun. James retreats into a nearby apartment building as the robbers shoot out it’s structural supports. He runs through the building and evacuates the occupants as the robbers once again escape. Winn stops by CatCo to confront James after discovering his stunt at the Reserve. James explains that he’s always been a sidekick and wants to finally be the one to do something good for the world. He tries to sway Winn to help him become a vigilante, but Winn is not about to help James get himself killed.

Kara stomps home to find Alex mopily eating a donut at her door. Alex stopped by because she’s confused about something (her sexuality), but always the good big sister asks why Kara was “exceptionally stompy” just then. Kara launches into the story of how Mon-El isn’t taking his job seriously and he’s not doing what Kara wants. Alex tells Kara the story of how when she finally got a little sister, she wanted Kara to be just like her. She made Kara watch scary movies, go to science fairs and listen to punk rock but none of it stuck. Kara is going to need to except that Mon-El is his own person, just like Alex had to with Kara. She asserts that people can’t be forced into whatever box other people want them to fit in, they need to figure themselves out and learn who they are inside. Kara realizes she hijacked the conversation away from Alex who had stopped by to discuss something, but before they can get into that Lena knocks on the door. Lena is calling in Kara’s favor because she needs Supergirl at her gala to provide some much needed security with those robbers running wild.

Winn and Kara show up to Lena’s gala and commence Operation Doubtfire. Kara quickly switches between Supergirl and herself a few times to assure Lena they’re both there. The robbers predictably attack and Supergirl swoops in to face off with them. Mon-El and James jump in on the fight as Lena and Winn work under the stage to turn on a Black Body Field Generator Lena built to destroy the alien guns. As the fight takes a turn for the worse  and Supergirl ends up in the crosshairs of three alien guns, Winn and Lena get the Black Body Field Generator working. The weapons are destroyed and the robbers are taken into custody. As Maggie is putting the robbers in the back of a paddywagon the leader of Cadmus drives by activating a kill switch in their heads – killing them instantly.

Kara stops by Mon-El’s room to let him know she’s not going to force her way of living on him anymore. She’s going to let him choose his own path and be there to support him however he needs. On a similar note, Winn stops by James’s office to let him know he’s on board with helping James become a vigilante.

Alex heads over the to-be-named alien bar to check on Maggie after the robbers deaths. Maggie apologizes to Alex for being so forward the other day, but Alex has something she needs to say. She’s spent the majority of her life fitting into the boxes other people needed her to fit into. She was the perfect sister, she got perfect grades, she got the perfect job and she did everything she needed to do. The only thing she couldn’t be perfect at was dating. She tried but never connected with anybody. She’d always assumed she just wasn’t built for it until Maggie dropped a new idea in her head. Maybe there’s some truth there, maybe there isn’t, but for the first time Alex is looking in herself to try and figure it out.

Supergirl stops by Lena’s office to discuss the gala and them working together. Their conversation gets cut short when Lena’s mother walks in. It seems Mama Luthor is the leader of Cadmus!