Supergirl – Medusa

By: Michelle Lopez

Thanksgiving, Interrupted

Time for another Danvers family Thanksgiving! Mama Danvers, Eliza (Helen Slater), is in town to celebrate with Kara (Melissa Benoist) and Alex (Chyler Leigh) plus their “adopted” family, Winn (Jeremy Jordan), James (Mehcad Brooks) and Mon-El (Chris Wood). Winn and James have decided it’s time to tell Kara about their Guardian shenanigans, but Alex has other plans. She’s ready to come out to her mother. Mon-El shows up and heads right over to Eliza to try and win her over because apparently there’s no better way to get the girl than to get her mother on your side. When Kara is clueless about Mon-El’s feelings, Eliza let’s her know about his real intentions.

They sit down for dinner and in Danvers family tradition go around the table and state what they’re thankful for. James and Winn ramble about how they’re thankful to have such an understanding friend in Kara. Alex shuts them down because Kara is not going to be understanding of their Guardian nonsense and she’s got bigger news to share. Before Alex can start, Mon-El jumps in to shoot heart eyes at Kara and talk about how he is thankful for her. Alex has had enough of these boys interrupting her big moment so she stands up and begins to say the words she’s had bottled up, but it’s crossover week so the space-time continuum breaks apart over the dinner table and ends the party.

Parental Issues & Kamikaze Missions

At the DEO, Winn, Alex and Kara brainstorm what Cadmus wanted with Kara’s blood. Since Lillian Luthor (Brenda Strong) is the head of Cadmus, they reason that Lena might be in on it or have some insight into her mother’s dealings. Winn prepares to hack Lena’s life, but Kara has a better idea. She’s to head over to L Corp and use her non-existent sneakiness to get information out of Lena. Alex and Winn have zero faith in that plan so they hack Lena anyways.

Over at L Corp, Kara interviews Lena (Katie McGrath) for a fake article about powerful women and their moms. Lena is not enthused since she doesn’t get along with her mom. Kara keeps pushing until Lena figures out Kara’s snooping for dirt on Lillian. She tells Kara to write whatever she’d like and excuses herself for a nonexistent meeting and calls up her mom.

Over at the alien bar, Mon-El’s nursing a drink when he notices a hooded figure that looks a lot like J’onn (David Harewood). He follows “J’onn” outside and quickly discovers it’s actually Hank ‘Cyber Superman’ Henshaw who proceeds to beat hell out of Mon-El. While those two tussle in the alley, the small device Hank planted on the bar activates and disperses a mist that kills a whole lot of aliens. After sufficiently beating Mon-El up, Hank leaves and Mon-El heads into the bar to see what happened – breathing in some of the toxic mist himself. That move lands him a spot in quarantine at the DEO with Kara and J’onn while Alex brings in Eliza to analyze the virus.

At L Corp, Lena’s working dinner is interrupted when Lillian stops by. Lena’s not in the mood for her mom’s attitude and she points out that Lillian never let her forget she was adopted while clearly favoring Lex. Lillian doesn’t pretend to deny loving Lex more, but claims that she does love Lena as well. This isn’t what Lena wanted to hear so cuts to the point and asks what Lillian’s up to. Lillian plays dumb, but Lena’s not going to let her off the hook. Lena knows Lillian’s lying because she said she loves Lena and they both know that’s a damn lie. With that Lena sends her mom packing.

Kara and Mon-El kill time in quarantine. Kara can’t get what her mom told her about Mon-El out of her head so she decides to deal with it. She asks Mon-El if he likes her, but unfortunately he’s not up to speed on the million different ways humans have created to describe romantic interest. Kara goes for the super direct approach and asks if Mon-El wants to mate with her. Mon-El lies terribly and proceeds to pass out from the virus he was exposed to earlier. In the med bay, Eliza lets everyone know that the virus is Kryptonian and is only contracted when exposed to it in aerosol form. Kara figures out that Cadmus used her blood to get into The Fortress of Solitude and flies over to investigate. She discovers that Cadmus stole Project Medusa, a weaponized virus meant to be used to protect Krypton from any invaders. Kara reports the intel back to the DEO and Eliza starts working up a cure with Alex. Kara is devastated that her parents weren’t the good guys she viewed them as. J’onn reassures her that they were doing what they felt was best. Kara’s learning the important but difficult lesson that our parents are never the infallible people we build them up to be in our heads. Their conversation is cut short when J’onn painfully morphs into a green-white martian hybrid. He explains that M’gann (Sharon Leal) is a White Martian and her blood saved his life but is now turning him into a White Martian.

Alex and Eliza figured out that Cadmus is going to weaponize the virus using Isotope 454 which is only made by L Corp. Supergirl takes off to go defend L Corp while Alex calls Maggie (Floriana Lima) in for backup. Upon arrival at L Corp, Supergirl discovers Hank making his way through the lobby. They fight and Supergirl doesn’t fare too well. Hank makes his way toward the offices when Lena appears looking baffled at the scene in front of her as Hank whips a chunk of debris at her. Supergirl springs into action, saves Lena and goes back to fighting Hank. Hank pins Supergirl down as Maggie and the NCPD burst in gun ablazing. Their bullets do no damage, but another time portal appears distracting everyone enough for Supergirl to knock Hank down. He fires a single laser shot that hits Maggie causing enough of a scene for him to slip away.

After the fight, Supergirl, heads over to L Corp to see if Lena knows anything about Lillian’s plans. Kara believes that Lena isn’t in on it, but the rest of the DEO begs to differ. Supergirl tells Lena that her mom is the leader of Cadmus and is planning on killing all the aliens in National City. Lena surprisingly defends her and accuses Supergirl of going after Lillian because she’s a Luthor. She wonders how long until Supergirl turns on her. Supergirl tells Lena that she’s not like her mother, she needs to follow her own path and be her own hero. Lena isn’t buying it and kicks Supergirl out.

In the med bay, Kara visits Mon-El who is a little loopy on drugs. He tells her that Eliza thinks he’s dying, but Kara is confident they’ll find a cure. Mon-El is ok with death since he’s escaped it more times that seems fair. Kara can’t handle the guilt of knowing her father developed the virus that is killing her friend. Mon-El comforts her and goes in for a kiss, which leaves Kara stunned.

Lena’s summoned Lillian to her office to call her out on being the head of Cadmus. When Lillian confirms it Lena offers up Isotope 454 and her help in dispersing the virus. As they head out to commit alien genocide, the DEOs tracking alert on Isotope 454 goes off. J’onn is fine with dying protecting people he cares about before he completely morphs into a monster so he and Kara head out. Lillian has Lena launch a missile of the virus over National City as Kara and J’onn arrive. Kara takes off after the missile while J’onn faces off against Cyborg Superman. J’onn is outmatched in his human form and as Cyborg Superman taunts him, he transforms into his new mutant form to even the fight. As Kara tries to stop the missile, Lillian blows it up spreading the virus across National City. But no aliens die. It turns out Lena was playing her mom the entire time as she swapped out the isotope and called the police on Lillian.

Back at the DEO, Eliza’s successfully developed a cure for the virus and a cure for J’onn’s mutation. Kara checks in with Mon-El to discuss their kiss from earlier, but Mon-El claims to have no recollection of his time sick. Slightly disappointed, Kara accepts that and sulks off as Mon-El guiltily watches her go.

Processing and Acceptance

In the DEO lab, Eliza asks Alex what it is that she has been trying to tell her. Alex stumbles over her words and curls in on herself as she stares at the ground. Eliza’s already figured it out, but she wants Alex to say the words. Right now, though, Alex needs some help. Eliza asks if this has anything to do with Maggie, the woman Alex hasn’t stopped talking about. Alex finally looks up from the floor with the most vulnerable expression as she realizes her mom already knows. Alex feels like she’s letting her mom down because being gay doesn’t fall into the “regular” life her mom wanted for her. Eliza states without a shadow of doubt that Alex being gay changes nothing between them. Eliza never expected Alex to have a “regular” life with a mom that specializes in astrobiology and having an alien for a sister. Eliza showers Alex is unconditional love as she reassures her that she loves her no matter what.

After Maggie was shot at L Corp, Supergirl brought her back to the DEO for Alex to treat the wound. Maggie thanks Alex for stitching her up and Alex shoots the thank you right back at her. Alex confides that she came out to her mom, who took it a lot better than she did. Alex is thanking Maggie because her suggesting that Alex was gay opened up a world she never imagined. Yes, she denied it at first, but when the seed of an idea Maggie planted started to grow Alex figured it was all about Maggie. Of course, she was attracted to Maggie, who wouldn’t be? But that seed continued to grow and eventually Alex had to admit and accept that it wasn’t about Maggie, it was about her. Alex is gay and it took some time to process and get comfortable with her new reality but that’s her truth and she’s living it.

After the dust settled from the Cadmus shenanigans, Alex is relaxing with a glass of scotch when someone knocks on her door. Maggie has stopped by with pizza, beer and whole lot of feelings. Maggie takes a turn at stumbling over her words as she explains she’s not there for work but she really needs to talk to Alex. Maggie explains that she almost died and the experience gave her perspective. She knows that Alex came out for her. Hell, Alex took an intense journey of self discovery to figure out what the feelings she was feeling toward Maggie meant. Alex did all that work for Maggie and that scared her, but with her new found perspective she realizes that life is too short to let fear hold you back from the things you want. We should all be our true selves which includes kissing the people we want to kiss and Maggie REALLY wants to kiss Alex. With that Maggie swoops in and kisses a shocked Alex who slowly moves from shocked to something that looks awful lot like happy.

Daxamite Hunters

On a spaceship at the Well of Stars, an alien updates his superiors that they’ve lost the trail of the Kryptonian pod they’d been hunting. They have no leads, but they’re not going to stop scouring space until they find Mon-El of Daxam.

Star City Bound

Barry (Grant Gustin) and Cisco (Carlos Valdes) enter Kara’s apartment through a time portal as Kara returns home. Barry calls in the favor she promised him last season and they head over to the LegendsOfFlArrow-verse for an epic crossover event.