Supergirl 2.15: “Exodus” Review

NOTE: Full spoilers for this episode of, “Supergirl” are present in this review

 

 

Supergirl hit another excellent high point in this week’s episode, which seemingly brought Cadmus’ latest operation to another climax. “Exodus” revealed Lillian Luthor’s latest plan to deal with the aliens populating the world, or at least National City, as well as finally exploring just why Jeremiah Danvers is agreeing to work with her in the first place. The result is a very clever, emotionally gripping and surprisingly uncompromising final result, especially when Kara finds some surprising resistance at CatCo when she tries to get the word out about what Cadmus is doing.

After Jeremiah stole the alien registry and handed it over to Cadmus towards the end of last week’s episode, Cadmus has since gone on to start snatching aliens en masse, imprisoning them in some unknown location. As the kidnappings keep building, with the DEO helpless to pinpoint them and stop them, Kara decides that the best course of action is to get CatCo to run a story about Cadmus having stolen the alien registry. Snapper however thinks that Kara doesn’t have enough information to back up her claims about alien disappearances, and refuses to run the story.

Obviously, we know that Kara is telling the truth, and neither Kara nor Supergirl has any incentive to push a fake news story about Cadmus kidnapping aliens. This story turn with Snapper did however create a very interesting conflict of Supergirl having all of the tools necessary to proceed, though Kara being unable to actually enact the next step of fighting Cadmus, since she would otherwise compromise her secret identity, on top of revealing the presence of the top secret DEO. Snapper is being pretty dick-ish in not running a story that seems pretty credible, since it’s seriously doubtful that no one in National City has questioned a string of rather obvious kidnappings, even if the aliens disguise themselves as humans (which is revealed in the opening segment), though he’s not wrong about the rules of journalism, nor the modern epidemic of fake news and its implications.

The resistance from Snapper leads to Lena suggesting that Kara simply act as a civilian journalist, and blog the news on CatCo-independent social media to get the word out. Kara knows that she will be putting her job on the line if she does that, but after Mon-El tells her that her own sense of morals are the only choice she needs to consider (sweet, if slightly questionable advice for a powerful superheroine), Kara blogs the story. This immediately has Cadmus accelerating their timetable, and seems to have the desired effect. I do respect the intelligence behind this character conflict for Kara, even if the immediate, swift and highly influential response of a lone, random blog post from Kara is pretty unrealistic. That’s really the only questionable point in an otherwise fantastic episode though!

Another character conflict that worked great this week was the one surrounding Alex, as Alex happens to be in the alien bar with Winn and Maggie when Cadmus attacks to snatch more aliens, including Lyra! Alex, growing frustrated, enters the cell of a captured prisoner and starts tossing the guy around and aggressively beating him, forcing J’onn to intervene, and question her judgment. After J’onn poses as Jeremiah to prove that Alex is emotionally compromised (duh), Alex gets benched, leading to Maggie putting her up to pursuing Jeremiah and infiltrating Cadmus independently.

The parallel storylines between both of the Danvers sisters were realized very well, as both had to choose between their principles and protocol. More conservative-minded viewers will probably feel that both Kara and Alex made the ‘wrong’ decision, even if liberal-minded viewers will no doubt celebrate both characters’ actions, though Supergirl managing this kind of smart political subtext in any respect is nonetheless really impressive. The bright, PG-friendly sheen of Supergirl doesn’t always present real shades of grey, which is why it’s cool and refreshing when the show actually delves into a serious, interpretive character conflict, and challenges the viewers to decide who is truly right.

Regardless, we get a nicely explosive climax, as Alex is quickly captured, but rigs Lillian’s current stronghold with several mines that rip apart her operation, yet still don’t stop the launch of that mysterious spaceship glimpsed at the end of the previous episode. Turns out, the ship is there to forcibly deport the captured aliens out of Earth, rather than kill them, with Jeremiah proposing this solution to try and save the aliens’ lives from Lillian’s former plans. Alex’s intervention manages to turn Jeremiah back, though it also doesn’t save him. Worse still is that Alex ends up trapped on the spaceship as it flies up toward the atmosphere, with the ship about to hit light speed and warp away as soon as it exits Earth’s limits.

Obviously, enough pushing against the ship from Kara manages to stop the craft and prevent the aliens from being launched away, and all seemingly seems well at first, beyond Jeremiah still being in Cadmus custody. Once Kara returns to CatCo though, having leaked the now-confirmed story of the alien kidnappings, she finds her stuff packed on her desk, with an irate Snapper firing her for posting the story on a separate platform with CatCo resources. Honestly, the, “CatCo resources” accusation is a bit of a stretch, since CatCo didn’t actually do anything with the story, though Snapper isn’t wrong when he says that Kara did violate her contract and take part in a conflict of interests. As harsh as it is, Kara suffering serious consequences for doing the right thing, at least in her mind, was a shocking, yet very satisfying way to conclude the episode. Kara losing her job now challenges her principles on an all-new level, with her Kara Danvers identity crippled, even as her Supergirl identity is flying higher than ever.

“Exodus” is another superb showcase of how smart and emotionally gratifying Supergirl can be at its best, with both of the core storylines surrounding Kara and Alex being realized pretty much perfectly. Kara losing her job at CatCo is bound to nicely shake up the show for hopefully a decent amount of time (James could theoretically overrule Snapper by just re-hiring Kara at a different branch of CatCo, so we’ll see if this firing sticks for long), even if Alex ultimately got off pretty easy for her loose cannon actions with Jeremiah, at least by comparison. We also get some more answers about the mysterious hooded folks who are seemingly after Mon-El, with their king and queen appearing to be none other than Kevin Sorbo’s and Lois & Clark alum, Teri Hatcher’s mysterious characters that were recently teased by the showrunners. It’s looking increasingly likely that Mon-El is the true prince of Daxam, and lied about his backstory, but we’ll have to wait an extra week to find out for sure, since Supergirl is taking next week off. If that’s the case and Mon-El is Daxamite royalty though, then Kara’s full plate is about to get piled on even more!

Supergirl soared to another excellent high point this week, as both Kara and Alex weigh their principles against their workplace demands.
Reader Rating2 Votes
66
THE GOOD STUFF
Kara making the big decision to defy Snapper, and paying dearly for it
Alex following her convictions to get through to Jeremiah
More tantalizing hints about Mon-El's true backstory
THE NOT-SO-GOOD STUFF
Kara's powerful blog response is a bit unrealistic
93