Saturday, August 28, 2021

SUPERGIRL 6.8


 


RECAP - SUPERGIRL  6.8:  "Welcome Back, Kara"  


Welcome back to National City!  It's been a LOOOOOONG wait for us to see the fallout from The Girl of Steel's time in the Phantom Zone, and how she readjusts to life after having been trapped in there for an undisclosed period of time.  We come back to see what new adventures await Supergirl and the rest of the Superfriends, as we pick back up on The Last Daughter of Krypton's Final Flight.  So, what happened as Kara Zor-El returns home to Earth?  Let's talk about it...



We jump back into National City, as Brainy deftly dodges people to make his way back to The Watchtower, where Supergirl is resting after having been rescued by The Superfriends from the Phantom Zone, with her father, Zor-El, in tow.  They're throwing a welcome home party for her, but Kara is still suffering some PTSD from her exposure to the Phantoms in the Phantom Zone, having been stricken by one of them while there.  She sleeps restlessly, but her sister Alex is by her side.  Kara still has some resonating fear within her, but what she needs is her family at this point in time.  She then is welcomed home by her family, as J'onn, Briany, Nia, and Lena all hug her...happy to have her home.  Lena and her have a moment before they hug, with Kara thanking her for helping her get home.  

Kara thus has to get back into the swing of things, and that means showing up to work at Catco, and face Andrea with her so-called "story" that she was supposedly "undercover" with Cat Grant for (I, for one, will NOT be happy until we get Calista Flockhart back as Cat Grant before this series signs off).  However, upon chatting with Andrea, she admits she doesn't have a story, so Andrea gives her one:  Talk to all the victims of the Phantom attacks, and how they all managed to get saved from it by Supergirl and the other heroes.  This is news to Kara, since she wasn't around WHEN these attacks happened.  Nia fills her in on what happened, and now she's got to face her fears about the Phantoms, and she really isn't ready to.  She bumps into William, and they catch up, with him admitting that he's seeing someone now, and she sees that he moved on when she was gone.  Nia and Kara had brought her father to her job, to give him insight as to what Kara does in her life, and he's there as her "Uncle Archie".  But they have to keep tabs on him, because he's just getting used to the powers he's gained having now been exposed to Earth's yellow sun.  




He and Nia talk on the balcony, when he discusses getting used to these powers, and then uses his x-ray vision to spot a falling satellite in the sky.  Nia tells him to suit up, because now he'll get to experience his daughter's OTHER job as Supergirl.  Supergirl and her father manage to handle the satellite, and Zor-El puts out a fire that broke out in the ocean.  Supergirl realizes that the trash pile in the waters were courtesy of Lexcorp and the DEO. Kara brings up the issue with Andrea, who then assigns this story to William, who does have Lexcorp connections, but Kara wanted to do the story since SHE brought it up.  But Andrea wants her on the Phantoms story---which she's trying to avoid altogether.  When she gets back to the Watchtower, she learns from her father that because  of the pollution and dumping into Earth's oceans, the planet is doomed to suffer the same fate as Krypton, because that's how Krypton's problems started.  Kara says that it's a little more complicated to resolve this issue, but Zor-El thinks he has a way of resolving the issue, but he needs information from the ship she came to Earth in.  She does him one better---by taking him to the Fortress of Solitude.  She tells him how Kal-El tried to bring her here for a long while, but she thought it would make her homesick, but it didn't.  Zor-El gets access to some info, but also finds the solution when he sees Kelex, thus spawning an idea as to how to rectify Earth's pollution problem.

Nia wanted to get ahold of Kara, since Andrea's looking for her story, but Lena says that she's up north with her father.  Nia says it's good for Kara and her dad to reconnect.  This has both Lena AND Nia think about their mothers.  They talk about how they fought their nightmares about their mothers, and Nia asks how Lena did it, and Lena said she just learned to accept that the death of her mother was NOT her fault.  She asks Nia if she was okay, and how she got through hers, but Nia didn't.  But Nia promises to be there for Lena if she needs to talk. 



Zor-El and Kara return, and Zor-El has converted Kelex into Oscar (his reference from having watched Sesame Street, and relating the famous Muppet to the situation at hand), and has made Oscar into a machine that can absorb the garbage from the pile Lexcorp and the DEO left, and make it into energy.  Oscar goes to work, and they monitor his progress.  For awhile, Zor-El's plan seems to be working, but something goes awry, and Oscar stops absorbing energy, and just starts drawing the garbage to himself....building himself up more and more until he starts becoming a giant garbage being going on a rampage.  The Superfriends see the imminent threat, and need to shut Oscar down.  Zor-El is hesitant, and thinks he can salvage the situation, but it's becoming more dire, and people's lives are at stake.  Zor-El is adamant he can fix Oscar, and won't let Krypton die---as he says.  He then realizes his error, and Alex tells him that while things are complicated about solving this issue, they need to save lives, and he either helps, or get out of the way.  

Supergirl, Martian Manhunter, Dreamer, and Sentinel arrive at the scene to stop Oscar from becoming larger and more dangerous.  Brainy and Zor-El came up with a device to be able to stop Oscar, but Oscar has used what alien technology that was in the garbage.  Supergirl tries to attack Oscar, but he blasts her.  Dreamer protects her, as her battle suit takes damage.  Brainy then goads Oscar to absorb him in order to implant the virus he and Zor-El created in order to shut him down and end the threat.  Oscar has had enough, and absorbs Briany.  There's a bit of a scuffle with him, as the Superfriends look on.  But eventually, Brainy implants the virus, and the giant garbage being falls.  Brainy then manages to pull Kelex from the wreckage.  The threat is ended, and the Superfriends save the day.  



While the Superfriends have been battling the garbage monster, Andrea got a story back from William on the garbage pile in question, but she isn't thrilled with the story he wrote, because it doesn't directly point to Lex as the culprit, and having done anything completely illegal.  So, she uses her powers to sneak into Lex's office to find some evidence of some wrongdoing.  In the end...she realizes she's got nothing on Lex at this time, and that she's been desperate to get Catco's views up, because they've been slipping.  She realizes the story ISN'T Lex...or the environmental issue---it's the heroes that go out and save the day.  She tells William that the new story is Supergirl and the Superfriends...as they're officially dubbed...and she wants them synonymous with Catco, as Supergirl has been since she first appeared.  

Zor-El and Kara talk, and he apologizes for going overboard, and for his hubris, thinking he could solve Earth's problems like he wasn't able to with Krypton.  He has felt like a failure, and didn't think he could face his wife, Alura.  But now he knows he has to be able to go home to Argo, and be with her again.  So, Kara and Zor-El hug, and he says for the 40  years of life he's had---his greatest achievement was Kara.  Brainy then lets him know that he's ready to take him to Argo.  



Lena calls Nia, and thanks her for listening to her, and for helping her get through her trauma of her mother's death.  She's now heading home to find out more about her mother and to heal.  Meanwhile, at home, Kara opens up to Alex about her fears while being in the Phantom Zone.  Alex had her fears about Kara slipping away, and they both promise to be there for each other.  Kara will also take a cue from Iris West-Allen about her own story (Iris was trapped in the Mirrorverse and suffered her OWN PTSD, until she found a support group to talk about it, and thus wrote her own story about her experiences). 

The episode ends with Nia waking up, calling out Nixly's name.  


Welcome back, Supergirl!  It's been a long time since we've seen the Last Daughter of Krypton in all her glory!  We just went through an emotional rollercoaster with her cousin Kal-El in his series (which was excellent, and I encourage you to watch), and now we're back in National City to catch the last flight of the Girl of Steel and the Superfriends.  Grateful to the showrunners to make sure they did a recap of events to catch us up on what's transpired up to this point, and then they jumped right in.  We see that, while Kara is back on Earth, she's carrying the nightmares that came with being in the Phantom Zone.  So, we have Supergirl with PTSD, and we see how it affects her, as she does NOT want to write the story about the Phantom attacks on National City...which she herself was NOT here for to deal with, but is forced by Andrea to write...even when she presented Andrea with the whole garbage dumping story.  Andrea passed that along to William.  As we see by the end of the episode...Kara has avoided her fear as much as possible, but now she has to face it.  The nice nod is the fact that the story she's got to write will come from her own personal experience, and she's going to take a cue from Iris West-Allen, and what SHE just went through, having been trapped in the mirror universe, and the PTSD Iris suffered through after being rescued by Barry, and the fallout of having been apart from her husband AND having watched a mirror duplicate of her play on Barry while she was trapped.  I like that they tied into Kara and Iris' friendship, as well as giving us something of a timeline as to where Supergirl is compared to The Flash.   So it appears that THIS part of Kara's story is taking place not too long after the events that happened in Central City regarding Mirror Monarch.  



It also looks like Lena is changing a little, as she's now on a quest to know more about her mother, and making peace with her death.  More growth for Lena Luthor, as they steer her away more from the Luthor past, and forging her own destiny.  It's interesting that we see Lena and Nia bonding over the loss of a parent---specifically mothers.  And while Lena was able to conquer her demons of her past, and is working on closing that chapter of her life.  However, we KNOW that Nia has NOT.  Nia still continues to struggle with her changing powers, and her ability to be the hero we KNOW Dreamer can be, because she feels she can't harness her power the right way without her mother there to guide her.  So, hoping we're able to see her overcome her doubts and insecurities, and take that next step.  

We also got some quick closure for Zor-El, as he faced his own issues, by coming to terms with the failures he felt he committed in attempting to save Krypton.  He tried to apply the same knowledge to solve this episodes' issue, but found he could not.  Good thing is, he's going to Argo to be reunited with Alura, and it'll be good for Kara to have her parents alive and well...and safe...where she can see them once in awhile.  But we needed to get Zor-El out of the way, so that we can finally focus on Kara and the team.

Speaking of the team, Andrea is now making them the #1 of Catco - and William gets to be the lucky guy to write the story.  Of course this means he's going to look into the story of these heroes---whom Andra OFFICIALLY dubbed "Superfriends", and it makes you wonder how close he'll get to finding out who Supergirl is...and everyone ELSE for that matter.   That fun begins next week.

Overall, not a bad show.  It gave us a recap, and helped set us up for what comes up in the future.  Not sure what the next threat is, we just hope it's a good story, and something befitting Supergirl's exit from the Arrowverse and the CW.  How did YOU guys feel about our Girl of Steel's return to TV?  Lemme know by subscribing and leaving your comments below.


Until next time...Up, up, and away!

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