TV Review: Supergirl – Season 1 Ep 14 “Truth, Justice & The American Way”

EPISODE 14: "Truth, Justice, and the American Way"

SYNOPSIS: Supergirl does battle with the deadly Master Jailer, who is hunting and executing escaped Fort Rozz prisoners. Also, Cat hires a second assistant, Siobhan Smythe, who immediately tries to one-up Kara, and Kara and James disagree over the D.E.O.’s methods.

REVIEW: Thirteen episodes episodes of fighting Kryptonian villains and other galactic bad guys was not enough to prepare Supergirl for her most challenging foe: Siobhan Smythe. While the character is better known to DC Comics readers as Silver Banshee, she is introduced this week as Cat Grant's new assistant. Still reeling from Kara's rejection of her son and Hank Henshaw's poor impersonation of Kara last week, Cat gives Siobhan the role of her primary assistant. Kara gets demoted to Cat's number two which doesn't sit well with her. But dealing with the mess at work is nothing compared to what she has to do at the D.E.O.

A Fort Rozz escapee has been spotted in National City. This criminal has toxic skin and poses a threat to everyone, but when the team finds him, he is actually in the grasp of a masked vigilante. Then soon learn from a pair of cops that this masked madman has been decapitating "weird guys" (aka aliens) and leaving their bodies to be found. Hank and Alex deduce they have a serial killer on their hands while we soon learn it is a character known as the Master Jailer. Think of a cross between The Punisher and a Kryptonian and you get the idea. The D.E.O. makes it their priority to find Master Jailer before he can kill anyone else.

Back at CatCo, James Olsen is torn with his latest assignment from Cat Grant. He is tasked with finding the missing Maxwell Lord but he knows that the billionaire is being held by the D.E.O.. Lucy Lane soon learns that James is aware of the D.E.O. and she is not happy that he has a secret relationship with Supergirl that is closer than his friendship with Superman. Kara herself is dealing with issues of trust with Hank. After being summoned by Non for a funeral ceremony for Astra, Kara still cannot bring herself to forgive Hank for killing her aunt. Alex feels torn and wants to tell Kara the truth that she killed Astra, but Hank implores her not to. Everyone is torn this week and it is tearing them apart.

Master Jailer soon finds his next victim in the form of a former alien drug dealer and now college professor, Doctor Alphonse Luzano. In the comics, Dr. Luzano is a villain responsible for creating Resurrection Man. Here, he is a mild-mannered man who only commited crimes to help his family. Master Jailer kidnaps both Supergirl and Luzano and locks them in a bunker. With the D.E.O. hunting for them, Supergirl is helpless without the rays of the sun as Master Jailer, revealed to be Carl Draper, one of the cops they contacted about the killings. Luzano is about to be killed on an intergalactic guillotine when Alex Danvers and a team find the bunker is actually Draper's ship buried beneath his cabin upstate. Exposing the ship to sunlight, Kara gets her powers back and is able to stop Master Jailer.

After talking to James, Kara makes the decision to let Maxwell Lord free in the hopes he will do the right thing. Alex gives him a mild threat, but Lord doesn't seem phased. James Olsen also makes a decision that he has to stop lying and hiding the truth and tells Kara that he plans to reveal to Lucy his true feelings about Supergirl. Kara is a bit shocked but it remains to be seen what this will mean for their relationship. In the end, Kara asks the hologram of her mother about the mysterious Myriad mentioned by Astra and Non, but the program begins to shut down and self destruct. Hank deactivates it before it can break down and Kara is once again uncomfortable around him saying she doesn't know if or when they can work together again.

This was a fairly uneventful episode in the grand scheme of things. Sure, we got the opening threat from Non that he will grieve for Astra and then come to murder Kara, but that seemed to be a placeholder for the main story arc long enough for some characters to get a bit more development. Maxwell Lord is now free and another bad guy has been caught, but it doesn't seem to have done much but push the cliche Kara-hates-Hank subplot. I am willing to bet that she will hate Alex for a bit as well but they will then need to pull together to defeat Non. In the end, this episode came across like a filler hour but hopefully we learn more about Myriad and Non's master plan in the near future.

FINAL VERDICT:

Next on Supergirl: "Solitude" airs on February 29th – Kara travels to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in hopes of learning how to defeat Indigo, a dangerous being who can transport via the Internet and who has a connection to Kara’s past. Also, James’s relationship with Lucy reaches a crossroads.