Soldiering On
Director: Dermont Downs
Writers: Story by Andrew Kreisberg,
Teleplay by Ted Sullivan and Derek Simon
First Aired: February 8, 2016
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Last week, Supergirl went up against one of the most iconic Super-family villain, Bizarro (though best commenter Scott and I agree it should have been Bizarra)! While the tragedy of Bizarro and Supergirl's compassion brought out the show's best qualities, the worst quality was brought out too by the completely unnecessary love shape (because it keeps adding and subtracting new interests!). The episode was decent, but one of the most amazing things occurred at the end of the episode. A plant was left for Kara...one of DC's most infamous plants....the center to one of the most famous stories in the Superman Mythos...THE BLACK MERCY! Now it has latched onto the Girl of Steel and has already begun to infest the host. How will the DEO save her?! Lets find out...
We open the episode with Alex, James and Winn heading to Kara's Apartment only to find Kara a bit wrapped up at the moment...get it? Because the Mercy wraps its victims...yeah you get it. We cut to the real villains of the episode as Astra and Non finish planning the Kryptonian master plan, known only as the Myriad. Non reveals to Astra that he was the one who put the Black Mercy in the apartment, an act which Astra detests. At this point it hits me...she's going to change her moral compass...which by the unwritten laws of TV, she's gonna die! 
Meanwhile in the Mercy-scape, which shows off an amazing looking Krypton, Kara does something I wasn't actually expecting to see...HER FIGHTING BACK! In both the original story, For the Man Who Has Everything, and the Justice League episode, the heroes just stand their in a trance and just accept it. While that does make sense, it made it much more dramatic and tense as we saw Supergirl try and fight the Mercy-scape, but slowly fail as the memories of her on earth slowly begin to fade away. Its a great way to show off how much of a threat this strange looking plant actually is.
Back in the outside world, Alex begins to go on a warpath to save her sister by beating down Maxwell Lord when it was originally thought to be his, on Astra when she comes to tell her what the Mercy is, and on the holographic Alura when she cant tell her anything. This episode might be the best showing of Alex's character since the show began. We see her ready to go to hell and back to save her adoptive sister, just like any older sister would do. She even tells James to let her stay in the Mercy-scape even if she begins to hurt, because she refuses to come back without Kara. The way she is going to go about this is through a special VR training tech, modified by Maxwell Lord to have her enter the dream and convince Kara that the entire thing is a dream. This plan works for a grand total of 15 minutes show time because the moment she finds Kara, she is instantly captured. She then tries to convince her of the past by revealing that the world needs Supergirl, her friend needs Supergirl, even she needs Supergirl. This is enough to shake her out of the Mercy-scape...and now fully pissed at Non. The only downside to this whole Black Mercy thing is really more of nitpick when I say...she really just chose earth....it didn't seem that tough a decision on her. It didn't feel that gut wrenching like the source material...but it was still pretty sad!
While Supergirl was out, the Kryptonians began their plan, setting up beacons throughout the city. While Supergirl takes on a pretty chill Non, Alex as a kryptonian equivalent to Deathstroke goes after Astra. As the fights continue, we see Alex preparing to lose...so she tags out...and Martian Manhunter enters the fray to save her. However Astra gains the upper hand, and prepares to kill our favorite martian...only to have Alex kill Astra with the sweetest Kryptonite sword to save J'onn...WHO FRIGGIN' CALLED IT!
In the end, the DEO begins studying the kryptonian device, Non mourns for Astra, J'onn covers Alex for killing Astra to keep the sisterly bond alive, and Kara, James, Alex, and Winn enjoy each others company after she explained why she saw krypton in the Mercy; A happy-ish ending to a story that could have been ten times more sad.
While there were some flaws with this weeks episode, it took a step up after last week. We had some fantastic moments from Alex, emotional scenes inside Krypton, even some decent comedy relief at Cat Co. This had midseason finale written all over it, but if it can keep going up as it has in quality, both in action, story and acting itself like what I saw tonight, Supergirl could easily rival the other 4 DC shows on the air.
7.5/10
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