In order to lean more about Reign’s agenda, Supergirl teams up with Saturn Girl, Livewire, and Psi on a mission to question a priestess aboard the floating Fort Rozz. Meanwhile, Alex subs for Sam’s babysitter, helping Ruby through a bullying problem as Ruby helps her through lingering sadness over her breakup. Here is a recap and review of the Supergirl episode “Fort Rozz.”

RECAP & REVIEW:

Similar to last week’s “Legion of Super-Heroes,” the wheels spun but the vehicle didn’t go anywhere. “Fort Rozz” bought more time until the drama heats up with an episode that kept us entertained without providing lasting substance. The information Supergirl acquired on her mission doesn’t seem like it will prove too useful given that the second worldkiller is already awakening, but a slue of character moments made “Fort Rozz” a fun watch. Brit Morgan and Yael Grobglas were perfectly cast in their roles, and their characters have such an enchantingly devious energy that their visits to National City are always a positive.

Despite this enjoyment, this review turned out more harsh and critical than I originally intended. Don’t get me wrong, I love this show. I love this show so much that it’s frustrating when it doesn’t live up to my expectations, and this episode in particular brought that frustration to the forefront. I know I sound like a bit of a broken record when it comes to convenient happenings, storytelling tricks, and missed opportunities, but I expect better and I know they can do it. I want to see Supergirl be the show it set out to be in season one. A show that girls and young women could watch for strength and inspiration and insight into life. A show where they could see a female hero learning about and overcoming society’s criticism and judgment in the workplace and demonstrating that being a hero is about heart, not having superpowers. So lately I’ve just felt like Mufasa pleading, “Remember who you are!”

Nursing her broken leg, Alex watches old movies until Kara, Sam, and Ruby enter with food that Kara surprisingly didn’t inhale before she reached the door. Sam’s babysitter cancels, and as convenient timing would have it, Alex isn’t doing anything today, so she volunteers to watch Ruby. In one of the most delightful Danvers sisters scenes in a while, Alex and Kara bicker about a time when Alex “made” her watch the Shining, and Kara had nightmares for a week.

On the surface, this scene was delightful because it allowed us to hear the Danvers sisters talk about something unrelated to their work or their love lives, both of which tend to dominate their usual scenes together. Reminiscing about their childhood reminded the audience just how normal these two wonder women truly are, while also indicating just how little we know about their childhood together. Taking into consideration all of the scenes we’ve been privy to between Kara and Eliza Danvers, it makes me wonder how much of a mother, rather than a sister, Alex had to be to Kara. Even 12, 14 years later, Eliza acts distant and unsure of how to treat Kara, so perhaps Alex’s maternal instinct has been there longer than we realize.

Sometimes Supergirl throws storylines and characters by the wayside (e.g. Jeremiah Danvers and Cadmus, Kara’s job as a reporter), but they are not letting go of Alex wanting kids, and honestly, I now think it’s for the best. When the storyline first came about, it demonstrated how rushed and underdeveloped Alex and Maggie’s relationship was, being months away from getting married and not having discussed major life decisions. It also seemed odd that someone in Alex’s line of work, someone who puts their life in danger everyday and who suffered the pain of “losing” her father in the line of duty would want to place a child into the mix, but as soon as Alex explained her reasoning to Kara in “The Faithful” everything made sense.

Nothing more purely and distinctly displays who Alex Danvers is as a person than her desire to validate someone else’s existence, to let them know that the world is a better place with them in it, just like she does with Kara, just like she has done for a portion of the LGBT community. If we have to see her at this heartbroken low point, than we also deserve to see her living her most fulfilling life. And Alex deserves the opportunity to raise her children with more love and understanding than Maggie’s parents did. To raise them in a way that prevents them from ever having that split second of shame that they’re a disappointment because they’re different. To make sure they are loved and supported unconditionally, because when you are, you can become a super girl. This episode could have been a glimpse into all of that potential and positive messaging, but this Ruby storyline failed her. More on that later.

The DEO tracks Coville’s mystery priestess, Jindah Kol Rozz, to, you guessed it, Fort Rozz, which Kara previously hurled into space. Because the prison currently orbits a blue star, Kara won’t have powers, so she heads off to assemble an elite squad who can survive an atmosphere poisonous to anyone with a Y chromosome. She’s after allies with beauty, brains, and a brazen disregard for Reign’s politics.

Strutting through a retro diner to “Barracuda,” Leslie Willis heads outside for her break, when Supergirl drops in with the understanding that Livewire is hiding from Reign. Never one to hide from a threat herself, Supergirl sucks up every once of pride she has and asks Livewire for help defeating the worldkiller. Livewire saw the Christmas fight and has no desire to be pummeled, but changes her mind upon learning Kara will be 100% human on this mission.

In a move of self-preservation, Psi joins the team, head adorned with a psychic dampening crown like the queen she is. Before they depart, Mon-El mansplains how to captain the Legion ship to Imra, who assures him she’ll be fine, having operated the ship more than him. The squad heads on their way with a power walk on level: Expert.

The re-emergence of Fort Rozz makes it clear how far the show has come in certain aspects, but also makes a clear disconnect between the show’s current ideology and its execution. With the Fort Rozz prisoners, the worst in the galaxy, out of the picture, the show took the opportunity to introduce more good aliens and more human threats, rather than alien threats. However, in a second season that proclaimed a pro-immigration, pro-refugee mindset, there were still a surprising number of alien antagonists. With Reign as the big bad this season, that trend has continued. I understand that Supergirl needs a powerful season-long foe to face or else the threat can be too quickly and easily resolved, so that foe most likely needs to be an alien, but turning aliens into antagonists is not working to prove their positive message about immigrants and refugees. It’s sad to see Supergirl be aware of what they could be saying, but not fully embracing and succeeding in this wonderful opportunity to be a politically relevant show with statements about the beauty and value of diversity.

Lena gives Sam last minute tips on doing L Corp justice while on her business trip, but Sam never makes it onto her plane because she gets whammied with the Reign vibes. Reign blames her slow arrival at the Fortress on Sam’s strength. The Dark Kryptonian sends Reign to Fort Rozz to prevent Supergirl from learning the extent of their mission from Jindah.

It’s always a tricky balance when characters know more information than the audience. Sometimes it comes across as more confusing than intriguing when not executed clearly enough. In this case, Reign and the Dark Kryptonian talking about their “mission” and their “plans” without mentioning any details came across as trying too hard to make the characters look villainous when we already knew they were villains.

Having arrived at Fort Rozz, the squad takes a look around, running into a warrior prisoner who goes after Supergirl. Stepping in to protect Supergirl, Psi receives a hit to the head. Imra checks on Psi, now sans her dampener, and learns firsthand how her powers work. Supergirl still has skill without her superstrength and knocks the warrior out. When she awakes, the warrior gives them directions to Jindah in hopes they wind up like the others: screaming until they vanish.

Why did we not get to see what Imra’s nightmare was? We’ve seen Kara’s, Reign’s, the random bee guys’ and snake guy’s in “Triggers,” but not Imra’s. Not to reiterate too much of what I said last week, but this was another missed opportunity to give us insight into who Imra is since they insist on keeping the Legion around for a while. This is her forth episode, and I can’t get a read on her personality, other than she seems a bit like a goody two shoes, not that there’s anything wrong with that in the real world, but in storytelling, it’s not all that interesting. Perhaps not showing her nightmare was a deliberate move to save this information for a storyline in the future, but withholding this information from the audience does not come across as the strongest and smartest storytelling move. If we’re supposed to trust her now so we can be shocked when the information comes out, this isn’t helping; it’s only creating suspicion and mistrust. If the goal is to create suspicion and mistrust, then one of the characters should have the same feeling the audience does to indicate that we’re on the right track.

Losing a game of Trivial Pursuit, Alex hops up for food. Her phone buzzes, and when Ruby says the text is from Maggie, Alex looks like her whole world shattered. Same, girl, same. Alex snaps back to reality, claiming she’s fine, but it’s a lie. Maggie thinks she left her passport behind. Sure enough, Ruby finds it in the drawer right below where they left their rings. Then Alex continues to speak for the fandom: “I really thought I was moving on, but I still feel so sad.” Ruby extends her hand, and Alex grabs it in comfort. “It’s like this is my life now, and I can’t do anything about it.” Ruby understands the sentiment. She’s being cyberbullied by a girl she wouldn’t let copy her homework. Alex jumps into mama bear mode because she can do something about this.

A solar flare strikes the star, allowing Brainy just a few moments to give the squad a heads up before their ship gets knocked off course and pulled into the star’s inner orbit. Of course, something’s jammed, so the ship can’t detach from Fort Rozz, leaving them one or two hours to live. Still determined to find Jindah, Supergirl and Livewire head back onto Fort Rozz. Imra and Psi remain behind to re-establish communication with the DEO.

Back on the train of convenient timing, a solar flare causing problems on the mission sounds like one of those story points you write down as a filler with the intention to go back and change it to something better, but they never did. Any problems arising on this mission would have been better had they come about because of human agency, not natural events. How much more insightful and impactful would it have been if Reign had been the cause of their plunge into the star? Or if someone aboard the Legion ship made a decision that turned out to be the wrong one and created an equally as dangerous “problem”? And I put problem in quotations because the ship falling into the star did not create a sense of dread, did not really increase the stakes, and did not change the plan. Even if Supergirl failed to question the priestess, she would have learned about the other worldkillers once they awoke.

Livewire asks Supergirl what the deal is with “that beautiful girl,” aka Imra, to which Supergirl explains the marriage situation. And this, dearest readers, is where the show runs us more off course than Kara’s pod. We made it 21 minutes of a 42-minute episode before having the women fall into a conversational stereotype, which isn’t terrible, but not great either. The most troubling part of this conversation is how incorrectly Supergirl answered the question and what message that answer sends. Livewire asked specifically about Imra, not about Imra and Supergirl, and yet Supergirl chose to define Imra by her relationship with Mon-El. Imra is a telekinetic superhero, a founding member of a team that fights for justice, and a woman from another planet. All three pieces of information are just as useful to define Imra, but Supergirl chose the selfish and self-wallowing option. What would have been more interesting than hearing information we already knew, would be receiving new insight into Supergirl’s mindset regarding Reign. How does Supergirl feel about Reign being a fellow Kryptonian? What other secrets did Supergirl’s family and planet have?

Livewire soon moves on to the topic of Reign, assuming they’re gathering information on how to kill her, but they’re not. Supergirl is going to get through to the good in Reign, just like she got through to the good in Livewire. Livewire retains that she’s bad to the bone, but when presented with the chance to obliterate a defenseless Supergirl, she passes.

Alex flashes her FBI badge at Erika, the cyberbully, who has an overload of attitude after just one word. Erika claims she didn’t mean any of the 23 harassing messages about Ruby. So long as Erika apologizes and promises to never bully anyone again, Alex won’t send her to juvie. Mission: Accomplished.

As amusing as it was to see Alex use her clever and intimidating side in order to get her way, her solution to Ruby’s bully problem does not set a proper precedent for a child. Even though Alex has used the same tactics on Winn and a few criminals here and there, her judgment has always been fairly solid, so I have a bit of a difficult time believing that Alex would actually do this. On a grander scale, the show is not sending the right message when they had such a great opportunity to actually discuss a problem as prevalent as bullying with two characters we’ve grown attached to. In “Falling,” Supergirl swooped in when a girl was being bullied and showed her bullies that kindness is the way to go, but in this episode, the chance to give the younger audience another example to live by was forsaken for more of a comedic bit.

Frustrated by the archaic DEO, Brainy suggests sending themselves a message in a bottle highlighting how to reestablish communicate with the Legion ship. It’s just as high-tech and reliable. This spurs Winn’s thoughts, and he realizes they can bounce a signal off space probes from the ‘70s.

Sometimes Supergirl gets friendships and partnerships so right, and sometimes they miss the mark. Here’s an instance of the latter. Why are Winn and Brainy bickering over technology and competing to see who’s smarter? Winn and Lena managed to collaborate more than once without vying for the top spot. Supergirl and Lena have semi-valid reasons to dislike one another because of her family’s continual attempts to murder her and her cousin, but they manage to get along splendidly. So why can’t two men put aside any pride or self-importance to save their friends from certain death? They have so much to learn from one another, such as Brainy learning to think outside the box and tap into human creativity, and Winn learning about future technologies.

While Imra works on the ship, Psi recites, “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” staring out the window at Reign’s pod entering Fort Rozz. Having been separated from Livewire by wraith-like prisoners, Supergirl finds Jindah, who spills prophecy about Supergirl and Reign and the other worldkillers until Reign burns out her heart.

Supergirl tries to get through to Reign by saying she sees good in Reign; she sees a part of Reign that understands the pain she’s causing. Reign’s too stubborn to be swayed and shoots laser beams at Supergirl, but Livewire sacrifices herself for Supergirl. Psi hits Reign with her power, causing Reign to see Ruby, screaming, falling into the black abyss. For a moment, Sam emerges, confused, but Reign soon regains control.

Odette Annable is a godsend in this role. Even in a brief moment with a minimal amount of dialogue, she proves that Reign is right – Sam has strength, fighting to stay at the forefront of her body, but losing… this time. Reign and Livewire are both rather tragic characters. It’s sad that Livewire believed that someone as evil as Reign deserves to die and then chose to sacrifice herself. It makes me wonder if the writers intended to imply that Livewire thought of herself as someone as evil as Reign, and thus deserving of her fate, because she certainly did not. Livewire’s sacrifice to protect someone she used to hate is a testament to the power of Supergirl’s positive influence and provides hope for Reign’s redemption. But what specifically does Supergirl see in Reign to make her think that Reign has good beneath her ominous exterior? We know there’s good in there because we’re in the loop about her true identity, but there hasn’t been an instance of Supergirl witnessing Sam’s influence over Reign. It would be surprising and a shame if Reign didn’t find redemption by the end of the season. Or maybe I’m just selfish because I’ve grown rather attached to Sam.

Alex addresses an envelope to Maggie and thanks Ruby for helping her through this situation. No problem. Ruby had fun hanging out with her. Sam knocks, and then enters, because apparently highly trained DEO agents don’t need to lock their doors. Alex asks Sam about her trip, and for a moment, it looked like Reign was about to make an appearance, but Sam just stands there trying to make sense of the question. She doesn’t recall taking a trip, then realizes she’s been losing time. Something’s wrong with her. Understatement of the year.

Mon-El joins Kara on the DEO balcony and offers his emotional support, claiming to be wiser now. Kara wonders if Livewire would still be alive had she gotten through to Reign’s humanity. Mon-El sympathizes with losing soldiers in battle and praises Kara for having gotten through to Livewire. She gave Livewire something to fight for, to sacrifice for. She changed Livewire’s heart for the better, and she didn’t even need the yellow sun. And then something weird happened… I agreed with Mon-El… because he’s right.

This sentiment right here is what Supergirl is all about – you don’t need superpowers, you don’t need alien DNA in order to be a hero. Supergirl set out to be a show about hope, about fighting for what you believe in, about proving to others and to yourself that you are strong and capable no matter how weak you feel. This is the message the show, and we as people, should be sending out into the world. Not that intimidation and threatening are the way to resolve your conflicts. Not that someone’s most defining characteristic is their relationship status. Not that being better than your rival is the ultimate goal. In a season about each character re-discovering their own humanity, I only hope that this concept is the way that Reign is stopped from her worldkilling agenda. Not by pummeling her, not by capturing her, but by reaching out to find Sam’s heroism so the show can once again spread a message of hope.

Two women walk and talk about work until an out-of-control car slams one of them (Julia) into another car. Julia’s completely fine, and it looks like she’s about to have her own worldkiller awakening.

ODDS AND ENDS:

– Legacy casting fun fact: Sarah Douglas, who played Jindah Kol Rozz in this episode, played the villain Ursa in Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980).

– Are we ever going to meet Mrs. Queller, or will she just be a faceless name?

– Why does Imra need to touch her temple to use her telekinesis? Have we not evolved enough as television viewers over the decades to understand what she can do without visual cues?

– Is it just me or do Mon-El and Imra not act like a married couple? She went on a dangerous mission and there wasn’t even an “I love you. Please don’t die.” Nor a welcome back kiss. Maybe they censored their interactions to spare Kara’s feelings, but it’s a little odd.

– Ruby: You’re like the toughest person I’ve ever met.
Alex: That is the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.

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