Supergirl #3.16 “Of Two Minds” Recap & Review

As Pestilence’s poison starts to spread, Kara races to track her down before Imra has the chance to kill the future Blight. Lena continues to experiment on Sam in hopes of discovering what triggers her transformation. Here is a recap and review of the Supergirl episode “Of Two Minds.”

RECAP & REVIEW:

Diving deeper into the Worldkiller mythology, “Of Two Minds” revealed a few tidbits of new information about both Reign and Pestilence, while navigating storylines that explored the big picture questions of morality and choice. This episode managed to put the women of the show back into the spotlight, focusing on their jobs, skills, intelligence, and beliefs, and highlighted the strength of the various platonic relationships, rather than reducing any of the characters to relationship drama. It’s progress, but only slightly. This combination should have made for a fascinating, enlightening, thought-provoking episode, but it didn’t land with as much of an impact as it could have, being a relatively unmemorable hour.

“Of Two Minds” touched upon a couple of interesting moral quandaries, even if it didn’t explore them fully. The ethics of scientific experimentation on humans has often been found in superhero and science fiction series, but this episode took an unusual path, exploring the topic from the perspective of consent as Sam came around to agreeing to the procedure for the greater good. Regardless, it maintained a one-sided argument by having Lena and Sam be on the same page, by having Sam say this was no different than what “they” would be doing to her without her consent, and by having the secrecy of this experimentation presumably blow up in Lena’s face next episode. With the rather unnerving extreme of electrocution, it’s acceptable to reach a conclusion about its immorality, but it left out the discussion and went straight for the conclusion.

The title, “Of Two Minds,” is more applicable to Kara and Imra’s conflict, as they navigated the idea of whether or not morals should be absolute or fluid depending on the situation. Even though the two opposing stances on this topic were present, the characters shut one another down before hearing each other out, which prevented a discussion, once again. Supergirl has an array of characters with such vastly different upbringings that it’s a shame they don’t infuse more opportunities for characters to learn from different cultures and ideologies.

I didn’t dislike this episode; I just wish it was better. I wish it did more with the topics it had to work with. I wish this season as a whole made more of a bold statement and presented a powerful, inspiring message. One day I’ll write a review without going off on a tangent about something problematic, but today is unfortunately not that day. So let’s begin.

Examining a dead bird, Alex can’t figure out what killed it, but it’s not contagious. When Pestilence grows stronger and turns into Blight, the disease will spread at an alarming rate, so Imra suggests killing Pestilence beforehand. Kara adamantly disagrees, determined to reach Pestilence’s humanity. Half of City Hall falls ill from Pestilence’s plague, but the DEO has no leads on her location or identity.

If Lena can isolate what triggers Sam’s genome into being rewritten, she can eliminate Reign. Until then, Lena needs to electrocute Sam because pain brings Reign to the forefront. Sam consents, knowing it’s going to hurt… a lot. In the Dark Valley, the parallel dimension that traps her alter ego, Reign tries to lure Sam into surrendering to a life of power and control, but Sam resists. Sam wakes, thinking Lena doesn’t understand what it’s like facing your shadow, facing every dark thing you’ve ever feared about yourself.

These scenes weren’t necessarily about Lena, but Lena does understand this concept all too well. It didn’t dawn on me until this moment, but Lena and Sam have a lot in common. They’re both trying to do good, despite the presence of darkness in their lives. They’re both career-driven, working to stand on their own merits. They both have strained relationships with their families and moments of doubt about who they truly are. I know I’m back in broken record mode about how much I love Lena and Sam being friends, but if we’re not going to see Kara and Lena’s friendship, at least we’ve got this depiction of a supportive, understanding relationship. However, as wonderful as it is to see this relatively drama-free relationship, it meant these scenes didn’t have an edge, a conflict to make them dynamic and informative. It missed the chance to show us how they work through problems, how much they trust one another even when they disagree, and how they navigate the personal and professional divide.

While drawing their blood to extract the Legion’s cure, Imra tells Mon-El that Kara’s not taking this mission seriously. Mon-El agrees with Kara’s stance, refusing to compromise the Legion’s morals, but Imra says only success matters. Winn falls ill, so the DEO gives him the cure, which they’re disseminating around town. Kara confronts Imra about wanting to kill Pestilence. You can’t pick and choose when your ideas matter. You either live by them, or you don’t. In the future, Kara fails to reach Pestilence’s humanity, so Imra’s willing to sacrifice one person to save millions.

“Supergirl doesn’t kill…” except when it comes to Rhea, various other Daxamites, a sentient robot, Parasite… who did I forget? I am not condoning killing, but I want to look at this issue through a story perspective. Trying to make Supergirl take this moral high ground is 1) inaccurate and startling since it’s never been stated prior to the middle of season three, and 2) completely erases the nuances of any given situation by only assuming the options as black and white. Supergirl is about helping people, saving people; she shouldn’t kill people, but she also shouldn’t be presented as having a superiority complex that prevents her from hearing out another perspective prior to the final act when the problem has already been resolved.

Kara and Imra’s conflict did not demonstrate the value in listening with an open mind because you may learn something and then understand someone a little better, even if you don’t end up agreeing with their point of view. It did not demonstrate how using logic and empathy to reason with someone is more effective than declaring your position as correct and then shutting down the discussion. It did not demonstrate trying to reach an understanding, but rather encouraged stubbornness until you win out.

J’onn gives Kara a nugget of wisdom: just keep trying. “Just because something’s hard, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. You break through impossible everyday, and you inspire the rest of us to do the same.” Since Pestilence is not yet Blight, the cure doesn’t work on Winn. Alex passes out, also infected. Winn confides in James that he finally made peace with his mother, with his issues, but feels so much unfulfilled potential with his knowledge. James reassures him that he’ll do everything he wants, then calls Lena, who’s already working on the worldkiller problem.

Scenes like these between Kara and J’onn, between James and Winn, and later between Alex and J’onn make it clear how underutilized these actors are, especially when it comes to the familial bonds that have formed amongst different duos. The past couple of episodes have been fairly decent with highlighting their emotional vulnerabilities, but there is still room for reminders that Kara, James, and Winn were more than co-workers; they were the original Superfriends. Kara and Alex have half a lifetime of history between them that we’ve barely been privy to, and it feels like they haven’t had a TV marathon and popcorn night it quite some time. One thing this episode did right was take the time to include these personal scenes, but now it’s set an expectation for more.

Winn’s desire to do more with his intelligence, to invent, to change the world with technology could be a set up to writing Winn out at the end of the season. It would make sense… if he hadn’t told James in “Crossfire” how amazing it was to finally be doing important work and how addictive being a hero was. Even if he goes off to “change” the world, he might not be “saving” the world, unless his new career path is related to medical equipment, environmental protection, etc., but none of his mentioned ideas were. I know we’re not to that point yet, but I’d have an easier time believing that Winn would even consider pursuing other fields of interest if the DEO weren’t the perfect opportunity to combine his love of science/technology and saving the world. Why has his intelligence not been utilized to create more weapons, tools, and safety gear beyond what he did for Guardian and Mon-El’s suits? He could already be fulfilling his dreams if they allowed him to step out from behind the computer.

Determined to beat Reign, Sam enters the Dark Valley, then exits in a panic because Reign threatened to kill Ruby. Sam suggests asking Alex or Supergirl for help, but Lena says doctors and/or the government will lock her up and dissect her. That doesn’t sound any worse to Sam than what they’re doing now. Lena will figure this out and promises to protect Ruby.

A parallel dimension that entraps Sam and Reign when the other is in control sounded like such a fascinating idea, but it turned out to be largely underwhelming and inconsequential. As solid of a performer as Odette Annable is in these scenes, Reign’s attempts to persuade Sam to the dark side failed to land in these two repetitive scenes with minimal escalation. Reign’s surface-level reasoning did not demonstrate how well Reign knows Sam. It would have been enlightening if Reign attempted to persuade Sam with a well-reasoned argument that sounded beneficial and empowering. Then, when that didn’t work, Reign could have switched up her tactics to prey on Sam’s insecurities as a working mother and fears about failing Ruby in a way similar to what Purity did with Alex in “Both Sides Now.” Alternately, these scenes could have used a physical manifestation of Sam’s choice, forcing her to choose a path or action in the Dark Valley that represented her ultimate decision.

Uncovering a potential lead on Pestilence’s identity, the DEO tracks Dr. Grace Parker to a health insurance building. Yup, she’s Pestilence. Supergirl attempts to reason with Grace, citing her vow to “do no harm,” but Grace is done worrying about saving lives. She has control over death, making her a god. A fight ensues, weakening Pestilence. Purity drops in, strengthening Pestilence enough to fly away together. At least the DEO got Pestilence’s DNA for the cure. Alex and Winn recover.

Kara and Imra both admit they should’ve listened to the other’s point of view. Imra finally reveals what Psi showed her on Fort Rozz: her sister’s death by Blight. The DEO gets an alert that the Worldkillers are headed straight toward L Corp. Supergirl and co. crash into Lena’s lab just before Purity and Pestilence arrive. Sam transforms into Reign, tells Supergirl “El Mayarah,” and flies away with her sisters.

So the DEO managed to uncover through their own means the human identities of two Worldkillers, but not Reign’s, the one who they’ve had the most interactions with, the one who’s been around the longest? Sam’s identity was a huge reveal, a moment they’ve been building toward for the entire season, but the moment itself had no impact. It was not an accomplishment; it was an accident, and we barely saw Supergirl’s reaction. Granted it might be an aspect best left to explore over the course of the entire next episode. At least this secret is now out in the open and should make for some interesting conversations amongst this group of friends.

The identity of the third Worldkiller being another character unknown to the core group seems somewhat underwhelming and repetitive of Purity’s storyline, but it’s been given a twist that might have the potential to shape it into something more interesting and different. Grace embracing her power and not wanting to be saved was an unexpected aspect that distinguishes her from Sam and Julia, to an extent. It creates diversity of ideas among a group that should be in solidarity. And speaking of diversity, we’ve got a problem.

I love that the three Worldkillers are all powerful women in their Kryptonian form and have different, equally as respectable human jobs. Being a single mom is no less important than being a doctor. Being a student is no less important than being a businesswoman. Women can be heroes, and women can be villains, but when your three villains are racially diverse characters literally trying to destroy the world, that makes an appalling statment. I’m all for colorblind casting; whoever’s the best actor/actress should get the part, but it’s important to pay attention to the message you’re sending when the villains are exclusively diverse hires with little to no chance of sticking around after this season and you don’t have a greater display of heroic diversity proving that villainy is not the norm.

ODDS AND ENDS:

– The new, less blue version of Brainy doesn’t quite work as well as the character in costume, although he looks less staged. His humor is often rooted in his identity as a half computer, half organic 12^th level intellect, but without the visual reminder that his understanding of humanity is not on par with full humans, he comes across as weirdly awkward.

– The Worldkillers’ costumes look pretty sweet, but I wish Reign’s had a bit of color detailing like the other two.

– Kara: Do you think I’ll get through to Pestilence?
J’onn: There’s no way of knowing. You just have to try.
Kara: That’s not what Yoda would say.