Supergirl Episode 214: Homecoming

Supergirl episode 214, titled Homecoming, aired this week and was, in my mind, the weakest episode of the season. That kind of surprised me. This was the episode that marked the return of Dean Cain as Jeremiah Danvers. It looked to put the major Cadmus plot line back in the spotlight. And it came on the heels of the Mr. Mxyzptlk episode which I thought was one of the strongest so for. As a result, I had high hopes for this area.

Unfortunately, I had some issues with most of what happened within the episode. There are some plot holes within the episode which are just too big to simply ignore. There are some interactions between some characters which seem two-dimensional or clunky.

But most of all, my issue with this episode was the Mon-El and Kara relationship. I understand all too well that this has been a hot button issue for this season. I get that some people look at Mon-El as a toxic personality who is slowly bullying Kara into a romance. For me, I have been able to slide by with it because, despite their differences, the two characters (I guess in reality Melissa Benoist and Chris Wood) have had tremendous chemistry on the small screen. I guess ... until last night.

This episode, more than any, showed how two very different personalities like Kara and Mon-El simply wouldn't work together. In this episode, Mon-El goes against Kara's personal wishes for privacy. And then, while prudent to be suspicious of Jeremiah's return, goes about discussing it in a bristly and boorish manner that I cringed. This was the first episode that I honestly didn't like the guy. And if you are pushing this romance at us, you need both sides to be likeable.

Now that isn't to say there weren't good moments. Chyler Leigh continues to burn up the screen with her range of emotions. The actions sequences are very well done. And Helen Slater returned and gave an honest portrayal of what Eliza must be going through.

Still, this was hardly the romp of last week. I'm not pulling any punches so this is a long review.

The episode starts the morning after the last episode ended. Mon-El wakes up in Kara's bed to find her gone. The message is clear. He wonders if her not being there meant he was that bad ... or that good. (I hope this was a call back to when Kara wondered the same thing when she kissed James at the end of last season when he was mind-controlled.)

She clearly has been in a happy and energetic mood since the romantic tryst. We hear the news talk about how the city's 'feminist hero' has been stopping robberies and delivering puppies! She then returns with coffee, flowers, and a bright smile. There is a cute moment when she says she likes being able to kiss a guy without accidentally breaking his nose.

But duty calls, it is off to the DEO. Kara wants to keep their romance quiet so she asks Mon-El not to discuss it at work. Alas, as soon as they walk into the DEO, he announces it loudly that they are dating. I don't understand why he would need to do that. It felt like he was bragging ... or claiming his territory. The bottom line it wasn't respecting what she wanted.

I do like that J'onn makes them both go to HR to fill out forms and watch a mandatory Sexual Harassment seminar.

The DEO gets an alarm that a secret convoy is leaving a known Cadmus facility prompting Supergirl and the Martian Manhunter to intercept.

I like when the two heroes  fight side by side. And we get nice visuals of J'onn's powers, phasing through cars before flinging them in the air.

The 'weapon' they were transporting? A battered and chained Jeremiah Danvers.

Taken back to the DEO, he is examined by Alex. His right arm has suffered significant damage to the point he can't use his hand.

Jeremiah gives us some exposition of his backstory. Cadmus discovered him and the real Hank Henshaw in the Amazon (as seen last season). They made Jeremiah enhance Henshaw and then kept Danvers around to enhance others. He repeatedly tried to escape over the years but never could.

He also knows Cadmus made a nuclear fusion bomb by harnessing Supergirl's head vision (when they depowered her to take her blood earlier in the season). He can help them stop that plot.

Mon-El is somewhat suspicious from the start. Cadmus has never been so lazy as to allow themselves to be caught like this. It seems all too convenient. But Kara is a bit blinded by her happiness to hear it, even if he is rather blunt in his delivery.

The whole Danvers family has a welcome home celebration for Jeremiah.

Jeremiah meets Maggie and welcomes her into the family.'No man would be good enough for Alex' is a decent line. He hugs J'onn and thanks him for caring for his daughters.

In a touching side moment, he calls Eliza 'Lizzy' and hopes they can pick right up where they left off. She rightfully says that 14 years have gone by. They aren't who they were. They will need to learn each other again. Helen Slater can do no wrong in my book. She played this minor scene perfectly.

But then Mon-El decides to show off that uncouth and brutish Daxamite side again. He decides to confront Jeremiah at the dinner, wondering why it was so easy for him to be found. He wonders why J'onn would give Jeremiah full access to the DEO. He wonders if he can trust Jeremiah.

No listen, in a world where we have seen shape-changers and sentient robots and mind control, a healthy does of skepticism is probably a life-saving trait. But you don't wield it like a sledge hammer, especially not at the welcome dinner! It angers everyone, especially Alex.

It made no sense to me for him to do that there. Be a bit more subtle, or controlled. But, as we have seen all season, it isn't necessarily in Mon-El's nature to be those things.

Thankfully Kara calls him on it.
She pulls him aside and really lays into him for his behavior. He doesn't listen to her. He didn't respect her wish for privacy. He didn't respect her father or her family.

He apologizes ... but I don't know if understands why he is apologizing other than he angered her. When he says it is 2 strikes, she says she isn't baseball.  She tells him to leave. There was no chemistry here.

And this, more than anything, showed me why these two could never be together. She is caring. He is learning. But he never quite learns does he. The scene is well acted, no doubt. And if this was a 'we're on a break moment', I might have rolled. But it isn't.

Jeremiah shows him the door. He tells Mon-El that he knows who the Daxamite really is. And Kara wouldn't like it. And that was another reason why I felt this relationship wouldn't necessarily work. He has been hiding something this long. I have suspected he has been the Prince all along. But know I realize at some point he is going to have to tell her that. And then you have months of hiding that he'll have to explain.

Mon-El meets Winn in the alien bar and lays out why he doesn't trust Jeremiah. He hadn't been found for 14 years and then suddenly he drops in their laps just as a fusion bomb threat surfaces. He asks Winn to help him keep an eye on Jeremiah in the DEO.

His concerns makes sense. And he isn't blinded by happiness or family loyalties. Getting someone to listen like this is the right way to do things. He could have done this with J'onn on the side. There was no need for the dinner scene.

In return for helping, Winn asks Mon-El to simply treat Kara right. I like that. Winn is her oldest friend. He knows what she has been through. He should be looking out for her.

One thing I didn't like was that Lyra was at the bar and assumed the role of sex kitten. I was hoping for something more three-dimensional from her. I wanted more than just sitting in his lap, playing with his hair, being sexually aggressive. It didn't help that Mon-El toasted Winn for being with her. Yeesh.

Even J'onn seems too eager to accept Jeremiah back into the fold. Danvers is given full access to the DEO and quickly breaks into the organization's data mainframe. Luckily Winn sees it.

He and Mon-El decide to tell Kara. But the scene is also a bit too rough for me. Kara sees Mon-El and Winn waiting to ambush her with the information. When she tries to leave, Mon-El physically stops her. He grabs her and literally turns her around. It just felt a bit too creepy after everything else I had seen from him this episode.

When Kara hears about the data breach, she confronts her father in front of everyone. He admits he did it only to read case files of his daughters, to see what they had done.

It felt like Kara 'saw the light' about her father a little too quickly. And she confronted Alex a little too bluntly as well.

Finally the specific radiation of the fusion bomb is detected. Supergirl and Alex head to a warehouse only to see it is abandoned. It's a feint to draw the big guns out.

With the strike team away, Jeremiah heads to the mainframe and downloads some files. J'onn tries to read his mind but he can't He pummels Winn and J'onn while doing it, revealing he has a cybernetic right arm.

We see J'onn using his intangibility once but then he's overpowered. It seems outlandish that Jeremiah could defeat J'onn so easily in such a street style brawl.

So more problems now. You would think they would have scanned Jeremiah when he came into the DEO. No one discovered his robot arm? Not even Alex when she examined him?

And J'onn never tried to peek into Jeremiah's brain before this? Wouldn't he notice some sort of telepathic void? Or wouldn't he just do a simple scan given the recent spate of shape-shifters and imposters?

The fact Jeremiah got this far seems a little far-fetched, even on a show with a Martian leading a black ops group with a Kryptonian.

Winn had the right idea and planted a tracker on Jeremiah so the Danvers sisters follow their dad into a wooded area where he has met up with the Cyborg Superman.

Before a brawl can break out, Cadmus detonates a bomb on a nearby railway bridge. Kara has to speed off to save the train. She uses her heat vision to solder one track back in place and then holds the other while the train speeds over her. This is a great scene and a classic superhero trope so this made me happy.

But left to her own devices, Alex can't bring in her father. He says some things which make him seem less evil. He recognizes Alex as the best part of him. He promises her there is more to the story. But the only way she will bring him in is to shoot him dead. She can't do it and he runs off.

Again, Chyler Leigh kills it, showing such emotional pain as she calls her father out for betraying everyone. 

The only thing left to see is the fallout.

At the DEO, Kara worries that this will change  everything. J'onn hopes it will make everyone stronger.

Maggie walks in on Alex downing alcohol. She has to stop Alex from pouring more. Instead, Alex collapses into Maggie's arm and cries. It is another powerful scene from Leigh. But it again raised the specter of a drinking problem for Alex.

Later, at Kara's apartment, Mon-El shows up and she falls into his arm, asking him to spend the night to support her. He heeds Winn's advice, asking her what she wants.

But given everything about the early part of the episode, I just want Kara to recognize that in the big picture, this is just wrong.


It's peculiar. I have been a soft defender for the Kara/Mon-El relationship all season. I could understand the complaints but I thought it was just a 'opposites attract' thing, with Mon-El growing because of her. After this episode, I think it outright wrong. And I don't know if the series will be able to get me back on board.

In the end, we learn that Jeremiah stole the National Alien Registry, a list of all aliens living in the country. Now I'm really confused. Didn't the President sign the Amnesty Act? Does this list exist? How complete is it? Are there undocumented aliens?

I suppose it will play in nicely with the whole prejudice/bias theme which has been working its way through the season.

And finally we see Jeremiah talking to Lilian Luthor. Cadmus has been building something and it looks like a space ark of some kind. My guess, it is a new Fort Rozz. They are going to round up aliens and send them into the Phantom Zone.

So what can I say.

Mon-El's behavior seemed horrible. His vacillation between his crude upbringing and his new outlook is getting a bit tiresome. I just don't believe he can change and I can't believe Kara would see something in him after all this. I feel like I have been pulled all the way out for supporting that plotline.

While it is clear his fears about Jeremiah were justified, Mon could have gone about his investigation in a different way. And how the DEO let their guard down this much is lunacy. Just weeks ago two white Martians infiltrated the place. Why no standard screens?

I won't forget the good things, especially Chyler Leigh's performance from elation to anger to shock to despair all in 60 minutes. And Melissa Benoist is brilliant. But there was too much that seemed wrong here for me.

Posted in: Reviews