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“Suspicious Minds” brings us back to National City where Colonel Haley is all about figuring out Supergirl’s secret identity, Alex is all about hiding it, and Brainy is all about getting Supergirl a support system, especially a beautiful one. We’re excited to be back after the holiday break especially with only one small mention of the Children of Liberty. We got some real stuff going on and that means a welcome return of our “Supergirl!” Let’s break it all down, shall we? Our storylines this week are all song titles so let’s hit it!

Suspicious Look In Your Eyes [The Hollies]

Kara is hanging out with Lena at a spin class when she overhears a distress call from a Colonel McAlister. Supergirl finds a cargo ship with a Navy Seal team on board, all of them killed except for one whom she saves from drowning. There is also a bomb on board so in the process of getting rid of it she notices a shimmer of light that pulls McAlister overboard. When Col Haley, Alex, and Brainy show up Col Haley quickly dismisses Supergirl as mucking up the situation and is basically quite rude. Supergirl promises DEO or not (by the way, they took the DEO out of the opening monologue) she’s not stopping being a hero. Nyahhhh! Kara then finds out that the Coast Guard has no record of the cargo ship and the Seal that Supergirl saved has “disappeared,” according to Brainy. Col Haley has tasked Alex with finding the shimmering alien so after she and Kara compare notes they decide to get official Private Investigator J’onn J’onzz on the case. His new business office is swanky! And he happens to have all of his files from the time he was at the DEO. Really? They just let him have them?! Anywho, Kara and J’onn go back through the files to figure out that the aliens are the Morai and that they have cloaking ability that apparently shows up to Supergirl’s x-ray vision as a shimmer. It also seems that McAlister, a Colonel Tam, and a certain Col Lauren Haley were in on experimenting on the Morai. Hmmmmmmmm. Supergirl, J’onn, and Alex show up at Tam’s house and confront him. The evil Musketeers weapon-ized the aliens to be assassins and as soon as President Baker put the hammer down on alien interactions the Morai were to be taken out. They didn’t appreciate that so they took out McAlister, and they’re here now to take out Tam. J’onn tries to save Tam but he’s dead. Alex stuns one of them and when they suggest taking it back to the DEO it decides suicide is a better option. Haley admits to Alex her involvement but says it’s been years since she was a part of it and yes while it’s wrong to subject young aliens to traumatic tactics to get their loyalty as a soldier Alex should understand that unpopular choices have to be made to save the country. Alex gets the DEO ready for a Morai assault since they’re going to be coming for Haley. Sure enough they come and wreak Morai havoc; but, Supergirl comes at the last second to save Haley and capture a live Morai.

Gonna Be More Susupicious [Robin Trower]

On the agenda of Col Haley is to interrogate all of the DEO staff to find out who knows who Supergirl is. Seriously, interrogate them. Alex holds a quick pow-wow for Brainy and the five nameless agents who know her real identity and they swear allegiance to go down with their secret intact. Brainy tells Alex that he can compartmentalize his knowledge and suppress it for a certain time so that he won’t be able to reveal anything. Sure enough Haley takes him in for questioning. As Alex debriefs him and he laughs at the suggestion that Kara and Supergirl are the same person until it does hit him. It was the highlight of the episode, frankly. Sure enough the one who spoke the allegiance of the nameless five is the one to break and spill everything. Haley is positively ecstatic that she knows the truth and can spit it in Alex’s face that she’s been keeping the information from the light of day. After Supergirl saves her from the Morai, Haley immediately starts spewing her evil plan to conscript Supergirl back into service to do exactly what Haley wants or she’ll be more than happy to let the secret out and find out what happens to anyone close to Kara used as targets. Alex standing there taking all of this in immediately decks Haley. All God’s children said “Amen!” Alex and Supergirl call J’onn to come and wipe Haley’s mind of her newfound knowledge. J’onn isn’t happy about the violence of it but agrees to do it. The next day Haley is “reset” so she turns to using a truth-seeker alien on all of the DEO staff to get to Supergirl’s real identity. A hard choice must be made to mind wipe the five nameless agents of their knowledge. Oh, and Alex too. Kara is devastated. She only became Supergirl to save Alex and having to lie to her every day is going to be horrible. Alex being the big sister assures her that it’s all going to be fine. In a heart-wrenching final shot, J’onn reaches out to erase Alex’s knowledge of Kara being Supergirl.

Suspicious Minds [Elvis Pressley]

Brainy goes by to see J’onn at his new P.I. digs and tries to awkwardly pay him to be part of Supergirl’s support system, saying she’s going to need a “Girl Friday.” J’onn assures him that Brainy didn’t need to ask, that he’s already on team Supergirl. Later on Brainy reaches out to Nia Nal to set up an eating. Of food. If she likes food. At an establishment that serves food. Nia agrees thinking that he has asked her out on a date. When they get together Brainy explains that it is a meeting because he never thought anyone as beautiful as her would be interested in someone like him. She agrees she’s not sure she’s interested but she’ll hear him out either way. He explains that he would like her to join Supergirl’s team with her newfound abilities. She’s hesitant to even talk about it but she does take his binder full of costume and even name ideas for her hero persona. And our other happy couple, James and Lena, have not made up since their fallout at Thanksgiving. Lena finally takes Kara’s advice that James might be more open-minded than she thinks and goes to him to make amends. James realizes that sitting on his high horse did not help anything and indeed amends are made. Easy peasy come and squeeze me. Ummmmmm, what?! Anywho, Lena later explains that she is working on Steve Rogers super serum and she asks for James’ support because there are going to be philosophical questions and other things that come up as this keeps going. He smiles, “yeah baby, I got you.” Key the image of James as Captain America in his mind. Yes, I’m crossing the streams but you get it. Don’t even go there with me. 🙂

Closing Thoughts

What a fantastic coming back from the holiday break! We got emphasis on our core group of characters, we got a fundamental question of treatment of aliens at the expense of our own souls, and we got one heckuva spin on the overall narrative of our story with the mind wipe of Alex now not knowing that Kara is Supergirl. What a twist that I for one did not see coming. I know that the Children of Liberty will rear their ugly head again but the further off the better as far as I’m concerned. This episode gave me everything I could ask. Yes, it’s a little disappointing that Haley went from questionable to mustache-twirling villain and yes, it makes no sense that J’onn could walk out of the DEO with all of his files; but, overall I was entertained and moved to tears watching Kara lose it over the perceived loss of her sister. That will go down as one of Benoist’s finest scenes I am sure. If we can keep this kind of quality up for the back half of this season I’m going to be one happy podcaster!

Next time on Supergirl!

Season 4, Episode 11, “Blood Memory”
Kara joins Nia on a trip to Nia’s hometown to visit her family during the town’s annual Harvest Festival. While home, Nia’s mother (guest star Kate Burton) encourages her daughter to embrace her destiny. Meanwhile, Alex deals with a street drug that is turning people violent and giving them temporary superpowers.

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