Welcome to The Pop Break’s weekly round up of all the DCTV that the CW could squeeze into its schedule. Currently, Legends of Tomorrow and Black Lightning are not in season, but check back to this space in January when they are expected to premiere. In the meantime, stick around as we track Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, and Arrow as this super-powered quartet embark on a collision course to the epic multi-night crossover event: Crisis on Infinite Earths!
Supergirl (Season 5, Episode 3): “Blurred Lines”
National City, you have a tattoo spider problem. That is what we quickly learn in a very rushed cold open featuring William Day trying to convince a scientist to do something for him before The Girl with the Spider Tattoo lets her tattoo come to life and…murder the scientist in a nightclub bathroom?!? Before you have a chance to absorb any of that truly wild sequence we cut to opening credits and the start of the episode, where Kara, Alex, James, and Kelly are all hanging out in one of those friend quartets where your sister is dating your ex’s sister and you all hang out and it’s not weird…is that not a thing for you? Well the Olsens and Danverses don’t think it is because they have bigger fish to fry.
Alex expresses some worry that Kelly is too trusting, especially a concern now that a shapeshifter (J’on’s brother who just went by Mal this week) tried to hurt her…even though last week Alex was really the target. Anyway, James let everyone know his sister can take care of her self! Surprise, surprise: the next hour is about to show how much she, in fact, cannot. Instead of heeding Alex’s advice, she does exactly the opposite and overextends herself to privately help a man (Sean Astin, Stranger Things) who she thinks is an old patient. Of course, it turns out to be Mal, and he manipulates Kelly into accidentally unlocking his mind control powers (or Martian Inception Abilities, as he puts it). Astin is a surprising choice for such a small role, but he does a great job playing Mal’s trauma and desperation.
Mal tries to use those powers to make Kelly kill herself, but J’onn and the gang intervene just in time, though not before we realize Kelly can now see Mal no matter what form he takes, making her their most powerful weapon against him…so they, of course, whisk her away with James to part unknown for her own safety. I guess she did just show them she really can’t take care of herself so…
Meanwhile, Kara is beginning to suspect something is up with William beyond being an ambitious jerk. He tries to keep her from investigating the scientist from the cold open’s mysterious death, and she later realizes he spoke to the scientist just prior to his death. The show seems to be setting William up as this nefarious reporter with a secret despite having a stellar reputation as a world-class investigative journalist. My guess is that we ultimately find out that William actually IS as good as his reputation suggests and he is currently working at CatCo and getting in good with the new boss as a cover for a huge exposé he’s writing on Leviathan, the secret organization teased at the end of last season who very clearly is responsible for both mysterious assassins featured in this week’s episode.
Kara doesn’t have time to confront William on her discovery, however, because she quickly figures out The Girl with the Spider Tattoo is definitely responsible for the scientist’s murder and actually that tattoo is an alien…or something? I’m not sure honestly because she show rushes through it so much that I don’t think it particularly cares. It does result in a scene where Alex takes a jar of two spiders, formerly tattoos, and tells us she’s bringing them to lock up, which was the comedy moment of the night for me.
Eventually, the Superfriends beat The Girl with the Spider Tattoo but before Kara can get her to admit who she works for, a meta-assassin pops up and murders her before quickly disappearing. She also spends part of this episode falling totally victim to Lena’s manipulative attempt to gain access to Lex’s diaries by stealing them from federal custody. Her choice, and her indecision over whether she should, is what gives us this week’s episode.
The highlight of tonight’s episode, however, is the incredible acting performance of David Harewood as J’onn works with Nia to use her dream powers to help unlock the truth about his brother. I wasn’t expecting these revelations to come quite so quickly, but I’m glad they didn’t drag this reveal out too long. Harewood truly has mastered the ability to deliver sci-fi exposition in such dramatically compelling and emotionally earnest ways, that the inner turmoil he feels as he slowly realizes the truth (that his brother had “inception powers” and was cut off from the Martian hive mind, making him a danger so he was locked away only to ally with the White Martians in the Martian Civil War) is all that matters.
Later, Nia returns to J’onn to let him know that there was more he hadn’t seen, and J’onn is devastated to learn he actually erased the memory of his brother from the Martian hive mind. In Martian culture this is equivalent to murder and the greatest of sins. Harewood’s anguish is palatable and his swearing Nia to secrecy is shocking. He is so deeply ashamed that he cannot even tell his allies and surrogate family what he did and why Mal wants to hurt him.
Harewood’s arc with Manchester Black was a high point of last season. It appears the show is giving him an even meatier arc this season, and so far he is knocking it out of the park. I am excited to see where this goes and how this all factors into The Monitor’s master plan (as he freed Mal and sent him right in J’onn’s path) as time progresses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j26DzX1v7qk
