Supergirl S01E15 “Solitude” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky 1, new episodes every Friday
Writers: Anna Musky-Goldwin, Andrew Kreisberg
Director: Dermott Downs

Essential Plot Points:

• Kara, still angry at J’onn for supposedly killing Astra, decides it’s best to sever ties and do things on her own.
• A new villain, known as Indigo, decides to hack Earth’s technology and the internet to create chaos and unleash a nuclear apocalypse on the planet.
• Kara and the DEO start to work separately on trying to catch Indigo, and James brings Kara to the Fortress Of Solitude to help her find answers.
• As Kara fails to stop Indigo on her own and the DEO are also helpless they decide to work together once more.
• After defeating Indigo, Kara decides that she’s able to look past what J’onn did, only for Alex to reveal that, in fact, she was the one that killed Astra.
• James and Lucy’s relationship also comes to an end, as Lucy realises that James is in love with Kara and that the feeling is mutual.

Review:

The stakes have never been higher than in this week’s Supergirl, as Kara decides to part ways with the DEO and a cyber-alien decides to unleash armageddon on National City. Well, the episode tries it’s best to make all this exciting by throwing in various tension-building moments, but largely they do little more than just fizzle, making “Solitude” a rather average and predictable episode. At least the variety of Superman Easter eggs added some fun.

Following Kara’s explanation last week that she doesn’t feel comfortable working with J’onn/Hank anymore after the death of Astra, she decides that it’s time she started to work on her own. So that’s what she sets out to do, as an alien hacker known as Indigo comes onto the scene. Determined to unleash chaos, Kara has to try and figure out the name of the alien and how to defeat her without the help of the DEO. This leads the episode to follow two teams trying to figure out Indigo’s motivations and how to stop her: the first being Kara, James, and Lucy, and the second J’onn, Alex, and Winn. It was interesting to see the two investigations juxtaposed in this episode, as it showed the two groups gathering clues to give the audience the full picture.

After figuring out Indigo’s real target, Kara sets off to foil her plan of killing seven million people with nuclear missiles, but doing things alone doesn’t go the way she hoped. Soon she’s forced to try and stop a nuclear missile from hitting National City. Kara accepts that she needs the DEO just as much as they need her, and after deciding to rekindle her ties with the organisation they work together once more to save the day. Nothing like the launch of a nuclear weapon to bring people back together, eh? We also got to finally see Alex reveal the truth about Astra’s death, and while it was heart-breaking to see Alex break down like that it was nice to see Kara decide to forgive her sister.

“Solitude”, as the name may suggest, is full of fun Easter eggs and hints relating to Kara’s cousin. We get the chance to see the Fortress Of Solitude for the first time in this episode, as well as other great items such as a Legion ring. Even Supergirl’s adversary, whose previous name is revealed to be Brainiac-8, brings to mind Superman’s rival Brainiac. Getting so many references to the Man of Steel in the episode was quite an entertaining contrast to the Indigo threat.

Is it just us, or does Indigo look like a low-budget Mystique? The character was certainly interesting, and her relevance to Kara’s storyline was a nice addition to this week’s episode, but her design was really distracting. On another note, why does Kara need so many love interests in one season? First Winn, then Adam, and now James. Okay, you can argue that she was interested in James from the get-go, but after there’s been so many potential relationships being brought up over the past few episodes, it kind of negates James’s value and struggle to accept that he likes Kara. He just feels like the beau-of-the-week, really.

While there are some great moments in tonight’s episode, such as seeing Kara in the Fortress Of Solitude, the general narrative doesn’t really do much to make this episode more than merely average. Here’s hoping the resolution to that intriguing cliff-hanger is able to get the series back on the right track.

The Good:

• The scenes in the Fortress Of Solitude, and the various Superman Easter are a lot of fun.
• It was good to see that Kara could forgive J’onn, and then her sister, for the death of Astra.
• Indigo’s relation to Kara, and their backstory together was an interesting turn of events.
• The cliffhanger is exciting – things are beginning to heat up and Non is almost ready to put Astra’s Myriad plan into action.
• “I’m sorry. I have difficulty making conversation with men under six feet tall.”
• “I could throw her into space. I dream about doing that.”
• “You. Brown hair. Put it in the microwave. Set it to popcorn. Well, actually, put it on baked potato. Uh, whichever, just melt it.”
• “As effective as kicking and punching is, next time you’re angry about something, let’s have coffee.”
• “I suppose you’re the hacker that sent the drive this morning. Hmm. What do they call you? The Peroxide Avenger?”
• “Toyman Jr, you’re the computer expert. Fix this.”

The Bad:

• Indigo’s design isn’t that great, and it’s quite distracting how similar she looks to Mystique.
• The James/Lucy/Kara love triangle doesn’t really go quite as the writers might have hoped it would, and just doesn’t have the effect it should.
• James’s slow acceptance that he is in love with Kara isn’t as mind-blowing as it should be because there have just been too many love interests for Kara this season.

And the Random:

• Laura Vandervoort, who plays Indigo, was Supergirl herself in the hit television series Smallville.
• The Legion Flight Ring seen in the Fortress of Solitude is a reference to Superman’s time in the 31^st century.

Written by Roxy Simons