Airing in the UK on Sky 1, new episodes every Tuesday
Writers: Jessica Queller and Derek Simon
Director: Millicent Shelton

Essential Plot Points:

• Lena wakes up in the Daxamite ship with Rhea, the queen says that she wants to make a society worthy of Lena and her intelligence. The Daxamites start attacking civilians all over National City, and even the DEO.
• Mon-el confronts his mother about her invasion, and Rhea informs him that he will be marrying Lena Luthor.
• Kara, Alex, Maggie, James and Winn are together and start to hatch a plan to save National City, and that’s when Lillian Luthor walks in.
• Lillian wants help to get onto the ship, and asks the group to allow her to help them. They refuse, but Lilian leaves a phone with Kara in case she changes her mind.
• The President contacts Rhea to demand she stands down, she’s travelling on her way to National City and Cat Grant – self-proclaimed queen of media – is with her and says they’re three strong women who can talk things over rather than resort to violence.
• Rhea attacks Air Force One, and Kara saves Cat when she flies out of the plane. They think that the President is dead but it turns out she is an alien.

• An alien refugee herself, the President wants Kara and company to get back into the DEO and use a weapon to destroy the Daxamite ships.
• Mon-el and Lena refuse to get married, but Rhea threatens to blow up a children’s hospital (and many others) if they don’t do as she asks.
• Since Alex wants to destroy the ships, Kara goes to Lilian to ask for her help. Cat says she’ll join too, and will work with Winn to distract Rhea while the others go to rescue Lena and Mon-el.
• While Rhea starts the wedding ceremony, Kara, Lilian and Cyborg Superman infiltrate the Daxamite ship. Meanwhile, Cat sends a message to National City, telling people to resist the invaders.
• Supergirl finds Mon-el and Lena, after getting them Lilian escapes with Lena and leaves the other two behind. Kara saves Mon-el and goes after Rhea herself.

Review:

Following straight on from last week’s twist, Kara is faced with the prospect of Earth becoming a new Daxam empire, and she’s going to need to team up with all her friends to win this battle. There seems to be something very familiar about this episode, and it’s not just the uplifting return and words of Cat Grant, Resist feels like a rehashed version of last season’s finale. With all of the places Kara’s story could have been taken this season, why does this feel like a repeat?

One thing’s for sure, it was great to see Cat Grant again. She brought the energy and witty one-liners that have been missing this season, especially when it came to the Cat Co storyline. Her talk with Kara (as Supergirl) was a sweet touch, the way she talked about trying to find happiness and how Kara’s desire to save her friends made her human was also moving. Her conflict with Rhea, saying how they can resolve things peacefully because they’re women, as well as the way she bossed people around, made it clear that the show has suffered from Cat’s departure. She was the highlight of the episode, so it’s a shame that Calista Flockhart can’t commit to working in Canada. Her speech to raise the spirits of the resisters was particularly amusing, mainly because the writers aren’t even trying to hide the fact that it’s a direct commentary on the current political situation in the US.

It was interesting to see Lilian Luthor reappear and offer a – temporary – hand to Kara in her hour of need. Since the conflict with Lilian and CADMUS was a while ago, it was surprising that she hadn’t disappeared from the story altogether. That she did come back helped to develop her character, and it made her love for her daughter seem genuine. Perhaps she will be involved in the finale, given she’s currently with Lena and Mon-el, but whether she will be friend or foe is unclear.

The problem with this episode is that it followed almost the exact same pattern as the first season’s penultimate outing “Myriad”. An alien invasion takes place in National City, Kara and the DEO struggle to stop it but with the help of some rousing speeches they start to make some headway, and then Kara is left to fight a brainwashed Alex. In “Resist”, meanwhile, National City is attacked by the Daxamites, Kara and the DEO fail to defeat them and when Kara tries to confront Rhea she is instead faced with another brainwashed loved one: Kal-el. See the similarities?

While Supergirl is certainly not the only show to rehash old storylines, it did make this episode seem a lot less dramatic and if it wasn’t for Cat it would have been an even poorer set-up for the season finale. We’ll see how things go, but it’s sad to see Supergirl lacking originality just two seasons in.

The Good:

• Cat is back, and what a wonderful return it was. She was witty, she had great advice for Kara, and when she needed to step up and tell the people to fight back she did an amazing job at raising their spirits.
• Lilian Luthor’s team-up with Kara was an interesting twist, though her betrayal later on wasn’t. It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out between her and Lena, but it seems like we won’t see more of CADMUS until next season.

The Bad:

• This episode was far too familiar; it took all the same plot points as last season’s penultimate episode and repurposed them here.

And the Random:

• If Cat could immediately tell that James was the Guardian because she could see his eyes, why doesn’t she realise that Kara is Supergirl? Our money is on her knowing, but not saying anything.

Written by Roxy Simons