Alex – When Alex is abducted her kidnapper demands the release of his father, the life sentence serving Peter Thompson, Kara and Maggie must work together to rescue her before it’s too late. Yet he seems to have their every move covered.
This is an episode that makes great use of a less common character pairing; Maggie and Kara. Their initial conflict is well founded over the idea of all powerful vigilantes making people think police work is irrelevant despite the skills and finesse of law enforcement sometimes being more useful than punching through walls. They even mention some criminals using a “Supergirl defence” as a get out of jail free card because Supergirl does not follow proper legal process. The idea of law enforcement Vs vigilante conflict is a genre classic and the key story becomes Kara’s journey of understanding Maggie’s importance as they both work towards rescuing Maggie. Floriana Lima sells the brains over brawn approach well and it all combines to make the kind of developing hero arc for Kara that we haven’t seen too much of since season one. Alex herself even gets a couple badass moments in as she tries to escape.
Although the surprising star power of the episode is in fact David Holfin’s performance as the composed yet rather unhinged kidnaper Rick. The episode has a lot of fun around the idea of Rick spending a full year observing and planning the group for this, including knowing every move they could make. It plays perfectly into Maggie’s strengths as a thinker to try and outwit him while also tying nicely back to Alex and Kara’s childhood. It speaks well to the overall intelligence of the National City residents that someone from Kara’s childhood would be able to put the pieces together. Rick even seems to enjoy having so much power over the powerful. Perhaps this might have worked better it was done with a known minor character throughout the season to really amplify the shock and betrayal but what we do get is still rather enjoyable.
Ultimately this is an episode that stands of the shoulders of many before it to raise the incredibly successful Alex/Maggie relationship to new heights. While the initial focus stays with Kara’s needs to get her sister back as things get more desperate the tone switches to intense emotional drama over the idea of Alex and Maggie losing each other when they were barely getting started. It’s a testament to everything the writers have put into their character development that their eventual reunion is possibly the most moving sequence the show has ever produced; gently tease along by a stirring little soundtrack. I think show is getting to stage where we could watch Ales and Maggie pick out bathroom tiles and still be engaged by them.
The Lena/Reya subplot was interesting despite feeling rather tame compared to the main story. Like Kara & Maggie this was putting to two strong characters together for the first time with two great actresses behind them. There’s clever common ground found between them over the idea of family betrayals through Reya distorted perspective of Mon-El’s actions and it seems like this is the start of season end game in the works. Speaking of Mon-El he was somewhat of a passenger this week but considering he’s likely to take centre stage again towards the end of the season that is understandable.
Alex the episode is a well told story with excellent character ramifications and an immense dramatic pay off. This could have been such a bland and formulaic episode (bad guy kidnaps hero’s loved one.... we’ve never seen that before) but the heights it reaches is a testament to how far the show has come this season.