Written by Federica Bocco
Fear was the theme of “Triggers”, the second episode of Supergirl Season 3.
This week’s villain is Psi (played by Yael Grobglas), a metahuman with the psychic ability to evoke the fears of those around her to knock them out. At first, Kara thinks Psi is forcing her to relieve the scariest moment of her life, which is being stuck into the pod before she reached Earth. But those encounters triggered another panic attack when she was at CatCo, far away from Psi. Kara wants to believe she is above this sort of thing, but Alex is always there to tether her to the side of her that is human. It is only afterwards that Kara realises that’s not what she is seeing and instead, it’s Mon-El who is suffocating and dying.
Kara has been distant and detached from her friends and family not because she misses her boyfriend, but because she’s been unconsciously blaming herself for his death. This fear has slithered into her mind and her heart, suffocating her, so much that Kara can’t tell what’s reality and what’s fear anymore. Psi hasn’t forged this fear into existence, she triggered it to the surface of Kara’s mind. It is, as always, Alex who reassures Kara that she hasn’t killed Mon-El – despite the lack of evidence – that he’s alive, and motivates her to go and catch Psi. But catching her was hardly the most important part of this episode; she was, in fact, a mere tool, and a pretty uni-dimensional villain.
Alex and Maggie are starting to disagree on things, from the trivial matter of band or DJ for the wedding, to the significantly less trivial matter of having kids, which is something they apparently never talked about. Will this be part of the reason why Maggie leaves?
Other divergences between the characters happened at CatCo. Lena decided to be fully dedicated to her new investment and leave her place at L-Corp for the time being. James is thrown off and he feels like Lena is overstepping because she wants to be there every day and doesn’t make him aware of her plans. Their interactions have shifted from friendly and supportive in the premiere, to silver-tongued in this episode. That dynamic is going to be interesting with some fans are already theorising that a romance is about to spark. However, let’s hope the writers don’t complicate things too much, or start a plotline they won’t have time to develop. Especially with such a large cast, it’s hard to give everybody the screen time they deserve and Winn’s character is already suffering.
Lena had some scolding to do on her first day as CEO of CatCo. With Kara always sneaking away from the office and being evasive about it, Lena tries to be nice and supportive. She tells Kara she can take some time if she needs it after Mon-El, but Kara puts on her usual defense mechanisms and insists she is fine and that their friendship and their work relationship should be separate. At that point, Lena points out that as Kara’s boss, she should tell her she’s behaving unprofessionally. Kara apologies and they hug it out at the end of the episode.
In the meantime, the other major plotline of Sam and her daughter also gave us many emotional moments. Sam will be replacing Lena at L-Corp, and Ruby feels that she won’t have time for her anymore. After the incident at the docks in the pilot when Sam saved her daughter with impressive strength, Ruby starts developing the theory that her mom has superpowers. We all thought our moms were superheroes at some point when we were kids, but Ruby hopes that if her mom has superpowers, she won’t have to work and she’ll be around more. To prove her point she puts herself in danger, directly in Psi’s path, and texts her mom to come save her. But right where we were all expecting an encore display of Sam’s latent Kryptonian powers, Supergirl swoops in to save them both, and the revelation is postponed for another day. However, something like doubt has sparked in Sam: that night she goes into the garage and tries to bend a metal rod, before shaking her head at her senseless idea.
The episode ends with a cliffhanger: M’gann contacts J’onn and tells him he needs to go back to Mars immediately. We can expect an interplanetary journey and a heartbreaking reunion next week.
An immensely emotionally charged episode with good pace, excellent dialogue, lots of internal and interpersonal conflict… this season still looks like it’s going wonderful places.
What did you think of the episode? Tell us in the comments below!
