Supergirl Midseason Finale Recap!

A recap of the Supergirl Midseason Finale

Picking up where last week’s episode left off, Astra and her Kryptonian soldiers try to coerce Kara to their cause, but she naturally refuses and escapes. Kara returns to the DEO to tell them of her encounter, and they theorize that she might be planning some sort of city-wide attack. They advise her to take a rest, the battle will come eventually. Alex pulls Kara aside and without giving away the specifics, tells her that they can trust Hank Henshaw. Meanwhile at CatCo, an unofficial crossover with “Mr. Robot” is happening as a cyber attack has seen secrets about Cat Grant exposed across the internet. She tasks Kara, Jimmy, and Winn with finding her juiciest emails so they can get ahead of the vultures.

At Astra’s base of operations, she talks to lieutenant Non (the mostly silent kryptonian from Superman II) who she reveals is in fact her husband. Astra struggles with her efforts to recruit Kara and how she doesn’t want to watch another world die. The next morning Kara and Alex spar, and Kara hesitates when she has the upper hand. Alex tells her to let the DEO handle Astra, that they might be at war and in those circumstances you need to kill your enemy. Kara counters by saying, “Superman doesn’t kill,” an on-the-nose reference to Man of Steel if I’ve ever heard one. We then flashback to Krypton where a young Kara sees her Aunt Astra after summoning her with a “spy beacon.” Astra warns her about the impending doom of their planet, a clear allegory for Global Warming, and tells he she didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. The queen of timing, Astra hugs Kara just as Kara’s mother Alura enters.

As Jimmy continues to pour over Cat’s emails, Winn is having no luck tracing the source of the hack. Cat isn’t worried about what they’ve found so far and goes into her meeting with the board of directors. Though many of them worry about her position in the wake of the hack, Dirk Armstrong (surprisingly a character from the comics) appears to be on her side. Cat and the directors exit and Kara overhears Dirk seemingly reveal that he’s behind the attack, but they’ll need something else to prove it. Thinking on her feet, they go to Lucy, who tells them they’ll need a paper trail. As they continue planning, a special broadcast interrupts the television to reveal a “hovering woman” outside CatCo. Kara flies to the spot to face Astra and the two begin to throw down like only Kryptonians can. They even plow through buildings, and Kara races down to stop debris from landing on civilians in yet another reference to Man of Steel. Though Astra seemingly has the upper hand for much of the fight, Kara finally brings her down and drags her to the DEO.

Now aware who they’re looking for, Winn has a plan on tracing the hack to Armstrong. He enlists Jimmy to sneak into the man’s office after they distract him to plant a device on his computer. Though it takes him a minute Jimmy finishes the job even though Armstrong enters his office to find him still there. Jimmy recovers by telling Armstrong that in the wake of the hack that the board has his support should they oust Car, which Armstrong appreciates. Alex calls Kara to tell her that Astra is awake and only wants to talk to her.

Kara enters the cell where Astra is being held and her aunt says it’s time she knew everything. We flashback to Krypton once again as Alura confronts Astra. Astra confirms that Non killed a security guard but they’re doing all they can to protect their family. It’s interesting that Astra is being put in the Jor-El position for the series, the scientists proclaiming “The end is night” and she’s being written into the antagonist role, it’s a fun mythology turn! Anyway, Astra reveals that Alura used Kara in that moment to bring her in, she used her to sign the death warrant of their entire race. She pleads with Kara to help her, to help save the problem with Earth, whatever it is. Not believing her, Kara goes to the computer of her mother and asks if she used her, which she confesses to doing, though she isn’t much help beyond that.

Jimmy continues to dig through emails and found one of note – bank statements for a person named Adam Foster receiving payments every month in Opal City (The home of hero Starman!). Kara confronts Cat about the anomaly and she reveals Adam is her first son, and that she tried and failed to gain custody of him all due to her “marriage” with her job. She laments that perhaps the child was better off without her, which hits home with Kara. Cat laments that she can’t fix this one, and rather than have Adam dragged through the media circus, she decides to resign as head of CatCo.

Later, Cat and Kara prepare for her press conference when Jimmy, Lucy, and Winn come in with their proof, explaining the whole circumstance to Cat. Cat calls Dirk into her office and reveals she knows about his plot. He tries to call her bluff, but Cat is sitting on a nice hand and reveals that since he was sending those emails through a CatCo email address on Catco computers, it’s definitely her business. As Armstrong is escorted out of the building, Jimmy and Winn share a moment where he tells him that Kara is worth “risking it” for. Easy for Jimmy to say when he doesn’t already know their history, but okay.

At the DEO, Alex and “Hank” ponder why none of Astra’s soldiers have tried to break her out, and why the fight was over so quickly. They confront her, in true superhero villain fashion: she wanted to get caught. She tells them it’s too late to stop what’s happening, and across the city her Kryptonian soldiers and other aliens burst into Lord Technologies and attack. Meanwhile at Catco, Cat and Kara share a moment where Cat goes over all the interesting coincidences over the past few weeks, culminating in her asking Kara to take off her glasses, proving what she suspected – Kara is Supergirl. As one side of her world comes crashing down, Kara gets a call from Alex about the attack on Lord Tech. As Maxwell Lord and the DEO fight off the aliens, it seems like they have the upper hand, until Non takes a few of them out without even trying. Kara finally arrives on the scene and the two face each other down, and race toward a collision.