‘Supergirl’ Recap: ‘For Good’

On this week’s episode of Supergirl, “For Good” (3×12), tackles two side stories this week instead of pushing the Reign and Worldkillers storyline.

Sam Arias (Odette Annable) is still fighting her Reign persona in this episode.  Alex (Chyler Leigh) helps Sam by using her medical skills, which we just don’t see enough, using L Corp medical machines and labs to conduct all the necessary tests on Sam.  Alex suggests that Sam does something that she’s not used to doing and reaches out to Kara and Lena as well.  Sam is definitely more worried about her daughter, Ruby (Emma Tremblay), more than herself.  It’s a really beautiful moment where all of these strong women are coming together to support Sam and Ruby as well.  The test results come back by the end of the episode, but Sam doesn’t take it well since they all come back clean and clear.  The trio promises Sam that they’re going to be there to help her and Ruby and that they’ll figure it out.

Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar) goes after Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) again because he feels like she’s responsible for almost getting him killed.  We get quite a lot of Lena and James (Mehcad Brooks) in this episode and there’s definitely this awkwardness between them and they talk about maybe the fact that they spend too much time together with them both working at CatCo.  Kara (Melissa Benoist) risks her identity to save Lena when she’s poisoned by one of Edge’s henchmen and when Lena wakes up, she tells Kara she had a dream of her carrying her.  Kara responds with, “Like Supergirl?  I wish.”  We also get the return of Lillian Luthor (Brenda Strong) and she tries to continue this evil stepmom relationship with her where it’s very much her trying to convince her to be a true Luthor and embrace the darkside.  Lena admits to Kara that she did try to kill Edge before (“Damages” 3×05), so maybe she’s more like her family than she wants to admit.  In order to try to get the evidence they need to put Edge away, they devise a plan.  Lillian shows up and tries to kill Edge, going as far as using the Lexosuit in the process.  Supergirl and Mon-El (Chris Wood) go up against Lillian, all the while Lena manages to get the evidence she needs from Edge.  We finally see both Edge and Lillian arrested (though for how long or if it really sticks, we’ll see).  

This episode has these nice bookends with it opening with Kara waking up from a nightmare where she sees Reign and two Worldkillers (though she only sees one of their faces) and it ends with Kara and Winn (Jeremy Jordan) searching for the next Worldkiller (and Kara picks her out immediately).  

My thoughts on this episode was that even though we didn’t get to continue the Reign and Worldkiller storyline, it was nice to have this fill in with Lena and Sam storylines because I’m certain that they will build up later in the season.  As much as Edge reminds me of past season rich CEOs we’ve seen be both bad and good such as Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli), it feels like Edge is much more driven in a single direction and doesn’t seem to be more multifaceted (or we just haven’t seen what would make him be more empathetic or emotional (in any way other than angry).  Personally, I preferred Maxwell Lord because although he was driven in many ways and could be a villain, he also had a heart…I think the same can be said for Lillian Luthor.  

Identities is touched on in this episode, it’s not just double identities but also the more we’re learning about each character.  There’s a great easter egg at the beginning where Alex tells Sam how she used to work in Seattle (she’s referencing Grey’s Anatomy, friends, on which Chyler was Lexie Grey).  We also have this struggle for identity coming from last week’s episode where we know that Sam is really struggling for control over Reign, so I thought it was really beautiful how they touched on that in this episode with Sam expanding her circle and growing as a character, which only makes us (the audience) want to see Sam saved over Reign.  Lena is another character who faces this dual type of identity, she’s still very much struggling between being herself and a typical Luthor as seen by the rest of the world.  There’s very much this tug between the dark and the light with her and we see Lena shift (and this isn’t the first time), which I think is one of the things that makes Lena such a great character (along with Katie McGrath just being brilliant in this role).  The obvious choices for identities are Kara and James because of their superhero identities.  There’s an instance in this episode where Lena could have once again have learned that Kara is Supergirl and Lena even remembers it but thinks it’s a dream.  It’s almost this running gag of how long is this going to continue?  My question now, is will Lena find out about Kara being Supergirl or James being Guardian (who we saw in this episode again) first?  We’ll definitely see in the future!

Now, for the theme of the season of what does it mean to be human?  I think this week it very much applies to Sam.  We see Alex, Kara, and Lena all teaching her what it means to be human by reminding her of things that humans value.  Alex tells her that her being sick isn’t a burden on anyone and encourages her to seek out the family that she’s formed to help her.  The group truly comes together two times during the episode and they’re nothing but supportive.  It will be extremely interesting to see how this continues going forward as Reign continues to take over Sam’s body and mind.  Will Sam be able to consciously fight Reign’s control?  Will Sam or someone else become aware of Sam’s alternate persona?  

What are you looking forward to most in the next episode of Supergirl?  With it going on hiatus for a few weeks after Monday’s episode, do you expect it to end on a cliffhanger?  What are you expecting and what are you dreading?

Photo Credit: The CW