‘Supergirl’ season 2, episode 5 review: A Lena Luthor – CADMUS twist; Alex’s confession; Mon-El’s jounrey

The start of Monday night’s new episode of “Supergirl” felt almost like Kara Danvers running a training camp for heroes-in-training … at least for Mon-El (pictured). He was trying to adjust to life on Earth, and that included him taking on a new role of Mike Matthews, a new intern at CatCo hired by James Olsen. There was immediately some fun that came out of getting to see Kara Danvers suddenly in the role of teacher; it was a tremendous way to showcase her precise evolution from a character who was still struggling with being human through most of the first season.

Unfortunately, Kara’s adventure making pancakes and showing Mike the ropes came to a quick end when she realized as Supergirl that a new crew of “robbers” were hardly that. It was starting to see as though Project CADMUS was doing what it could when it comes to stirring up trouble. They started (supposedly) equipping humans with alien firearms, which of course led to a debate.

Let’s get into a brief aside, similar to one that we had back when Lynda Carter first appeared on the show — why do we need to have debates about the Second Amendment on this show? The election at the moment is so emotionally exhausting that we’re looking for a respite at almost any place. We didn’t have that here — we’d probably feel different if this wasn’t . One other issue that we have is that CADMUS for the time being really isn’t all that interesting as an evil organization. The biggest thing about this street gang is mostly just that they want to use their weapons for money and power more than anything else. That’s why they wanted to target a party put on by Lena Luthor, who really can’t tell the difference between Kara and Supergirl even though she’s speaking to them already like they’re the same person. Lena also invited Mon-El, which probably isn’t the greatest move in the world.

What we don’t understand is this: Why not just have Hank pretend to be one of them for a minute or two, just to throw people off? More on the ensuing battle in a moment…

James wants to fight – One cool thing that did come out of CADMUS and their whole gun operation was that it caused James to start to think that he should be a little more proactive. While try to pretend that he wanted to bro down with Winn, he really wanted his help to figuring out how to be out in the thick of things more. It took him a little while to actually admit that he was trying to fight crime, but eventually he did — which Winn smartly warned him against given that he doesn’t have powers and there are plenty of people out there who are. Jeremy Jordan killed the monologue he gave to James about how there’s “no shame” in being a purveyor of information.

James eventually showed up to said party, as well, hoping that he could be an “upstanding citizen” … until trouble turned up. This is where his story collided with Kara’s, as everyone teamed up to make sure the robbers didn’t get what they wanted, and of course they were successful. Like we said: Really terrible villain. The ringleader was even so terrible that he couldn’t withstand trying to confess who was behind the weapons trade in the end.

In concluding the James story for the night, Winn did promise to help him, at least once he had a proper costume for him complete.

Are Alex, Maggie an item? – The romantic tension between the two characters was clear last week when Alex learned that her partner had a girlfriend; that changed again tonight when she learned that she was single. We saw some of that what-to-do angst in her conversation with Winn, which was mostly nice in that we had a reminder that Winn had feelings for Kara … which the show tries to forget at times.

Eventually, Alex started to come around to realize that maybe she did have feelings for Maggie, which she didn’t allow herself to see in the early going. While there’s no guarantee they’ll get together, Alex confessing to some feelings is a step in that direction.

For those who weren’t into the romance storyline, Alex also played a valuable role tonight giving Kara some advice about Mon-El; he’s not going to be the same exact person that she is, and she has to accept that. That included her being aware that he wasn’t right to work at CatCo.

Twist ending – In the closing seconds, we learned that the woman we’ve seen behind CADMUS just so happens to be Lena Luthor’s mom. Does she know what she’s up to? It doesn’t seem like it … at least for now.

Episode Grade: B-. The stuff with Mon-El tonight was really fun, and while we do think the show’s rushing Alex / Maggie faster than they have to, we do at least think their relationship is interesting. We just wish that there was a compelling adversary besides some mysterious organization to raise the stakes.

For more news on “Supergirl,” including a preview for the next episode, head over to this link! (Photo: The CW.)