Supergirl season 2 episode 19 review: Chyler Leigh shines in ‘Alex’
The structure of this episode was one of the best that we’ve seen for the series all season, mostly because the bulk of the story was based on characters making difficult decisions under duress. A guy, who attended middle school with Alex Danvers and remembered that infamous rescue on the beach, kidnapped Chyler Leigh’s character. He recognized in that moment that Kara was special, and later realized that she was Supergirl. He remembered that, and used it as ammunition to build a situation where he could free his father from prison. He told Kara that she had a limited amount of time to save Alex; the only way to free her was to meet his conditions.
The biggest reason why this was such a fantastic hour for this show was because it did put so much of the focus on the characters more so than superpowers. This was in some ways Kara’s most difficult opponent since she could throttle them physically. She tried at first to be a bruiser before realizing eventually that this didn’t work. From there, Maggie took over and tried to do things her way. the two had a ton of tension between each other, let alone some significant debate as to whether or not one of them meant more to Alex than the other and should be running point.
When their actions only ended up speeding up the clock to Alex’s potential death, we saw desperate times and with that, desperate measures. Maggie actually attempted to break the prisoner out to save her girlfriend’s life, but it was Kara who talked her out of it. Eventually, Maggie and Kara were able to work together to appeal to the prisoner’s best interests for his son, and were able to rescue Alex without a prison break or getting any further blood on their hands.
Lena Luthor’s visitor
Rhea tried her hand at manipulated the L Corp CEO this week, at first trying to appeal to her emotionally as a mother who’d experienced tragedy and was simplying trying to make the world a better place. Eventually, she did realize that this was not quite going to work. From there, Lena realized that Rhea was an alien, but she still appealed to some of what she’s been through, arguing that if she had admitted who she was at first, it could’ve meant trouble given Lillian Luthor’s thoughts towards aliens.
The two parties ended the episode (gulp) working together. Lena doesn’t know precisely who Rhea is just yet, but she she does, it could certainly be trouble. For us, though, it should be a great source of drama.
This episode overall was a really smart, fascinating bit of storytelling anchored by a great performance from Chyler Leigh as she exhibited just about every emotion possible. Meanwhile, Supergirl realized further how there are different methods to fighting crime. Grade: A-.
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Meanwhile, head over here to preview what’s been coming up on the show next. (Photo: The CW.)