Supergirl season 3 episode 4 review: Chyler Leigh shines amidst Alex, Maggie turmoil

Supergirl season 3 episode 4 was the best episode of the season — possibly by a wide margin. This installment brought you an accelerated story for Samantha Arias, for one — the end of the episode was possibly the most terrifying thing the show has done after she received her late-night visiting and a message: “One day soon, you will reign.”

Judging from the just-released Reign costume via The CW, it’s pretty clear that the show is telling the truth in that regard. This character is well on her way to sporting that costume — you could even see it by the end of the winter finale or early next year.

Beyond just seeing the Reign transformation, which came about after an hour where Samantha was struggling already to try and be a parent, this installment featured many other important reveals. One of the most significant ones revolving around Alex and Maggie. The latter was not interested in having children — instead, she was ready to embrace the label of ‘fun aunt” without a problem. However, Alex couldn’t limit herself to that. She didn’t want to, and seeing Ruby’s performance at the school at the end reinforced that more. She loved Maggie but wasn’t sure she could love her enough to continue down that path. She wanted to have those milestones as she saw Samantha having with her own daughter.

We should make it clear that we don’t see any issue with Alex suddenly realizing this is an issue after never talking about it before this season — sometimes, you don’t know how much you may want something until someone tells you that you can’t have it. She clearly didn’t realize that she cared anywhere near as much about this as she does;  maybe you can fault the characters never talking about this before getting engaged, but once again Alex may not have realized how strongly she felt there.

Above all, applause to Chyler Leigh for her best performance of the series here — her scenes with Melissa Benoist near the end of the episode were tear-inducing and a reminder of how personal a show Supergirl really is — even if we for the most part think of it as a battle of heroes and villains.

The tale of Thomas Coville

Chad Lowe guest-starred in this episode as the show’s villain-of-sorts, a man so entranced by Supergirl saving his life that he created his own religion for people who have gone through similar experiences. This was an interesting concept mostly because he wasn’t evil — he genuinely thought he was doing what he thought was right. That included “testing” Supergirl by trying to bring her more followers, more who understood his sort of spiritual experience that he had back when she saved his plane during the pilot for the show.

Lowe was very good in this role, and we like that this wasn’t a physical showdown by any means. Have the last two updates been a light on the effects? Sure, but we’re fine with that every now and then. If every storyline was ultimately the same we figure that the show would get rather boring — we’d be seeing the same sort of thing take place time and time again and we all like to have a little bit more in the way of variety.

CarterMatt Verdict

Supergirl season 3 episode 4 got off to somewhat of a slow start, with there being a lot of forced exposition and characters re-stating information they either already know or should not. Yet, when the drama really got going this allowed for the performers to have some unique opportunities to shine. This is a story we will certainly remember for some time to come.

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