The Whoosh
In the aftermath of the incident with Siobhan, Winn takes her to the DEO to see if they can figure out what’s wrong with her. While the DEO’s doctors have no real idea how Siobhan got her powers, they can at least confirm that she’s human. Siobhan is understandably frustrated by the lack of answers and decides to leave but on her way out she notices Lucy interrogate Livewire about some people bring hospitalized for some electrical imbalances. Livewire being as charming as usual says that she still plans to get her revenge on Cat and Supergirl and then ineffectually shoots some lightning out of her hands I guess to show how badass she thinks she is.
Meanwhile at CatCo, Cat takes an unusual interest in Kara’s love life and advises her to make a move on James before someone else does. Kara is still hesitant about this though since James still wants some space after the fallout from the red Kryptonite.
Siobhan’s condition appears to be getting worse and she begins to hear ringing in her ears followed by some creepy voices. Then all of a sudden, she heads straight to CatCo, walks over to Kara and uses her sonic scream to blast her out of a window. A disoriented Kara falls for a couple of seconds before a familiar red streak named Barry Allen suddenly shows up and saves Kara from falling and runs the both of them to some random field just outside of National City. Once Kara gets her bearings, she and Barry introduce themselves and are understandably surprised that neither one has heard of the other. This brings Barry to the conclusion that he has once again traveled to an alternate Earth, so he unmasks himself to Kara and asks for her help in getting home.
Getting Barry home may be more easily said then done though since even though this universe has a Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs doesn’t exist so he doesn’t know anybody on this Earth that can help him. On the plus side, seeing Kara, James and Winn getting themselves acquainted with Barry might just be my favorite scene of the show so far. Winn channeling his inner geek immediately reacts like it’s the coolest thing ever, James sees Barry as another romantic rival and is visibly jealous (which Winn notices and enjoys maybe a little too much), Barry is slightly shocked to find out that Kara is an alien and Kara loves that Barry can bring ice cream in two seconds.
The group then make their way to Cat’s office and now that word has gotten out about the red streaked hero, she naturally wants some coverage on him and initially sees him as competition for Supergirl. Barry suggests they could be partners instead, causing Cat to question just who the heck Barry is anyway since his presence makes the group look in her words like the cast of a CW show (man and I thought Arrow could be meta). Kara claims that Barry is just a close friend and while Cat doesn’t look like she’s buying it, she also doesn’t care that much and focuses more on naming National City’s newest hero. She suggests maybe naming him “The Whoosh” or “The Blur” (because Smallville fans loved that name so much didn’t they?). When Barry suggests “The Flash”, Cat not completely unfairly says that it sounds like the kind of person that walks around with just a trench-coat and settles on “The Blur.” Once everyone else has left the room, Cat also points out to Kara that James is clearly jealous of Barry.
Siobhan goes to visit a relative, who works as a fake psychic, for answers about what’s happening to her. As it turns out, the women in her family have been cursed by “The Banshee” for hundreds of years and the curse has been triggered in Siobhan because she has been wronged by somebody and the voices won’t go away until she kills whoever is responsible. If Siobhan doesn’t act on the curse, she will become more powerful but also eventually lose her soul. Siobhan is all too happy to kill Kara but figures she won’t be able to do it as long as Kara has Supergirl protecting her so she decides to seek some help by freeing Livewire from her DEO cell.
When Cat finds out that Livewire has escaped, Kara suggests that she gets out of town for own safety but Cat refuses saying that unlike the rest of National City, she still has faith in Supergirl. Kara, knowing that she won’t be able to focus on Livewire and Siobhan at the same time, asks for Barry’s help in dealing with the threat in exchange for helping him get back home.
Kara takes Barry to the DEO and while Lucy isn’t thrilled that Supergirl brought a metahuman to the building unannounced, she also acknowledges that they need all the help they can get.
Meanwhile, Siobhan approaches the newly freed Livewire about helping each other out. She’ll help Livewire kill Supergirl and Cat which will in turn allow her to go after Kara unopposed. Livewire agrees but insists that Siobhan get a “makeover.”
Back at the DEO, James continues to have his head up his ass about Barry and since he continues to be as subtle as a chainsaw about it, Lucy becomes the latest person to pick up on it. She admits to James that the reason their relationship failed is because they just weren’t compatible and encourages him to act on his feelings for Kara.
Barry is able to track Livewire’s location and Kara decides to have her and Barry quickly go to recapture her. Barry is noticeably worried that Kara doesn’t seem to have any actual plan of attack other than apparently punching Livewire really hard but he follows her into battle anyway. Shockingly, Kara’s so-called plan doesn’t work since Barry actually ends up making Livewire even more powerful (whoops). Siobhan then makes a surprise appearance, having now fully transitioned to Silver Banshee and makes a scream so loud that Kara’s ears bleed. Kara and Barry realize what a terrible idea this was and make their escape.
Settle This Like Women
Afterwards, Kara apologizes to Barry for making them go into battle half-cocked and confesses that it’s because she has been desperate to regain the approval of National City since the red Kryptonite incident. Barry speaking from experience says the best thing she can do is just save people like she normally does and the people will eventually calm down.
While Kara and Barry are busy at the DEO building some special earbuds to neutralize Silver Banshee’s screams, Livewire and Silver Banshee attack CatCo and take Cat hostage. Winn does his best to talk Silver Banshee out of this but she’s unsurprisingly unmoved and leaves with Cat and Livewire. Livewire then taps into the DEO hard-drive and tells Supergirl and Flash to fight them at the park.
Livewire and Silver Banshee are waiting for our heroes to show up and Cat is noticeably fearful about her chances for survival (even if she’s more afraid for her sons than herself). Kara and Barry then show up and while they’re slightly more prepared than last time, the fight doesn’t go much better. Barry gets knocked out by Livewire almost instantly and Kara gets knocked around by Silver Banshee. Livewire then fires a lightning bolt at a helicopter and Kara flies in front of it and takes a pretty nasty hit. The spectators are so moved by Supergirl’s willingness to put herself in danger that they barricade themselves around her. Livewire gets ready to blast through the civilians, until the firemen Supergirl helped out a couple weeks ago hit Livewire with a fire hose which also ends up knocking out Siobhan. The firemen help Supergirl up and say that it was their turn to help her.
In the aftermath, it now appears that National City has officially forgiven Supergirl. Also, thanks to some help from Barry, Livewire and Silver Banshee are now in police custody awaiting trial for their crimes. Kara then tells Cat that she wants to see Barry off, prompting Cat to casually reveal that she knows Barry is the Flash. To be fair, Cat rightfully says that it wasn’t hard to put together since both Barry and the Flash came to town at the exact same time, not to mention Barry’s insistence that the mysterious hero be called the Flash. The downside is that this once again spotlights the absurdity of her not knowing Supergirl’s identity as well.
Kara and Barry are back at the field from before and Barry thinks he has an idea to get himself home. He thinks that if they combine each other speeds by having Kara throw him while they’re running, it should be fast enough to get him back. Before they try this though, like Cat before him, Barry advises Kara to go for it with James. The plan goes off without a hitch and it appears Barry will be back in Central City just in time for his new episode, same Flash-time, same Flash-channel.
Back at Kara’s apartment, after getting advice from pretty much every major character this episode, they finally admit their feelings for each other and share their first kiss.
Cliffhanger
Kara is given no time to enjoy her moment with James though since right afterwards James goes into some kind of trance and walks out of the apartment. Kara looks outside and sees that James, along with seemingly everyone else in National City is walking towards the same place.
At the Kryptonians nondescript lair, one of Non’s lackeys tells him the Myriad has been activated. Non then says that first they will conquer National City and then the world (I really have to admire Chris Vance’s restraint to say this line without mwa-ha-ha-ing)
Analysis
This wasn’t necessarily Supergirl’s best episode but it was certainly the most entertaining. Kara and Barry might be my favorite team up of the Arrowverse so far. While this one admittedly doesn’t have quite the same epic feeling as the Barry/Oliver crossovers, this episode easily makes up for that by being easily more fun. It also doesn’t hurt that we don’t see our heroes at each other’s throats half the time like with other team ups (and no this isn’t only specific to BvS). The only downside is when it gets to the fighting portion of things, Barry sort of ends up being a liability mostly because he’s very mismatched against Livewire in much the same way Wolverine is against Magneto.
As much as I loved seeing Suergirl and the Flash together though, I was slightly disappointed in how the trust issue with National City was so easily resolved. Don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing the citizens stick up for her a la Spider-Man 2 and actually being the ones to save the day since it shows that Supergirl is indeed a figure for inspiration and hope but this felt like a moment that probably should’ve been saved for the finale.
My only real problem throughout the whole thing was James. Watching him get jealous over Barry wasn’t particularly interesting especially since we already went down this road with Adam and we already knew for a fact that Barry wasn’t going to be sticking around past this episode anyway. To be fair though, I like that even Lucy points out that’s there no reason for them not to get together at this point and hopefully by the season’s end this annoying “will they, won’t they?” plot will finally be over.
Tune in next week as the Kryptonians finally implement their master plan in ‘Myriad.’