The Answer to Global Warming

We last left off with Non finally activating the mysterious Myriad, which allowed him to gain control over all of National City with the apparent exception of Supergirl.  Credit where it’s due, this episode opens right into the action as a now mind controlled Lucy is about to release all the DEO prisoners on Non’s orders (except for the White Martian).  She starts by freeing the somewhat well-known Superman villain Maxima (Eve Torres).  Luckily, Supergirl flies in and is able to knock out Lucy and Maxima before they can cause any more damage.  That probably sounded somewhat uneventful but it was actually one of my favorite action scenes of the season.

Kara flies over to the Fortress of Solitude in the hopes of enlisting Superman’s help and to find out what’s going on.  Unfortunately, Superman isn’t on Earth at the moment but Alura finally decides to try to be useful for a change and tell Kara about Myriad (emphasis on the word “try”).  She reveals that Myriad was a program developed by Astra on Krypton to try to prevent the planet’s destruction through mind control (this would’ve been great information to have five episodes ago!).  Kara naturally asks why Myriad was such a big secret and Alura says it’s because knowing the existence of such dangerous technology would send the galaxy into chaos.  Yeah I’m not buying it.  I mean once they knew the Myriad was being used, you would think Alura would at least tell them to watch out for it.  Kara then asks how she can stop it but Alura says that once it has started it cannot be stopped.  Thanks for nothing Alura.

Supergirl flies over to CatCo and sees her co-workers including James and Winn all typing away at their computers and also notices their monitors all have Kryptonian symbols on them.  She then gets on the phone with General Lane and they agree to put their differences aside for the time being.  General Lane will quarantine National City while Supergirl takes care of the situation with Non.

Things take a turn for the even stranger when Cat just casually walks into her office and apparently none the wiser about Myriad, which Supergirl then fills her in on.  Even more confusing is that Superman finally flies in (from a distance of course) to help Supergirl but once he’s in National City, he too becomes just another mindless drone.  Maxwell Lord then walks into CatCo looking as smug as ever.  As it turns out, Lord figured out what Non was up to and made some special earphones that kept him from being controlled and secretly gave Cat some earrings with the same ability to prevent her form being controlled as well.  He also figures that Superman was infected and Supergirl wasn’t because she spent more of her life on Krypton than her cousin (that doesn’t make much sense to me but okay).

Meanwhile at Non’s lair, he and the now resurrected Indigo do a little mwa-ha-ha-ing but Indigo warns him that as long as Kara is alive, she’s still a threat to his plan.  Personally, I’m confused as to why Non hasn’t killed Kara already considering all the times he has promised to do so the next time they meet up.

Non goes to confront Supergirl at CatCo and rather than do the sensible villain thing and simply kill her he decides to toy with her instead.  He has James, Winn and a random CatCo employee all jump out of the CatCo building at the same time leaving Supergirl with only enough time to save two of them.  Guess which one gets the ax.  Non then warns Supergirl not to stand against him or more people will die.

Lord them reveals that he had a contingency plan in place to kill the Kryptonians just in case.  He built a bomb filled with Kryptonite dust that would cover the entire city and choke the life out of any nearby Kryptonian.  The downside is that it would make National City unlivable for Supergirl and Superman for about 50 years and would likely kill about 300,000 people.  Lord makes it clear that he takes no pleasure in this plan but he doesn’t believe they any other choice.  The President and General Lane both approve of the idea and not seeing any other options Kara considers agreeing to it as well.

Back at Non’s lair, he brags to Indigo about taking Supergirl out of the equation (frankly if anything, I figured this would just piss her off).  He then tries basking in the glory of eventually being able to take over the world but Indigo thinks that he can conquer the galaxy.

Supergirl and Cat have a talk about what they’re going to do next.  Cat tries talking Supergirl out of using Lord’s bomb saying that she’s better than this.  However, Supergirl says that her mother was faced with a similar decision on Krypton and instead of saving Krypton, she essentially stood by and let the planet destroy itself and she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Earth.  Cat reminds her though that the greatest thing about her is her faith in people and her ability to inspire hope.  Cat says that she has already inspired her to be better, which by her own admission isn’t an easy thing to do.  Supergirl then comes up with an idea.

Supergirl, Cat and Lord go to an old CatCo TV station filled with a bunch of outdated broadcasting equipment.  The plan appears to be that they’re going to hack into the Myriad signal and put in a subliminal message to snap National City out of their trance.  Whether or not this plan actually works will have to wait until next week.              

Alex and J’onn

Meanwhile, a disguised Alex and J’onn (who has shapeshifted into a kid) are on a bus outside of town.  Some cops on the manhunt for them stop the bus for a bit to show the passengers their mugshots.  Nobody recognizes them and the bus continues on without incident.

Alex and J’onn eventually make their way to Eliza’s house late at night.  Eliza is understandably alarmed by this especially when J’onn starts morphing back into Hank Henshaw right in front of her.  She eventually cools down though when Alex clarifies that J’onn didn’t kill Jeremiah but actually tried to save him.  Eliza then breaks the news to them about what’s happening at National City.

J’onn decides to go back to National City reasoning that since he’s an alien Myriad won’t affect him (tell that to Superman).  Alex wants to go back too despite J’onn’s warnings about what a terrible idea it is.  She says that he can use his telepathy to protect her and he reluctantly takes Alex with him.

Sure enough, J’onn’s protection of Alex weakens him to the point that Indigo is easily able to defeat them both the second they enter National City.  She abducts Alex and leaves J’onn for dead.

Cliffhanger

Now that Alex has been captured, Non comes up with a plan to both continue Supergirl’s suffering and get revenge on Alex for Astra’s death at the same time.  He puts Alex under mind control and equips her with some Kryptonite-laced armor and the same Kryptonite sword used to kill Astra.  He then orders her to attack Kara.

Analysis

I went back and forth on my thoughts the entire episode.  First it appeared I would love it with the opening action scene against Maxima and then I get brought down to Earth when Alura showed up once again to serve no purpose.  Then just when the endless scenes between the hammy Non and Indigo threatened to make this a subpar episode, it suddenly gets saved by another great Cat Grant speech and a surprisingly effective cliffhanger (that reminded me quite a bit of Dawn of Justice).  

Honestly, ‘Myriad’ serves as a perfect representation of this season as a whole.  It has a lot of potential but gets held back by mediocre writing and uninteresting villains but ultimately made tolerable by a couple of brief flashes of brilliance.

Come back next week as the season (and depending on CBS’s mood, possibly the series) comes to a close in ‘Better Angels.’