written by Cara Russell

SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT

Lena wins the “works well under pressure” award this week, formulating a Worldkiller vaccine while the intended recipient is locked in combat with two superpowered aliens mere yards away. After tossing the dose to our heroes, Sam is freed from Reign, and life gets back to the new normal for all involved.

After last week’s reveals, Kara decides she needs to spend some time in her hometown while Lena goes back to work to synthesize some new magic space rock to help the folks who helped Sam. Mon-El tags along because dude needs a Kryptonian gravity device to phone home, and also doesn’t know when to quit and stop chasing his ex-girlfriend.

While this is a tired plot, it does give Kara a sounding board she wouldn’t otherwise have to illustrate how she doesn’t feel like she fits in Argo among her remaining family and friends, a sad note given that another running theme is that she hasn’t felt like she fit on Earth either. Ouch.

Back on Earth, Guardian holds down the fort, encountering a criminal who takes a potshot at a police officer with a DEO firearm. The subsequent investigation reveals that the arms company contracted to supply the DEO with weapons has created a “civilian model” for the mass market, peddling similar lines to the ones we hear coming from U.S. news constantly.

What’s interesting about this thread is that we rarely see this debacle framed from a paramilitary organization’s point of view – in this case, J’onn is horrified that the DEO is ultimately responsible for this specific tech’s development, as it is now becoming available to anyone who wants it, and used against fellow officers. He ultimately decides that his branch will stop carrying firearms and transition to non-lethal weaponry developed in-house by Winn. I do hope there’s a follow-up to this where J’onn gets to give a speech about the “free market” to that smarmy firearms CEO while stealing all of his non-civilian clientele and making mad stacks of cash from their new library of technology patents.

The team tracks down the (legal) firearm owner, who is about to murder his former co-workers. J’onn talks the guy down and out of conflict (a nice display of compassion over brute strength from a bulletproof man). This also frees J’onn up to come to terms with M’yrnn’s request to transfer his remaining memories to J’onn in a Martian end-of-life type ceremony, which I think we felt coming, but it’s still sad to know that we’re coming to the end of M’yrnn’s appearances on the show.

Of course, things aren’t as well tied up on Argo, as minor catastrophes lead Kara and Mon-El to think someone is out to murder them. They’re not wrong, and the Daughters of the Night – the sect behind the creation of the Worldkillers – reveal themselves and steal J’onn’s spaceship, stranding Kara and Mon-El on Argo while they go hook up with Thomas Coville on Earth. Until next week, we’re left wondering just how badly this is all going to go down.

Supergirl airs Monday nights at 8 Eastern/7 Central on the CW. Cara can be reached on Twitter @virtualcara.