Previously: Supergirl was kind of bad at her job, but then Maggie was also kind of bad at her job.
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City of Lost Children
Catherine: This week, we open on a woman walking alone at night. She is attacked by two men who throw her to the ground but is saved by a man dressed in all black. And it’s the Guardian! Or Jimmy Olsen, who I straight up forgot was even on this show. I’m not kidding, I thought they’d written him off already. It’s been that long since he’s done anything. (S: I vaguely wondered about him last episode and then forgot I was wondering about him.) (M: The biggest villain on this show is actually whoever is writing Jimmy Olsen.) He saves the woman but she gets scared of him and runs off. Winn asks him if he’s okay from their little nerd surveillance truck, and Jimmy tells him they should call it a night.
That’s the entire cold open that sort of had a point but mostly was just there to remind us that Jimmy exists on this show.
After the credits, we’re taken to a lunch between Lena and Kara where they are talking about who is holding up the N*SYNC reunion. Kara thinks it’s Justin. Honestly, I couldn’t agree more. (S: It is absolutely Justin, also BSB 4 LYFE!!!) Lena tells her that she is working with a project with a new partner, which we know is Teri Hatcher, but Kara doesn’t. Lena says that she can’t tell her anything else, but after Kara begs her for some info, she tells her a little.
Mari: There’s only one entanglement I know:
Lena gets a call from Teri Hatcher and has to leave.
Winn intentionally bumps into Jimmy while the latter is getting falafels on a random city street. Winn wants to know why Jimmy ended the Gaurdianing early last night, and Jimmy confesses that the woman being afraid of him threw him off. He says that people see him in the scary mask and it freaks them out just like “Clark’s friend,” which is Batman. (S: Shots? Can I institute Batman shots?) (M: Remember when they wouldn’t say Clark’s name? I miss those shots.) Winn says that he thinks they’re more frenemies. Jimmy says that he doesn’t feel like Guardian is the beacon of hope that he wanted him to be. As they’re talking a woman slowly walks into the area. She looks scared and then her eyes start glowing purple and the ground shakes. Shit starts to get real as she starts telekinetically throwing people around. Jimmy tries to get people to safety as Winn calls the DEO. Supergirl shows up just in time to stop a car from being thrown into a building and everyone claps while Jimmy looks dejected. Oh God. Not another “boo-hoo Kara has more powers than me” story line, pleeeaasseee. We just did this last week with Maggie!
Samantha: It’s the identity crisis season! Step right up, step right up!
Mari: To be honest, I thought they were going in a direction about Guardian being a Black superhero. I know you can barely see his face in the helmet, but when he started delivering his speech about “changing hearts and minds” I was like, are we going there?? But it appears that it’s just another “boo-hoo, Kara has more powers than me” story.
Catherine: As always.
Winn points out that the telekinetic alien is gone.
DEO. Winn tells everyone that the alien is called a Phorian. Hank J’onn points out that the Phorians are usually peaceful and adds that Supergirl and Mayonnaise are out looking for the Phorian. Jimmy offers to help, but Hank J’onn’s like “lol, what’re you gonna do, take pictures of it? Get lost, chump.”
Fancy restaurant. Lena and Teri Hatcher are having dinner. Apparently Lena’s test on her new big science machine failed. She’s sad because the science machine is supposed to both get Teri Hatcher home to her planet and end global warming. Seems like a tall order for one science machine. Let’s see how that works out for her. Teri Hatcher cheers her up and says a bunch of surrogate mom stuff about believing in her before leaving.
Outside, Mayonnaise is in his human outfit, which is just normal clothes and glasses (sorry, Sam). (S: All I have is a sigh.) He catches a glimpse of Teri Hatcher coming out of the restaurant but gets knocked into by someone. By the time he looks back she’s gone. So he’s not sure if he really saw her and also he’s stupid.
Crime alley. A human is doing a drug deal with a gray alien. Guardian interferes. The alien shows him that he was just buying weed for his anxiety. He very abruptly shifts to saying that he knows where the Phorian is that they are looking for. I think we’re supposed to remember this gray alien from a previous episode, but we took a long break from recapping, and I for sure don’t care about random side characters. I barely care about a lot of the main characters. So. (M: We keep forgetting JIMMY OLSEN exists, sorry Gray Alien. You had no chance.)
Jimmy as Guardian breaks into the Phorian’s house, which seems like a great idea. The house is empty except for a kid. A young boy who is clearly the Phorian’s son. The kid is scared of Jimmy until he kneels down and takes off his Guardian helmet.
Mari: Okay, IS THIS A BLACK THING? The little boy is also Black. When Jimmy takes off his helmet, he’s like “see? I’m not going to hurt you.” And the little boy looks at him in wonderment, touching his face. It seems that even if race has nothing to do with what Jimmy is feeling, they are leaving that door open but only enough that they only have to kind of address it.
Catherine: DEO. Alex is interviewing the little Phorian boy and trying to tempt him with cheeseburgers. I’m shocked she’s not beating the crap out of him like she does with every other alien they get in there. Of course, Little Phorian doesn’t want to talk. (M: I would like his cheeseburger.) Also, apparently his name is Marcus. Alex tries to explain that they need to find his mom to protect her.
Outside the room, Winn, Jimmy and Hank J’onn theorize how to get the kid to talk. Jimmy points out that they are probably scaring the kid by dragging him into an interrogation room. Hank is like “oH iM sOrRy Mr cHiLd PsYcHoLoGiSt” but less sarcastically. (M: But not that much less sarcastically? Hank J’onn is having 0% of Jimmy today for some reason.) Alex comes out and realizes that Marcus is watching them from inside the room through the wall. Actually, he’s specifically looking at Jimmy. Alex says that he identifies with Jimmy and that Jimmy should take the kid to try and reach him like Hilary Swank in that one movie where she rapped.
Mari: OKAY but there is so much UNSAID about why this little Black presenting alien would NOT WANT TO TALK TO COPS and him ~RELATING TO~ Jimmy because “he saw someone like him.” COME ON SUPERGIRL. YOU ARE ALMOST THERE.
Catherine: They truly do not want to go all the way there. They just want to hint at it and hope we’ll do the rest. It’s just the kind of lazy activism that we’ve come to expect from this show.
Other room in the DEO. Mayonnaise approaches Winn and asks him if he can scan things. Winn is like, yeah…we scan lots of things here. White Bread wants to know if his parents’ ship is still in the atmosphere, but Winn says that he knows that they left weeks ago. He scans again anyway and shows Mayo that there are no ships around the earth.
Evil Science Lab. Lena is working on the science machine. It does science but not the right kind, and Lena is sad. Teri Hatcher tries to cheer her up again. Lena sarcastically says that they should break Lex out of prison so that he could work on it. She says that she just wants to prove to her mother that she is as good as Lex (but less evil, I guess?) (S: If your mom thinks Evil Lex is impressive then it might be a lost cause, girl.) Teri Hatcher tells her that she needs to stop trying to be her brother. Lex was consumed with power but Lena needs to stop funneling power into the machine and use the wibbly wobblies to do the science thingy better. I’m sorry guys, I’m trying but there are a lot of science words in this and also Teri Hatcher is doing this weird affected accent thing? I know that’s not her real voice and it’s completely throwing me off. Lois. What are you doing?
Anyway, the upshot of this scene is that Lena figures out how to make machine do yay!science and not boo!science things.
Samantha: The accent is very motivating, I guess. “Okay, okay, I’ll figure it out if you’ll not accent at me for 5 minutes!”
Mari: I understand the alien fake science about as well as any of you, but I too would figure it out if Teri Hatcher promised not to deliver another surrogate mother pep-talk. It’s too many.
Catherine: CatCo. Jimmy brings Marcus in to show him around. They bump into Kara who I guess is still a reporter there? Whatever. She tries to shake the kid’s hand and he just looks at her like she has the Corona. After she leaves, Jimmy brings Marcus over to his office and asks Eve (??) his secretary (??) if she can get them some milkshakes. Jimmy tells her that Marcus is his nephew. In his office, which was formerly Cat’s office (RIP. She’s not dead but this show thinks she is) (S: I can still hear her voice sometimes.) Jimmy shows Marcus a game where you have to get a little metal ball through a maze. Marcus uses his telekinesis to do it. Jimmy shows him his cameras and shows him the camera that his dad bought him before he passed away. Jimmy tells Marcus that his dad was a soldier, and Marcus speaks for the first time to say that his father was a soldier too. Apparently he died when they were escaping their planet. Jimmy says that he knows how that can be but, ya know, I’m thinking the ‘escaping our planet’ thing might be new to him. Still, they bond a little.
At Kara’s desk, Large Flat White brings her takeout, and Kara asks if he’s apologizing for ripping the seat off of her toilet again. AGAIN??? What would even lead to…..? Why would that situation….?
Samantha: Most guys forget to put the toilet seat down, amiright, but THIS guy is an overachiever and just rips it right off!
Catherine: Mon-El confesses that he thought he saw his mother in the street last night but he checked with Winn and there are no space ships around so it definitely wasn’t her. Excellent detective work. Mon-El is sad that he feels sad about her and says that on Daxom they drugged themselves so they would never feel anything. Kara tells him that she is his mother and that he’s allowed to miss her.
Evil Science Lab. Lena is also talking of mothers. She wishes that her actual mother had been as good at pep talks as Teri Hatcher is. Sounds to me like Mrs. Luther was dope at pep talks she just made them evil. (M: Amazing.) They test the machine. Teri Hatcher opens a big window revealing that they are in the desert and there is a huge circular wheel thing outside that clearly fires lasers or something.
CatCo. Jimmy and Marcus are still talking about cameras. Marcus asks to take a picture of Jimmy, but he sees a news report about his mother pop up on the screen behind Jimmy’s desk. Marcus says that his mother never would have hurt people like that. Jimmy asks him again if he knows where she is. Before he can answer, Eve returns with their food.
Evil Science Lab. Lena turns on the machine and a big purple goo covers the opening on the big hole. Sorry.
Of course, back at CatCo, this makes Marcus’ eyes glow purple and his telekinetic powers go all crazy. The milkshakes that Eve is holding explode and stuff starts flying around the room while Marcus floats off the ground. Jimmy tries to stop him but gets thrown down. Of course, Kara and Egg Whites run in to save the day. Mon-El asks Jimmy how to stop Marcus just as Supergirl flies in and yeets the kid out a window. I mean, she takes him in her arms and flies him out a window.
Mari: We actually take long breaks in between episodes in order to simulate repair time.
Catherine: More realism than this show is ever willing to give you. You’re welcome.
Test completed, Lena turns off the machine, and Marcus wakes up from his murder trance.
DEO. Marcus is in a cell, which is heartbreaking since he’s a little kid and also there’s still no toilet in there. Everyone realizes that Marcus and his mom were put into a murder trance and that they didn’t intentionally hurt anyone. Apparently the cell has a telekinetic dampener to keep him from using his powers. They still need to find his mom, though. Hank J’onn suggests that Jimmy work with him some more, but Jimmy peaces out, saying that he shouldn’t have involved himself in a DEO matter. He gives Marcus one last look before leaving the room.
Samantha: I’m not really following what Jimmy’s problem is? Is it a “I can’t do anything right” kind of vibe?
Mari: Now that Supergirl yeeted Marcus out of a window, and he can’t yeet any children, he’s done with this.
Catherine: In the DEO pit, Hank catches up with Jimmy and asks him to reconsider. Jimmy asks if he thinks he can get through to Marcus only because he’s Black. (M: There it kind of is!) (C: Definitely sort of!) He points out that Hank J’onn is also Black so why doesn’t he talk to him? Hank J’onn says that Marcus clearly sees something in Jimmy that he identifies with. Jimmy says that he brought Marcus to CatCo to help and then everything went to shit and he didn’t know what to do. Hank J’onn old man stories about how everyone on Mars is encouraged to decide on their line of work very young and, as a kid he felt like the only person that didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Interesting to hear that is literally universal. When Hank J’onn had his daughter, he finally realized that someone relied on him and it gave him direction. So he joined law enforcement and became Martian Manhunter. Which is great, but it does read sort of ‘have a kid to sort out your life’ which is just never good advice. (S: You’re not complete until your a parent! Have kids now and save $19.99!) (C: *terms and conditions may apply.)
Still in the pit, but later. Alex tells everyone that Phorians go a little nutter butter when there is a change in atmospheric energy. Winn has found some large electromagnetic spikes around the city that correspond with the attacks from Marcus and his mom. Winn says that the spike was caused by polyatomic onions. The VERY SAME polyamorous onions that Lena was talking about in her lunch with Kara. Kara realizes that there ain’t no coinky-dink and calls Lena. When she does Teri Hatcher picks up the phone and Kara looks shocked. Imagine if you called your friend and Teri Hatcher picked up the phone? Bruh.
Mari: Wait, is she doing the accent or no?
Catherine: Of course she is!
Mari: I’d maybe hang up then.
Catherine: Another not!commercial break and Kara tells Teri Hatcher that they are going to find her. Alex orders Winn to trace the call. Teri Hatcher thinks Mayo boy only stayed on earth to be with Kara because she’s too selfish to let him go. She says that Kara is the last daughter of a failed world and that she needs Earth to worship her for her ego. Kara calls her delusional, and Teri Hatcher says that she sees everything clearly. Yada, yada, villain words. She’s gonna kill everyone. Then she gets very Rorschach talking about ‘for every child of earth that cries out why is this happening, the answer will be Supergirl.’ Mon-El takes the phone and argues with his mother, telling her not to take out her anger at him on the whole planet. She says that she’s there to wake him up and hangs up. Of course, Winn couldn’t trace the call because we’re not in the final ten minutes of the episode yet.
Lena finally realizes that Teri Hatcher was talking on her phone and Teri Hatcher lies and says that she was talking to a telemarketer.
Mari: I don’t care what kind of surrogate mom you are, that’s a fat no on answering my phone ever. The suspicious look Lena throws over her shoulder is warranted.
Catherine: Toiletless Cell. Jimmy is back trying to talk to Marcus. He tells him that he knows Marcus and his mom weren’t trying to hurt anyone. He just wants to make sure that everyone else knows that too. Marcus says that every planet he and his mom have gone to they’ve gotten hurt or sent away and he thought that earth would be different. Jimmy tells him that he used to get bullied as a kid because there weren’t a lot of kids in his school that looked like him. (M: BLACK?) After his dad died it got worse, and he put up a wall to keep people out. That is until he moved to Metropolis and met Clark and realized that men could be hot, too. Uhhh, I mean that he could trust people because Clark was also different and stuff. Then the wall came down. Anyway, friends are good. Marcus says that he can telekinetically sense his mother and that he can take them to her.
Mari: Oh, man. Oh no. This episode has been doing this weird half-commentary on race and now it has done a very bad thing. I get the message it’s trying to go for is “friends can help you tear walls down,” but along the way it has done the classic sci-fi move of comparing Black people to aliens. Jimmy, who wasn’t used to seeing people like him, met Clark, an alien from outer space and they were ~the same~. Pass.
Catherine: Clark who everyone ignores because he just looks like a random white guy? Gee, how would that be different?
DEO main room. Alex is monitoring electromagnetic energy to find where the Big Evil Machine is. Jimmy wants to let Marcus take him to his mother but Hank J’onn can’t let the kid out because of his mind powers. Winn says that he has a mobile version of a telekinetic dampener that should keep Marcus and his mom from mentally throwing papers around. Hank J’onn agrees to let them go.
Hallway in a Building. Jimmy and Winn are following Marcus as he leads them to his mom. She is happy to see him and they hug. Winn tells her that they know she didn’t attack the square on purpose and that they’re safe now because of the mental blocking machine that sorta looks like the Mandalorian’s jet pack. Winn’s like ‘this will protect you!’ and Marcus’ mom is like ‘All of us?’ and a bunch more aliens come out from behind shelves and stacks of stuff as Jimmy and Winn look on in wonder. (S: Weird of Marcus to withhold this information but kids, I guess.)
Evil Science Lab LLC. Lena is happy because she got the science machine working but sad because that means Teri Hatcher will leave soon because the show can’t afford her paycheck much longer. They have a touching moment as Teri Hatcher tells her that she’s a marvel and any mother should be proud of her. Then she takes the science machine clicker and turns the science on high. Lena is confused and hurt.
DEO. Alex finds a huge release of the Paramore tryons or whatever. The science machine is now Scienceing with a capital S. But now they can track it. Before they can take off, Mon-El has a moment to remember that they’re going to stop his mother. Kara tells him he doesn’t have to go and he says that he will but he needs to grab something first. Hope it’s that Mother’s Day gift!
Winn is trying to get the jet pack mobile device to cover all of the Phorians in the building but it won’t because it only extends coverage to like, 2 people and not the whole family plan. Winn insists that they have to get out of there because the whole city is in danger. Jimmy won’t leave Marcus. He says that since the Phorians are telepathically linked, he should be able to get through to Marcus and stop all of them.
Evil Lab. Lena can’t figure out how to shut down the machine. Teri Hatcher tells her that she did what she had to do to save her people but that the affection that she has for Lena is real. Just then, the Super Friends, Supergirl, Hank J’onn and Plain Bologna Sandwich on White Bread With The Crusts Cut Off (S: Lol.) burst into the room via an unrelated giant hole in the ceiling.
Lena tells them that she can’t shut off the machine because Teri Hatcher did something weird to it. Sandwich asks his mother what she did. This is intercut with scenes of Jimmy telling Marcus that he won’t leave him and he will keep him and his mother safe. Sandwich observes that his mother is bringing something down to Earth. Supergirl tackle punches Teri Hatcher and the two fight for a moment. Lena gets knocked out somehow and Supergirl then knocks down Teri Hatcher and flies back through the giant hole in the ceiling.
Jimmy keeps trying to get through to Marcus. Winn begs him to leave, but Jimmy insists once again that he’s not leaving Marcus.
Supergirl tries to heat vision the machine, but it zaps her.
Hank J’onn tells Teri Hatcher that she isn’t gonna mess with his family and he even looks threatening for a whole second before she pulls some device out of her pocket (a dress with pockets?! She IS an alien!) and it freezes Hank J’onn in place.
Over in the wherever Jimmy is, Jimmy finally gets through to Marcus and the two hug. All of the other aliens stop with the glowing eyes and the papers flying around. Winn laughs and calls Jimmy a hero without a suit. (M: Wow, way to hammer that home.) Even though he’s probably immediately gonna put the stupid suit back on after this.
Mayo still has the gun on his mama. She tells him to put it down and that he can’t hurt her because she’s his own mother. She reminds him that when he was a little boy he used to say that he would always love her. He asks her where his father, Kevin Sorbo is and she lies and says that he killed himself after Mon-El abandoned them. She puts her hands on the gun and lowers it, saying that she knows Mon-El won’t hurt her. He lowers the gun in white man sadness. Teri Hatcher starts monologuing about how they weren’t the only Daxomites to survive the destruction of their planet. There were hundreds of ships that survived but they had no way to link up. Unfortunately, they all start coming through the big evil portal machine at the same time in blatant disregard of social distancing measures.
Supergirl looks up in fear as they come through.
DEO. An extra tells Alex that there are a bunch of alien ships coming into National City. Jimmy, Winn, Marcus, his mom and the other Phorians all step outside to look up at the sky in ‘whelp, that sucks’ mode.
Teri Hatcher watches the ships come in while saying ‘Welcome to New Daxom.’ Terrible name. We’re not keeping that. (S: It’s so lazy!!!!!)
Supergirl flies back into National City and sees all of the ships hovering over it. End of episode.
Next time on Supergirl: A Daxamite invasion in S02 E21 – Resist.
I am a 30-something year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 28 year old graduated English major and almost librarian. I can often be found singing too loudly (poorly) in the car or spending some time (hours) on Tumblr. I am a lover of Harry Potter, the Spice Girls, and too many other things.