Seeing Red | Supergirl “Falling” Review

Supergirl had a rough day in this week’s episode, “Falling.” The previews did a great job setting up how Kara will react once exposed to Red Kryptonite. After the exposure, it’s only downhill for Kara. Supergirl’s fall is mighty, and she just created a mountain to climb after the disaster she struck in National City. It all started off when Cat jinxed everything by telling the ladies of The View, “The most remarkable thing about Supergirl is she is the kindest person I know.”

Senator Crane is visiting the DEO again, and she wants to make sure that the DEO has all of the resources and money that they could ever need. She is forever grateful to them for saving her life from the White Martian. Then, Supergirl gets a distress call from a building fire. It is there that she comes into contact with the red kryptonite. Now, it’s not clear how exactly it contacted her. Did she breathe it in? Was it in the air from the fire and absorbed in her skin? In any case, Supergirl is infected and no longer acting like herself.

The DEO gets a new case, an alien by the name of K’hund is on the loose in National City. At this point, everyone in Kara’s life seems to understand that something is off, but they just let it go. Supergirl finds the K’hund and seems completely bored with him. I did enjoy her sarcastic comment saying, yeah yeah my mother banished you to Fort Rozz, blah blah. But then it went downhill. She fought the K’hund some but then let him go. She told the DEO that he got away, but she just didn’t feel like bringing him in.

After the DEO mopped up Supergirl’s mess by bringing in the K’hund on their own, Kara decides to go out with her best boys, Winn and James. Kara spends the entire night hitting on James and telling him that she’s doing what she always wanted. Finally, James takes the initiative to go to the DEO with his concerns about Kara being different. While he’s at the DEO, Supergirl goes to see Cat Grant. Supergirl tells her, “Everyone knows real people have a dark side.” But Cat reminds Supergirl that she doesn’t get to be a real person. So Supergirl throws Cat off of the balcony of her building; thankfully, she catches Cat before she hits the ground. In front of an audience she tells Cat, “True power, Cat, is deciding who will live or who will die.”

Enter Maxwell Lord. Of course, Lord is the one who is behind the red kryptonite. He tried to recreate the effects of kryptonite but didn’t quite get it right. He was using the red kryptonite as a trap set for Nan. Lord claims that he had no intention of exposing Supergirl to the red kryptonite. Alex tells him what we’ve all been thinking, “You just turned Supergirl into the monster you always feared she’d be.”

Maxwell Lord helps the DEO develop a gun that will cure Kara of the red kryptonite. Once Alex finally gets close enough to use it, Kara has her in her heat vision sights. Unfortunately, Supergirl is ready to kill her sister. Hank transforms into Martian Manhunter to save the day. He has now exposed himself. Hank is locked up at the DEO, but Supergirl is back to herself. The gun somehow dissipated the red kryptonite. Yes, I was a little confused about how the red kryptonite was in her system in the first place as well as how it got out of her system. Kara is completely broken due to her actions while on red kryptonite.

Kara tries to repair her broken relationships, but that will be easier said than done. She tries to explain herself to James, and while he understands, James says he needs time. James is upset because he knows there’s truth behind the things that Kara said. She is about to reveal her feelings for James, but he stops her and leaves. Supergirl goes to see Cat. Cat released a video explaining how dangerous Supergirl was. That’s going to cause a lot of damage with the public. Supergirl is afraid that she will never win them back. Cat says that she can’t promise that everything with be okay. It won’t be easy, but if anyone can win back the city, it’s Supergirl.

Sadly, we didn’t get to see nearly enough of Siobhan Smythe. Kara accidentally found Winn and Siobhan involved in some NSFW activities in a storage closet at CatCo. Against better judgment, Kara used her x-ray vision to spy on them; now, she’s scarred for life. Then, the red kryptonite really kicked in and brought out Kara’s competitive side. Siobhan wanted to out Supergirl when she found video footage of Supergirl letting the alien go. When Siobhan took the footage to Cat, Cat would not release bad press of Supergirl.

Later, Kara caught Siobhan trying to send the footage to Perry White at the Daily Planet, a direct competitor to CatCo. Prior to red kryptonite, Kara probably would have dealt with Siobhan without having to involve Cat. While on red kryptonite, Kara just tattled on Siobhan directly to Cat. Cat did not take lightly to Siobhan going to her competitor and fired her on the spot. As if that weren’t bad enough, it seems that Cat has essentially blackballed Siobhan in the journalism industry. It looks like Siobhan has a lot of fuel for her fire in becoming the supervillain Silver Banshee.