Kara struggles to come to terms with Mon-El’s return as a newly married man. Sam, exhausted and disturbed, can’t bring remember the truth about Reign. And across the city, ancient Kryptonian sigils begin appearing…

From the moment you get the darkened opening logo, this episode makes it clear things are going sideways. It’s a classic comics approach; the oncoming omens of doom that characters can see but can’t quite get past but that doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. This episode works, and works brilliantly, on two levels, the personal and the overall arc.

The arc neatly establishes something the comics have long dabbled with but don’t often dive into; Krypton is a very nasty place, or at the very least used to be. Reign is essentially the Kryptonian devil, or at least thinks she is and there’s no sense of any punches being pulled here. There’s also a welcome irony that the worst threat the Earth faces is from Krypton. Not to mention how the symbiotic relationship between Reign and Kara strengthens both of them. Kara’s strength and good nature is what defines her. Reign’s brutality is in direct opposition to it and defines her.

This is heady stuff, especially for a series that so clearly uses the ‘aliens as immigrants’ metaphor and does so very well. It lifts the show from its already breezy pace and Glen Winter’s direction means it plays a lot like a John Carpenter movie. Fast, nasty, bleakly funny.

And that brings us to the personal arc. The way this season has dived into Kara’s twin nature has been both impressive and often emotionally raw. This episode is no exception, but Yoo and Parrish also have a great sense of comic timing. Kara and Alex bonding at the Christmas party is a really sweet, funny moment as is basically everything Adrian Pasdar as Morgan Edge says. Amy Jackson is excellent too as Imra Ardeen, whose good nature and faith in Kara makes her instantly, fundamentally likable. The relationship between Sam and her daughter too is emotionally honestly and neatly realized. All in all, the show has a snap and energy to its dialogue that none of the other Arrowverse series try for and it marks it out as something different and unique.

That’s never truer than of the third act here. Kara calls out Reign and, unaware she’s fighting Samantha, the two women go to war. The fight is colossal in scope ranging from a container ship to the city and the upper atmosphere. It’s also brutal, so much so that the ending seems to evoke the classic Death of Superman storyline. Kara gets the living Hell beaten out of her and her heroism at refusing to quit is balanced by the callous ease with which Reign demolishes her. This is Kara at her lowest point; unsure if she wants to be human, betrayed by her Kryptonian heritage and completely unmoored. She’s down. But not quite out. Nonetheless, it’s a well-staged, bloody knuckled piece of action that serves character and plot alike.

Verdict: Kara may be on the ropes but Supergirl the show has never looked stronger. Confident, assured, funny and grim this is a highlight of the Arrowverse and a high spot for the season so far. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart