Supergirl’s powers are put to the test when one of Superman’s most formidable enemies, Reactron, shows up in National City to take her down. In the meantime, Cat makes plans to run an expose on Supergirl.

The first two episodes of CBS‘ Supergirl were a breath of fresh air with action mixed with a positive message, starring a girl. Much of those two episodes saw Supergirl figuring out the whole superhero thing, making mistakes along the way. The big thing though was though Superman exists in this world, his role was in the background.

This third episode puts him in the foreground, even stepping in to save Kara in a battle against one of Superman’s foes Reactron. That moment kind of kills a lot of the message of the first two episodes. Superman steps in to save her which has her flipping out how he did so. While I kind of see how the writers think this helps push her message, to me it hurts.

The show should be centered around Kara/Supergirl, but instead Supes steps in to save her. She fought villains so far where she gets her but kicked and needs to come back to defeat them later. That’s nothing new. And Reactron isn’t well known enough that viewers might care that he’s super difficult to beat. The message given in the moment is that Supergirl did indeed Superman, to me belittling the positive message up to this point. And the fact others were stepping in to make Supes happen doesn’t help matters at all.

The show ends with a bit of a spin from a message from the Man of Steel, but still, the episode feels like a misstep in many ways. The first two episodes soared high, this one came back to Earth.

Overall rating: 6