Supergirl Season 2 Episode 14 Review: Homecoming

This Supergirl review contains spoilers.

Supergirl Season 2, Episode 14

“Homecoming” had all of the makings of an incredibly powerful episode, but the emotion of the hour was somewhat undercut by one major plot hiccup: the idea that our team of well-trained DEO agents would let Jeremiah Danvers waltz back into life at the DEO without so much as a debrief. Even if you didn’t believe that Jeremiah had allied with Cadmus, would you really let a man who has been held prisoner for the last decade and a half back into work without months of mandated therapy? Probably not.

Ultimately, “Homecoming” still works — this cast sells the raw emotion of the complicated experience (especially Chyler Leigh, whose heartbreaking collapse into girlfriend Maggie’s arms was a real tragic highlight) — but it all felt a bit contrived in a way that took away from the emotional weight of the episode. Let’s discuss “Homecoming” in more detail, shall we?

When the DEO intercepts the transport of a Cadmus weapon that turns out to be the long lost Jeremiah Danvers, everyone is excited to have the man home… Except Mon-El, who is the only main character who isn’t completely blindsided by their love for Jeremiah Danvers. When Kara kicks Mon-El out of her family’s Welcome Back, Jeremiah dinner for raising his suspicions to Jeremiah’s face, it is an exercise in waiting for the other shoe to drop — for Mon-El’s suspicions to be proven right and for Kara to inevitably take him back. 

Supergirlcontinues to try really hard to make Mon-El into a guy that Kara deserves, but the show has to completely contort the behavior of other characters to do so. And, ultimately, it still doesn’t work. Mon-El may be right about Jeremiah, but Kara is also right to accuse Mon-El of continuing to not listen to her or respect her wishes. Ultimately, it takes Winn telling Mon-El the same thing Kara has been trying to hammer into Mon-El’s brain for months for Mon-El to get it. It’s nice to see Mon-El finally listen to Kara in the final act of this episode, but the jury’s still out on whether or not he has truly taken this advice to heart. I can see the Daxamite really trying, but it’s frustrating to see Supergirltake us on this exploration of Mon-El’s hardheaded dudebro-ness again and again.

Eventually, Jeremiah reveals his true allegiances. He lures Kara and Alex out to a warehouse and then strikes at the heart of the DEO, knocking out J’onn; chocking poor, fragile Winn; and stealing the DEO’s alien registry. Cadmus now has seemingly everything they need to enact their anti-alien plan: a list of the planet’s alien residents and some kind of mysterious alien spaceship that will no doubt spell trouble for Kara & co.

As frustrating as parts of this episode were, the complicated emotional conflict of Jeremiah’s allegiances still works. Watching “Homecoming,” we all know the Happy Danvers Family reunion can’t last, but tension still exists in wondering exactly how it will all fall apart and how, when it inevitably does, the fallout will affect these characters we know and love. It also leaves us with some major questions. As Jeremiah himself kept mentioning, there is more to his betrayal than meets the eye (though he conveniently kept those details hush hush), and it seems like Alex might really go off the deep end in response to her father’s betrayal. There remains plenty of emotional material to mine from this plot twist.

Furthermore, Supergirljust seriously raised the stakes when it comes to Cadmus and the larger alien immigrant storyline that feels so topical right now. Whatever the anti-alien agency has planned next, it’s only going to up the pressure on Kara, the Danvers family, and the DEO. “Homecoming” may have mishandled some of the details of this latest step in the Cadmus storyline in favor of trying to make Mon-El more heroic, but the direction of this season continues to work on multiple levels. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

Additional thoughts.

Though Supergirlwould maybe have been able to convince me that Kara and Alex would be blinded by love of their father, I was particularly surprised to see J’onn’s blindspot. Sure, Jeremiah saved his life, but this isn’t his first day as leader of the DEO and he had M’gann locked up for weeks just because she was a White Martian.

The one member of the extended Danvers family who seems able to both recognize her own emotions and recognize the complicated reality of the situation is Eliza. She came off like an emotional badass in this episode (and, you know, all of the episodes), saying: “I love you and I’ve missed you everyday, but you don’t know me and I don’t know you.”

“Teamwork makes the dream work.” — Winn

The action scene that saw Kara rescuing Jeremiah from a tractor trailer was pretty aesthetically cool.  Extra points for that slow-motion car crash scene.

“They were waving their red hands in the air like they literally didn’t care.” — Mon-El

Winn’s back-from-commercial recap after the first commercial break was a thing of beauty.

“There’s no man on Earth good enough for Alex Danvers, so it would have to be someone like you.” Jeremiah blinds everyone to his ill deeds with his #Sanvers shipping!

“I am not baseball.” — Kara

We get more hints about Mon-El’s mysterious identity. Jeremiah knows who he is (most likely the Prince of Daxam). We also know from Mon-El himself that his father was a jerk.

“I know I shoudln’t give you my Netflix password becuase watching that much 24 at once is not healthy.” — Winn, to Mon-El

Winn and Lyra continue to go strong. And Lyra continues to distract me with how much she looks like a vampire from Buffy. 

Winn’s spying is adorable. Like, he’s so bad at it.

This is the third episode in a row, I think, that hasn’t featured James. As on point as Supergirlseason two has been in many ways, they’ve really dropped the ball with his character. It’s hard not to see Mon-El’s increased prescence as the reason.

“Last time I tried to play darts, I stabbed fishhead dude. I mean, he was nice about it…” “Yeah, Kevin’s awesome.” — Winn and Mon-El chatting about the alien dive bar regular, who is starting to remind me of Deep Space Nine‘sMorn.

Do both Danvers sisters always keep their doors unlocked, or only when they are super depressed about their dad’s betrayal?