Violet recaps Season 1 Episode 7 of Supergirl, titled Human for a Day, where Kara has to deal with being powerless! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts about the episode.
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Episode Recap of Supergirl Season 1 Episode 7: Human for a Day
Kara undergoes a bunch of tests at the DEO, and goes to talk to the hologram of her mother, which informs her that Red Tornado drained her cells of the solar radiation from our sun, which gives her powers. Eventually, she will regain that solar radiation and her powers. However, Kara is worried about the fact that it’s been 2 days and her powers aren’t back yet. Alex tells Kara that she still suspects Hank Henshaw of hiding something.
At work, Kara comes in sick, and tells Winn what happened with her powers. Cat comes in and freaks out about the fact that Kara is sick, not wanting to get sick herself, so Kara says she’ll go home.
Meanwhile, at the DEO, Hank questions an alien named Jemm that they have captured, as Alex watches. Jemm tries to use his psychic powers, but they have been deactivated. Hank tells Alex that the containment unit needs cleaning.
James catches up with Kara as she’s leaving work, and reports that he and Lucy are looking for a place together. He notices that she’s lost her powers. Just then, there’s an earthquake, and Kara falls, breaking her arm, and James takes off his shirt to make a sling for it. Meanwhile, at the DEO, it looks like their prisoner has escaped.
James and Kara go back to Catco. Alex calls Kara and tells her they’re on lockdown, claiming it’s a standard safety procedure. Cat wants things back in order ASAP, but allows people to go home if they feel the need.
At the DEO, they talk to the hologram, then shut it off. Then they pass out disruptors so that Jemm can’t read their minds, but there’s only 3.
Winn gets Catco up and running just in time to see a news report where Maxwell Lord is criticizing Supergirl for not helping out after the earthquake. Catco tells Winn to get a feed running in her office so they can run a counter story to Lord’s message.
While Alex stays behind, Hank takes 2 agents through the building to search for Jemm. They lose track of Henshaw, and the two other agents come under what seems like a mental attack from Jemm, firing their guns, presumably shooting each other.
Kara and James go talk to Maxwell Lord. Kara tries to defend Supergirl, while Lord seems to have figured out that Supergirl lost her powers and how, and that’s why she’s not there, saying they have to depend on themselves now, because if Supergirl hasn’t gotten her powers back by now, it’s likely she won’t get them back at all.
Alex prepares to go after Henshaw, but he comes back just then, reporting that the two agents are gone. He tells Alex she can’t come with him because there’s only one disruptor left. He also reports that Jemm read Reynolds’ mind, who was head of security, so he knows how to open every cell.
A woman comes running up to Lord asking for help. She leads them to her father, who has been injured in a car accident. Lord makes an examination, as he has had medical training, but says it’s hopeless without a way to get him to the hospital or an X-Ray machine. When Lord steps away to comfort the woman, Kara tries to use her powers, but they aren’t working. It looks like they aren’t going to be able to save the man.
Alex convinces another agent, Donovan, to go out there with her.
Winn isn’t doing very well setting up the live feed in Cat’s office. She gives Winn some words of advice, motivating him to help her. He figures it out.
James tries to comfort Kara, who is upset that she was unable to save the man, and that she has lost her powers. She notices someone breaking into a store across the street, and insists on helping stop it, despite James trying to talk her out of it.
Alex and Donovan find the inhibitors on the two dead agents, despite the fact that Henshaw had told him they were destroyed. Before Donovan is able to put one on, Jemm gets into his head and starts to control him. Donovan tells Alex to get away before he loses all control of himself.
Kara dresses as Supergirl and enters the store where the people were breaking into, and tries to talk the robbers down.
Cat broadcasts a message from her office, saying that Supergirl’s spirit stays with them, and she’s sure that Supergirl will return when they need her most. For now, Cat encourages people to call in with their stories of heroism, of people helping each other.
Supergirl is able to talk the robber into handing his gun over to her, and James takes a picture of this moment.
At the DEO, Henshaw finds Alex, and brings her into a closet. She tells him what happened to Donovan. Donovan radios to Alex, but Henshaw tells her it’s not Donovan anymore, and talks to him, saying that he knows it’s Jemm. Jemm says he will get to the surface. Alex pulls her gun on Henshaw, telling him to back away from the door, and confronts him about her father. She has Henshaw handcuff himself to the bars in there, then tells Jemm he doesn’t need to release the prisoners to get the blast doors open, all he needs is her, since she has the access code. She says she’ll be waiting for him in the control room.
In James’s office, Kara gushes about what just happened, and marvels over the picture James took. He shows her the first picture he ever took: his father. He says about the truth of the moment of the picture of her is that she doesn’t even need powers to be a hero. They hug, but just then Winn walks in. He says he accessed the DEO files of Superman to find out when Kara might get her powers back. She’ll need the Kryptonian equivalent of an adrenaline rush. Then he walks away, upset, and Kara chases him down. He reminds her that James has a girlfriend, and says that superheroes never get the guy, that she’ll never have a normal life, that she lives at a different level.
Just then, there’s what appears to be another earthquake — but it was actually an explosion. Winn figures it was the gas line, and calls upstairs hoping that no one is there. However, there are people up there. James checks and sees that the stairwell is blocked. Kara has an idea: the elevator shaft.
Alex hides in wait for Jemm, and fires her gun at him multiple times. Eventually, she is able to shoot the gem in his forehead. But he continues to come after her as she continues to fire at him. She falls, and it looks like Jemm is going to get the better of her, but someone attacks Jemm and takes him down — it’s Henshaw, who tells Alex that he’s not the enemy.
James, Winn, and Kara open the elevator doors, but the people on the floor above are unable to get their doors open. So James climbs up there and helps them open the doors. The people from that floor climb down the ladder to the safety of Kara’s floor. However, just as James is climbing down, there’s another explosion, and James is knocked off the ladder, and has to grab for the elevator cables. The cable begins to sever, as Kara yells for him to reach for the ladder. However, he is unable to reach it, and the cable snaps. As he falls, Kara regains her powers and flies down and saves him.
Now that her powers are back, Supergirl then flies out and saves a school bus of children from plummeting, uses her cold breath to blow out a fire, and continues her rounds saving people in the city. Maxwell Lord looks on with disappointment that she’s back.
At the DEO, Henshaw prepares to tell Alex the truth, but says that no one else knows, and that she can’t tell anyone, not even Kara. Then he reveals that he is not Hank Henshaw, that the real Henshaw died the same night as her father. He explains that Henshaw and her father were after an innocent alien, a refugee, and that her father realized this, and gave his life to save the alien — which is him. He says he is a shapeshifter, and that he made her father a promise that he would take care of his daughter. He reveals his true nature to Alex, and tells her that he is the sole survivor of his planet, that he is a son of Mars, and his name is John Jones (or J’onn J’onzz).
Back at work, Kara tries to make nice with Winn, inviting him over to help her eat the food in her fridge, since the power’s still out, but he’s not having it, and says that he was disappointed in her.
Supergirl flies up outside of Cat’s office, and thanks her for the broadcast. Cat demands to know where she was, and reprimands her for not being there, because people look to their heroes in time of crisis. Supergirl tells Cat that’s why she’s glad they had her to give them hope, that Cat inspires them, just like Cat inspires her. Then she flies off, pleased with herself.
However, something flies into her, tackling her to the ground. The she is approached by Astra and two Kryptonian men.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 7 of Supergirl: How Does She Do It?
There were some things I liked about this episode, and some things I didn’t like. We’ll start with what I liked, which was the show tackling the question of what would happen if Supergirl weren’t around, and actually allowing a man to die, rather than doing the typical cop out of being able to somehow save him at the last second. I liked that we finally got the reveal of who Hank Henshaw really is — and he’s J’onn J’onnz, aka Martian Manhunter, one of the seven original members of the Justice League. So that was pretty cool that they’re bringing some DC lore into this. I wasn’t expecting that we’d get much else besides Superman, and possibly The Flash or Arrow crossovers.
But a couple of things that keep me interested and invested in a show are continuity and believability. There were a few things that distracted me and therefore took me out of this episode. The first thing was that Kara was sent home for being sick, yet she returns to Catco right after the earthquake, which I thought was odd. Odder still was the fact that Cat didn’t even comment about Kara’s return. I kept expecting her for sure to say something and complain about her being back and not wanting to get sick. But neither did she say anything, nor was Kara sick after the earthquake. She didn’t have her powers, so it’s not like she would have gotten over her sickness that quickly. Next was the two agents that were wearing disruptors and were killed, presumably shooting each other. Wasn’t the point of the disruptors so that Jemm didn’t get into their heads? And yet he still got into their heads anyway? Did I miss something? (It is possible, as I recapped and watched this at the same time, while sick). Why would the disruptor work on Henshaw and Alex, but not those two? It was also weird how Winn randomly called to a floor a few floors above them to see if anyone was there. What about the floors in between? Then when Kara flew down to save James, it looked like she changed into her Supergirl outfit as she was flying down to save him. Was that really necessary? You’d think her main priority would be saving James, not changing into her outfit first. Then Winn acts all upset and “disappointed” with Kara, as if he has some sort of claim on her. I found it kind of odd. It’s not like she’s dating him. Enough with the love triangle.
I’m still not sure what to make of Cat. It seemed like in the beginning, the show started out with wanting us to dislike her, but since then, it feels like it goes back and forth between portraying her as a friend and portraying her as sort of a nemesis. Maybe that’s the point, that she’s somewhere in between?
All in all, this episode had its moments, but it also had its negative moments as well. I suppose I’ll keep pressing on for now, and hope that this showdown with Astra and her henchmen will be interesting.
Josh’s Thoughts: Supergirl, Season 1 Episode 7: Human for a Day
COMING SOON
Scenes from Supergirl, Season 1 Episode 8: Hostile Takeover
Here are scenes from the next Supergirl episode, titled Hostile Takeover:
This was my favorite episode so far! It did have some issues (Kara, you’re supposed to have a broken arm remember??), but the action and the character development and the store robbery scene made it really wonderful. The reveal at the end was so amazing as well!
I haven’t heard anything good about this show
Prefer Gotham over this.
I haven’t seen this show yet, so I will check it out and give it a chance.
I need to go back and watch these. I watched the first one and I liked it!
1st episode was good. It started to lose its edge lately but I stuck with it. Now it’s growing on me. I think the writers have a lot to work on with such a great character and villain base. They need more popular supervillains to attract a fan base. But all in all its a good show.
I thought adding Martian Manhunter was really smart. He was always one of my favorites in the Justice League. I don’t see why people don’t really like the show. It can be a bit kiddish I guess but it’s pleasantly entertaining in my opinion
I think I enjoyed reading your recap better than watching the show. I don’t know why, but I just can’t get into this series for some reason, and it is exactly the type of show I usually love to watch. Oh well, I will enjoy your recaps instead! Don’t blast me for being one who isn’t into Supergirl – it’s just my own opinion this goes to those in the past and the future that have or will blast me for not liking what they did.