'Supergirl' recap: The Superman of of it all

Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers for Supergirl season 1 episode 3, "Fight or Flight." You can read our recap of episode 2 here. 

So far in its run, Supergirl has been haunted by the specter of the Man of Steel, both because he is one of the most famous superheroes in modern pop culture and because Supergirl was literally created (in her initial comic book incarnation) to simply be a female version of Clark Kent. Comparisons are unavoidable. In the first two episodes, the show danced around Superman without really knowing what to do about him, awkwardly not mentioning him or mentioning him too often. But in "Fight or Flight" the show finally tackles the issue head-on, and while the execution wasn't perfect, by the end of the episode we have reached a kind of zen place when it comes to Superman: He exists, he can help if he's needed, but he's definitely not needed. Both Kara and the show itself can and should exist on their own. And now that the show's solved its Superman problem, we can move on to new and more exciting adventures without him.

Ask me again

You know the saying about how doctors make the worst patients? Same goes for journalists. Kara, slightly unsurprisingly, fumbles the interview she started with Cat last week, giving bad quotes and accidentally revealing that she and Supes are cousins (to her credit, she did that while she was pointing out the double standards in questions asked of male and female celebrities, a problem that doesn't just exist in Supergirl's universe). While Kara may not be too happy about how the interview went, Cat is elated, and decides to write the "Supergirl exposé" herself. This leads to a lot of caffeine and a great joke about gingers (poor gingers).

The interview also doesn't go over well with Alex and Henshaw (Henshaw gets off the second and superior Kardashian joke of the night with his "Keeping up with the Kryptonians" pitch. I would SO WATCH THAT). Alex is confused as to why Kara did the interview at all. It was for James, she says (way, way more on him later), but also because she was trying to figure out who she is, other than Superman's cousin (a theme we will revisit several times tonight).

Henshaw wants to chastise Kara too, but she is gone faster than a speeding bullet (sorry, had to) when there's a highway pileup that needs her help. After doing some quick heroics (stopping a bus from exploding, saving the driver) Kara is blasted by a guy who turns out to be Reactron (blame James for the name), an old nemesis of Superman's who hates the Man of Steel enough to go after his cousin (also, he kind of looks like someone wanted to be both Iron Man and Bane for Halloween and just split the difference). The pair has a (pretty equal) fight and Kara damages his suit so he flies away, for now.

Chain reaction

In addition to her costume and her Scooby Gang, Supergirl now has the third and final ingredient to a successful crime-fighting lifestyle: A secret lair. Winn, handy little guy who has no chance with Kara romantically that he is, has turned a dead guy's office into a Supergirl Cave, complete with what I can only assume is stolen (borrowed) CatCo technology. Which is a good thing, because apparently the DEO is not down with helping her fight against non-aliens, and Reactron is definitely human, he just has a super suit.  But even though Reactron isn't an alien, James is still bugging out about him, considering that Clark (cue Winn freaking out that he now knows Superman's secret identity) almost died fighting him once. But Kara is adamant that she can handle this one solo ("I'm more than just Superman's cousin. I'm Supergirl").

Kara gets a chance to take him on by herself when Maxwell Lord (the local magnate who you saw trashing Supergirl's oil spill antics last episode, who you may recognize as the dad from Twilight) is kidnapped by the baddie. Reactron needs a brain to fix his suit, and Maxwell is a little too eager to help him out (yeah, he's going to be evil, we're calling it now). Kara busts in, frees Maxwell and goes head-to-head with Reactron again, only this time she's not doing so well. When a particularly bad blast knocks her out, we see the briefest glimpse of a man in red and blue stepping in front of her. Yes, Superman came to save her. Sigh.

We find out, when Kara wakes up again, that James called Superman to National City because he was trying to protect Kara, something she emphatically doesn't want him to do. And she's not wrong. She's already worked hard to step outside her cousin's shadow and James has actively thrown her behind him. Maxwell Lord even says publicly on TV that SuperMAN was the one who saved him. It's not a good look. It's not the kind of ally Kara needs.

All by myself

Unfortunately all that superhero-ing has to be put on hold so that everyone can get dressed up (a bullet-proof dress, in Kara's case) and head over to the CatCo party. Some important things we learn: No one will ever know that Kara is Supergirl because even when she stands next to a picture of herself nobody bats an eye, and Maxwell and Cat have good chemistry and even better flirting skills.

Speaking of chemistry, Melissa Benoist and Mehcad Brooks are just so incredibly lovely together it's almost too much to watch. When Kara and James start dancing together you forget that there are heroes or villains or anything else on this show. There are just the two of them, working out their differences, and almost kissing.

That potential kissing is derailed by an appearance by Reactron (who I guess just figured Supergirl might be in hiding at a party honoring a terrible article about her?). After he almost kills Winn, Jimmy offers himself up as bait and takes off, Reactron on his heels. Kara is able to deliver some lead-based justice (in the form of coating her hand in lead and removing a reactor core, a plan suggested to her by the now-helpful DEO gang) and is now the one chastising James for putting his life in danger. But, as he says, he knew she would save him. Now THAT'S a better way to treat a hero, James. Too bad your ex-girlfriend shows up in the next scene to ruin this burgeoning relationship.

But despite trouble in James/Kara paradise, the show ends the episode with one less problem: We are at last free of the Superman shadow. The show confirms that by letting the Man of Steel talk for himself for the first time. (It's good to know that, in addition to being able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound, Superman can use IM, although his emoticon game is on the lame side.) His IM conversation with Kara is exactly what the episode needed to close the book on the questions raised by the episode. Yes, Superman is there, but no, Kara doesn't want or need him. By giving this affirmation to Superman himself, the show goes a long way to both freeing her from his shadow and making him a good enough character that we're still glad he's there, just in case. Isn't that what cousins are for?

Odds and super ends

• Welcome to National City, Lucy Lane (who you may recognize as Jenna Dewan Tatum, and yes that "Tatum" comes from being married to Channing). You and your adorable tank tops and romantic history are ruining the burgeoning Kara/James relationship, and for that I can never forgive you. But in all seriousness the addition of another love interest for James will help the show keep these two crazy kids apart a little longer (because as eager as he is, Winn is not beating James in any love triangles). 
• I'm not totally sure, at this point, what the show is doing with Cat Grant. Her caffeine-addled scenes were funny and her flirting at the party with Maxwell was great, but the constant speechifying about Big Issues (last week and the week before feminism, this week, those pesky snake people Millennials) is getting exhausting. Plus she's starting to contradict herself (the Millennial speech had some issues with last week's speech about Supergirl working her way up). If they can do more moments like the party scene and fewer speeches, Cat could grow to be more a character than a mouthpiece. 
• Where Cat's development is very uneven, Henshaw's is steady, with the show getting in a quick red-eyes moment for him in the middle of the episode. While walking down the hallway at the DEO all of a sudden he turns, flashes red eyes and says "Alex." He then goes and discovers her secretly working to help Kara. Does this mean his red eye powers allow him to sense things or see what's happening? Can he see the future or the past? Inquiring minds want to know. 
• The first 20 minutes of this episode had audio problems in the Washington, DC area, but that had the benefit of proving that the show is still pretty exciting even when you couldn't hear the dialogue. 

Follow Kelly Lawler (@klawls) on Twitter.