TV Review: SUPERGIRL: Season 1, Episode 17: Manhunter [CBS]

CBS’s Supergirl Manhunter TV Show Review. Supergirl Season 1, Episode 17: Manhunter Falling was full of flashabacks for most of our characters, but mainly for our resident Martian J’onn J’onzz (David Harewood) as the DEO started questioning his involvement in the original Hank’s death as well as Jeremiah Danvers (Dean Cain). Despite the predictable backstory of how J’onn and Jeremiah met, there was plenty of development to go around for our core cast. Kara (Melissa Benoist) also had a tough time trying to be the hero she was meant to be after facing public scrutiny for her actions.

During the episode, Colonel James Harper (Eddie McClintock) and Lucy Lane (Jenna Dewan-Tatum) are brought in to question J’onn after revealing himself to the DEO as an alien. This was a transformation for Lucy as she started having doubts on what James was up to. This prompted Lucy to change sides with Kara after she reveals her true identity to her. Lucy’s change of heart came rather quick and easy, but we could immediately tell she didn’t trust what James was doing during the interrogations. It was cool to see Lucy and Kara working together to save J’onn and Alex (Chyler Leigh) despite their differences. It will be interesting to see Lucy leading the DEO with Kara as the two of them must work together for the foreseeable future.

Speaking of Alex, we got to see a sudden transformation from her before she joined the DEO. Before working for J’onn, she was just a woman with no purpose in her life and wasting it on partying and getting arrested. We finally got to see how she ended up being recruited by the DEO, which ended up saving her life thanks to J’onn. J’onn recruited Alex in order to keep the promise he made to Jeremiah before he died, which was to take care of his daughters. We also got some flashbacks to Alex and Kara’s childhood as Kara tries so hard to fit in school. We also witnessed Kara’s first time using her powers on Earth, which prompts Jeremiah to restrict Kara from exposing herself to the world. It wasn’t completely necessary for us to see this flashback, but at least we got to see Kara’s first time trying to control her powers and even her first meeting with Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart)!

We also went deep into the past with Jeremiah’s first encounter with J’onn. Hostile at first, Jeremiah soon starts to see the good in J’onn after the alien saves his life. However, Hank remained resilient to finish him off, causing Jeremiah to risk his life to save his new friend. This gave us a much clearer picture of what happened to Jeremiah and what caused J’onn to impersonate Hank.

The episode introduced us to Project Cadmus, a location that may be familiar to DC fans as a secret base where the government conducts experiments on extra-terrestrials. It made much more sense that James would send J’onn there since this is in a world where heroes like Superman exist. However, it was a little confusing that Alex would be taken over there as well since Lucy managed to prove that she had knowledge of J’onn’s deception.

We also saw a bit of a change for Siobhan Smythe (Italia Ricci) as she slowly builds into famous supervillainess Silver Banshee. After losing her job thanks to Kara, she drowns herself in sorrow as she fails to get a job due to her bad rep working with Cat Grant. Winn tries to encourage her to take matters into her own hands, but she soon takes it in another direction. She tries to sabotage her rival Kara in order to get her job back. However, it doesn’t go as planned after Winn (Jeremy Jordan) rats her out to Cat. This was the final straw for our would-be baddie as she was literally pushed to edge when she fell and ends up using her supersonic scream to save herself from falling. Hopefully, the writers give Siobhan a better explanation into how she got her powers.

Another shocking turn of events was when J’onn tapped into Harper’s memories, revealing that Jeremiah is alive and is a part of Project Cadmus. This changes things for Alex as she can finally reunite with her father. With Alex and J’onn on the run, this breaks up the main team in the DEO. This could make things interesting for the show to see Kara working without Alex and J’onn looking out for her for a while.

‘Manhunter’ covered a lot of ground as we went into the backstories of most of our characters, especially J’onn and Jeremiah’s first encounter. We experienced a shake-up in the team dynamic as Kara and Lucy are left in charge of the DEO while Alex and J’onn go in search of Jeremiah. This also gave us the birth of Siobhan’s transformation into Silver Banshee, which we expect to fully see during next week’s crossover event. This week’s episode opened a whole new set of possibilities for the show with the introduction of Project Cadmus. The show manages to mix in different comic book stories into the mix, so let’s see how well it does when we have our superheroine team up with another hero during next week’s episode.

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