Finally, a Badass Villain! So, as I have expressed many times now, "Supergirl" is my least favorite of the four shows in the Arrowverse. One of the things that the show has always lacked is a great villain that really felt like a challenge to Kara. The first season started to set up a good villain with Astra, but she was killed off halfway through in favor of some evil male Kryptonian who I personally never got into. And then, the second season featured an ocean of different villains, before finally deciding to use Mon-El's evil mother. Again, a very lame and uninteresting villain. So far, this season has only really been able to offer some very lame episodes featuring Morgan Edge, who originally looked like the main villain to me. However, as the season has progressed, it has become very easy to see that Reign was always meant to be the main villain, and I am very happy that she has finally arrived, because she has done something that I didn't think was possible: creating an interesting, powerful and badass villain.
To be fair, this would have been a really good episode, even without Reign. She doesn't show up until very late, but there were many other things to enjoy. The first thing is that Mon-El is actually not a useless character this time around. They are doing something great with him and finally introducing the Legion of Superheroes, thereby giving him a real purpose in the show. I liked the opening scene that really explaining the Legion's situation and what happened to them, as well as getting some clarification of what actually happened to Mon-El when he was send into space.
The writing in this episode was not as bad as previous episodes. There were some great moments between the majority of the cast, especially at the Christmas party where the characters had some time to just focus on being happy and not focus on being superheroes or secret agents. I like those moments in these show, and unfortunately, we don't get that many of them. I will say, though, that some of the writing in the episode was really cringeworthy, and felt more like a regular "Supergirl" writing effort. There is some really bad dialogue, especially in the very first scene between Samantha and Ruby, where Samantha said something that felt like it was written for a sketch comedy or something like that.
I like the role that religion is playing in this season. It doesn't feel ham-fisted, and it actually feels different and exciting. They have never really touched on that element before in these shows, so the fact that they are doing it here is actually a blow of fresh air. They are also doing a much better job of making it seem relevant than something like "Legends of Tomorrow" is.
And then, we can talk about Reign, because she was an absolute badass in this episode. The big spotlight moment she got was her battle with Supergirl, in which she constantly had the upperhand and totally kicked her ass. This is something that I have missed in "Supergirl," because even though Supergirl has gotten her ass beaten in the past, it always felt very forced. It never felt like Supergirl was using all of her powers to try and fight off the villain. However, this time she was using everything she could to try and defeat Reign, and she did get a fair amount of blows in, but ultimately, she was the big loser of the fight, which I really appreciated. I hope that they continue this momentum with Reign, and doesn't end up her making her another mediocre big bad.
And Morgan Edge is still useless... The only purpose he serves in this show is some kind of threat to Lena, but they haven't used him to his full potential either. If the writers have nothing more to offer with this character, than just another second grade villain, then they should get rid of him quickly. He has been underused in this whole season, and it doesn't seem like they are going to do anything remotely intriguing with him.