Supergirl seasoin 3, episode 7 review: Wake Up

Reviewing the latest episode of Supergirl, titled “Wake Up.”

A patrol team uncovers a mysterious ship by the waterfront. Sam, curious about whether or not she has powers dips her hand into boiling water confirming her suspension. In a weird exchange between Winn and J’onn’s father, Winn comes to the conclusion that J’onn should take his father out for some fresh air. Supergirl flies in and Winn shows them the footage from the patrol team from this morning. After doing a scan, the data shows that the ship from the surveillance video has been in the waterfront for over 12,000 years.

Winn, J’onn, and Supergirl head out to the streets of National City with a scanner to pinpoint the location of the mysterious ship. After a group hug that turned out to be a teleportation trip from J’onn, the three find themselves aboard the ship. Upon arrival, they find orange pods housing people, but one is empty. To everyone’s surprise, Mon-El shows up to have been on the ship.

Back in the lab at the DEO Headquarters, Alex is asking all the questions we have. How is Mon-El breathing? If you can recall in season 2 of Supergirl, Lena Luthor released lead into the atmosphere which is toxic to Daxamites. Apparently no one seems to know that answer to that question. Kara seems to be the only one in awe and grateful to have her boyfriend back. We find out that Mon-El knows Saturnian, which should be set off alarms for Supergirl fans of the comic.

Sam drives out to the country to visit Patricia, her adopted mother. The reunion doesn’t go so well as they fight over Sam’s choices. When the arguing stops, Sam questions Patricia about her birth mom, she leads Sam to the barn where she’s kept her pod. Upon touching the pod, it powers on and reveals a stone that Sam takes.

Back at the DEO, James and Kara talk about Mon-El’s return. Kara notices that he’s been distant since they found him on the mysterious ship. Sam gets ready to leave on a trip to find out more about this “something wonderful”. J’onn finally takes his dad out, but the day goes sour when his father notices that J’onn can’t go without thinking of work.

Mon-El wakes up and sneaks into the DEO’s armory, but Supergirl is there to knock him out, again. When Mon-El wakes up in a holding chamber, Kara is there having a tough time believing it’s really “him”. Sam’s search for answers seems hopeless when her car breaks down in the middle of the desert. Back at the DEO, Winn tries to get answers from Mon-El where Kara failed, but it’s just more mystery as Mon-El begs Winn to be taken back to the ship.

With Winn’s help, Mon-El powers up the ship and Supergirl is there to share her disappointment. We finally find out where, actually “when” Mon-El has been for the past seven months when he explains that it’s been seven years for him. In the future, L-Corp develops a cure for his lead allergy, but before he can explain more, something goes wrong on the ship. The power to the chambers starts to fail, threatening the lives of the people asleep in them. Luckily, Supergirl can punch a woman out of her chamber when she was at risk of drowning.

They take the mystery woman back to the DEO to rest up and Kara questions Mon-El on his relationship with Imra. Back in the desert, Sam uncovers a rocky fortress of solitude. Speaking of “rocky”, J’onn brings his father to an apartment and attempts a restart on his relationship with his father. Back at the DEO, we are all in shock to find out that Imra is Mon-El’s wife.

In what I’m calling the “evil fortress of solitude”, Sam activates the information system and finds some distressing news. The episode of Supergirl ends with Reign being awoken within Sam.

It seems that Mon-El hasn’t learned that lesson that keeping secrets is more harmful than telling the truth. When we first meet him in season 2 of Supergirl, Mon-El neglects to inform us that he is Daxam royalty. Now, he hides having a wife. When Imra meets Kara, she’s excited to “finally” meet her. It’s curious to find out what exactly Mon-El has told Imra of Kara. I’m not a fan of dangling hope in front of Supergirl’s face just to rip it away from her. In the seven years that Mon-El has been trapped in the future, he hasn’t tried to make it back to Kara?

Speaking of having hope on a string, it was heartbreaking to finally see Sam realize that she’s not the hero she and Ruby hoped she would be. Now that Rein is here, there’s a tiny bit of hope that Ruby can still reach Sam.

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This episode of Supergirl was a yo-yo of hope being swung around and not sticking. There were a couple of heartwarming scenes with J’onn and his father. There were other scenes that didn’t make sense to me, like James coming to the DEO to talk to Kara about Mon-El’s return. I felt that scene should have been with Alex and Kara, instead. I found this episode frustrating as a fan and am giving it a 3/5.