Reign
Now this was a layered villain.
Up until this point, Supergirl had struggled with convincing villains, with previous big bads coming off as either underdeveloped or suffering from a lack of depth. Reign, however, was the hit we were waiting for.
What made her such a compelling antagonist was the fact that we started the season rooting for her. Well, kind of. It turned out that Sam Arias (one of Supergirl‘s new arrivals in season 3) was actually the vessel for a Kryptonian Worldkiller designed to, well, destroy the world (and eliminate Supergirl). The twist was that Sam was actually a good person, a great friend to Lena and Kara, and a loving mother to daughter Ruby. She had built a life in her three decades on Earth and didn’t want to lose all that to a murderous Kryptonian demon.
Speaking of that demon, Reign was a chilling addition to the show. Let me just take a moment to say that Supergirl did a wonderful job of building her up as a deadly threat before she made her first appearance. There was an apocalyptic aura about her that completely went against everything the light-hearted show stood for, so to see her decimate the Girl of Steel in their first battle; it was genuinely scary.
Reign was the perfect villain for Supergirl, a force-to-be-reckoned with on-screen, and featured an unexpectedly layered backstory that made us actively root for the young woman caught in all the crossfire. Oh, how I miss watching this season for the first time.
Verdict: BEST