- Title: Supergirl – Welcome Back, Kara!
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Supergirl returns from its mid-season hiatus primarily dealing with the fallout from the lackluster first-half of the show’s final season. There’s plenty of phantom talk here, along with Kara (Melissa Benoist) readjusting to life back on Earth and, only in the final scene of the episode, acknowledging and dealing with the PTSD from her time in the Phantom Zone. Kara’s attempts to find other stories to reporting on than phantoms backfire when Andrea (Julie Gonzalo) assigns William (Staz Nair) to dig into the city’s superheroes for more juicy stories.
While it offers the traditional goofy scenes of a super-powered individual hiding in plain sight (and no one noticing), keeping Zor-El (Jason Behr) around for an episode does have its advantages. Still haunted by his inability to save Krypton, the scientist puts his expertise to work trying to help Earths’ pollution of its oceans which also backfires by creating a giant trash monster the team must scramble to stop. In early seasons, Jor-El working in the shadows to help fix Earth for its own good might have been explored over several episodes while also offering social commentary on how humanity takes care of its one and only home. Instead the story is quickly handled and Zor-El exits stage left leaving the season still feeling a bit untethered and unfocused heading into the home stretch to the series finale.