DC TV Recap Round-Up, Week 4: The Elongated 80’s Cult!

9 Nov

Welcome back! Without too much fanfare, let’s check into this particular week of Supergirl, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow…

“The Faithful”

Supergirl has her share of fans to be sure, but fandom going horribly wrong is what propels this week’s episode. Kara finds out about a religious cult who are into the God of Krypton, Rao, (and by default, Supergirl), lead by Thomas Coville, a man who survived that plane crash that introduced her to the world two seasons ago. She’s not happy her world’s religion is being perverted like this, especially as it starts to endanger other people by the potentially fatal actions of the cult members.

Kara puts it together that Coville has found a Kryptonian probe, and has to keep it from exploding in a stadium during a hockey game. For several reasons, Kara has no option but to burn a hole in the Earth to drop that probe in so it can be detonated safely. A couple of related things happen because of and during this: Sam has a vision of someone telling her she is born from the fires of Rao, which is creepy enough without being told she will “reign” one day soon. Then there’s that Kryptonian ship that we saw in the river in the season premiere slowly hum to life and someone in a stasis pod awakens.

No, this is not a picture of the cult Kara fights in this episode. But look at them! That’s so cute!

–In other unrelated Kara news: Álex comes to a realization that she wants kids, and knows Maggie won’t budge on that. I guess you can see where this is going to go.

–Coville ends up in jail, but hey, he’ll pray for Kara and keep her secret identity, so all’s good?

–Quite a nice group of ladies meeting to have a celebratory dinner. And only one of them seems likely to betray them all, and somehow, it’s not Lena Luthor!

–“Never seen an arsonist so excited to get caught.”

“Elongated Journey Into Night”

In searching for people affected by the dark matter unleashed by Barry’s return, the Team stumbles onto a schlub detective Ralph Dibney, a former cop busted by a then fledging forensic investigator named Barry Allen. As awkward as that reunion is, it’s nothing compared to what we discover about Dibney and he discovers about himself: thanks to that dark matter exposure, he can stretch his body to preposterous levels! Ralph can’t really control his new powers (leading to some truly bizarre body humor), so Barry offers to help him keep that in check. At the same time, Ralph is also facing death threats from the Mayor of the city, because Ralph is trying to extort the Mayor for some cash in exchange for staying silent about the Mayor’s corruption.

While all this is going on, Gypsy’s father shows up to see Cisco and do the thing all prospective guys have to do with their GF’s dad: have dad hunt him down for a day to prove his worth! Both plots converge in a misunderstanding that gets Joe being taken hostage by the Mayor, but that gets cleared up as Ralph learns his worth as a possible hero. Also, we learn who wanted the Mayor investigated by Ralph: some guy called DeVoe. Paging brief mentions in last season, everyone! Barry has no clue who one of his future “greatest enemies” is, but I have the feeling we already do…

Jazz hands!

–Joe brings up Cecile’s pregnancy in the most abrupt way as he’s saved from the Mayor. But this has been a weird episode for him. He puked earlier after watching Ralph blow his face off (literally).

–Advantages of having stretchable skin: Ralph can get rid of his beer gut like (fingers snap) that!

–Gypsy’s real name is Cynthia. Breacher’s real name? Josh. Yep.

–“I wanna laugh really hard right now, but I’m afraid my face will fall off again.”

“Phone Home”

The Legends make a beeline to 1989 to find young Ray Palmer, who for some reason mysteriously has died there! Good thing there’s all that temporal mumbo jumbo still keeping adult Ray alive so he can help in finding out what happened to him in the past. Well, little Ray ran into a new pet…a baby Dominator! Somehow this leads to young Ray meeting his end at the hands of some nefarious government agents looking to experiment on Ray’s new pet (called Gumball), so the Legends have to intervene. This is made a little harder when the mommy of said baby Dominator shows up looking to get her child back.

The Team manages to save young Ray from meeting a premature death and reunite the baby Dominator with its mommy, so all’s good, yeah? Well, during this, we learn Stein was doing some sneaky stuff behind the team’s back, not for some sinister purpose, but to get home in time for his daughter giving birth. Jax and Mick help Stein get there in time, leaving the team in a temporary lurch, but they handle themselves nicely. Jax can see that there has to be a fix for this: and that’s to safely separate Firestorm!

No, this is a totally original visual I’ve never seen before in any film since 1982.

–The “Good Morning” thing early on is paid off so well when Gumball possesses the government baddies to perform it.

–Zari in an Isis (the comic book character, not what you think it is) Halloween costume.

–“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go brush my teeth forever.” “Wait, why?” Don’t ask, Ray. Don’t ask.

–“I’m not crying, I just have alien goo in my eye.”

NEXT TIME: Supergirl has to help Lena navigate a mass poisoning scandal, Team Flash has bachelor & bachelorette parties that go different kinds of wrong, and the Legends go looking for…vampires?