DC Recap Round-Up 2, Week 16: Family Matters!

30 Mar

Welcome back! This time, we got recaps of this Supergirl, The Flash, and season finale of Black Lightning to tide you over. And surprise, this recap round-up is all about family (#family). So let’s get to the dysfunctional hijinks, shall we?

“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Lena Luthor gets a few surprises this episode: the first being the news that James has been shot and may be permanently damaged from his ordeal (if he even survives), and the gets a police chaperoned visit from her brother, Lex! He’s been helping help quietly on the serum research, probably because it might be the only thing to cure him of the fatal cancer he got from injecting kryptonite into his system. While we strain over whether Lena can finish that serum to save James, Manchester Black has found that scepter J’onn’s dead dad used to have, and seems to be instigating a final showdown with J’onn.Well, J’onn grants Manchester’s “suicide by Martian” wishes and used the scepter to incinerate Mr. Black!

J’onn’s been rattled out of his vow of peace, and James may die, so how could this get worse? Well, not from James’ health, which is cured thanks to Lena finishing making the super serum, BUT we learn James’ shooting was planned by Lex to test the serum before he used it on himself! So Lena discovers that too late, along with the reveal of Lex’s accomplices: Otis Graves (apparently not dead!) and Lena’s assistant, Eve Teschmacher! Lex looks like he’s about to escape police custody into a confrontation with Supergirl, and we got until next time to figure out how that first meeting is going to go down.

How many effs does Ducky have to give? ZERO.

–So Lex is played by Jon Cryer, who of course played Lex’s dopey nephew in Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. And it looks like he’s quite enjoying himself, especially as he uses his mansion’s defense system to kill his captors.

–Speaking of things I’m amazed we haven’t seen addressed in Supergirl, that little thing of Lex somehow making the sun red to depower Superman, and likely Kara. Seems like something that wouldn’t be glazed over easily.

–Lex doesn’t want Lena killed after revealing his big escape plan, and comments how much she could change the world. I’m both humbled and terrified of that compliment to her, especially considering where it comes from.

–Brainy sort of shuts down a further relationship with Nia, although quoting relationship advice from Speed looks like it won’t completely work with her. On the plus side, he gets his ring back, albeit off the vaporized remains of Manchester Black, but still…

–We meet James’ sister, Kelly, in this episode. She casts a good impression so far, which is good, since the actress is a season regular for next season.

–I know you just came back from the dead, but you’re about to wish you didn’t…because I called mom.”

–“Teaming up to save Superman’s best pal. What would mother think?”

“Time Bomb”

The arrival of adult and non-comatose Grace from the future as another Cicada throws everything off, apparently even the calculating Eobard Thawne from the future, so much so that he suggests Nora come clean with her parents about their alliance. The consequences of that weigh on Nora as Grace seems determined to give powers back to her uncle Orlin so they can finish what he started, but first, she wants to kill the metahuman who killed her parents. As Team Flash discovers, that metahuman is a mother hiding her powers from her family, and doesn’t know a random spark in her powers caused the death of Grace’s parents. Not that it matters to adult Grace, who hasn’t lost any of her hate for metahumans during her coma.

Uncle Orlin pleads with his niece to stop this silly mistake of a quest, but instead gets killed for his trouble! With adult Grace still running around, Nora decides it might be time to tell everyone about his connection to Thawne…until Sherloque basically tells everyone else that before she can! Well, as you can guess, Barry and company take this information in a calm and responsible manner…by locking her in one of their metahuman prison cells. I’m sure Nora will have plenty to think on during her “time out”, as we go on another hiatus for a few weeks.

You know, getting grounded and put into a metahuman containment cell seems harsh, but it really isn’t. At least we know now there’s a toilet in them.

–The “Shazam” reference was a cute touch when doing the little experiment with the two time spheres.

–There’s a lot of cute references to episodes past in the STAR Labs archives when we check up on the time sphere inside. By the way, leaving a time sphere in there? Maybe not the best idea seeing how New Cicada used that to travel back in time to the present.

–Ralph sets Kamilla up to work at Iris’ new business, which gets under Cisco’s skin, because he wants her to not know so much about his superhero life. I can’t help but think this will come to a head, as these types of storylines tend to.

–“Damn it, Larry!” “Still Jason!”

–“That actually makes sense. I can’t believe I just said that.”

–“I Peter Parkered her.”

“The Book of The Apocalypse, Chapter Two: The Omega”

It’s season finale time, and where do we start? Well, Jennifer is kept from exploding from her powers going out of control, and Gambi gets a bit cooked by it, but it’s all good. Tobias decides to plunge the city into darkness, cutting off Black Lightning’s way to restore his powers, and then sicking the Masters of Disaster on him to finish him off. The other unexpected result is those remaining pod kids are brought out of stasis, and they wander off to home, or to wherever. Thanks to Jennifer starting to finally control her powers, the power in Freeland comes back on and the Pierce dad and daughters pay a visit to Tobias’ loft.

Tobias doesn’t get killed, and he might wish he was, as he gets arrested and dumped in some black site government prison like Magento. It looks like things are relatively back to normal for the Pierce clan, until creepy Agent Odell comes by with some bad news. One: he knows who they are; Two: he needs their help because the evil Dr. Jace (who was taken into police protection earlier in this episode) was taken to Markovia to help them with their metahuman program; and Three: this makes Freeland with it’s released metahuman pod kids a hot bed for whatever Markovia is up to. Oh, and Khalil’s not dead. In a pod, but he’s not dead. So yeah, a LOT happened in this season finale. See you for season three!

Well, the family almost had a happy ending this season.

–Seriously, there’s a lot of threads we haven’t even touched on in this finale, like Lala making a run for Tobias, and unfortunately failing because Tobias programmed some commands into all that resurrection stuff Lala has went through. So now whenever Lala comes back, he’ll have a new mess of tattoos of his victims across his body. Also, Lala just guns down one of the Masters of Disaster while that crew in fighting Black Lightning and Thunder, and then just leaves the two to handle the rest of the baddies? Huh?

–Also, remember that teleporting killer we ran into briefly about a third of the season back? Yeah, he pops up to retrieve Jace from the police because Markovia hired him to do so.

–Cutter decides to leave Tobias, not entirely in part because of his escalating weirdness with that portrait of his dead sister.

–That pastor is still alive! I seriously thought he was dead.

–Jefferson and Jennifer’s combined “Please!” as they respond to Tobias’ threats by slamming him into the ceiling and floor. Yeah, that was nice.

–About Jefferson’s cooking: “What’s wrong with it?” “What’s right with it?”

–“If I can float in my sleep, then I can probably fly when I’m awake.”

NEXT TIME: While The Flash is on hiatus for a few weeks, we have a double shot of Supergirl where we learn about the machinations of Lex Luthor, and Richard Nixon gets kidnapped on the return of Legends of Tomorrow!