In Review: Supergirl – Confidence Women

Synopsis: While a new villain is under arrest at the DEO, Supergirl uses him to try and understand who is responsible for the recent attacks. Meanwhile, Andrea and Lena think back on their tumultuous past.

Review: This episode gives us our first look at Andrea Rojas as her superhero alter ego Acrata, who is referred to as Shadow in the episode.

The Story

When Andrew Rojas attempts to break her boyfriend Russell who has been  made into the cyborg Rip Roar out of the DEA and fails. She turns to her old friend Lena Luthor for help, but finds that her old friend is reluctant to aid her.

What follows is a series of flashback stories that show how Lena and Andrea became friends and also reveals how Andrew became Acrata/Shadow and how Leviathan have been using her as a pawn in their game.

The Acting

Julie Gonzalo who movie fans will remember as Amber from the movie ‘Dodgeball’ puts in a very strong performance this week as Andrea Rojas. The scenes she shares with Katie McGrath’s Lena Luthor are really well performed to a point where when one of them betrays the other in the story, you genuinely feel a degree of empathy for them.

Overall

This is by far the strongest episode of the seasons so far and goes some way towards illustrating why Lena has become so detached from having realistic expectations of her friendships. I really enjoyed the backstory and the bits involving Leviathan. In a way this felt like a mid season finale episode. I only hope my saying that isn’t going to actually jinx the actual mid season finale.

The visual effects and the reveal of Acrata was handled really well. I loved the fact that we get thrown into some action right away and then get the bulk of the story from Lena and Andrea’s point of view. Sure it relegated Supergirl and her friends for awhile, but the pay off was more than worth it to the overall narrative of the episode.