After last week’s debut of Lex Luthor, “Supergirl” picked up some serious steam with a dark, maniacal and sinister villain. This week’s episode, “The House of L,” not only exploits that villain in the best way possible, but puts the entire season in a brand new light, while also delivering the long promised “Red Son” storyline in one of the strongest episodes in “Supergirl’s” history.
Flashbacks reveal the origin of the Red Daughter, a doppelgänger Supergirl who is aligned with Lex’s sinister plot to attack America and overthrow Supergirl.
They Always Underestimate the Mastermind | Picking up where last week left off, Lex dons his mother’s robot suit and battles Supergirl on the rooftop of the Daily Planet and reveals that the cure Lena invented gives him superpowers. He throws the globe of the Daily Planet down on Supergirl, as the rest of the episode flashes back to Lex’s trial, where he somehow poisons the entire jury and the judge after being sentenced to 31 lifetimes in prison. Damn, Jon Cryer is really going all the way with this portrayal!
Immediately after the trial, Eve Tessmacher is spotted by Lex in the crowd and he motions for Otis Graves to recruit her into his sinister plot. He even planted her at CatCo from day one! Soon after, Lex gets a call in prison from a Kaznian general who has found Russian Supergirl back at the end of season 3. They dub her Snowbird and train her in Russian language, as she for some reason keeps saying Alex’s name.
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The Doppelgänger | Somehow, Lex keeps leapfrogging in and out of prison to see Snowbird- he keeps buying stuff for the warden’s husband, I guess- and finds her having slaughtered a group of thieves who were harassing a young boy named Mikhail. When Lex introduces himself as Alexander Luthor, Snowbird mistakenly assumes he is Alex, but he plays along and teaches her English, chess and how to use her superpowers.
Side Note: Can we give a huge shout out to Melissa Benoist’s performance this week? Not only does she spend most of the episode speaking flawless Russian, but she is essentially playing a brand new character after four years playing Kara! Very “Fringe”-esque!
As Snowbird trains, Lex orders Otis to find a patsy for his sinister plot and Otis brings up Lockwood’s name. Lex eventually takes Snowbird to National City- seriously, how does Lex get out of prison this often?- and he shows Snowbird Kara’s apartment, having somehow figured out her secret identity. Kara is in Smallville for the crossover, but Alex walks in and Snowbird pretends to be Kara and also snacks a glance at Lena in her lab, slowly realizing that America isn’t the evil place she’s been told.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? | Eve spots Snowbird waltzing around and informs Lex that she may not be the killing machine he thinks she is. To motivate her, Lex orders Eve to hijack an American battleship and fire a missile at Mikhail’s house, making sure that Snowbird sees it. But turns out Otis secretly let Mikhail live, because The CW won’t let you kill kids on this show.
Snowbird slaughters the battleship’s crew and Lex stages a coverup, explaining the battleship fiasco from a few episodes ago. He angrily cuts ties with Snowbird, until she inexplicably gets sick and falls into a coma. Eve postulates that the Black Kryptonite- Lena’s magic rock- that created her could save her and Lex’s immediate plan is to step into a radiation chamber and give himself cancer to guilt Lena into creating the cure! Of course…? After last week’s episode catches up to speed, Lex returns to Kaznia and transfuses his blood to save Snowbird and gives her a cool suit, while Eve ties the knocked out Lena to her office chair with a sealed letter on her desk, as Supergirl tells Alex and James that Lex is back.
“Supergirl” airs Sundays on The CW.