In “Blood Bonds,” Astra’s husband Non kidnaps Henshaw, forcing Kara to make a difficult decision. Grant’s suspicions of Kara being Supergirl take a toll on Kara’s job, and James and Winn try to investigate Lord’s company.
With the exception of a pretty cool midair fight scene at the top of the hour, “Blood Bonds” was a emotionally focused episode, with Kara and Astra confronting each other once again, this time more focused as Kara has by this point learned how to deal with her aunt. The interaction between ranged throughout the episode, starting with Astra in control and then, following a tense torture session at the hands of General Lane, Kara gets control as Astra is starting to realize the error of her way, building up to the final confrontation as she calls off her soldiers. Whether Astra will continue to be a villain remains to be seen, but much like Grant’s reaction to Kara’s true identity, there’s evidence for both theories.
Speaking of Grant, Kara’s position at CatCo was in jeopardy as Grant threatened to fire her unless she admitted to being Supergirl. While this plot was a little contrived and painted Grant in unflattering light, her reasoning that Kara working at CatCo interfered with her superhero duties was legitimately a good point. One could argue it shows that Grant really does care, even if she was nasty to Kara for the majority of the episode and STILL gets her name wrong.
Even so, the payoff of the really cool, “How did they do that?” ruse of Kara and Supergirl in the same room was one of the coolest moments the show has put out. Even more so when you factor in how they got two Melissa Benoists on a TV budget. It also dovetailed nicely with Kara discovering Henshaw’s alien nature, which admittedly doesn’t leave much development for the future, but who knows.
“Blood Bonds” toned down the action, but was better for it. While it kind of hits the reset button on some of the development the show has been building so far, it was still a fun episode with great emotion and heart behind it.
Supergirl airs Mondays on The CW.