Calista Flockhart Returns to Supergirl as Cat Grant in Season 2

Calista Flockhart is confirmed to return to Supergirl as a recurring guest star and begins production in Vancouver next week.

She’ll be appearing in multiple episodes beginning with the October 10th second season premiere on The CW.

“Supergirl wouldn’t be Supergirl without the amazing Calista Flockhart as Cat Grant.We are so excited Calista has agreed to continue on the show when she can. We and the audience love to see her on screen,” said Supergirl executive producer Andrew Kreisberg.

When the series moved from CBS to The CW and production moved from Los Angeles to Vancouver, rumors flew that Flockhart would not make the move. At Comic Con over the weekend, reports started to trickle out that the actress would return but in a reduced role.

Cat Grant was created in the comics by Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway as a potential love interest for Clark Kent/Superman, but the relationship fizzled pretty early on and Cat was left pining away for the hunky Kansas farmboy in the newsroom. There was at one point even an implication that she and Jimmy had some chemistry before they developed her character in another direction, playing up drama with her ex-husband and her young son, who was eventually murdered by a supervillain.

She’s another character who’s been involved in almost every iteration of the franchise on film, but in the case of Grant, she doesn’t get nearly the endearing depiction that Lois Lane or Lana Lang do. In Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, she was depicted as a hyper-sexualized bimbo and in Smallville, Cat came in late and literally, physically replaced Lois in the room for a while when the latter was away. Her interest in Clark was small, and she was used mostly as a pretty face to keep male viewers content while Erica Durance was gone and as a kind of media zombie for the Glorious Godfrey set during the final season’s Darkseid storyline. Arguably her most memorable episode revolved around the way she rejected Superman and embraced Booster Gold.

Supergirl was the first time Grant has been given a lot to do in a live-action interpretation, and as a series regular in the first season she was not only Kara’s direct superior but the “Queen of All Media.” This year, their relationship will be different as Kara still works for CatCo, but not as Cat’s personal assistant anymore.

Supergirl returns to the airwaves on October 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.