Tonight’s episode of Supergirl had it all. Surprises, romance, and even a callout to a major DC supervillain. When Alex and Supergirl investigate a dead alien corpse, they discover an underground fight club run by the very influential Roulette. Supergirl’s not the only alien impacted by the fight club, as J’onn and the newly discovered Miss Martian both get caught up in Roulette’s dangerous games.
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Here’s the five biggest moments from this week’s episode!
An Underground Fight Club
Last week, we saw that National City had a booming underground alien population. In tonight’s episode, we found out what some of those aliens do for money….fight in underground cage matches. Maggie tips the DEO off about the fight club when they find an alien corpse, but it isn’t until later they discover the club is run by Roulette, a woman with powerful connections in National City.ย
Roulette is a relatively recent addition to the DC Universe, first introduced in the early 2000s in Geoff Johns’ JSA series. Roulette is the niece to the original Mister Terrific, but turned to crime and ran an underground fight club for metahumans. While Roulette’s fights were typically frequented by supervillains in the comics,ย Supergirl‘s Roulette prefers the company of National City’s elite.ย
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Alex Has Eyes for Maggie
Tonight’s episode further developed the partnership between Alex and Maggie, as well as made it pretty obvious that Alex has a bit of a crush on her Science Police counterpart. Alex brushed off Kara’s help for most of the episode, choosing to use Maggie’s contacts and resources to locate the fight club. The pair even shared a couple of flirty moments, particularly when Maggie had Alex dress up to infiltrate Roulette’s fight club.
Unfortunately, it looks like any romance between Maggie and Alex will be a slow build. Alex offered to buy Maggie a drink at the end of the episode, but Maggie turned her down…because she already has a girlfriend.ย
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Draaga…and Warworld?!
Roulette wasn’t the only supervillain to pop up in tonight’sย Supergirlย episode. Draaga, a minor Superman villain, appears as Roulette’s grand champion and enforcer. But the real shocking moment isn’t that Draaga appeared in tonight’s episode, it’s where Mon-El recognized him from. Mon-El mentions to Supergirl that he’s seen Draaga fight before during a visit to Warworld.
Warworld is an artificial planet ruled by Mongul, one of Superman’s greatest villains.ย Mongul used Warworld to build up a small space empire and often conscripted aliens (like Draaga) to fight in gladiatorial games. Eventually, Superman (with the help of Supergirl and Draaga) destroyed Warworld after Brainiac took over the planet and used it to invade Earth.
The fact thatย Supergirlย name-dropped Warworld is either a really cool Easter egg (like Superman’s Legion ring) or a tease for some really awesome things to come.ย
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Kara Calls In a Favor
Lena Luthor only had a small part in tonight’s episode ofย Supergirl, but it could turn into a major plot point for later in the season. When Roulette takes J’onn captive and moves her fight club to a new location, Kara turns to the one person she knows who would likely get an invite to the club: a Luthor. Sure enough, Lena gets regular invites to Roulette’s events and gladly turns the location over to Kara.
Kara thanks Lena and offhandedly says that she owes Lena a big favor. Lenaย makes a vaguely ominous reply about Kara having Lena’s back in the future, but Kara doesn’t seem to really notice.ย
Even though Lena seems more noble than her brother, owing a Luthor a favor is never a good thing.ย It’s likely that Lena will want to leverage Kara’s press connections somewhere down the line, or maybe even her connection to Supergirl.ย
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Miss Martian’s True Form
The big bombshell in last night’s episode is when Miss Martian reveals her true form. Although she portrays herself as a Green Martian, we find out that she’s actually a White Martian in disguise. That’s why M’gann refused to mind meld with J’onn, and is also probably why she’s so set on fighting in Roulette’s club.
Obviously, J’onn and the White Martians have bad blood, and we know that the White Martians have some sort of presence on Earth. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Miss Martian is a bad guy. In the comics, M’gann fled Mars shortly before the war between the White and Green Martians broke out and avoided any part in the Green Martian massacre.ย
So willย Supergirlย stick to Miss Martian’s comic book origins? Or is Miss Martian another White Martian scheme to get close to J’onn? That’s probably a question for a future episode.ย
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