Tonight was Supergirl‘s midseason finale, giving audiences their first look at the Worldkiller, Reign, in action as she made her presence known to Supergirl and all of National City. However, as the episode closed with a huge cliffhanger, we have some questions that still need answering.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Spoilers ahead for the midseason finale of Supergirl‘s third season, “Reign,” below!
In the episode, Samantha (Odette Annabel) stepped out for the first time as Reign, and proved herself to be an incredibly formidable opponent for Supergirl (Melissa Benoist.) Mon-El (Chris Wood) and Imra Ardeen (Amy Jackson) tried to explain how they ended up in the National City waterfront, and revealed that Kara herself had inspired their heroic efforts as the Legion of Super-Heroes. And if those things weren’t enough, cult leader Thomas Coville (Chad Lowe) returned with rather ominous-sounding information about Reign.
But even with these things packed into the hour, as we go into the winter hiatus, we have five questions that we’re going to be puzzling over until the show returns in January.
Where are the rest of the Legion of Super-Heroes?
Tonight, Mon-El and Imra explained that, inspired by Kara’s example, Mon-El gathered a group of heroes in the future to help world leaders keep the peace. Calling themselves the Legion, they protected the world from threats on earth and from space only to end up 12,000 years in the past thanks to a wormhole. Mon-El explained that they put themselves into cryostasis with a timer set to wake them when they returned to the time they came from, but damage to their ship caused them to wake up.
We saw some of this in the episode “Wake Up,” but in that episode Mon-El was worried about the safety of Imra in her pod. What happened to the rest of the Legion members? Are they still on the ship in the waterfront? Did the DEO bring them all in and have them in the medical area under observation? Neither Mon-El nor Imra seem to be very worried about their teammates, which is a little odd considering that they also want to find a way to get back to their own time. Of course, we also don’t really see them working too much on that either, instead Mon-El seems to be bent on taking his wife out to do all the things he used to like to do with Kara. So, we want to know more about what’s going on with the rest of the team? We know we see at least one more member of the Legion when Supergirl returns, but right now it’s just weird we haven’t heard anything else about them.
Is Thomas Coville Gog?
We have asked a variation of this question before, but after tonight’s episode, we find ourselves wondering now more than ever if Children of Rao cult leader Thomas Coville might actually be Gog. As you may remember, the villain Gog began as missionary William Matthews in the comics who is bestowed with the powers of a god. One of those powers allows him to see into the “Kingdom Come” universe and discover Superman failing to stop a nuclear attack on Kansas. Believing the vision to be that of his own future, Matthews attacked Superman and crusaded against “false gods.”
While Coville doesn’t quite fit that description generally, in tonight’s episode he was able to give Kara information about the Worldkiller Reign that even Kara’s holographic mother didn’t have for her. He was able to explain that Reign is “the devil,” and that Kara’s purpose is to fight said devil. When Kara does fight Reign later in the episode, she loses, and is unable to defeat Coville’s devil. If this is a large enough disappointment for Coville, he may well turn against Supergirl and declare her to be a false god, just as Gog did Superman.
Can Supergirl defeat Reign?
Speaking of Supergirl’s fight with Reign, that did not go well for the Girl of Steel in tonight’s episode. While Supergirl put up a noble fight, she never really got the upper hand. Reign lands blows on Supergirl that leave her bloodied and bruised while Supergirl never really manages to do the same to Reign. At the end of the fight, Reign drops Supergirl off a building, leaving her fighting for her life in a coma.
In the comics, the Worldkillers were the result of genetic experimentation in a clandestine Kryptonian laboratory, and presumably engineered to be very formidable opponents. While we don’t have a lot of information about Reign’s creation, it’s possible that she was similarly created and therefore difficult for even Supergirl to defeat. One thing we can tell for certain after tonight’s fight, though, is that it doesn’t like look like Supergirl alone will be able to defeat Reign.
How will defeat impact Kara?
Kara has had a very difficult time this season. She’s been struggling with believing Mon-El to be dead, trying to figure out who she is and what it’s like to be an alien with human emotions, and she’s even been dealing with her sister’s breakup, too. Now, she just had her heart ripped out with Mon-El’s return and surprise marriage so when (if) she finally wakes up from the coma Reign put her in, learning that she couldn’t stop this major threat is not likely to sit well with Supergirl.
But how will she deal with it? Kara tried to stop being “Kara Danvers” after the loss of Mon-El, but being unable to do her job and protect people against a major threat is likely to cut Kara even deeper. Will she throw herself even deeper into her work as Supergirl, or will she be so broken by everything she’s had thrown at her this season that she gives up entirely?
Could Earth-38’s Central City have something to do with Reign’s endgame?
We’ve speculated before that, while Reign is the big bad right now, there could eventually be a redemption arc for Samantha, and a brief mention of Central City on tonight’s episode has us wondering even more if that’s where Reign could be headed.
Members of the show’s cast have already hinted that Samantha’s transformation will take people by surprise, and in “Wake Up,” we saw Samantha actively resist being turned into Reign. We’ve also seen that Samantha has great respect and admiration for Supergirl, so if Reign could be redeemed, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to see the character take up the Superwoman identity, and with National City having a hero, Central City might be a good place for Superwoman to go.
Central City, the Earth-38 version, has previously been established as very different from the Central City on The Flash‘s Earth-1. Barry Allen himself even notes that Earth-38’s Central City doesn’t have a STAR Labs, doesn’t have a Cisco or a Caitlin. It’s probably safe to assume that Central City doesn’t have its own hero. It’s also a city that Samantha has a connection to. Tonight, she reminded Ruby of a Christmas they spent there when Samantha had taken a job in Central City. With a personal connection and the city not having a hero, it could be a perfect place for Reign’s endgame — as the hero Superwoman — to play out.
Of course, we’ll have to wait until Supergirl returns on January 15th to get answers.
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.
