The news cycle is divided between fear of Supergirl and fear of this scary new alien. Kara drowns her sorrows in donuts, while Alex brings Hank junk food and promises not to abandon him.
Major Lane and Colonel Harper invade the DEO, part of a joint task force that has been formed to figure out how J’onn J’onzz could infiltrate the department that was supposed to hunt him down. Lucy is also there because they think the DEO has been compromised and that there may be people there who know more than they are saying.
First to be interrogated is, of course, Hank. Harper feels betrayed that this alien was at his home, around his children. Hank promises to fully cooperate, but Harper doesn’t trust him. He has even built a stasis field that will prevent him from using his powers. This stasis field also prevents Supergirl from using her super hearing to find out what is being said.
Hank shares his backstory in the form of a flashback. Ten years ago, the real Hank Henshaw was a South African military leader who was leading his team through the Peruvian Andes to hunt J’onn J’onzz. His team is given shoot-to-kill orders. Jeremiah Danvers is on the team and he doesn’t want to kill; he wants to learn from the alien. Out in the jungle, a snake attacks Danvers, and J’onzz saves him. The two, separated from the rest of the team, sit and rest around a fire. J’onzz doesn’t like fire, and explains that his planet, Mars, burned to death. He knows that Danvers and his team are there to kill him, but Danvers insists that it is because the humans thought he could be a threat. Now, Danvers knows that he isn’t. J’onzz is a refugee. J’onzz is still wary of Danvers, so he shows the alien a photo of his daughters, and how Kara is “special,” too. J’onzz softens – he had daughters. Danvers promises to do everything he can to keep J’onzz safe. “Consider me a friend.” Before they can shake on it, Hank jumps out and shoots J’onzz with a specially-designed bullet. J’onzz insists he means humanity no harm, and Danvers steps in. The humans fight, and Hank is thrown off a cliff. Danvers has been fatally stabbed by Hank. His dying words, to J’onzz, are: “take care of my girls.” “Hank” returns to his team, but he is now J’onzz, and he has a new outlook on the alien problem.
Currently, Hank swears that he has served the DEO with honor and has even stopped major alien attacks. Harper thinks it could have all been a plot to build an alien army from the inside. They take Hank away, encountering Supergirl and Alex in the hall. Alex defends Hank, but it falls on deaf ears. Harper is taking him to “where he belongs.”
Next in interrogation is Alex. She has nothing to hide, not even from the lie detector she is attached to. In her flashback, we go back three years. Alex is a party girl, doing shots and dancing at a club. She is arrested while trying to get into her car, obviously drunk. It is Hank who visits her in the drunk tank, and Alex initially thinks she is a lawyer. They have never met, but Hank knows everything about Alex, including who her sister really is. After a pep talk, he convinces Alex to accompany him to the DEO and explains what they do there. She will be ready to go into the field when she can beat him. In the present, Alex insists that Hank gave her a home and a purpose, and she is proud of it. Harper asks if she knew that Hank was an alien. Alex answers no, and the polygraph remains steady. This tells Harper she is a terrible agent, but not a criminal. Lucy, on the other hand, knows she is lying and puts Alex under arrest. When Supergirl stops them in the hallway, she finds out Alex is going to Project Cadmus.
Confused and helpless, Kara turns to James for help. She explains that it was Lucy leading the witch hunt, and asks James if he knows what Cadmus is. He does, unfortunately; it is why Superman won’t help the government. Cadmus is a testing facility where aliens can be vivisected, skinned, severed, and tortured in the hopes of weaponizing their alien abilities.
Nearly out of options, James invites Lucy over to Kara’s house. She is not happy about this, but Lucy is the only one who can save Alex from Cadmus, and there is something Kara needs to tell her. She opens her blouse and removes her glasses. She is Supergirl. When Lucy asks why aliens always lie, we get Kara’s flashback.
Twelve years ago was Kara’s first day at public school. She is overwhelmed by the sights and sounds. Alex is invited to a beach party, and she brings Kara. There were no birds on Krypton, so Kara is in amazement staring at the birds on the beach. Of course, all the kids are eyeing her warily, thinking she is weird. Alex tries to get Kara to be “normal,” but Kara hears a bad car crash and races to help. She rescues a woman and her baby, but Alex and all her friends rush to see what is going on. They arrive just as the car explodes, a piece of flaming metal hitting Alex.
Jeremiah assures Kara that Alex will be fine; she just needs a few stitches. But he warns her about keeping her powers secret. The world already has a Superman; she just needs to worry about being Kara Danvers. Jeremiah made her a pair of lead-lined glasses that should impair her eyesight to human-normal and help her fit in. Two years ago, Kara arrives at CatCo for her interview and she slips down her glasses so she can see that Cat’s prescription is empty and her pen is out of ink.
Returning to the present, Kara tries to explain that, when you are an alien, you are willing to sacrifice everything just to fit in, which is certainly nicer than saying “we lie about being aliens because humans want to vilify us!” James and Kara trust who Lucy is, beneath her uniform, and that she will do the right thing.
Hank and Alex are being taken to Project Cadmus. Harper insists that there, they can unlock secrets to save human lives; Hank just sees it as a fancy way of saying he will be dissected. Two motorcycles zip up behind the transport truck, and the driver takes evasive maneuvers, but they can’t shake the bikers. They try shooting, but the drivers seem to wear body armor. The motorcyclist takes out one of the truck’s tires, bringing it to a screeching halt, and causing Harper to lose the stasis field remote. It breaks, allowing Hank to use his powers to break him and Alex out of their chains. Hank is going to make Harper forget everything, and promises Alex that he has been practicing – Harper won’t die. But when he is in Harper’s head, he sees something shocking. Jeremiah Danvers is alive, at Project Cadmus. In case you haven’t guessed it, Lucy and Kara were the motorcyclists. Kara says a teary goodbye to Alex and Hank, as they are now fugitives and have to go on the run. Kara and Lucy, a new friendship between them, return to the DEO to find out what Harper’s orders are. Harper isn’t there; he just resigned and named Lucy as the new director.
Elsewhere, Siobhan is furious that Kara ratted her out to Cat, and she thinks she has been blacklisted by every media company in the area. As revenge, she sneaks into the CatCo offices late at night and sends Cat an e-mail from Kara’s computer, telling her what Kara “really” thinks of her. The next day, Cat calls Siobhan into the office, and Siobhan thinks that Kara has been fired and she has been re-hired. That e-mail seemed too out of character for Kara to have written, and with Winn’s help, they found technical proof that it was Siobhan who wrote the email, not Kara. Cat warns her that if she tries anything like that again, her next call will be to the police.
Siobhan takes her anger to the roof, where she drinks and rages into the night sky. Winn finds her up there and worries she might kill herself; Siobhan has too good of self-esteem to do that. She is mad, though, that Winn ratted her out. (Take some responsibility for your actions!) As she screams and whines, her heel breaks and she tumbles off the building. She screams all the way down, and before she can go splat, her scream saves her, slowing her to gently rest on the ground. And so the Silver Banshee is born.
You can watch a preview for the next episode, titled “World’s Finest” and featuring The Flash, by clicking here.
