Supergirl Recap: S1E19 ‘Myriad’

Spoilers for ‘Myriad’

It’s the penultimate episode of season one of Supergirl and we finally have learned what Myriad is. Non is using it to enslave all of National City, and its reach goes as far as the DEO. Under his control Lucy starts a process to free the Fort Rozz escapees that had been working with Non. This includes Maxima, a super-strong alien from the planet Almerac. At first, Maxima was going to kill Lucy but feeling rejected by Superman, she decides to work with Non instead. Its at this point that Supergirl arrives, stopping the process to release the other prisoners and defeating Maxima. I was honestly surprised at how easily Maxima was beaten considering her character’s long history in the comics. Hopefully we get the chance to see her again.

Looking for answers, Supergirl flies to the Fortress of Solitude, and though Kelex refuse to talk about Myriad, a projection of Alura finally fills Supergirl in. It is a mind control system that Astra had developed to force the Kryptonians to stop destroying their planet’s ecological systems. Alura goes on to say once Myriad has been turned on, it can’t be stopped.

After going to CatCo,Supergirl finds everyone there, including James and WInn, are mindless drones working at their computers. The TV shows that General Sam Lane is working to block access to and from National City. Supergirl reaches out to him and surprisingly he tells her that he trusts her to do her part. At this point, Cat walks in clearly acting like her normal self. While there is an explanation why Cat isn’t under the mind control, I’m almost surprised that she wasn’t just because she’s to stubborn to be controlled. Supergirl explains what’s going on but they quickly lose hope when they realize that Superman himself had fallen victim to Myriad. He had sent a text message to Supergirl that he was on his way, but as soon as he entered the city limits he fell victim to Myriad.

Its at this point that the final member of Supergirl’s makeshift team arrives, Maxwell Lord. He had figured out that the Kryptonians were using his satellites to send the Myriad signal to National City, and he was able to develop a blocker to protect himself. He had included that blocking technology in a pair of earrings he had given to Cat, which she happened to be wearing.

Non, encouraged by Indigo, comes to CatCo and explains that he has the entire population working on ways to stop the Earth from going through the ecological destruction that Krypton did. Indigo spent a lot of time seemingly manipulating Non, and wanted him to kill Supergirl. Non decides to draw out the process however, and instead has three people jump of separate parts of the building, forcing Supergirl to make a choice on who to save. Considering that two of them were James and Winn, it’s no surprise that the one she couldn’t rescue was the random background employee we had never seen until this point. I get what they were going for with this scene, but it was obvious the show wasn’t going to kill one of its main characters this way which took some of the drama out of it.

While Non was confronting Supergirl, we check in on Alex and J’onn who are still on the run. They stop by Alex’s mother’s (Eliza) house to regroup, which seems like a terrible decision. Surely the DEO would have been watching that house, and at this point Alex and J’onn don’t yet know about Myriad. That said, I loved Eliza’s questions to J’onn about his alien biology. Eliza shows them the news of what’s going on in National City, and they go back. The plan is for J’onn to use his telepathy to protect Alex. Initially, he didn’t want Alex to come but she talked him into it.

When they get to the city, they are immediately attacked by Indigo who had sensed J’onn was coming. Indigo quickly defeated them and captured Alex. She takes Alex to Non where she says she knows of a way they can hurt Alex and Supergirl at the same time.

Back with Supergirl and the others, Max lays out a plan to use a bomb he developed that would lace the city with Kryptonite dust, killing Non and his forces. He casually mentions that Supergirl wouldn’t be able to come back to National City for at least 50 years. Initially, and reluctantly, Supergirl was going to allow Max to use his bomb, but in one of her typical inspirational speeches, Cat got Supergirl to believe in hope, telling her that hope was more powerful than fear. They go to an old TV station of Cat’s, and using analog signals as opposed to digital, attempt to counter the Myriad signal. They don’t get very far though before Alex arrives, controlled by Non, and wearing armor infused with Kryptonite. Non’s plan is simple. Either Supergirl has to fight and kill Alex, or Alex will kill her.

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