Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Arrowverse catchup, this time looking at Supergirl season 4 episode 16, The House of L. After the rapturous introduction of Jon Cryer’s Lex Luthor last episode, the Man of Tomorrow took centre stage in this episode. Like the Ben Lockwood focussed episode earlier in the season, this villain-centric outing was a strong episode where if you are willing to accept the story going in this direction, is arguably one of the best Supergirl episode’s in a while. This set out thorough a series of flashbacks to make it abundantly clear that Lex has been pulling the strings the whole time for everything that has happened so far this season. I wonder if this was always the plan or if they did a “Star Wars Palpatine” where they just rewrote things to force him in. I don’t know if they jumped at the chance of suddenly being allowed to use the Lex Luthor character or if this was a long term choice. I just feel that it undermines Lockwood as he has had the title of big bad suddenly snatched away from him in favour of Lex and hasn’t been seen these last two episodes apart from being the “somebody” for Lex to use as his American scapegoat. I don’t like how they have shortchanged him, but that may just be me panicking a bit as there is still a good few episodes to go. Don’t just toss him aside like they did Manchester though.

That being said I absolutely love Cryer’s Luthor. He was brilliant again here, manipulating everyone, oozing charisma and being dislikeable at the same time. He is totally insane too, giving himself cancer! I got on board with the Miss. Tessmacher allegiance more as you saw the relationship that they have. She is like one of those ladies who write to murderers or fall in love with serial killers. How Lex knew that Cat Grant needed a new assistant was a push though…

Credit needs to go to Melissa Benoist for her portrayal of Red Daughter. Her accent was decent and she made her vulnerable and actually quite likeable. You want to see her rebel against Lex. I am still not overly sold on the “fighting your evil self trope” but I can’t deny that this set up was very very good, even if I am not all that interested in that part of the payoff.

DD Rating: 7/10