Supergirl 6x3 : Phantom Menaces review

 

          Be warned there will be *SPOILERS* involved in this review. With that being said let's get into it.

Supergirl's third episode of it's final season begins pretty much where last weeks ended. We hear and see that a Phantom has forced it's way outside of Silas's body and into the wild so to speak. Silas rings up J'onn and asks him for help as the Vampire / Alien begins to feel cold and drained of life. J'onn ends up bringing him back to the base where he is placed under a thermal blanket. Brainy who has done more research on these Phantoms lets everyone else known that they are really called Zulian Manetarian and their powers consist of fear, manipulation and soul retrieval. In fact the more souls they gather the stronger they become which ties in with what is happening with Silas. As not soon after this his entire body goes pale, his eyes go red and his soul leaves his body via his mouth before shooting off. But he isn't exactly dead rather a husk that a new Phantom can live inside of as with each attack by these creatures it leaves another behind. They contain this new Phantom and try to come up with a way to locate the one that left Silas's body. 

At the end of last weeks episode we saw that Supergirl and her father who was hesitant on leaving the Phantom Zone come to the agreement to actually try and devise a way out of there. Their plan? to catch a Phantom and ride it's coat tails so to speak as they jump from portal to portal. They succeed in doing so and end up in another area of the Phantom Zone. Immediately they are surrounded by men who take Kara's father away and say that she is next. A mysterious woman soon turns up and gets them to leave Kara be with a little trick of her own. The woman ends up taking Supergirl to a cave which looks exactly the same as the one that Kara and her father were in last week. Supergirl whose leg is badly hurt after Phantom travel is shocked to find out that this woman is in fact an Imp from the 5th dimension. Yes she is much like Mr Mxyzptlk and she even knows the the little imp as she shares very similar powers and magic. She is in the Phantom Zone before of her father and brother who confined her to the haunting place with little to no access to her powers via a chain around her wrists. All she has is a magic ball of sorts that still has some juice in it. It's not long before Supergirl's words of encouragement lead to this womans chains being removed and her magic restored to it's full property. A rescue mission for Kara's father may be in order it seems..

The episode draws to a close back at the team's base where upon further inspection and looking into how Silas came to be in such contact with a Phantom leads to Brainy being able to detect the one that is somewhere in the city. It turns out however that Miss Martian is already on the case much to J''onn's dismay as we soon find out that Martians are actually more vulnerable to Phantoms. Alex, J'onn and Brainy arrive too late as Miss Martian has been attacked at the hands of  a Phantom who is seen leaving through a portal as they arrive. J'onn sees Miss Martian almost immediately and she has been attacked pretty badly. J'onn of course blames himself for what has happened as it's now only a matter of time before she becomes one of those god awful creatures. Back at the base once again and with time running out it's actually Alex whose entire arc this episode was pretty great to be honest suggests that J'onn use his soul bond to restore Miss Martian's soul once it leaves her body moments before she is about to turn. J'onn agrees and risks it all to save his fellow Martian and is successful. There's a pretty cool scene here as everyone fights off invading Phantoms including Kelly Olsen who also helps J'onn with the soul bonding process. Miss Martian is ultimately saved but there is still the problem of Phantoms loose. Back inside in the Phantom Zone and with her powers now restored Supergirl does indeed up rescuing her father with the woman's help. She makes the captors disappear in an instant with her power leaving to Kara be with her father once again. This should be the part where we say goodbye then the woman says but Supergirl says no. She asks for the woman's help to get out of the Phantom Zone. It's impossible she says but Supergirl mentions something about an anchor being tethered to a part of the universe that needs some shifting which in theory could be their way out. The woman agrees and snaps her fingers indicating that a magical escape plan is about to take place. The episode ends right there but there is still more I want to talk about. Lex Luthor and Lena. Or should I say Luthor V Luthor as the battle between the siblings takes a pretty full on and drastic turn this week as not only do money from Lex's account get taken Lena to give to a needy charity for children, in return Lex torches the building with the help of Otis. It's pretty full on stuff here as Brainy especially takes his hatred for Lex to another level getting super emotional about him in front of Lena. Even suggesting that they straight up murder him which I didn't expect at all. I'm sure things will only escalate even further as we go on this season but right now it's pretty grim bearing while still being rather brilliant. And that was the episode. I really wanted to talk about the Lex and Lena stuff there at the end as it really stood out to me throughout. As for the rest of the episode it was fine, the Supergirl parts were the highlight really with the other story about Silas, Miss Martian and J'onn feeling rather forced especially when it came to pep talks and encouraging one another to never stop and keep marching. Not the greatest episode but certainly not bad either. 

★★★