Supergirl Season 4, Episode 7 recap: Risks and betrayal

This weeks Supergirl episode finds Supergirl teaming up with Manchester Black as James grapples with the Children of Liberty. Here’s our recap.

In this week’s Supergirl, Kara teams up with Manchester Black. Unfortunately for her their alliance is short lived. Kara becomes uncomfortable with Manchester’s violent tendencies, but after speaking with J’onn she is encouraged to give him another chance.

Manchester’s second chance however, results in him betraying Supergirl. He gives her up to the Children of Liberty in hopes of meeting Agent Liberty so he can exact his revenge for Fiona’s death. The Children of Liberty are stationed on Shelly Island which has now been shut down but still has active power dampeners. Manchester disabled Kara’s back up yellow sun grenade, effectively leaving her powerless and vulnerable to being taken by the Children of Liberty.

With Kara trapped in a monument that is set up to explode, the Children of Liberty threaten Tom, the man who brought James to them, in order to force James to cooperate with them. They want to record James publicly announcing that he stands with the Children of Liberty and telling the world that he believes in what they stand for. He is to be their new public face.

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James unwillingly complies, choosing to risk his reputation in order to save Tom. After all, as James says, what is a reputation? James believes that whatever they break can be built back up. Just as he is about to press the button to blast the monument that Kara is trapped inside of, he notices light coming from inside the building due to Kara’s laser vision and realizes that she’s trapped in there.

Meanwhile, Manchester Black reveals he set up all the events leading up to this in order to betray Supergirl and meet Agent Liberty. However, the Agent Liberty that they bring him in to meet is not Ben Lockwood, since he is on the set of his new show. Manchester quickly realizes he is not in the presence of the real Agent Liberty and takes out the others and forces the imposter to tell him who the real Agent Liberty is.

Outside the monument, James attacks the Children of Liberty which allows enough time for Manchester Black to arrive on the scene and take out the power dampeners now that his deal with the Children of Liberty is broken. With her powers restored Kara is able to fly herself and the bomb out of the monument so it can explode safely in the sky where no one will be harmed.

J’onn confronts Manchester for his betrayal but Manchester is already too far gone. Without Fiona he is empty inside and as J’onn goes to read his mind and see everything that he’s done Manchester attaches an empathy amplifier to J’onn, a weapon created to use against empaths, and leaves him on the side of the road.

Manchester then goes to Lockwood Steel and whatever he has planned for Ben Lockwood surely won’t be pretty. It is kind of hard to blame him though, because while his betrayal of Supergirl was terrible it is not hard to understand his desire to get vengeance for his dead fiance and on those whose hate speech has hurt so many others. If only his methods weren’t so brutal.

Kara and James also have an interesting conversation about duality that highlights the themes of the season. Kara wonders about Manchester Black who killed people and betrayed her, but then also turned around and helped her. It’s similar to how James wondered about the Children of Liberty, who commit such horrible acts but out of fear.

James suggests that maybe Manchester helping her was merely a consequence of the situation, and helping her wasn’t his goal. Kara agrees and responds to that by saying that people only show you what they want you to see, and that often isn’t the whole picture of who they really are. Everything isn’t as black and white as it may seem.

With his powers being used against him and all his emotions crashing down on him J’onn shows up to Kara’s left where Kara, Alex and Brainy were hanging out and breaks down and apologizes for his mistake in trusting Manchester. Kara of course doesn’t judge him and gives J’onn a comforting hug. Hopefully this means J’onn will be back in the fold once more.

Back at LCorp Lena has begun human trials with the Harun-El. Her first test subject is a young man named Adam who she initially refuses to acknowledge by name, only by his test subject number, but she eventually comes to befriend him.

Adam opens up about the fact that his brother is dead because of a procedure that went wrong when he gave Adam his kidney. He believes himself to be a bad person, since he wouldn’t have done the same if the roles were reversed, but Lena counters that he is not a bad person he just had bad luck.

In turn, Lena opens up about her past with her birth mother. We learn that Lena’s mother died in the water when Lena was only 4. She went in, but never came out. Even though Lena knew something was wrong, she didn’t cry or scream. 4 year old Lena just stood there and watched as her mother died.

Lena is convinced that she is a horrible person for not behaving as any normal child would, and deep down she knew that when she was taken to the horrible Luthor family that she belonged with them. It’s tragic to see Lena struggle so much to be a good person, but constantly be tied down by the Luthor legacy and her belief that she’s a terrible person.

Lena has second thoughts about the experiment, but Adam says he’s never been chosen for anything and begs her to continue so he can actually do something good. Lena agrees to proceed but in the end Adam exhibits powers for no more than 3 minutes before he sadly dies.

As Lena processes Adam’s death back in her office it seems she is prepared to continue with more experiments. James shows up with dinner, hoping to speak with Lena and clear the air, but with her mind still on the experiment and her feelings still presumably hurt by James’s rejection of her she sends him away.

Many of Lena’s scenes have this sense of Lena teetering on the edge. She’s trying to do good but in her attempt to do good she’s willing to cross any line. It’s a lonely place to be. This could be the beginning of Lena’s slow downward spiral into villainy and it will be a sad and painful thing to watch. I’m sure she would be a very formidable villain, but it’s heartbreaking to see a woman who fights so hard to do good be brought down by the life she was dealt.

Do you think Lena will eventually become a villain? Were you expecting Manchester Black’s betrayal? Will he ever redeem himself? Let us know your thoughts!

Supergirl airs Sundays at 8pm EST on the CW.