Supergirl Season 4, Episode 13 recap: Super Friends vs. The Elite

Supergirl’s band of Super Friends go up against The Elite in this week’s new episode!

Supergirl has a new team of Super Friends behind her and she’ll need them as they are forced to go up against Manchester Black and his newly formed team, The Elite in this week’s Supergirl.

We previously saw Manchester reach out to Menagerie in prison and this week’s episode finds both Manchester and Menagerie escaping prison with the assistance of Manchester’s old friend Hat. Hat is charming, witty, and has a hat that can use fifth dimensional energy. Even though he’s a villain we can’t help but kind of like him?

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Joined by a Morae, not the same one Supergirl previously captured, The Elite go to a secret army base and murder 13 mercenaries who tortured and killed aliens. They even post a video of the carnage for good measure, leaving Supergirl none too happy.

Meanwhile Kara has taken Nia to the Fortress of Solitude to begin her training as Dreamer. Brainy seems to be in charge of her training but Nia is frustrated that he clearly knows one of her descendants but refuses to tell her anything about them.

Brainy of course knows that telling people about the events of the future can threaten the timeline and the very reality of time and space. However that’s not good enough for the young budding superhero and Nia goes behind Brainy’s back to ask Kelex about the full extent of what she can do. To be fair, if I was a superhero I would want to know what I can do too.

As Nia is trying to hone her powers she ends up astral projecting and Brainy walks in to find out she has gone behind his back and asked Kelex for information. He’s not mad though, he says it’s the sign of a hero that they leap without thinking and now the two will move forward together.

Back at the DEO Alex heads to the lab to check in on Lena who will be working there for a few weeks. Alex quickly puts her science skills to use and realizes that Lena is trying to give humans powers.

She naturally wants to ramp up security because it’s Alex and because the project is extremely dangerous, but when she mentions putting reports on secure servers Lena reveals she won’t be writing any reports. She’ll give them the product but not her process. Just because she made a deal doesn’t mean she trusts the government.

In the state capitol a recently freed Ben Lockwood comes across a disgruntled member of the Children of Liberty who none too subtly implies that Ben Lockwood has gone soft and reveals that Manchester Black is on the loose once again.

Ben is shocked and furious and takes the opportunity during his meeting with President Baker to ask him to deputize the Children of Liberty. The president refuses but assures him that he has the situation under control.

The reason the president is so confident is that the government has plans for a secret satellite that will shoot down any alien ship, innocent or otherwise. The project is dubbed “Project Claymore”.

Supergirl takes a meeting with Manchester Black after he calls her out and when he tells her about the satellite she’s understandably distressed. It goes against everything she stands for. She goes straight to the president who in no uncertain terms tells her not to mess with the satellite and once she leaves he moves the launch up to tomorrow night.

Unfortunately for both of them the Morae was listening and goes back to The Elite with the name and location of the secret satellite base, Devils Tower, Wyoming.

Kara doesn’t know what to do so she does what she normally would do in such moments, she goes to Alex. But she goes to Alex as Supergirl and has to pretend like she’s never been to her apartment before. This mind wipe storyline is really heartbreaking and I honestly don’t know how much more I can take.

Alex counsels Supergirl that she can only do what she thinks is right but when Supergirl asks her to join her Alex declines. It would put her position at risk and that would put the DEO and the whole government at risk.

Both The Elite and the Super Friends, consisting of Kara, Nia, Brainy, and J’onn, go to the base and go to head to head. It’s an intense battle and one of Nia’s new powers are revealed! Brainy made her gloves that can harness raw dream energy and it’s pretty cool.

Unfortunately while the Super Friends were busy fighting The Elite they didn’t realize that the Morae had gotten down to the control center of the base. Instead of stopping the satellite launch it gave it a new target, The White House.

Luckily Alex showed up to the fight just in time to help J’onn and to give Supergirl the space suit that Lena had created for her earlier in the season. With the suit Supergirl is able to fly up and push the satellite off course enough that it misses the White House. She then destroys the satellite completely.

With one stroke of good luck usually comes one stroke of bad luck though. During his fight with Hat Brainy’s legion right was taken and Hat gives the ring to Manchester. With the ring and some new powers Manchester takes off after Supergirl and it’s up to J’onn to bring him down.

J’onn has been struggling with his vow of peace but he takes down Manchester mid-flight and begins to violently punch him. J’onn thinks Manchester has a death wish but as he goes to land another blow Manchester disappears.

Later on we see a shot of J’onn praying and it’s clear his internal struggle is going to continue for a while. I have a feeling J’onn will rejoin the fight, he cares too much about Kara and about Earth, but time will tell.

One of the most poignant moments from the episode was a scene between Supergirl and Alex after the battle. Alex ruefully tells her she had to do what she thought was right and that on occasion Supergirl could come to her so they could kick butt like they used to.

It was almost like Alex was being the big sister even when she didn’t know she was the big sister. Could some feeling still remain in Alex from the memories that were wiped? I hope so because I need the sisters to be fully on the same team again!

Supergirl confronts the president once again about the satellite and he is furious. She maintains there was no other way but to destroy it, but the president doesn’t buy it.

After she leaves the president takes another meeting with Ben Lockwood and in retaliation he makes Ben the new Director of Alien Affairs. This will not end well. Especially given Ben’s increasing violent streak as he turns on one of his own Children of Liberty who questions his leadership and violently beats him with the Agent Liberty mask.

After the fight, Alex returns to the DEO to question Colonel Haley about why she wasn’t told about the satellite. She can’t do her job without all the information. But Colonel Haley looks disturbed and says she didn’t know, either, and that the president breached protocol.

This leads Alex to go back to Lena and after turning off the cameras she tells Lena that something is wrong in the government, and at the moment she trusts Lena far more than she trusts them. So whatever Lena needs, Alex will be there.

It’s a nice moment of friendship between these two and their relationship feels very genuine. However, I can’t help but feel that, even though they have good intentions, this is all going to go horribly wrong. What is it they say, the road to hell was paved with good intentions?

Do you think The Elite make formidable enemies for Kara’s Super Friends? Are Lena’s experiments headed for disaster or are they the solution to all of their problems? Let us know!

Supergirl airs Sundays at 8pm EST on the CW.