After Supergirl responds to a distress call from a navy ship that turns out to be an alien attack, Colonel Haley is determined to figure out her identity.
Tropes:
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Morae attack the DEO at the episode's climax to get at Haley.
- Asshole Victim: Colonel McAllister and General Tan, who are killed by the aliens they tortured into becoming Living Weapons.
- Bait-and-Switch: For a moment, it seems like being saved by Supergirl will get Haley to change her mindset, but alas no.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: The Morae wounded by Alex chooses to stab itself rather than go near its former torturer Haley, much less the DEO.
- Big Damn Heroes: Supergirl saves Haley from being killed by a Morae. Big mistake.
- Boxed Crook: Brainy reveals that this is how he was recruited into the Legion.
- Brutal Honesty: Brainy says that, should Alex keep her memories, there is a 100% chance that Haley will uncover the truth (again).
- The Bus Came Back: The episode opens with the return of the Russian Kara clone, who's been absent for several episodes; her military superiors are training her for something big.
- Call-Back: Kara briefly mentions having met Earth-1 Alex, which occurred in the previous episode.
- Crazy-Prepared: Brainy anticipates that he may be asked to supply Haley with Supergirl’s identity, so he uses a trick to delete the information, until reminded of it.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Even if she's been forced out of the DEO, Kara is still a hero. Unfortunately, this only makes the paranoid Colonel Haley furious, who is determined to keep her in line from now on.
- The Dog Bites Back: The Morae, who are targeting their former torturers in retaliation for trying to have them killed.
- Downer Ending: The only real bright spots are that Kara's secret remains safe and that one of the Morae was spared. Otherwise, it's pure downer; saving Haley just led to her trying to blackmail Kara, mind-wiping her just led to Haley taking a different tack in uncovering Supergirl's identity, and everyone at the DEO who knows Kara's identity, including Alex, is forced to have their memory of her secret erased, leaving her more alone than ever.
- Fantastic Racism: Revealed here to be an institutional problem. According to Haley, standard procedure when dealing with tender-age aliens is to traumatise them into obedience, and if they're proven to have strategic value, they're essentially enslaved to become living weapons. On a personal level, Haley's problem with Supergirl being an independent agent seems to have less to do with her interfering with DEO operations, and more because she's a powerful alien that the government doesn't control.
- Foreshadowing: The Russian officers studying the Kara clone mention a "friend" who's helping them control her.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Haley misjudges Supergirl on several levels; first, she assumes that being fired from the DEO would have Supergirl restrict her heroics to things like stopping trains, which Haley herself acknowledges as naive after being proven wrong. She follows this up by assuming that Supergirl will go out of her way to make the DEO's job difficult, deeming her a potential threat that needs to be controlled.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The Morae are the antagonists of the episode, but humans, specifically General Tan, Colonel McAllister, and Colonel Haley, are shown to be much worse in every possible way. The Morae may be vicious, but they're only like that because they were abused into becoming killing machines, and they're only attacking because the government ordered their destruction for no clear reason. What's more, Haley repeatedly shows herself to be a callous, paranoid, self-righteous control freak, all traits that the supposedly monstrous Morae explicitly lack.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Both Tan and Haley make no excuses for their horrible actions.
- Innocently Insensitive: Brainy inviting Nia to what looks like a date... which then turns out to be an invitation for her to become Supergirl's sidekick, basically, and leaving her afterwards.
- Inspector Javert: Haley is hellbent on uncovering Kara's secret identity to bring her under heel.
- Internal Reformist: Why Kara convinces Alex to stay at the D.E.O. — she has to balance out Haley's ruthless tendencies.
- Internal Reveal:
- Haley learns that Kara is Supergirl (for a short while).
- James learns about Lena's project to give humans superpowers.
- Invisibility: The Morae's power. Supergirl is initially able to see them as a shimmer, but they're able to adapt and become completely invisible to her.
- Karma Houdini: Except for a punch in the face and having her memory wiped, Haley suffers no consequences whatsoever for her Child Soldier program.
- Kick the Dog: Haley doesn't just try to use Kara's identity as leverage, she explicitly threatens to expose her and leave Kara's loved ones to the mercy of her enemies if she refuses to follow Haley's orders.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia:
- J'onn wipes Haley's memory of Supergirl's identity when she tries to use it to coerce Kara into compliance.
- At the end of the episode, J'onn has to erase the memories of everyone in the D.E.O. who knows Kara's secret identity, including Alex, to protect her. They willingly consent to this.
- Brainy has the ability to block off certain parts of his memory at will, usually leaving a timer to remove the block (otherwise he wouldn't know to remove it). He does that to make himself forget Kara's secret identity during Haley's interrogation. He finds it ridiculous that Kara could be Supergirl until the block wears off.
- Living Lie Detector: Vertullarians are squid-like aliens with the ability to discern the truth from anyone they touch.
- Moral Myopia: Haley and Tan justify their treatment of the Morae by simply saying "they're not human". Tan tries this argument with Supergirl, and Haley doesn't even bother to use a euphemism to describe the government's blatant act of child abuse against the Morae; in their minds, aliens aren't people, don't need to be treated with any level of human decency, and there's nothing really wrong with that. Not entirely unlike the views of the Children of Liberty, in fact.
- Mythology Gag: J'onn starting his own private detective agency is a nod to his Silver Age origins where he was a detective in his civilian disguise.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The reason James forgives Lena is because he realizes that he also made a morally dubious call for a greater good when he almost blew up the monument for the Children of Liberty.
- Obliviously Evil: Haley is genuinely confused as to why Alex has a moral problem with the way she and the government had treated the Morae in the past.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Haley tries to conscript Supergirl back into the D.E.O. by threatening to out her to the world.
- Oh, Crap!: Brainy, when he sees that Haley has a Vertullarian in her possession, an alien that is basically a living truth seeker, as her means to uncover Supergirl's identity.
- Remember the New Guy?: Apparently there are roughly half a dozen DEO agents who know Kara's identity, who have never been important to the plot until now.
- See the Invisible: The DEO employ a laser grid, fog generators, and phosphorescent paint to render the Morae visible. The Morae cut the power to get rid of the laser grid, but the latter two prove effective in tagging them.
- Talk to the Fist: Alex knocks out Haley when she tries to blackmail Supergirl into military service.
- The Reveal: Haley was part of a program that had the purpose to forcibly turn Morae into Living Weapons.
- This Is Reality: Colonel Haley's response to Alex chewing her out over how she reared the Morae through childhood trauma and abuse to be used as living weapons; soldiers have to do ugly things all the time in the line of duty.
- To Be Lawful or Good: The handful of DEO agents who know Supergirl's true identity are conflicted between being a good friend to Kara or facing the consequences of disobeying and/or lying to their superior officer; in the end, Agent Reiff cracks under pressure. However, they then all step up and agree to allow J'onn to remove that memory from their minds.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The teaser revealed the big plot twist about Haley finding out Kara's identity.
- Ungrateful Bastard:
- Colonel Haley doesn't act kindly to Supergirl responding to a distress call from a navy ship; it turns out that ship was a decoy to assassinate some alien assassins that Haley had a hand in rearing from birth who were ordered to be terminated on the President's orders and she doesn't want the truth to come out.
- Later, Supergirl saves her life... and Haley immediately tries to blackmail her into service.
- Visible Invisibility: The Morae are initially visible to Supergirl as a shimmer, but they're able to adapt and make themselves completely invisible to her.
- Wham Episode: Haley finds out Kara's secret and tries to blackmail her, but it doesn't take as J'onn uses his mental powers to wipe her mind. But then Haley brings in a Truth Seeker to find her identity anyway. So, to protect her, J'onn wipes the mind of everyone who knows her secret, including Alex.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Deconstructed. The government's lack of regard for the rights of aliens is not treated lightly by the heroes, and is, in fact, the source of the major threat in the episode. Making this mindset even worse, it's less that Tan or Haley don't realise that aliens are intelligent beings, and more that they really don't give a damn.
- With Us or Against Us: Haley's thought process on Supergirl throughout the episode; either Supergirl is a loyal company woman, following Haley's orders to the letter, or she's a potential threat.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Morae were traumatised as children and forced to become assassins for the United States, then betrayed and ordered destroyed. It's really no surprise that they'd turn on those responsible for their suffering.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Brainy towards Nia, when he tries to convince her to become a superhero.
