With the National Alien Registry in her possession, Lillian orders CADMUS to begin rounding up the people on it. Kara tries to convince Snapper to publish a story warning the nation's alien population to be on their guard, while Alex attempts to track down her father and try to get through to Jeremiah to return to the DEO.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Accidental Murder: Almost done to Lena Luthor by two CADMUS goons, who were only supposed to rough her up, but accidentally push her over the balcony. Luckily she was on the phone with Kara, who "sends" Supergirl to save her.
- And Starring: "Special Guest Stars Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher,"note plus the regular guest stars lineup ends "With Kevin Sorbo and Ian Gomez."
- Antagonist Title: Referring to CADMUS's Evil Plan.
- Bald of Evil: The CADMUS agent that gets captured and violently interrogated by Alex is completely bald.
- Big Damn Heroes: James, in his only scene as Guardian, saves Alex from a CADMUS abduction.
- Bittersweet Ending: The aliens are rescued, but Kara loses her job for blogging her story after Snapper rejected it, and Jeremiah is MIA after losing a fight against Henshaw. The aliens looking for Mon-El, who are apparently Daxamites, have also reached Earth.
- Bridal Carry: How Kara carries Lena after catching her in midair.
- Cardboard Box of Unemployment: In a particularly cruel example, Kara finds her belongings packed up for her in advance just to drive the point of home.
- The Bus Came Back: James and Lena return after missing the two previous episodes.
- Corrupt Cop: A cop on CADMUS's payroll helps them with their abductions, by stopping the cars of aliens under false pretenses.
- Cowboy Cop: Alex. She pushes the boundaries of protocol so far that J'onn actually suspends her from the DEO.
- Dead Man's Switch: Alex sets up explosives around the CADMUS base and rigs them to explode if she releases the button in her hand. When Lillian refuses to shut down the spacecraft, Alex does so anyway and uses the chaos to get to the ship.
- Disney Villain Death: Narrowly averted. Lena almost falls to her death, but Supergirl saves her.
- Dramatic Unmask: The hooded couple searching for Mon-El finally reveal their faces.
- Final Solution: Originally intended by Lillian, but Jeremiah convinced her to only exile the aliens from Earth.
- Gilligan Cut: When questioned whether Snapper will approve of Kara writing a report about CADMUS's plan, she says she's sure he will. Cut to him disapproving.Kara: Absolutely.
Snapper: Absolutely not. - Got Me Doing It: Despite Kara correcting him, Mon-El thinks "blog" is pronounced "blob." After posting her article, Kara says, "There! It's blobbed!"Mon-El: Great blobbing, babe.
- Heroic Second Wind: Kara is initially overpowered by the ship, but some encouragement from Alex gets her to double down and overwhelm it.
- Human Shield: Alex is held at gunpoint by a CADMUS agent when she tries to stop Lyra from being taken away. Maggie comes over to try to shoot the CADMUS agent, but the agent holds Alex in front of him and keeps his gun aimed at Alex's head. Then James uses his grappling hook to pull the CADMUS agent away from Alex.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Jeremiah once again stresses how working with CADMUS was necessary to keep his family safe. Alex is not convinced.
- Irrevocable Order: Once the ship is set to launch, not even Lillian can make it shut down.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Alex becomes absolutely brutal when interrogating a CADMUS agent, to the point that J'onn has to drag her out and suspend her from the DEO, since this case is clearly emotionally compromising her.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Quite a few examples in this episode:
- First is Snapper, who makes quite a few good points:
- Kara can't just publish a story based off one person's word, even if in this case that story is true and the public needs to know about it, and given what's happened in recent months with biased and fraudulent news stories, a "two independent sources" rule isn't a bad idea. The rules do exist for a reason, and Kara can't just ignore them even if what she believes she's doing is right. A good reporter can't just go publishing stories until they have all the facts and can prove what they're saying.
- When he speaks to Supergirl himself but then refuses to go ahead with the story, his reasons are quite valid. Supergirl was withholding facts, and even though she had a good reason for doing so, she might as well have not talked to him if he couldn't check out her story. From Snapper's perspective, she could have been making it all up.
- And at the end, Snapper fires Kara for publishing the story anyway, which is a breach of both journalistic ethics and her contract. While she was right, since she couldn't prove any of that, from Snapper's point of view she just got lucky.
- J'onn is right to test and then bench Alex when there is strong evidence that she's emotionally compromised. She brutally beat up a CADMUS agent the DEO had captured in an attempt to get info, and J'onn's test proves that she is willing to break protocol and help an enemy agent who could have been lying to her without checking his story just because it's her father. Though J'onn does end up agreeing that necessary as it was, his methods were still needlessly cruel with how far he pushed the deception before she gave in.
- First is Snapper, who makes quite a few good points:
- The Mole: Lena's assistent Alana works for CADMUS.
- Mythology Gag:
- Kara's explanation to Mon-El about why she wants to be an ordinary reporter as well as Supergirl is the same as the one Clark has given in the comics as to why he bothers to be a reporter and takes pride in being a good one: it's something he can do to make a difference that doesn't depend on his powers and happenstance of his origin. Flying and super-strength won't win him a Pulitzer.
- Lillian telling Jeremiah that he's "the only Superman we need" is an obvious Actor Allusion to his actor's stint as the character in Lois & Clark.
- Kara saying that Supergirl is what she can do and Kara is who she is quotes Clark from Lois & Clark word for word.
- Lena falling off the balcony is a nod to her character's paraplegic status in most recent comics.
- Takron-Galtos, the planet where Lilian intends to send all the aliens (supposedly because they can find passage to their individual home worlds from there), is a notorious prison planet in the comics.
- Kara's primal scream while pushing against the spaceship is quite reminiscent of Superman's as he goes back in time in Superman: The Movie.
- Another callback to Superman: The Movie: Supergirl saying "I never lie," originally said by Superman to Lois in their interview scene.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lena and Mon-El's respective advice to Kara regarding her work ultimately gets her fired (Lena for suggesting a blog, Mon-El for pushing through with it when she's having second thoughts).
- Nothing Personal: Snapper is sad about having to fire Kara; he was actually secretly rooting for her, but he stresses that following the rules is an absolute must for a reporter, so he still goes through with it.
- "Not So Different" Remark: At the end, Alex notes how similar J'onn and Jeremiah are in doing the wrong things for the right reasons.
- Now or Never Kiss: Alex and Maggie kiss right after Alex tells Maggie that she has to go after CADMUS alone, since Alex is going to be walking into certain danger.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The goons sent to dissuade Lena from pursuing CADMUS further freak out when they accidentally push her off the building, since Lillian didn't want her killed. Luckily, Supergirl shows up to make the save.
- Alex has this reaction when she is unable to stop the ship from launching.
- Pet the Dog: Snapper tells Kara that the worst part of having to fire her is that he actually hoped she was right about the story and would get it out there.
- Pistol-Whipping:
- Maggie does this to one of the CADMUS guards invading the alien dive bar.
- Alex does this with her alien gun to one of the guards at the CADMUS base.
- The Reveal:
- The ship in the previous episode is a spaceship, with which CADMUS intends to forcibly deport all the aliens they can find.
- Jeremiah was working with CADMUS to keep them from targeting Alex and Kara, while making an effort to soften their attacks on aliens.
- The people looking for Mon-El are the rulers of Daxam, and they have just been imbued with superpowers thanks to our Sun.
- Role-Ending Misdemeanor: In-universe, Kara's independent publication of the warning article caused that an angry Snapper fired her.
- Rogue Agent: Alex is suspended from the DEO due to J'onn judging her to be too emotionally compromised, thanks to her father's involvement with CADMUS, so she strikes out on her own (with some help from Maggie) to search for CADMUS.
- Secret Test of Character: J'onn disguises himself as Jeremiah to test Alex's focus and loyalty after her father's betrayal. She fails, much to J'onn's dismay.
- Shout-Out: Mon-El calls out "Kara, I'm hoooooome!" when he enters the apartment.
- Space Is Noisy: Averted. We see Kara screaming with the effort of stopping the frigate from breaking atmo, but don't hear it until she starts actually pushing it back down into air thick enough to carry the sound.
- The Stinger: In the final scene, the mysterious aliens (apparently Daxamites) are finally approaching the Earth.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Alex rushes to the bridge of an alien ship... and has utterly no idea how the controls work.
- Kara pulls a Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! by publishing her article on a blog when Snapper won't let her run it. Unfortunately, she used CatCo resources to get the story and her publishing it on her own was a breach of contract, so Snapper fires her.
- With Luthor Corp. being a family corporation, it's no surprise that Lillian still has connections there.
- Take That!: Snapper says that one misattributed quote from a candidate can put a fascist in the White House. He also states that there are way too many "fake news" sites out there and wants to avoid being counted among them.
- Title Drop: Lillian dubs the interstellar frigate escorting the alien prisoners "Project Exodus."
- Token Good Teammate: While it was speculated since last episode's reveal, this episode confirms that Jeremiah made efforts to soften CADMUS's Evil Plans if he was presented with an opportunity to do so.
- Torture Always Works: Zig-zagged. Alex's savage beatdown of the CADMUS agent gets her nothing, though only because, like the thieves in "Crossfire," he'll die if he tries to talk.
- Trash the Set: The alien bar the main cast regularly frequents this season is trashed by CADMUS at the beginning of the episode. In a dose of Laser-Guided Karma, Alex later rigs CADMUS's current base of operations with explosives during the episode's climax.
- Turn in Your Badge: J'onn suspends Alex when it becomes clear that the case with CADMUS is too personal for her. And then Alex goes behind his back and hunts down CADMUS anyway.
- Uncertain Doom: Jeremiah is hit with Hank Henshaw's Eye Beam, and is last seen flat on the floor, unconscious.
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: Two examples from this episode; Lillians spy in L Corp, Alana, is never mentioned again after this episode. Lena showed no inkling that she knows that Alana was working for Lillian, so she presumably continued to work for the company. Secondly, Jeremiah is shot but no confirmation is given regarding his fate in this episode or subsequent episodes.
- Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: The interstellar ship CADMUS is using to deport all the aliens is a Hoshin Frigate, the best of the Kazark fleet and thus not Terran-built. How on Earth did CADMUS get it?
- Window Love: When Kara is struggling to push the spaceship back to Earth, Alex puts her hand up against the window, and Kara puts her hand up against the other side. This and Alex's words of encouragement give Kara the motivation she needs to successfully stop the spaceship and get it back to Earth.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: A variation. Lillian goads Alex when it is revealed that there is no override code for the launch of the spaceship by telling Alex that in order to stop the spaceship, she'd have to drop the Dead Man's Switch, detonating all the bombs in order to be able to run over to the spaceship, smugly believing that Alex wouldn't release the switch. Guess what Alex does.
