Supergirl - Phantom Menaces

Emotion drives most of the stories of "Phantom Menaces" with Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) trapped in the Phantom Zone leaving her friends to soldier on and deal with her loss. Not suprisingly, Alex (Chyler Leigh) is hit hardest by the team's inability to rescue Kara while J'onn (David Harewood) attempts to bury his emotions and throw himself into his work finding the phantom that escaped as it looks to breed through humanity creating a new army of phantoms. Meanwhile, Lena's (Katie McGrath) and Brainy (Jesse Rath) help each other work through the frustration of Lex Luthor's (Jon Cryer) win and attempts to get back to business in a plot thread that works to build on the redemption arc of both characters and push Lena into a new role on the series other than her brother's keeper. McGrath continues to be the season's stand-out.

With all the storylines character-driven, "Phantom Menaces" marks the first episode of the show's final season that doesn't feel cobbled together or phoned-in. With Supergirl absent on Earth, the fight sequences do continue to suffer with the others acting as stand-ins for the show's main hero, although the CGI phantoms look good enough. In the Zone, Kara momentarily loses her father (Jason Behr) but makes a new friend in a fifth-dimensional imp (Peta Sergeant) whose magic may prove to be the key to getting Supergirl back to Earth (although past experiences has shown bringing an imp to Earth can cause all manner of new problems for all involved).