Fly Like a Girl: ‘Supergirl’ – Episode 10 ‘Childish Things’

Supergirl is DC’s television adaptation of the comic book of the same name. It airs Monday nights at 8/7 Central on CBS. Our writer, Nicole Drum recaps the series each week updating you on the latest episode here in Fly Like a Girl.

Image Credit: CBS

Welcome back from the odd, one-week break between episodes. This week we get a look at Winn’s family. Those of you who have a relationship with comic book cannon know that Winn’s dad isn’t exactly a nice guy. For those not familiar, there are spoilers beyond this point!

We start our episode with Kara getting a flying lesson from Henshaw. As we all now know, Henshaw is really J’onn J’onnz, Martian Manhunter. (I’m going to still call him Henshaw.) Henshaw gives Kara a flying lesson and it’s pretty awesome. Martian Manhunter is fantastic as a character, but they really get him right on the show. It’s just so wonderful visually. However, Kara tries to convince him to drop his secret identity of Hank Henshaw and just be himself—he declines. Meanwhile back on the ground, Cat offers Lucy a job at CatCo. as her general counsel. Cat is super nice to Lucy and my guess is because neither of them really like Lois Lane (who is something of a rival of Cat’s). The ladies seem pretty happy working together, but you know who isn’t happy? James and Kara. Kara doesn’t like it because, well, she has a thing for James—and I suspect James doesn’t like it because he is still making eyes at Kara despite being back with Lucy. (I don’t like it because I don’t like Lucy, but I’m not on the show.) All of this displeasure will have to take a backseat though, because the gang has real issues to contend with. It would seem that Winn’s dad is the supervillain known as Toyman and has escaped from prison. Toyman is particularly terrifying. He started out as a simple toy maker, but then his boss stole his work, which made Winn Schott, Sr. a really angry man. It turned him into a mass murderer who called himself the Toyman. Hide the toys, folks—hide them now.

Anyway. Toyman is on the loose and wants to see his son, but Winn isn’t a crazy person. He recognizes that this desire of his father’s to see him is a way that he can help get him back into custody, so he works with law enforcement in setting up a meeting with daddy dearest. It doesn’t go well. Toyman is creepy—he is next level creepy, and I have to give the show props for making this villain just as uncomfortable as I’ve always imagined he would be to watch. He’s especially creepy as he tells Winn that they are essentially the same person with the same genius inside of them. Process that for a moment: Winn’s crazy-pants-murder-father tells him they’re just alike—that must feel just special. Anyway, during this very bad touching moment, the authorities bust in to capture Toyman but they can’t. It would seem that it was really just a hologram. The police busting in does trigger the room to fill with gas though. Fortunately, Supergirl shows up and saves the day.

So yeah, Toyman is an issue. That doesn’t mean our usual bad guy, Maxwell Lord is forgotten. Alex wants more information about what Lord is up to and decides that Henshaw’s Martian powers are just the thing. She’s really trying to get Henshaw to embrace himself more, but he explains that he once tried to be a Martian openly and it didn’t work. Being Supergirl works for Kara because she looks human—but he doesn’t. However, Henshaw does eventually agree to help Alex out by impersonating Lord, while Alex goes out on a dinner date with the real guy. That date continues the creepy theme of this whole episode and looks really awkward, but it works because Henshaw Martian manages to get into the room where Lord has Bizarro Girl. He does his best to rescue her, but can’t—he’s interrupted by a guard. Henshaw has to mind-wipe the guard and you can tell it’s not something he enjoys doing. He promises the girl he will return.

Now that no one died from the gas issue, Kara and Winn get to the work of figuring out where Toyman is hiding. Toyman turns out to be as evasive as he is creepy, so their attempt to find him completely fails. This is frustrating, but it sends Winn into a full-on breakdown. He’s kind of overdue for one considering how much he’s been carrying around in regards to how he feels for Kara and the fact that his dad just creeped him out hard. He’s worried he’ll turn out like his father, that the authorities won’t catch him and he, himself will lose it. Kara tries to be supportive and tells Winn that it won’t happen to him because he has her. Winn sees this as an admission of mutual interest and kisses her. Kara, who did not mean that at all, pulls back stunned. Awkward. And emotionally painful for Winn who gets even more upset and storms out, where he then gets chloroformed by his dad. Daddy-most-demented ties him up and explains why he broke out of prison. It would seem that Toyman still wants revenge on his old boss, a man named Chester Dunholz, for taking away Winn’s childhood. Toyman takes no ownership of his imprisonment and blames Dunholz for the whole thing. The twist here is that Toyman doesn’t want to kill his boss—he wants Winn to do it. He also has a plan for forcing Winn into it. You see, Dunholz is at a convention center. In said convention center, Toyman has placed ten bombs. If Winn doesn’t kill Dunholz, his father will detonate the bombs and kill hundreds and hundreds of people. It’s twisted and sadistic, but Supergirl shows up and keeps Winn from being forced to kill Dunholz as well as keeping all of the people at the convention center safe. Toyman goes back to prison.

With the bad guy back in jail, not all is well though. Back at the office, Winn finally opens up to Kara about how he feels. He tells her that he has long been in love with her and that he can’t keep it bottled up—he doesn’t want to. He fears that not expressing his emotions will lead him down a path to be like his father. Unfortunately, Kara doesn’t share his feelings and this is clearly straining their friendship. It’s going to be awkward times from here, folks. But that’s not the worst of it all. You see, Lord checks out his back-up security cameras and realizes that he was impersonated. And he also planted a camera on Alex’s purse during their date. Thanks to his voyeuristic effort, the episode closes out with him discovering that Alex and Kara are sisters and, more than that, Kara is Supergirl.

Do you hate Maxwell Lord as much as I do right now? Let’s vent in the comments section.