Not much has happened since we last saw our heroes; Kara (Melissa Benoist) still hasn’t told Lena (Katie McGrath) about being Supergirl, even though she really, really wants to tell her, she really does… meanwhile Lena has created a talking AI to bitch at about how much she hates Kara for never sharing the secret. Chyler Leigh’s romance with Azie Tesfai is going full steam ahead, while Jesse Rath and Nicole Maines’s one is in a holding pattern (he won’t kiss her, just wants to shake).

Meanwhile Julie Gonzalo has bought CatCo and is making things miserable for the staff—she wants clicks, not hard-hitting journalism. So Mehcad Brooks is raring to quit.

But otherwise, not much has happened. More than most shows, this one feels like a direct follow-up to the previous season closer. Same show, slightly different supporting cast.

Leigh pushes Benoist all episode to tell McGrath the truth, McGrath’s super-Alexa pushes her to kill the human race (wait, no, maybe just Supergirl; the Alexa is a tad too obviously ready to Skynet). When the show finally gets to its big soapy showdown between Benoist and McGrath, full of tears and so on, it’s actually not bad. Benoist is really good. McGrath is good. They act the hell out of the soap opera. Unfortunately, whenever McGrath’s supposed to be Luthoring it up and plotting against her friends, she’s not good. Worse, the contrast between backstabber McGrath and plotting McGrath just reminds how much better “Supergirl” used to be at the friendship stuff. The histrionics at this point are way too over-the-top, so it’s impressive how well Benoist handles them, but they weren’t always turned so high.

And then there’s something about J’onn (David Harewood) having an evil brother (voiced by the “Justice League” cartoon’s Phil LaMarr, who doesn’t do a great job… the Martians are already goofy as hell, LaMarr just makes it worse). But mostly it’s McGrath being two-faced and Benoist being naive.