I honestly couldn't remember what happened at the very end of Supergirl's last season. Truth be told, I'm a little surprised that the third season starts now, but that's now passed. The second season of Supergirl began in a superb way by introducing Superman, although it had no real inkling of the season to follow. Which makes sense because television seasons evolve and rarely follow what the premiere episode lays out.

It's a bit different in the third season premiere, which tracks in the aftermath of Kara's decision to send Mon-El away in a space pod, with the potential to never see him again. And that decision haunts her throughout the episode. She takes the usual course of action, the human course of action, and proceeds to shut off her human side. She embraces all of her superhero persona, but there's none of her trademark joy in everything she does as Supergirl. Whether she takes out bad guys, or does the debriefing at the DEO, or even her interactions with her friends, Alex, and now-boss James Olsen, she does so with a clinical, emotionless detachment.

It does remind me of her personality change from being exposed to the artificial red Kryptonite in season one's "Falling," although that had total menace and sociopathic tendencies behind it. Here, it's simply a manifestation of her grief. While the show handles Kara's loss with some aplomb, I do think it's a bit odd for Kara to be so torn up about a boyfriend. At least to me, Kara and Mon-El felt like a couple that was forced on us as well as the show, and not like the kind of epic love story that superhero stories usually foster (think Lois Lane and Clark Kent or Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy or Mary Jane Watson).

So, yes, the characters do lay on the guilt trips and perking Kara up a bit thick, but some of that was necessary. This version of Kara and Supergirl did seem off, though that's a testament to how much goodwill the show has built up over the past two years. It might be unbearable to have Kara be so down in the dumps for longer than maybe two episodes. That aspect of Kara's personality does bring out aspects of other characters that we haven't seen before. Mainly, we get to see Alex trying to get Kara to snap out of her current malaise by telling her that she shouldn't shove away the Kara Danvers (read, human) side of her.

It's what makes her likable and relatable and able to call Earth her home. The key difference though, is that Kara also lived part of her life on Krypton, and those aspects, represented by both Alura (Erica Durance, Smallville's Lois Lane, taking over for Laura Benanti) and Mon-El, will always be a part of her. She just now has to reconcile both parts, and make her grief over losing Mon-El a part of her life forever. It'll be hard, but at least she gets a good head start on the process, and we see the more difficult aspects of it take place in this episode.

As such, since Kara's struggle proves to be so compelling (even her temporarily quitting CatCo makes a lot of sense in her emotional journey throughout the episode), there isn't much in terms of development for the other subplots. Alex is busy having her usual doubts about planning the "biggest, gayest wedding National City has ever seen" with Maggie, though there is an emotional payoff at the end when Alex asks Hank to walk her down the aisle and give her away. That's made possible by the fact that the show has taken their bond together through many tribulations, and Hank has had to be her resident father figure in the absence of Jeremiah throughout her adult life.

Lena Luthor is in competition with a new villain on the scene, Morgan Edge (genre favorite Adrian Pasdar, dialing up the oily, egotistical billionaire jackass personality to high), and that results in her buying CatCo in order to keep it out of Edge's hands. I actually like that Supergirl immediately recognizes Edge as a threat, though she's in the dark in terms of details. That plan did involve Robert DuBois, aka Bloodsport, but he was a small part of an episode that didn't really focus on the external battles and struggles of the titular hero. Instead, going internally did wonders for both the episode overall and the show going forward. Let's hope the show keeps it going.