‘Supergirl’: Cast, EP Preview ‘Human For A Day’

“Supergirl” gave her all in last week’s fight against the Red Tornado, and it came at a great cost.

In Monday night’s episode, “Human for a Day,” Kara will have to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake in National City without – as the episode’s title suggests – her super-powers.

“It’s sort of new from the comics,” Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg told reporters on a recent set visit, of where the idea for the twist came from.

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“Superman — or any Kryptonian’s — cells are basically suffused with solar radiation and that’s where they get their powers from, and the heat vision is an expulsion of that energy — that’s where it comes from. You could actually just basically run out and you would need to recharge,” Kreisberg continued (in last week’s episode, Kara unleashed a primal scream as she used her heat vision to take down the Red Tornado). 

“I was such fan of that comic and that run, and talked to Geoff [Johns, Chief Creative Officer of DC Entertainment] and said, ‘Can we do something with that?’ And he was like, ‘Absolutely,’ and so these were all set up in a certain way where… she’s in the place where she’s kind of like struggling with her role and am I doing this well, and how should I be doing things, and how should I go about things? And then, take it away from her and let her really appreciate what it means. And we also just loved the idea of like Oliver [Queen from ‘Arrow’] and like Barry [Allen from ‘The Flash’] that Kara’s a hero whether she has her powers or not. And there’s this great moment in that comic book where Superman confronts a guy with a gun and basically talks him out of it, even though he knows if the guy pulls the trigger, he’ll get killed and that sort of became the centerpiece of that episode and you kind of saw a little bit in the trailer,” he added.

Melissa Benoist, who plays Kara/Supergirl, said her character finds being without her Kryptonian powers, “kind of a frustrating feeling.” 

“But what I think the whole point of… the next episode is, you don’t need powers to be a hero, and what is in Kara’s heart is what makes her a hero,” the actress said.

Mehcad Brooks, who plays James Olsen, hinted at what Kara will turn to, to tackle the situation.

“She relies on something else that I think even Superman couldn’t do, which is a certain sensitivity, and something that Kara has that he doesn’t have,” Mehcad said on the same set visit.

And his character gets in on the action.

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“As far as James stepping into a heroic position it was… a lot of work. It was cool — a lot of fun,” he said.

“It’s really kind of nice to be able to use a different muscle than the acting muscle — to actually be able to be athletic and I love action. I grew up watching action, so it was a lot of fun,” he added.

“Supergirl” airs Monday at 8/7c on CBS.

— Jolie Lash