Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Supergirl Season 3
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No sooner had it returned to screens after a Holiday break than did Supergirl announce an unexpected Winter/Spring hiatus, disappearing from its usual spot on The CW's Monday night schedule starting February 12 (with DC's Legends of Tomorrow set to fill the spot instead) and not returning until April. No official reason has been given for the change in plans, save for vague statements relating to "production issues" from the network. This had led many fans to speculate that said "issues" may be related to the departure of creator and former showrunner Andrew Kreisberg amid sexual harassment allegations earlier in the season (this reason has been denied by the producers).
Related: 15 Unresolved Mysteries And Plot Holes Supergirl Left Hanging
Whatever the cause (and whatever the result), what's indisputable is that season 3's last most recent episode (which aired on February 5th) left its characters with a big grab bag of brand new unanswered questions to go along with what was already a season of mysteries and ominous warnings; as character after character dropped bombshell news (or looked ready to) on their comrades just as the pre-hiatus lights were going out. Presumably, everyone will have their own answer for which of these is to be considered the most pressing, but for now here are the biggest question-marks hovering over Kara and company as Supergirl viewers wait to find out what happens next (and what "production issues" really means).
WHO DOES MON-EL LOVE?
Season 3 spent its first big dramatic arc on the question of whether or not Kara could psychologically recover from having to make Earth's atmosphere toxic to alien love interest Mon-El - forcing him to depart the planet forever - in order to save the world. Then, just as it looked like she was going to get over it, Mon-El turned up again: Now seven years older (having been accidentally transported to the 30th Century - it's complicated) and married to Legion of Superheroes ally Imra Ardeen (a.k.a. Saturn Girl).
That's some convoluted melodrama even for Supergirl, but it just got more complicated. As it turns out, Mon-El and Imra's marriage started out as a strategic allegiance between best-buddies as part of the future-saving work and only evolved into a romantic relationship later. But while that hasn't changed for Imra, Mon-El is having some difficulties being back in Kara's company in the 21st Century - and now he's had to admit (to Imra) that he "doesn't know" if he's still in love with Supergirl. That seems like it can only cause problems, superheroes with "bigger" things to worry about or not. And speaking of which...
WHAT IS THE LEGION'S ACTUAL MISSION?
Mon-El, Saturn Girl and Brainiac-5 (aka "Brainy") are in the 21st Century because they were on a secret time travel mission and got stuck in stasis-sleep in a crashed spaceship on the bottom of the ocean until they were accidentally awakened in Supergirl's present. According to the story as Mon-El initially explained it to everyone, The Legion are protecting the secrets of defeating an alien virus threat called The Blight... but now it seems that may not entirely be the case - and he may not have known about it: Following his confession that he might still be in love with Kara to Imra, she (Imra) offered that so long as they're being honest, she can finally reveal the "real reason" they had to come back in time.
It goes almost without saying that whatever this "real reason" is, it's only going to make things more complicated for everyone involved. But what, exactly could it be? That's anyone's guess. It could well involve the DC Comics "deep lore" event known as The Great Disaster, which the series has already seemed to confirm is part of The Legion's future-history, but it's largely unclear what that actually is. Even then, the most likely bet is that the team waking up in the 21st Century isn't actually an accident - and that whatever they're really here to do could involve a decision that Mon-El might not have made willingly had he known the full stakes (which, given that her name is the title of the series, almost certainly involves Kara in some not-entirely-pleasant way).
IS SATURN GIRL ACTUALLY A VILLAIN?
Supergirl's two favorite tropes, in order: Female villains who mirror Kara herself in some way and last-minute swerves, as observed in season 2 where the buildup of Lena's bad mom as the main nemesis turned out to be a long-game red herring for the reveal of Mon-El's even worse mom as the real threat for the final handful of episodes. Given that, fans have been expecting presumed season 3 big-bad Reign to be another don't-look-now fake-out for some other nemesis who hasn't been revealed yet - perhaps a fully gone-evil Lena Luthor or one of Reign's own "Worldkiller" allies. But still others have focused their speculation on a different prospect: Imra Ardeen.
Obviously, season 3's premise has already set the erstwhile Saturn Girl up to be at least side-eyed by the fans as "the other woman" in the main love triangle. Melissa Benoist may have the most immediately heartbreaking "pouty face" look on current television, and there's nothing that more readily identifies a member of the Supergirl supporting cast as not being on the side of the angels than "makes Kara sad." The show has also been slightly coy about exactly how powerful Saturn Girl is, which feels more than a little like a reveal waiting to happen, and having "the other woman" turn out to be a full-on enemy would be right in Supergirl's melodramatic wheelhouse. But if she's bad, what's her game? Does someone otherwise "innocent" have to be harmed to save the future somehow? Is she (somehow) the third Worldkiller?
CAN LENA BE A LUTHOR WITHOUT BEING EVIL?
Supergirl is concerned with family and legacy more than almost any other theme, and Lena Luthor is the most complicated embodiment of that idea. The adopted sister of Lex Luthor (already defeated by Superman and imprisoned in this timeline), her main ambition is to rebuild the family name by putting L Corp (formerly LexCorp) resources to use for the global good, initially operating under the partial assumption that having been adopted whatever degree her brother and mother's darker tendencies might be inherited traits wouldn't be present in her. Then Lillian showed up with a surprise: Her adoption was actually a cover-story for her actually being Lionel Luthor's lovechild - she's a "real" Luthor after all.
That's made the question of whether or not she can wrench free of her family name both more urgent and complex for two seasons now, and season 3 has leaned heavily on the idea that her best way of helping is less "being good" than putting "bad" instincts (ruthlessness, cunning, deception) to good uses. That more-or-less worked out for her contribution to season 2's big finish (retooling a xenocidal weapon of mass destruction into... well, still that, but turned against "bad" aliens instead of Supergirl), but it's an unresolved issue as to whether or not she can walk that line without tipping over to the dark side - especially if she didn't necessarily see her actions as "dark" in and of themelves.
HOW MUCH DOES LENA KNOW ABOUT SAM/REIGN?
Short version: Lena Luthor's friend and personal assistant Sam is actually Reign, the Krypton-engineered "Worldkiller" currently bedeviling Supergirl - and no one knows this, including Sam herself. She "blacks out" when she becomes Reign, only to "wake up" after with apparently no memory of what she was getting up to during the missing hours. She only just got comfortable/desperate enough to tell her friends about this and get tested for whatever might be causing the problem, but the blackouts are getting worse and now Lena (after intervening when one such "blackout" left Sam's daughter stranded and alone) has caught a glimpse of her other personality during a brief moment of anger. But instead of being confused, Lena was reassuring: Telling Sam "I know what's wrong with you, and I want to make you better."
What does Lena know - or at least think she knows? Has she already worked out that Sam is Reign? Before Sam's eyes went all red, Lena was in the middle of noting that her blackouts have been coinciding with... something, so it's conceivable that she's been ahead of the game for awhile or at least suspected as much. If so, what does "make you better" mean? Supergirl's favorite "Kara versus The Other Good Guys" dynamic is her wanting to save/rehab villains versus someone else wanting to take more extreme action. The decision to make Earth Daxamite-proof (expelling Mon-El) in season 2 was facilitated by her invention making it possible, so does she have another such method for neutralizing the Worldkillers?