Supergirl season 3: Betty Buckley joins cast as Reign’s adoptive mother

To add more backstory to Reign’s civilian life, Supergirl casts Betty Buckley as Patricia Arias, the adoptive mother of Odette Annable’s character, Sam.

Sooooo … as the story goes, a pod crash lands on Earth, someone adopts what’s inside, bing, bang, boom. So far, Supergirl has basically already tackled two different pod storylines, three if you count Clark Kent’s implied arrival before Kara’s. The end of season 2, which focused heavily on Mon-El’s arrival and subsequent departure via pod, introduced another ‘It Came By Pod’ character into the mix. Known as Reign, Supergirl cast Odette Annable to play another surviving Kryptonian.

However, the character doesn’t appear to know much about her origins. In fact, Supergirl‘s executive producer, Andrew Kreisberg, already teased that much of the season will follow civilian Sam Arias’ journey from single mother to the renowned world killer fans know and love.

"“Her name is Samantha and she’s a single mom, and she has no idea that she is Reign; she has no idea that she was the baby in the pod at the end of last season, so the journey that she takes this season is watching her realize her heritage and see how it manifests.”"

To help flesh out Sam’s life, Supergirl announced Friday that Betty Buckley joined the cast to play her mother, Patricia Arias. Reportedly, Patricia knows a lot about Sam’s origins and her life prior to falling to Earth. But she hasn’t said anything because — well, what’s the polite way to tell your daughter, ‘oh, by the way, I think you’re from some weird cult in space’?

So far, we all know that Sam’s daughter, Ruby, will play a crucial role in the choices Sam makes. Also, we know that episode 2 will see Sam begin to work at L-Corp alongside Lena Luthor. So while we don’t know much, the character certainly sounds interesting so far.

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Supergirl season 3 premieres on The CW on Oct. 9 at 8 p.m. ET.