Previously on Supergirl, Kara found out the hard way that the President worked for Lex Luthor, Lena found out the hard way that Eve did too, Kara and Lena found out together that Lex was keeping a Harun-El split of Supergirl named the Red Daughter as a weapon, and Alex remembered that her sister is Supergirl just in time to save her life.
When we left our friends in National City, we were watching the news report of Lex stopping an Kaznian invasion and killing “Supergirl” aka the Red Daughter. But we pick this episode up 24 hours earlier so we can get a little insight into how things got to that point.
After Kara escaped Red Daughter’s capture, the Red Daughter went back to Lex to report her failure, but Lex had a backup plan: if he couldn’t shoot her in the literal heart, he’ll go for the metaphorical. Which is when he sent her after Eliza.
“But…she’s the best TV mom ever. It is known.”
Lex and Eve are using the captured aliens to harness their energy for his Lexosuit, and he’s feeling pretty confident he’s about to win this whole thing. The president is even a little hesitant, but Lex tells him he has everything under control.
This time, when Supergirl and Red Daughter fight, instead of focusing on that, we also see what Lex was up to. Which is fighting the Kaznians to “save” the United States from this attack he orchestrated while singing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
After Red Daughter is satisfied that she killed Supergirl, she leaves Alex over Kara’s body and flies back to her own “Alex” to ask him why he’s fighting Kaznia. When she realizes what’s happening, she’s horrified that he would betray their country like that.
tfw believing the best in people backfires
But Kaznia isn’t the only thing Lex is more than happy to turn on today, so he blasts her with a Kryptonite ray and carries her triumphantly to make the world think he killed Public Enemy #1.
When Alex, Kara and Eliza see this on TV, Kara knows she needs to get out there, but Alex and Eliza are worried about her. If he killed Red Daughter, he could kill her, too.
Alex Danvers: Making Concern Look Sexy Since 2015
But she insists that he had an advantage on Red Daughter, who is different enough from her. And also Lex thinks she’s dead, so she has an advantage. Alex reminds her she WAS literally dead for a second there but Kara won’t let fear win. With truth and her sister in her arsenal, nothing can stop her.
One last time for the season: CHYLER LEIGH’S FACE, THOUGH
Lex takes Red Daughter back to his alien torture chamber; she’s not dead, though she is still traumatized by all this betrayal. Lex literally laughs in her face for trusting him, saying all the clues were there for her, that he hates Kryptonians, why would she be any different? She says she wishes he had just killed her, but Lex has bigger plans for the Red Daughter, so he shoves her in a containment pod and leaves her there.
You deserved better, my precious Kaznian bean.
After being transported as prisoners, Dreamer and J’onn are put to work as laborers in this Luthor-operated Amertek factory. But they’re on Shelley Island, so they don’t have their powers, which means Dreamer can’t do Brainiac 5’s original plan of astral projecting out for help. So Dreamer and J’onn recruit the help of some of their refugee buddies and cause a distraction so they can shut off the power dampeners for a minute and Dreamer can astral project.
Back at L Corp, Brainiac 5 and Lena are watching Lex get praised on TV when Alex and Kara come in. Lena is so happy to see Kara is safe after the President tried to “silence” her aka use a silencer to shoot her to death.
Kara tells Brainiac 5 about the evidence that was wiped from the CatCo server, so he quickly recovers it. He then casually mentions that hundreds of aliens are being kidnapped, including Dreamer and J’onn.
HOW IS A QUEER LADY WITH A DELICATE HEART SUPPOSED TO HANDLE ALEX DANVERS IN HER DEO GEAR WITH HER HANDS ON HER HIP AND THAT HAIRCUT STANDING NEXT TO LENA LUTHOR IN A MOTHERFUCKING SUIT LOOKING LIKE THAT?! HOW?!
Everyone is a little alarmed he didn’t mention this sooner, but he’s unconcerned; they are already planning on saving the aliens, it is inconsequential that they happen to be familiar with two of them. And I guess there’s just a lot going on but I feel like it was a little depressing that no one stopped to ask what the hell was going on and why he wasn’t acting like Brainy.
Or maybe no one asks because they get interrupted by Lena receiving a formal invitation to the White House from her brother. Everyone is like, “Sooo you’re not going right? Because that’s literally insane?” but we’ve all gone to one too many family functions with people we hate and Lena doesn’t want to think about what Lex will do to get her there if she resists, so she’s going to woman up and hold her head high and go see her brother. She even jokes about getting quotes for Kara’s story.
“You’d be surprised how often I get physical paper invitations with my name written in calligraphy. I’m actually surprise my usual invite-dove didn’t deliver it.”
When she shows up in the Oval Office, she looks amazing and surprised to see her mother there, too.
She has her hands in her pockets and my heart in her hands.
Lena is so sassy, it’s brilliant. She doesn’t understand why Lex has them here at all, but he claims everything he did, he did for all of them. He cleared the Luthor name, and has a new business venture to propose. To his mother, the convict, and his sister who already owns at least one corporation and one media conglomerate. You see, when he was in jail, he watched like A LOT of Monsters, Inc (but he never got all the way to the end) so he wants to harness the aliens’ powers to use as energy they can sell. Lena is absolutely horrified he would just nonchalantly suggest this, and as if to prove her point, Lex Luthor literally quotes Hitler.
When it’s pointed out that even though Supergirl is dead, Superman would never let this plan come to fruition, Lex tells them that he has a satellite being charged up and pointed at Argo right this very minute.
Eve pulls Lex out of the office for a word, leaving Lex’s sister in a state of shock.
This is just my face when Lex is talking regardless of subject.
When he’s gone, Lillian admits that she poisoned his tea, but he was talking too much to sip it. Meanwhile, outside, Eve is alarmed by this kill-Superman plan, but he reminds her that she’s not his partner, just his protege if anything, and that his decision to destroy Superman is final.
Still in Lena’s office, Alex is reading Kara’s article exposing Lex and really thinks that this will help people finally see the truth of what’s going on.
How…how long have they been in there? What was Alex doing while Kara was writing and Brainiac 5 was tinkering? Watching Gentleman Jack on her HBO app?
As Brainiac 5 finishes downloading Lillian’s plans for the Harun-El extractor, he predicts that probably Dreamer is astral projecting into the office right now, if all is going according to his plan. The problem is, when Dreamer astral projects, she can’t interact with her surroundings. Which makes her and Alex wonder why the heck this was his plan in the first place.
This trio, though.
And actually they say that at the same time and it’s very cute and Dreamer is pleased to have someone on her side speaking up for her. But since her astral projection is dream energy, she can mess with molecules, so she uses her energy-finger to write “Shelley Island” on the window. Science!
Kara rips off her glasses and springs into action and Alex breathes a sigh of relief; things are back on track.
Back in the Oval Office, Lex is failing to convince his mother and sister to buy into his plans for monetizing genocide, and waxing poetic about how he’s the leader of the United States now, and that people are too dumb to read or think so nothing anyone can do or say will change their minds about him. But as he’s saying this, he’s doing the one thing he doesn’t even know he’s good at: underestimating people. Because as he’s saying this, people are reading Kara’s article. People are thinking. People are changing their minds about him.
Team Super goes to Shelley Island to end this thing once and for all. Brainiac 5 is going to go stop the Superman Satellite and save Dreamer and J’onn, but the rest of the team finds themself face to face with an unhinged Lockwood on the edge of a Harun-El overdose, and what’s left of his posse.
With her sister by her side, she can do anything.
Supergirl and James fight with their powers, and Alex is what my Lyft driver this weekend called a “badass normal.” (He is very into TV tropes, apparently.)
Inside, Brainiac 5 says they’re too late to power down the Argo-sploder, so J’onn decides to overload it instead, despite Brainiac 5 saying the odds are not in his favor.
When Lex finds out about this ruckus, he suits up and flies off to the island, leaving Eve alone with his family…stupidly.
Lena Luthor 2020
Lena easily knocks Eve out and Lillian takes down the guards with two spritzes of her pepper spray, and the two of them are out in a flash.
When Lex gets to the island and sees Supergirl alive, he’s pissed. He asks her how she did it, and she just responds that she’s Supergirl. Yet again, he underestimated her.
This shot never gets old.
She tells him that truth and justice will always prevail, but he’s pretty sure Kryptonite will. But Supergirl has a new suit that Lena made her, and she’s not going down without a fight.
Inside, when Dreamer joins J’onn in his attempt to energy surge, Brainiac 5 starts to panic, because what they’re doing isn’t logical. Seeing Dreamer fighting against the odds, seeing her look like she’s fighting, well, it finally brings our Brainy back to us. Back to his old self, instead of telling them the logical conclusions, he just cheers his friends on. In his excitement, he tells Dreamer that he loves her, and that confession gives her the little extra jolt she needs to overload the system and save Superman/an entire planet of people.
It’s a little blurry because the ground was shaking but if you thought I wasn’t going to include a shot of Nia being SO FUCKING CUTE I WANT TO DIE than you must be new here.
They then start freeing the alien prisoners, including Red Daughter.
Outside, there is a tussle involving some Harun-El extractors, and for better or worse, both James and Lockwood get hit with one.
Elsewhere on the island, Supergirl is fighting like she’s never fought before. They seem pretty evenly matched, now that Lex has powered up his suit with alien energies, but the outcome starts to look bleak when Lex points a Kryptonite ray at her. But as soon as he fires, the Red Daughter leaps in front of the blast and saves Supergirl. When Supergirl kneels by her side, Red Daughter says that her Alex is nothing like Supergirl’s Alex, and that she should protect her people. And then she dies.
And my question is…why did they show us that Mikhail wasn’t dead if they weren’t going to reunite them in the end? Was it just to pat themselves on the back for not killing a small child? Because I really just wanted the Red Daughter to get a real name and a happy ending. Alas, she dies, and Kara absorbs her. Back from whence she came.
Red Daughter is home.
With this added energy, Supergirl is stronger than Lex, and he finds himself overpowered and at Supergirl’s mercy. She wants to save him, but he is too proud to be saved by a Kryptonian. He lets himself fall and lands back on the ground with a boom.
Of course, the villain never dies the first time. But know who is anticipating this very fact? Lena Luthor. And she has an extractor with his name on it.
But not literally because he’d like that too much.
Lex tries to win her over, one last guilt-trip, one last attempt at gaslighting her, telling her they can succeed together, telling her she’s not ruthless enough to shoot him. And then, to his surprise, she shoots him. Twice. Saying the world will never be safe as longer as her brother is allowed to roam around in it.
He’s impressed, if we’re being honest. And he finally realizes what we’ve known all along: that he’s been underestimating Lena from day one. But of course, because he’s Lex, he can’t just admit defeat and die. He has to leave as much damage in his wake as possible. So as he bleeds out, he tells Lena to have fun with her friends, oh just kidding, she doesn’t have any real friends, because they’ve all been lying to her. (His words, not mine.) He shows her video proof that Kara Danvers is Supergirl, and that probably she always knew, or could have known, but just actively chose to ignore it.
Lena looks traumatized.
Lena Luthor tears are like a shot of Kryptonite to the heart.
He calls Lena a fool one last time before losing consciousness.
And Lena looks like her whole world just fell apart. Because in a way, it did. Everything she thought was true was tainted with a lie. The truth she’d been avoiding looking direct at was just shined right in her eyeballs. She is, as they say, shook.
Back at CatCo, it seems like things are over. James is wearing an eye patch a la Nick Fury or High King Margo, a side effect of the Harun-El Extractor, but he’s okay with it, because he actually is kind of over having powers. Which is a surprising turn of events I’m not mad about. The President and Lockwood are being arrested, and Kara and Nia hug it out. Kara admits she almost lost hope a few times in this very, very long season, but she’s glad that we stuck it out together and never gave up.
I love two (2) part-time reporters, full-time heroes.
They watch on the news as Martial Law is lifted, and Col. Haley publicly apologizes for doubting Supergirl, and thank her for ultimately saving the day.
To celebrate, the whole fam is going to have a game night, and of course Alex and Kelly are rolling up together. Before they go inside, Kelly stops them, because she wants to talk about how they’ve technically only known each other for a short amount of time, but they’ve been through some intense things together. Kelly says that the only thing weird about how close they’ve gotten so quickly is how it doesn’t feel strange at all. She says it feels natural and new all at the same time, and she doesn’t want to ruin what they have, but she has to acknowledge that she’s been feeling that slow burn and wants to know how Alex would feel about fanning it into a real flame.
On one hand it’s still strange that Kelly came with Alex to almost adopt a baby but on the other hand I have definitely met another queer person and skipped right to the deep stuff, so I’m not sure it’s entirely unrealistic.
She just hasn’t felt like this in a long time, is all. As a response, Alex leans in and kisses her.
AT LONG LAST
She says, “Ditto,” and coming from the girl who has been known to ramble her way into the awkwardest of corners, this short, sweet, confident reaction is really indicative of how far she’s come since first realizing she liked girls.
Brainy and Nia walk by hand in hand and pretend like they don’t see them (poorly) but Alex and Kelly aren’t embarrassed and keep on kissing. It all feels very…adult. I know that’s an over-simplification but, but it wasn’t the fiery burning passion of teenagers in love, it wasn’t the overly dramatic re-connection of adult exes. It was just two women who were becoming fast friends realizing they want something more and going for it. Alex simply kissed the girl she wanted to kiss.
Eventually they go into game night, and everything is happy and cheerful and cute and this found family is finally all together without an imminent threat to worry about.
Unless you count the threat of Alex tasing someone because she’s so competitive.
Lena comes in and everyone is so genuinely happy to see her. For a beat it seems like she’s about to tell them all off for keeping secrets from her, but instead she just holds up that she brought two kinds of wine and smiles brightly, joining everyone in the festivities.
I once read a book about a witch whose hair got curlier the angrier she got, regardless of whether or not she was showing her rage. Just a random, unrelated thought.
Kara tells Lena that J’onn is forcing her and Alex to split up for teams, but asks Lena if she’s with her. Lena responds, “Always.”
Off to the side, Kara tells Alex that she’s worried about Lena and really wants to tell her the truth, but Alex is afraid that would be a lot to handle after all this Lex stuff that just went down, and Kara agrees that maybe now isn’t the right time. And I know, I KNOW, Alex’s heart is in the right place, but I couldn’t help think of the time I was at my parents’ for Thanksgiving and told my brother I was going to come out to them and he told me not to. He said it wasn’t the right time, because depending on how they reacted, it could “ruin the holiday.” So I didn’t tell them then, even though I was ready, albeit scared. He planted the seed of doubt in my head, gave me an excuse to put it off even more, even though it was already weighing so heavy on me, even though I already felt like I was living a lie. And like Alex, my brother’s intentions were good; he was afraid if it went poorly, it would ruin the gathering for all of us. So in the end, Kara takes Alex’s advice, and decides to wait another day before telling Lena the truth.
The next day, Lockwood’s son gives a speech about wanting to help keep other families from succumbing to anger the way his dad did. He wants to help spread messages of hope, not hatred. Also, Nia is interviewing him because she’s the best.
“I learned how to pretend to be a reporter from THE Kara Danvers!”
Supergirl watches from overhead, proud. The kids are alright.
But of course, what kind of finale would this be if we ended on a Happily Ever After? No, we have to set up some giant questions for next season. So we see an older woman approach Eve in disguise, and they have a conversation that implies Eve sidled up to Lex under orders from this woman and her organization, Leviathan. And while it’s unclear what this organization is, it’s clear that they’re not exactly selling Girl Scout Cookies in the off-season.
Possibly/probably unrelated, a portal opens and The Monitor (from the Elseworlds crossover) welcomes a Green Martian to earth who immediately swears to destroy our favorite Space Dad. (Also I think we should make a rule that no aliens are allowed to claim to be the last of their race/species/planet, because so far it has been correct 0% of the time.)
The Monitor then goes to Lex’s bunker and starts to do some wooshy-looking magic on Lex Luthor’s body. Hopefully, in an ironic twist, he’s just harvesting his energy and not bringing him back to life.
When we check in on Lena one last time, she’s rage-drinking in her office and smashing a picture of her and her friends.
I wish I looked half this good when I’m day drinking my feelings away.
And here’s the thing. At game night, Lena told Kara that she would always be with her, and I want to take her at her word. I really do. Even when it was sort of working, Lena always knew when Lex was manipulating her. Even when she was feeling the hurt or the anger she knew was his intention, she was self-aware enough to be frustrated with him for it. So I am hoping with all of my might that Lena is just working through this. That she’s smart enough to know why people might have kept this secret from her. That she knows Lex only told her like this to upset her and turn her against the friends who make her stronger, to isolate her like abusive people do. I’m hoping that this was a fake-out, and that when we see her again she’s reframing the photo she broke while angrily thinking of her brother. I’m hoping that Kara tells Lena before she gets a chance to reveal that she knows, and she is grateful for that. Maybe even fakes like this is brand new information.
I don’t know. There are a lot of ways this could go that I would be okay with — her and the group fight for a while then make up, she works with her mother exclusively for a while then realizes she’s better than that and holding a grudge, she realizes actually she’s fine with it and moves on, she goes to a dark place but her friends pull her out of it, etc. But there’s exactly one way this could go that would send me into the fiery depths of rage: if Lena Luthor turns evil. I think there’s something so special about the way this show has defied the Luthor/Super tropes of old, the same way Supergirl constantly steps out of her cousin’s Super shadow. Because even though Lena had a healthy dose of skepticism about Supergirl at first, this season she really started to be able to work with her and Alex and it was a powerful thing to watch. And Lena and Kara’s friendship has also been poignant and lovely and real. Lena has been fighting — and winning — against the Luthor stigma. She’s always been pro-science but anti-violence. She’s STILL fucked up by that one time her totally consenting human test subject died. And yes, this is going to affect her; every single person in her life has lied to and/or betrayed her. Her parents, her brother, her assistant/partner, her colleagues, and her best friend. Plus, she technically just murdered her brother. But the core of her is good, you could see it in the way she didn’t even consider Lex’s energy plan, the way she protected her Harun-El research from the government, the way she worked with Supergirl. Just like how the Red Daughter was betrayed by everyone and everything she knew, but ultimately did the right thing, because deep down she was good, I hope Lena can overcome this betrayal. Lena has proven time and time again that she’s a good person. It would break my heart if they ruined all that.
But one thing I feel confident they will not ruin, if from Chyler Leigh’s willpower alone, is the Alex/Kelly relationship. While it might not end up being everyone’s cup of tea (we are not a monolith, and there’s finally enough queer TV that we don’t all have to love the same characters), I think it will be handled with the care and respect we deserve. And I personally am here for it. Alex’s last relationship struck a chord with a lot of us because it was passionate and electric and wrought with Big Feelings; it was all tangled up in Alex’s coming out and first love. And as amazing as it was for us to watch her find herself with Maggie, Alex was still figuring out who she was and what she wanted. But this will be something new. Alex has dated around and Kelly already knows all the weirdest baggage Alex has to offer. (Except maybe that her sister is Supergirl? But in Alex’s defense, she didn’t know that either when she first met Kelly.) I for one am super intrigued by this soft but deep relationship and where it will go next season.
Plus, I mean. Look at them.
Thanks for going on this wild and emotional journey with me this season. We got the purest gift of Nia Nal, so much Lena content (especially re: suits), and the focus finally shifted back to the women on the show. There were some dark spots in there with the Children of Liberty and Manchester, and there were times we almost lost hope, but I’m glad we stuck together and didn’t give up.
Until next year. As they’d say on Krypton, “Kaoshuh.”
I loved so much about this season of Supergirl that it actually made me forget last season exists until I accidentally stumbled upon a clip of Mon-El yesterday??? And your recaps made the whole thing a billion times better. Thank you, Valerie Anne!
Thank YOU Heather Hogan for always supporting my feelings rants and laughing at my silly jokes and flailing about Alex and Lena’s faces with me week after week. <3
I have a dissenting opinion on the way the Supergirl writers have taken the show. To me they have much of the time sacrificed interesting / entertaining scripts for politically oriented, completely transparent middle age white male man bashing. I am squarely in the middle of that group and feel I am being shamed by association.
I am squarely in the camp of female empowering and gay rights but the as writing has become so transparent and dull, I practically gave up on the show.
And can someone explain to me why the Cat Grant character would be celebrated as representing female empowerment considering how she was written to degrade and condescend to her female subordinates? I can’t imagine how this character would be vilified if written as a white male.
Really like to hear back your opinion.
Well, Matthew, lucky for you, the majority of TV shows and movies and novels and comic books and history books and museums and statues and documentaries and libraries and companies and churches and schools and laws are made just for men like you, by men like you, to continue to perpetuate the widely held cultural belief that — in the words of the inimitable Rebecca Traister — “the only humanity that is comprehensible, the kind that succeeds and fails, that comprises strength and weakness, that feels love and anger and alienation and fear, that embodies nuance and contradiction, that can be heroic and villainous, abusive and gentle is the humanity of white men.” In fact, you can engage with art crafted with the sole purpose of making middle age white men feel AWESOME every hour of every day for the rest of your life. You never need to watch another second of one of the only feminist superhero shows in TV history *or* Google recaps written by and for a group of people whose intersecting identities have been persecuted and oppressed by religions, governments, and artists for centuries to complain that — well, actually — you are the one being victimized. Further, unlike this writer and these readers, I’d venture to say you can enjoy all that art without even a teensy bit of worry that someone is trying to legislate against your body or your right to safely exist on this earth. What a cool day to be you!
I can see that I came off on the wrong foot Heather. Did not mean to offend but in retrospect it does read that way. I don’t celebrate that someway today’s culture was evolved expressly for my benefit. Actually, quite the reverse.
I like to tell the story of my mom’s career. She began in the “Mad Men” era. She was one of first women stock brokers in the area in a time where that industry was almost exclusively male. She obtained her series 7 license, but when the firm she worked for was bought out, was informed that they did not employ women stock brokers. She could stay on however, as a secretary.
I also remember her telling me it was perfectly OK, at the time, to ask a married woman if she was planning to become pregnant in an interview. If 2 women were considered about equally qualified during an interview process, her management would say – Well why not hire the prettier one?
In one of the most disgusting incidents, I remember her telling me that a potential client expected her to sleep with him to obtain his account.
My mom was an astonishing women to have to put up with such discrimination and be as successful as she was nonetheless.
To the point of entertainment fiction TV though, I immensely enjoy dramedy shows that feature strong female protagonists like Sabrina, OUAT, Lost Girl, Buffy, iZombie, PLL, etc. Wish there were more.
Sabrina seems decidedly LGBTQ oriented modern TV. But the decidedly misogynistic male villains were given some depth of character so as to make them interesting. I thought Supergirl veered from that type of story telling by comparison to previous seasons.
Again my apologies for offending.
If they make Lena evil, the writers will be telling us that no matter how good you try to be, if you come from a bad family, you’re going to end up bad. I want to hope they realize that message runs contrary to everything they’ve tried to say in the past, but I don’t have a lot of faith in them.
If they make Lena evil, I will actually riot. There are so many ways they can handle Lena knowing Kara is Supergirl, but to make her evil would be just a complete abandonment of who they have built Lena up to be. I think Lena is smart enough to suss out why Kara didn’t tell her. I think she is smart enough to logic her way through it all. But I also imagine her brooding about it for however long it takes Kara to finally tell her the truth. I can see her getting slowly angrier and angrier until she about bursts, and rage quits their friendship until Kara can apologize in the right way. But if Kara doesn’t come to her soon, things are going to get really bad for their friendship. And I really really don’t want that.
I hope the writers do Lena more justice than GoT ones did to Daenerys Targaryen…
Three things:
1) can we petition to have Lena wear nothing but suits in Season 5 because daaaaaamn.
2) Please don’t make her go full Morgana. PLEASE. It’s so cliche and tired. Be better than that.
3) I want Kara to grovel at Lena’s feet begging for forgiveness so Lena be as passive-aggressive as you like. Just don’t tip over to the dark side.
Thank you for these amazing recaps and screen grabs, Valerie Anne. They are the highlight of my Monday.
I love Lena and I get why the writers are doing what they’re doing, and I don’t think it’s because she’s from a bad family. It’s because Lena for all her intelligence is driven so much by her emotions that it makes her blind to things (e.g. reason, Kara being Supergirl, etc.). And when that blindness is shown to her she spirals a bit wondering how she could be so stupid. And she’s even more vulnerable when she feels her brilliant mind has failed her. Both instances have shown just how emotionally sensitive she is. Logically speaking Lena doesn’t have a much of a leg to stand on when it comes to keeping secrets from her friends/found family. She’s had a slew them and has lied a lot to protect them over the years, but I understand she’s sensitive and I understand that Lex knows which weak spots to exploit. It just kills me that Lena allows her emotions to overpower her intellect and reason to the point where she’s going to feel like she has to lash out. Just like she did with Lex and her mother and Eve.
Loved the season (especially the back half) and happy Alex makes me happy.
This season was so much better than last season, and I am actually really looking forward to next season I have to say (though PLEASE don’t let them change Chyler Leigh’s hair too much, because I’ve SO loved it this season!)
One thing I do wish they’d done more of this season was show us more of Alex & Kelly developing romantically and slowly realising they liked each other, paced better throughout the season. It feels like they went immediately from friends to kissing (though I did like how Alex kinda moved through Kelly’s dorkishness to kiss her, which was wonderful, and an awesome first kiss I have to say) without exploring the romance (not like they did Brainy and Nia, for instance). But maybe we’ll get more of that next season.
Alex remains the best fleshed out lesbian woman on TV at the moment, with her coming out spanning multiple seasons in a really nuanced and progressive manner. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the like.
And yeah, DAYUMN on Lena in a suit this episode?! WOAH. She always just pulls off a suit so incredibly, but this episode was a high point in the suit work. I personally feel like they are building up to Lena being evil next season, BUT I kinda suspect (given the history of the series) that it’s not going to be that simple, and that she will come back to the superfriends and redeem herself. We all know Lena has a dark side (she is a Luthor after all), so perhaps next season we get to see her exploring that a chunk. I just can’t imagine they’ll position her as an irredeemably evil character now.
And we’re gonna get Dreamer back right, next season? Because she is like the cutest wee superhero we have at the moment and I just want to cuddle her in a big sister way every time she is on screen :)
But yeah, loved this season, and am so looking forward to next season. And of course your recaps again Valerie Anne! Thank you ever so much for this season :)
Thank you for reading! <3
Sh*t I forgot to thank you Valerie for all of your amazing recaps and insight (most I agreed with some I didn’t but I respected them all the same). I’ve enjoyed each one just as much as the show itself. Kudos to you for being awesome.
I stopped watching during the middle of last season but still read your recaps, Valerie – love that they’re pretty comprehensive but still have your perspective as a “queer lady”! When it seemed like these last few eps were centering Kara, Alex, and Lena and teaming them up, I watched them and to my surprise, enjoyed them.
Re Lena: echoing you and everyone else about not turning her evil – she’s been deeply hurt before by those she loved and not gone completely dark. The writers have an opportunity to reject the easy heel-turn and do something that’s still angsty (maybe for a long while, like half a season) but without following the Lex plot in Smallville. That surreptitious smashing of the framed photo does not augur well though. *sigh*
I’m loving this turn with Lena. But only because I don’t believe they’ll make her evil. She’s a great character lately in general because she balances out the Danvers sisters by being willing to be ruthless to meet her goals (which have uniformly been shown to be positive and for her perception of the greater good, even if there are sometimes unintended consequences). I’ve liked how much of that we’ve seen more consistently this season. It makes her a character with more depth, in my opinion, to show that she is actually a Luthor, but that doesn’t mean she has to harness her powers to be evil or megalomaniacal.
I hope she gets a chance to be passive aggressively snarky next season while she waits for Kara to come out to her.
I was touched by how pleased everyone was to see her, to the point that J’onn said that now their family was complete (I assume he means local family, since Eliza wasn’t there).
First things first, thanks Valerie Anne. I’ve not been engaging much this season of SG, but loved the recaps all the more.
Lena – Why a man makes her doubt herself, I can never understand. But I think, someone is manipulative as Lex just gets into your head at one point or the other. Hope, he is NOT revived. Anyhow, back to Lena and Katie McGrath, who was spectacular this season. I agree with above commenter that her emotions are quite overwhelming her. But has so far always, always come out at the right end, heh! I hope, the writers think of a smart way for her to come to terms with the white lies she’s been told by her fam!
Kara – It was a loooong season, not sure, why it felt so drawn out. Probably because it centered too much on terrible men, i.e. the Lockwoods and Lexes of this world rather than the wonder that is Kara Danvers (and her sister). Just got so impatient with all the man pain/male ego, ugh. I liked that she used her reporter skills effectively this season. Making Cat Grant proud! Either way, Kaznian Kara deserved better.
Alex – Way to go, woman! Was wondering whether her queerness was sidelined again this season. With Nia coming onto the scene I was hoping for strong L/T bonding, or anything to not make Alex the only LGBT* person in town. And boom, Kelly appears. Not quite on board that ship yet, but looking forward to how things develop in S5. Chyler Leigh’s hair / facial expressions for the win! But still, give her more to do, together with Melissa, she’s been the heart and soul of this series. Alas, somehow both were subdued for the past two(?) seasons.
Anyhow, new season, new luck, new loves! And fewer annoying men (from earth or elsewhere) plz!
This season, specially the second half, was really good! I’m hoping they keep it up next season! I’m hoping the fact that they introduced Leviathan as kind of a big potentially evil organization means Lena won’t be the big bad next season, and if she does go slightly evil, she gets back to her good self eventually.
I thought the dynamic between Lena and Lillian really funny. I feel like their whole relationship is “Anything You Can Do” playing on repeat, with Lena often winning.
I can’t even with this finale. I have so many thoughts and theories that I can’t articulate and even if I could I can’t type that fast. So, I will just say thank you for your excellent recaps, Valerie Anne. Of all the (too many) recaps/reviews I read each week, I look forward to yours the most. Be gay, make GIFs!
——–
The most coherent thought I have is this: Shout out to the VFX team for making lilac look both powerful and threatening.
And now that I have remembered how to think…
Since the writers insist on only moving the needle to “Lena knows”, they owe us a spectacular catharsis next season when Kara learns the truth. I’m talking an end of episode reveal cliffhanger, with the next episode just Lena and Kara, in one location, working through the fallout, unpacking all of Lena’s tiny boxes. I will accept nothing less.
——–
Reflecting on the season as a whole, I feel like they revealed Lex Luthor too late. The plot literally had to stop for an entire episode to backtrack. And even in the finale there was expositional revisionist dialog (Lex killed Marsden’s original running mate, and she chose this empty suit?) Some teases and hints throughout the season might have helped the momentum in the middle episodes.
Except for Eve. That reveal was perfect the way it was.
——–
So… Kara’s next article is going to be about how Lena Luthor has saved the world a third time, right? Because she did.
——–
As painful as it was to watch Lena get hurt like that, to watch her let the darkness in, I’m hopeful for the next season. The writers seem to have figured things out, and the latest makeup of the ensemble cast works well. Bring on Leviathan! Bring on the Crisis! Bring on the biggest, gayest dinner ever in the Waverider galley when all is said and done!
——–
P.S. The colors of the bi pride flag are red*, blue, and purple. Kara has a red and blue super suit, and purple heat vision. Kara is now canonically bi. QED.
* Yes I know it’s actually pink.
The way that the woman from Leviathan talked about Lex moving the needle, I think that Leviathan is an anti-alien group. One that is fairly old. With the Legion talking about some catastrophe that happened in the 26th century that destroyed most of humanity’s records, I think that there was a war between humans and aliens. A war that was so terrible that the winning humans sent someone back in time to try and prevent it from ever happening.
thx for the great recap as ALWAYS! I would sign the part about Lena- I don’t want her to be evil, too.
But let’s stay positive- at least we didn’t get Lames shoving down to our throats again :)
First and foremost, I’d like to give voice to my most sincerest prayer: please, let Lex stay dead…or, at the very least, stay off our screen. I appreciated him in this storyline more than I thought I would — though I stand firm in my belief that another actor (who’s not as old as his on-screen mother) would’ve been better — but I’m ready for him to go. He served his purpose, we don’t need him looming over the next season. Amen.
With respect to Lena, I just find myself in a different place than most: I think the Lena Luthor that we’ve gotten to know is a fundamentally good person for all the reasons you’ve laid out, Valerie. The guilt she carries over killing her test subject, the guilt she’ll inevitably carry over having killed her brother (even if it was for the right reasons)…it all reflects someone who, at their core, is good. But, you also said:
And I’m not sure that that’s true…or, at least, I’m not sure that Lena will (or should) see it as true. She has done every single thing she can to be worthy…to be seen as her own person, as separate from the Luthor name, and yet everyone in her life — the people she loved and trusted — has betrayed her. She has fought so much, done so much good, but she hasn’t won. All of your friends lying to you? This isn’t winning. I imagine that she’ll see their decision to keep this secret from her as the realization of her worst fear: no matter how much she tries, she cannot outrun the Luther name.
Do I expect her to go all-the-way bad…to throw in with Green Martian to take down J’onn? No, of course not, but “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” I think that we’ll see a Lena Luthor who’s tired of fighting the good fight. Maybe one that’s indifferent about who pays for her scientific discoveries, as long as the check clears. Maybe one who’s willing to sell Cat Co. to the highest bidder even if that bidder is an ideologue akin to Sinclair Broadcasting (that’d be a timely story).
The writers regained a lot of trust with me this season so we’ll see what happens. Whatever path they take, I just hope it means more of Katie McGrath in suits.
This hurt my feelings because you’re right. I guess I just meant it’s true to us, the audience. But you’re right. She wouldn’t see it as winning. My HEART.
Haven’t watched basically any episodes this season, but followed your recaps religiously, Valerie Anne! As others have said, you cover them exhaustively, while also giving us great screenshots and good analysis. Thank you!
Thank YOU!
I asked my gf Kelli, a non-SG watcher, to guess the name of Alex’s new love interest.
Kelli: “Alex?”
I asked my gf Kelli, a non-SG watcher, to guess the name of Alex’s new love interest.
Kelli: “is it Alex?”
Thanks, Valerie! I hope the next season opens with Lena confronting Kara; I mean, could we get some honest anger instead of a simmering grudge for once?
A long time coming, it’s just another wonderful episode. That series itself is an action loaded. Get your hd videos for free at CotoMovies https://cotomoviesapp.com/