And this is what she clings to as the kelpie gets all up in her face and she stands strong.
And then we’re back to the final checks again, this time following Brainy as he goes to Kelly and tells her that he appreciates her presence on this mission, especially as a new processor of feelings himself. The power surge happens again, and when it’s done, Kelly and Alex notice something going haywire with the q-wave interface.
They head deeper into the ship and find Nia and Dreamer near the Phantom’s containment unit…only they aren’t trying to re-contain it. In fact, it seems they’re trying to release it. As they turn around and start to speak in unison, Kelly realizes that they have been infected.
Kelly turns to look to her girlfriend for help but Alex is turned, too. Kelly tries to talk to Alex through the Phantom’s thrall, but the trio keeps speaking as one, calling her weak and human, saying that they are heroes and they got taken over, so what chance does Kelly have of overcoming it?
And Kelly is so close to realizing what happens, but instead of realizing it’s happening to her and taking her own advice, she uses her grounding tactics on Alex. She reminds Alex of what’s real, of what adorable little things she remembers Alex liking, reminds her of how much Kelly loves her. She says Alex has called her her rock in the past, so let her be her rock now.
“Come back to me,” she pleads. And for a moment, it works. The kindness returns to Alex’s eyes and she leads Kelly to an escape pod. Alex says the rest of them are too far gone, and that Kelly has to leave to save herself. And then Alex Phantoms out again, and Kelly starts to panic.
And I think it’s really interesting, and almost sweet, that even though they were different scenarios and for different reasons, both Alex and Kelly’s fears involved them being separated from the group and, specifically, from each other. To not be able to save everyone. The key difference being, in Alex’s, she was a danger to everyone, and in Kelly’s, she was too ineffective. Different pieces of the same puzzle.
And then we cut back again to the power surge. But this time, it’s Nia’s fear, and at first she ends up in a dream. But also it’s a dream within a nightmare? This poor girl gets yoinked from reality enough, you’d think the Phantoms would have left her alone, but alas. Her nightmare dream is of the Phantom’s containment unit no longer having a Phantom in it, but instead a thimble with an image of the Tower, but with a crack in it.
When she comes to, Brainy tells her that everyone had fear visions, so for a minute it’s truly unclear what is real and what isn’t, which ironically is MY biggest fear. But then when they go to check the containment unit together and a big ol’ crack appears in the side of the Tower, it becomes clear this is Nia’s fear when Brainy starts speaking her real life doubts back at her in a way her supportive boyfriend never would. She tries to use the clues from her dream to fix things, but Brainy gets sucked out of the window because she couldn’t interpret in time.
And then we check out what’s happening in actual reality. When J’onn comes to post power surge, he realizes ten minute have passed he can’t account for. When he looks around, he sees his team all gripped by the fear visions, except Brainy who manages to come to despite being surrounded by balloons. I refuse to believe that this ninth level intellect who only just recently realized the depth and weight of his feelings is only encountering the admittedly terrifying anticipation of a balloon popping, but fine. Brainy helms the ship while J’onn gets the Phantom back in containment so that everyone can find their way out of their waking nightmares.
J’onn uses his brain powers to get into the Phantom’s head, and sees everyone’s fears, including Kara’s, but pushes them back until the Phantom is locked up again. Then one by one, everyone ends their own nightmares. Some just let it play out, like Alex telling Kelly to hug Kara for her as she sacrifices herself for the good of the team. Some face their fears like Lena and her Kelpie, who turns into a watery version of her mother when she looks at it straight on.
Kelly uses her burgeoning Guardian skills to protect her friends, Nia watches Brainy slip away.
Alex comes to first and hears Brainy and J’onn say they have a lock on Supergirl, but she isn’t sure she can trust this is real. And as someone who has had lucid dreams before, I understand this disorienting feeling.
The rest of the team slowly comes to and takes up their posts again, Lena readying the sun bomb.
And the team can’t arrive a moment too soon, because Kara is still sitting, alone, sad, crippled by something more insipid than just generic brand fear: hopelessness.
But the thing is, she fought off that hopelessness so long that her own relentless optimism rubbed off on Papa Zor El. He shows her that he made himself a crutch to prove he’s ready and willing to keep going, to keep trying. To keep fighting. She feels guilty for giving him hope for nothing. For making him believe everything will be okay when it simply won’t. And that’s so true to Kara, that her deepest fear is that someday her hope speech will be wrong. That someday her optimism will prove unwarranted, that someday her belief in herself and her team will get someone hurt, or worse. She calls herself naive and arrogant, and she laments that her friends will likely die trying to save her.
But her dad keeps returning that same hope speech right back into her and eventually she hears it, and her eyes turn from the cloudy blue of sadness to her regular bright hopeful baby blues.
So even though things look bleaker than they have in a while, with destruction from the explosion behind them and a horde of Phantoms in front, Kara is ready to fight her way out, to never give up. She’s ready to be Supergirl, til the bitter end if that’s what it takes.
Then all of a sudden, a bright light fills the space and Kara and her dad feel stronger; Kara recognizes Lena’s handiwork and knows this means her family is here to save her.
And it’s real and it’s true and it’s happening. Kara flies up and directly into the arms of her sister. Alex says, “I got you,” which I think is almost as much for herself as it is for Kara. It’s “I found you, I saved you, I got you back,” and it’s also, “I’m here, you’re safe, you’re home.”
As they fly back, presumably having a raucous reunion that we will hopefully see some of in the next episode, we see that they have a little hitchhiker, the imp known as Nyxly.
And that’s all for the first half of the final Season of Supergirl. We’ll be back in August for the reveal of Kelly as Guardian, in an episode written by Azie Tesfai herself. See you then!