“Supergirl” Episode 517 Recap: Case of the Lex

Welcome back to Supergirl! I know it’s been weeks since this show about Kara Danvers has aired but hey didn’t you want an entire episode about Lex Luthor, a villain who was supposed to die and stay dead months ago? Didn’t you want everything you knew about the women you watch this show for to end up being a lie and find out they were being manipulated by a man this entire time? Great, then let’s get to it!

Spoiler alert, I only like two things about this episode: The fact that Melissa Benoist directed it (and beautifully), and one particular scene. The rest was frustrating as heck, but we’ll get through it together!

Previously on Supergirl, people with broken hearts who used Obsidian to escape started getting trapped in VR and kidnapped, and Alex almost became one of those victims in a reality where she was Supergirl; the post-CRISIS world thinks Lex is a hero, and Lex being back and highly involved in Lena’s life means her and Kara are at odds and they haven’t had a moment to themselves in eons.

We start this episode in the present day, 90 days post-CRISIS, with Lex standing over the body of the Leviathan woman, with everyone lauding him as a hero yet again. Supergirl arrives at the scene, confused, and William shows her that there was a video of the woman saying she was a follower of Amy Sapphire, the woman who wanted to break the VR servers. All signs are pointing to Lex actually doing something good for once, but that doesn’t sit right with Kara.

And we’ll learn that her instincts are correct before she will, because we’re flashing back and have the distinct pleasure of seeing what this season of Supergirl would have been like if it was called SuperVillain instead, starting with the day after CRISIS ended. Lex wakes up in his bed with a butler reminding him that he’s about to win a Nobel Peace Prize and Lex is delighted to learn that he made a whole new world that revolves around him.

We see Lex inject his sleeping sister with something to keep her out longer and have his butler get her back to her own apartment because who cares if his only sister has autonomy over her own body, right?

Lex goes to Lillian and tells his mother about CRISIS and how his allyship with Supergirl won’t last now that they both share a reality. Lillian doesn’t understand why Lex is still obsessed with Supergirl when he seems to have it all; power, fortune, fame. He claims it’s because Kryptonians can destroy the world without breaking a sweat, but Lillian points out it seems to be Kara’s closeness with Lena that really sent him over the edge. Is it because they have a connection unlike anything he could ever experience because he is always keeping things too close to the vest, always has an agenda?

Lillian tells him to keep his head on straight and to just support his sister in her scientific efforts and she’ll naturally gravitate towards him and away from Kara, who doesn’t understand her vision. Lillian basically dares him to stay focused and his ego can’t resist the challenge, so he agrees to make his sister his new closest ally.

When Lena wakes up, and Lex asks her what Leviathan is, she’s amused to know more about something than her brother for once. She’s especially amused that he got even more played by Eve than she did.

Lena tells him all she knows, while calling him out for his pride and ego, and Lex sets his mind to getting rid of Leviathan altogether.

We then learn that in the Toyman episode, when Lex learned about Gemma’s connection to Leviathan, he also learned that Eve was working with them, and when he goes to find her, she’s being a kickass yet somewhat reluctant assassin.

Lex knows that she’s only working for Leviathan because they killed her father and threatened her mother, and Eve admits that she hates being a spy and assassin. Lex offers to save her, and says he’ll do all her killing assignments for her if she acts as his eyes on the inside.

30 days post-CRISIS, Eve is stressed out because she hasn’t gotten close enough to Gemma to get on the Leviathan ship yet. Lex tells her to relax because he has men stationed outside Eve’s mother’s home to protect her, so she chills out a little and says she DID get put on the Platinum project at Obsidian North.

Since Lex’s plan is to reverse the Toyman code to de-immortalize Leviathan, he wants to use the Platinum glitch that’s trapping sad people to their advantage, so it’s Eve’s job to make sure that the glitch doesn’t get fixed so Gemma will have no choice but to let Lex help them cover it up before the launch.

Lex also finds Richard Bates, puts on a bad wig, and acts as a bartender to give him the idea for a virtual torture chamber for his wife’s paramour.

Two weeks later, Eve skips into Lex’s house and thanks him for her new apartment. He says she’s precious to him, which of course she mistakes for affection, something we know Lex is incapable of anymore.

Everything is working according to plan, and the next step is to make sure Amy Sapphire has gauntlets so she stands a chance against Supergirl. Because that’s right folks, everything is Lex Luthor’s fault. He’s what the girls of the Teen Creeps podcast would call a “Busy Villain.” Who knows how he has the time, but here we are.

Lex takes Eve to his lab where he…disappears a mouse? Using q-waves? I don’t know and I don’t care because Lex is pure, uncomplicated evil which is the least interesting kind of villain.

One month ago, aka 60 days post-CRISIS, around the time Amy Sapphire and Kara had it out in the Obsidian server room, Eve takes Lex to the human burrito warehouse to show him how they’ve started collecting the people Obsidian Platinum trapped with the glitch. She tells him the old lady, Margo, will be watching over them.

As a reward, Lex gives Eve a vial of poison and the information of the man who killed her father. But when he shows her the picture, she might not recognize him, but we sure do.

Lex goes on his world tour with Obsidian, and we follow the timeline with clips from the episodes; Alex fighting Richard Bates, Jeremiah dying, Alex going into the VR, William almost finding the human burrito warehouse.

At the end of the tour, Andrea makes an announcement about how quickly Obsidian is spreading to over 100 countries in one month. Kara leaves the conference in a huff and Lena notices and follows her up to her Catco office.

Lena approaches her ex-friend cautiously, almost timidly, and offers her condolences about Kara’s father’s passing. She immediately chides herself for giving such a rote response, but Kara’s body relaxes and she looks at her sadly. “You look like someone afraid to confront the person who called you a villain.” Lena understands the pain of losing a parent, and even though Kara already knows that pain too, Lena wanted to apologize.

Kara thanks her and says it means a lot, and Lena gives her a book that helped her with her grief. Kara takes the book and you can feel the strain between them, the unstoppable force of wanting to hug each other pushing against the immovable object of the pain they’ve inflicted on each other.

Kara keeps the desk between them, like Lena has done to her so many times, and Lena leaves quietly.

I loved this scene because it proved what we already knew: Lena is better than her brother. In every way. Lena was hurt by what Kara last said to her, what she’s done, but she didn’t let her pride get in the way when something bigger than this space between us happened. Try as she might, she can’t forget the bond they had, even if it’s cracked now. It’s not easy for anyone.

“Supergirl” Episode 516 Recap: Up, Up, and a Gay

Previously on Supergirl, Kelly found glitches in Obsidian’s VR tech, Richard Bates got stuck in his VR and got taken away by a Leviathan woman, and the Danvers sisters got the call that Jeremiah Danvers is dead… this time, for real.

J’onn and Kara are talking about Jeremiah’s death; he was doing humanitarian acts in the Andes and he just died of a heart attack. No alien threat, no Lex conspiracy. Just natural causes after a lifetime of extreme stress. Kara is relieved to know he was truly a good man in the end, but of course is sad that her Earth Dad is gone. J’onn reassures her that Jeremiah loved his daughters, and Kara knows it, because Eliza told her so.

Kara and J’onn go to Alex’s apartment, where Kelly answers the door. Kara is so grateful Alex has Kelly in her life right now, and goes in to fetch her sister for the funeral. But Alex declares she’s not going. She starts lashing out at her sister, saying Kara doesn’t know how Alex feels, that Jeremiah has been dead for her for years, that Alex held out hope that he was a good man for years, but when he finally proved he was… he left.

Alex looks at her little sister and says that his obsession with keeping Kara safe is what ruined her own relationship with her father. Why she felt tossed aside. Kara’s voice quivers and she has to sniff to keep from crying as she asks Alex what she should tell Eliza Danvers when she asks why her oldest daughter isn’t at her own father’s funeral, but Alex says she doesn’t care.

Kara loses her patience with her sister then, in a way we only really ever see Kara lose patience with her sister or herself, and she storms off, saying she’s Kelly’s problem now.

Kelly assures Kara that Alex is just grieving and reeling and that there’s still time to convince her to get to Midvale, so J’onn and Kara take off. Kelly turns her attention to Alex, but Alex only has eyes for wine, despite it being early. Alex snaps at her girlfriend now, saying she’s already had to mourn her father over and over and over again. She is too tired to do it again. And she’s not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed by her girlfriend.

She asks Kelly to leave her alone, and Kelly agrees to give her some space, but makes sure Alex knows that she loves her, and that she will be there for her no matter what.

Alex just drinks in response.

After Kelly leaves, Alex finds one of Kelly’s VR therapy pamphlets and decides to try it for herself. She pulls out some Obsidian lenses and puts them on, and decides to go to the world where she’s Supergirl. Her outfit is black and blue and her billboard is all around National City and she’s so pumped to go punch things.

Kelly, apparently lacking a set for her own apartment, heads to work to give her grieving girlfriend space. She is looking wistfully at a picture of her and Alex when William comes in to talk to her about the Danvers girls and their loss. Apparently Kelly and William have had a few lunches together in their office building since he came to game night because they are quite chummy now, and Kelly just spills all of Alex’s business to this man. William offers to distract Kelly from her troubles by telling her about Lex’s satellites that line up with his Obsidian launch tour. Kelly doesn’t think it has anything to do with the launch directly since Obsidian doesn’t use satellites, but she’ll keep an eye out for sketchiness there.

She mentions Richard and the hacker as the only sketchiness she’s really seen, and William asks if he was working with Lex; Kelly doesn’t really think so but she knows with Lex anything is possible.

Meanwhile, in Obsidian, Alex is flying around checking out the VR world. She sees a man playing guitar and chats with a woman who goes by Treasure Hunter Tilly, but whose real name is Bonnie. They talk a little about how bad the real world sucks, about Bonnie’s sister Jill who has cancer, etc. But in here it feels good, even if it’s just for a little while.

She mentions that the man at the guitar is really called Derek and is in here a little too much, in her opinion, before heading off in a chopper.

Before Alex can think too much about it, a dragon flies in and SuperAlex is called to duty.

Before flying off after the dragon, SuperAlex mentions something about this being more fun than the real world, and it seems Derek has forgotten he’s in VR. And then we learn that he’s wrapped up in tinfoil in the warehouse of people-burritos the Leviathan Woman is collecting.

In the VR sim, Alex tries to channel Kara while fighting the dragon, but has a hard time getting her heat vision to work. But then SuperAlex saves the day and everyone claps. She loves the feeling of being the hero and heads off to celebrate at the local gaylien bar.

Out in the real world, Kelly gets an alert on her phone that the fail safe is still glitching and she’s worried people could still be stuck in their simulations. She goes to Andrea to bring it to her attention, but Andrea promises her it just got caught up in a bureaucracy bottleneck and that it’s nothing to worry about, that it will be fixed soon. She basically gaslights Kelly into thinking she’s worrying for nothing. Kelly only looks moderately reassured.

In VR National City, Tilly finds Alex eating blueberry pancakes that remind her of her childhood. She really wishes she could share them with Kelly, and then realizes that she could probably eat them in VR. Tilly asks who Kelly is and Alex says that Kelly is her smart, kind, wonderful, supportive girlfriend… who she totally snapped at this morning.

Tilly reassures her that they all have bad days, and Alex kind of word vomits all over her about her dad dying and how she loved being treated like an equal regarding the responsibility of protecting her family but in retrospect she’s realizing that being treated like an adult when you aren’t one might have felt flattering at the time, but the truth is, it’s not fair to the child in question. Sure as a kid you feel special, like maybe you’re smarter or more mature than the other kids your age when you’re asked to take care of your younger sister or protect a parent’s feelings or keep adult’s secrets, but the weight of that can crush a child’s spirit, and the toll it can take on your psyche can take years to reveal itself.

Alex thought that VR would feel like freedom, but the truth is her dad is still dead, and escaping here was fun, but it doesn’t take that pain away. She realizes that she just said all this to a relative stranger and says that she clearly has some things to work through.

Alex apologizes for unloading and says she’s going to go back to the real world, but Tilly isn’t sure what that means. Alex, realizing something is off, calls Tilly “Bonnie” and asks about her sister Jill, but she doesn’t register any of that. She says her name is Tilly. Before Alex can wrap her head around what’s happening, she hears J’onn in her earpiece calling her back to the DEO and the bartender reassures her that he’ll take care of Tilly and SuperAlex instincts kick in, so she flies off.

In the real world, we see that Tilly’s Obsidian lenses have turned red, and she’s lying there clutching a picture of her and her sister when the Leviathan Woman comes to add her to her collection.

SuperAlex flies to the DEO, where broad strokes versions of J’onn, Brainy, and Nia await her help.

Hank Henshaw has kidnapped Kara, who is a mere human and who is struggling against ropes tying her to a chair, so Alex goes off to save her.

SuperAlex and Hank Henshaw fight, and Hank shoots her with Kryptonite and threatens her family, saying no one will be able to save her, but she delivers a classic Supergirl style line saying, “I don’t need anyone to save me. I am Supergirl.” She breaks free of her Kryptonite bindings and takes him down. As she cuffs him, she learns that Kara is safe; she saved the day.

In the real world, Kelly goes to find Willam and tells her about how dismissive Andrea was being. Kelly has taken it upon herself to pull 500 names of people who have been using their Obsidian lenses for 48 hours or more, and wants William’s help to do wellness checks on all of them.

At the VR DEO, SuperAlex feels good about saving the day, and J’onn tells her that Kara says it’s her turn to pick up dumplings, which also feels right… but something about all of this feels a little… off. She feels like she’s forgetting something important. But J’onn tells her everything is fine and they head off to karaoke night at the gaylien bar. Vita takes the mic from Abraham Lincoln and fries a heckler with her heat vision, and Alex’s body instinctively flinches, but when everyone just laughs, she starts to laugh too; our Alex is gone. This is her reality now. And she seems happy…

…but in the real world, her lenses are turning red.

After calling 100 people, Kelly and William still haven’t found anyone stuck in their VR sim, and Alex isn’t texting Kelly back. Kelly thinks maybe Alex still needs space, and William suggests the very man thing to suggest, which is to ignore her need for space and go see her anyway. Normally I would be furious at such a suggestion, but since Kelly knows she’s on a time crunch re: getting Alex to change her mind about the service, and I know that Alex is in trouble, I’ll allow it.

“Supergirl” Episode 515 Recap: Dare to Dream

This week’s Supergirl opens once again in a scene that reminds me of Legends of Tomorrow, with a snowman coming to life, and a couple getting into a sleigh that large white bengal tiger is pulling. But this wintery wonderland isn’t wonderful to all, and we realize exactly what’s happening when a man who seems to hate what he sees says, “End simulation.” But the thing is, the simulation doesn’t end. A giant glowy button that says “end simulation” shows up, but it disappears again before he can hit it. Eventually he’s woken up from the outside with an injection and he finds Kelly watching over him.

Kelly is concerned that his failsafe didn’t work and promises to report it as she hands him off to an older woman who offers to give him his exit interview.

Fast forward two months to the present day, where Dreamer takes down a Dominator, impressing Supergirl by beating her record.

Nia waves Supergirl off because Kara has a date to get to, and Nia handles the rest of the handover of the Dominator to the DEO, where Brainy thanks her with an attempted casualness that ends up coming off as more awkward than anything… and not the cute kind of awkward they used to be. Just stilted and sad.

Meanwhile, Kara calls Alex over to have her help her pick out an outfit for a date. I vote she just borrow Alex’s but that’s just me.

Kara says it’s been two and a half years since she’s gone on a date and what if she forgets how to do it? And frankly I really appreciate that they didn’t try to retcon any off-screen dates into Kara’s history, because I also haven’t been on a date in years, and I also don’t know what I would do, and it’s nice to show that Kara has been able to be a functional, relatively happy adult without having a significant other for a long time. One of my biggest pet peeves on TV shows is when grown-ass adults act like they are going to die because they haven’t had sex for six weeks. Eh hem. Anyway. Kara pivots to talking about how happy she is she can even go on a date, because she knows Dreamer can cover her for a night, because Nia is such a badass and has grown into her powers so beautifully. Kara is so proud of her little protégé.

A news story flashes onto the screen about Lex and the platinum lenses but they shut it off in disgust. Kara assures her sister that they will get Lex out of the DEO and Alex back in as soon as they can.

Alex says for now, she’s just working with J’onn to master her Hand of the Soldier. She manifests a gun to show Kara but that’s about all she can do before the Hand zaps her. She calls it stubborn and Kara laughs and calls her stubborn back and Alex pretends to zap her and it’s all very cute and sisterly.

Meanwhile, across town, Nia is hanging out with her roommate Yvette. Yvette is watching a clip of Dreamer from social media and says she thinks she likes Dreamer even more than Supergirl. But then she’s distracted when she sees Nia moping about her earlier encounter with her ex. Yvette decides what Nia needs is a night out on the town.

Yvette is meeting up her new boyfriend she met on Upswipez, the dating app Ray Palmer invented, and Nia is coming with. Nia is a little wary because Yvette lied about knowing Dreamer in her profile and also she technically hasn’t met this boyfriend in real life yet.

At the gaylien bar, Kara and William are on their date and Kara admits she doesn’t know how to play pool, which is the first time I’ve ever thought, “Oh… maybe Kara IS straight?”

But then despite her best efforts to pretend to be a regular human, her natural strength and skill makes her break the balls perfectly on the first try.

Meanwhile, Nia and Yvette are out in the club (that’s what the kids call it these days, right?) when Nia gets a vision.

She isn’t sure what she’s seeing, just blood and fear, so she runs to the bathroom to try to wrap her head around it. After she leaves, a man approaches Yvette, who has gone outside to meet her boyfriend, Angus. This man admits he was pretending to be Angus this whole time and calls her a liar, too. Nia gets another vision, this time clearly about Yvette, but by the the time she finds her roommate, “Angus” is long gone and Yvette was left beaten and with a message from the man to Dreamer, telling her the world doesn’t want a trans superhero. The note goes on to tell Dreamer to stop what she’s doing, and that if she doesn’t, he’ll keep attacking “people like” her.

After what I’m sure is an exhausting night talking to the police, Nia and Yvette go back to the apartment with the detective who I think is probably far more kind and gentle than most real cops would be in this situation.

Especially since they explicitly called out the cops later. We didn’t need to see any more violence or aggression than the one Asshole to get this point across.

Kara rushes in as the detective leaves; she hugs Nia and asks about Yvette. She was so worried about them both and wishes Nia had called her. Nia tells her that it’s heartbreaking on so many levels; not only was Yvette attacked, she was also betrayed. She thought she made a connection when really she was being catfished and targeted because she was trans. Nia is furious that this man is going after people in her community and she’s ready to kill him dead.

Kara looks a little alarmed and says she knows Nia is upset but they can just arrest this man. But Nia said what she said. She says there’s no redeeming this man, no inspiring speech that can fix this. She says her community is vulnerable, that Kara couldn’t understand how often this happens. How many people want her and her trans peers to be afraid, to disappear. How despite the fact that this one detective seems to be doing his job, most cops simply don’t care about them. But she will not be erased.

Kara concedes that she’ll never really understand what the trans community goes through, but she promises she will help Nia bring this man to justice, that they don’t have to resort to killing him. Nia agrees to try it Kara’s way, but isn’t letting go of her original plan.

Over in The Tower, Alex is trying to train with J’onn but she still can’t quite get her Hand of the Soldier to work. J’onn tells her she has to let the weapon in and not be so closed off to the psychic link but Alex snaps and asks how she’s supposed to trust something that just keeps changing. And then we see it, a little crack in that Director Danvers armor. She wasn’t a Paragon, so even though J’onn restored her memories, the world turned upside down on her twice in a short period of time. One minute Lex was the most evil man in the world, the next he was the most beloved. Then a heartbeat after that the facts of that second world remained true while her memories of the first came back. Everything is scary and changing and Alex feels all kinds of upside down about it.

And she just wants her life back. The life she knew before.

Their training is interrupted by Al from the bar, who tells them that his brother Trevor is missing; all he knows is that he left to go to Virtual Las Vegas and that he really doesn’t think he would have stayed there for a week without checking back in. So Alex offers to go into Obsidian to find him.

At the DEO, Brainy is wistfully watching Dreamer on the news when Kara calls and asks for his help. As soon as he hears what happened to Yvette, and about the message The Asshole left for Dreamer, he agrees to help Kara track the man who did this.

Alex goes to Kelly for help finding Trevor, and Kelly helps her get set up to go to Virtual Las Vegas.

Kelly explains that Platinum connects to biology so everything will feel real, and that there are no rules when she gets in there; the only limit is her imagination. No rules is very stressful to one Alex Danvers but Kelly will be able to talk her through it, and Kelly also teaches her how to emergency exit herself if she has to.

So off she goes.

Alex finds herself in the lobby, which is like a futuristic version of that clearing in the woods at the beginning of The Nightmare Before Christmas, except instead of holidays it’s Alex’s innermost desires. Of the ones we can see I glimpsed Alex as Lexie Gray, SuperAlex, and Alex with a baby before she finds the Virtual Vegas she was looking for. Kelly tells her she might have to ask around to find where the party was, but warns her that everyone with three lines on their neck is an NPC so probably won’t have much information for her. (Also Alex didn’t know what an NPC was, which means she has never played D&D, even though she would be an amazing monk or fighter.)

Alex asks around and finds herself heading toward a house on a haunted hill, and when she gets there, she sees people in tanks just like the one she was trapped in a few seasons ago. Kelly says this room seems to be designed for people’s worst fears, and *I* was traumatized by that whole situation, so I can’t imagine how Alex feels about it. But Kelly is in her ear reassuring her that it isn’t real, though if she doesn’t get those people out of the tanks soon, they could experience real psychological or brain damage. So Alex summons a nightstick and goes to town on the tanks.

She eventually breaks through them and asks them about Trevor; the three of them came in with their new bud Richard, but they got stuck here in this hall of horrors while Richard and Trevor went into the big scary doors. So Alex has Kelly pull those two out of the simulation while Alex heads toward the doors.

Back in National City, Nia gets another flash about Yvette’s attack and feels a wave of guilt and anger wash over her, so calls the detective to see where he’s at.

He promises he’s trying but he doesn’t have any leads, Nia fakes a smile and thanks him but then decides to do things her way.

Nia sets up an Upswipez profile, bragging about knowing Dreamer, and dares The Asshole to come and get her.

Across town, J’onn psychically traces Trevor to a house where a woman denies knowing anything about him. He asks if Trevor could be friends with the woman’s spouse, and she insists her husband Richard doesn’t know him. J’onn calls her out on lying and she concedes that she stretched the truth a little; technically she doesn’t know him in the real world, but she’s been having a virtual fling with Trevor in Obsidian. And somehow doesn’t think it’s cheating. She says Richard can be possessive but she escapes via VR, but between that and Richard being a coder, J’onn figures Richard has something to do with Trevor’s disappearance.

At the DEO, Brainy is searching for Dreamer’s name on all platforms when he’s interrupted with an agent who came back with the assignment he gave her. She tells him she found over 200 social media groups and message boards catering to trans hate groups. A heartbreakingly realistic statistic. Brainy sadly thanks and dismisses her, and turns around to see his search brought up Nia’s Upswipez bait.

Alex, still in the VR escape room, is trying to get through the doors while Kelly updates her on what J’onn learned about Richard and Trevor. Kelly seems… surprised that people were using VR to have virtual affairs? Because, despite being very smart and also a psychologist, she’s apparently very naive.

Kelly talks Alex through getting through the door using her willpower, and Alex manages to manifest a key to get in. She finds herself in a bright white hallway that is a stark contrast to the room she was just in, and also she realizes she can’t hear Kelly anymore. Somehow Richard made a room that can’t be remotely monitored. Alex is on her own now.

Out in the real life CatCo, Kara and William are working on a piece about violence against the trans community. Kara is overwhelmed by the statistic that there were 24 trans people murdered in the past year, and William correctly points out that the real number is likely much higher but misreported because of police reports misgendering victims. I think this conversation is so important, because even though folks like us know these things and talk about them often, there is definitely a subset of people watching this show who love Nia and Dreamer and whose hearts are open to trans people but that aren’t involved in the LGBTQ+ community so who just don’t know how vulnerable the community is. Who don’t know how much our trans siblings need our support and protection and uplifting and celebrating. People like Kara, who thought they knew, but didn’t really know the depth of it until she had her eyes opened to it.

Kara understands the depths of Nia’s anger better now, and wants to do more to help her friend. Brainy calls Kara and tells her about Nia’s Upswipez article and Kara immediately goes to find her.

Alex continues down her virtual hallway and finds Trevor standing in the middle of a circular room. He’s happy to see her but also tells her to stay away because he keeps exploding at random then coming back. Alex is alarmed to say the least.

Trevor says that he’s been tortured like this for a long time and he’s in so much pain, and that sometimes Richard shows up just to watch. And then, as if on cue, Richard does appear, and Alex shoots him out of the simulation. When he wakes up, J’onn is in his hotel room, so he attacks, and Richard zaps him…but he still has the Obsidian lenses in his eyes, so something goes wrong and he ends up in a comatose state where his brain is flickering between virtual reality and reality reality.

In the simulation, Alex tells Trevor that he can control this virtual environment, that he can make his own rules, and talks him through stopping the next explosion, cheering him on and making even ME feel like I could do anything.

Trevor is so happy, and tells Alex where his body is so she and Kelly can go get him out of hte sim. When Alex gets out of the simulation herself, Kelly is there waiting for her and so glad to see things went well even after they couldn’t talk anymore.

When The Asshole goes to meet up with Nia from Upswipez, he finds Dreamer waiting for him instead. He says she’s not a good role model, and that someone has to stand up to “you people” which is one of the most annoying things an asshole can (and will) say. He comes at her with a knife but she’s smarter and faster and stronger than him so she quickly gets him wrapped up in what Nicole Maines called the “phone cord of justice” and thus it will henceforth be known.

He uses all of the transphobic buzzwords, calling her a freak, accusing her of “tricking dudes,” accusing her of being a liar. But Nia has heard it all before, and she’s not having it. She tells him that his male ego is fragile and his sense of self is so shaky that anything outside of his narrow worldview feels threatening to him. She pulls her cord tighter and is ready to end him right then and there but then Supergirl shows up and begs Dreamer not to let The Asshole turn her into something she’s not.

She begs Nia not to let his darkness infect her, that she’s a symbol of hope and stooping to his level isn’t the message people need right now. Nia expresses her wariness that he’ll actually get justice, that he’ll actually get the punishment he deserves, and Kara agrees that it’s not something she can promise, but that the best they can do is try. Try to bring him to justice. Try to protect the trans community. Together.

Kara emphasizes this point. Nia isn’t alone. Kara and Alex and J’onn, and yes, even Brainy, are on her side. She says that they should have been more explicitly turning their eyes and their capes towards the trans community earlier, and she’s sorry for that, but they have now, and they’re not going anywhere.

So Dreamer lets go of The Asshole, and whispers in his ear that he’s going to prison and that if he ever attacks anyone in the trans community again, she’ll give him “a nightmare you’ll never wake up from.” Which is the perfect Dreamer threat, in my humble opinion.

Later, Kara finds Nia crying on a balcony. She holds her dear friend as she reckons with the fact that she almost killed a man today. She doesn’t want to be a killer, really she doesn’t, but she’s so… overwhelmed. She admits to Kara what honestly takes so much strength to admit: she’s not okay.

Everything is crashing over her. Her community is constantly under attack, she had visions about her mom and about Yvette that she couldn’t interpret in time to help them, Brainy broke her heart and she doesn’t know why, it’s all just so much. So Kara just holds her.

Nia tells Kara that she thought she could get a sense of control if she stopped this one guy but gets that she went too far. Kara understands that kind of pressure, that moment of knowing you are powerful enough to do something equally bad or worse to someone who wronged you but having to be the better person about it. But, importantly, Kara clarifies that while she can relate on some level, she knows she can’t truly understand exactly, specifically what Nia is going through.

But she tells Nia that the difference between people like them and people like The Asshole is that they CAN do these bad things, but they don’t. That choice is what makes them different. What makes them heroes. She tells Nia that her community needs her, and that she’s sorry she wasn’t more supportive, that she didn’t know how much pain she was in. But she knows now and she’s here for her.

Nia cries into Kara’s shoulder and it’s beautiful and heartbreaking and I wanted to throw all of the awards at Nicole and Melissa.

That night, at the gaylien bar, Alex and Kelly decide right then and there that their relationship is not an open relationship, not even for VR flings, and they’re both on the same page about it. Kelly still believes this Obsidian Platform technology can help people, but she feels guilty and angry that she didn’t foresee the way people would take advantage of it. Which on one hand feels very “duh” but on the other happens with big tech companies in real life all the time. They agree there should be more rules in place for who can use the tech and how, but Kelly isn’t even sure how much that will help since she flagged the glitch of not being able to get out of the sim months ago and it seems like it hasn’t been addressed.

Trevor comes into the bar to meet Alex in real life, and he joins Alex and Kelly for a drink to thank them for saving him.

Back at their apartment, Nia and Yvette are sitting on the couch, and Nia tries to assure her roommate that The Asshole is gone, behind bars, done with.

But Yvette is still deleting her social media. She’s tired of putting herself out there. She says she’s a trans woman of color, and knows what she’s up against, and she’s tired of pushing against it all. She wanted Angus to be real so badly she didn’t even think to not trust it. Nia promises she’ll find a real love someday. She says it’s their own bullshit that’s making them act like assholes, nothing to do with Yvette, or Nia, or anyone but themselves. She tells Yvette she’s a beautiful woman, and that they can’t let people erase them. They need to shine brighter than ever. Because their light can change the world.

Across down, Brainy gives the police the list of trans hate groups he found, highlighting attacks they’ve bragged about and future attacks they’ve planned. He says that the DEO takes threats against their sister superheroes seriously, and implores the NCPD to do the same.

Alex is in the Tower still having trouble with her Hand of the Soldier despite getting it to work in the sim when she gets a call from Best Fictional Mom Eliza Danvers. Alex’s face falls and it’s clear something is wrong.

She immediately goes to Kara’s and tells her what she learned; they found their dad. Jeremiah is dead.

And I’m really not ready for the kind of heartbreak this will bring the Danvers sisters, but at least we have each other?

The final scene is Richard being taken to the hospital, but the woman from earlier (who honestly could be the Leviathan woman but also maybe is a brand new nefarious old white woman) brings Richard into a room where a bunch of people are wrapped in tinfoil and suspended from the ceiling in a totally chill, not terrifying at all kind of way.

Next week, Alex goes into the Obsidian simulation and becomes Supergirl, which I personally cannot wait for.

“Supergirl” Episode 514 Recap: VR Troopers

Previously on Supergirl, Alex quit the DEO, Lena was still hung up on her Non Nocheri plan, and Lex was trying to infiltrate Leviathan.

This week opened with a lady holding a sword chasing a dragon and, I’ll be honest, I thought for a second I accidentally put on an episode of Legends of Tomorrow. But no, we’re properly in National City, and the lady on a horse is actually just a lady using Obsidian tech.

It’s some kind of Obsidian cafe that Alex, Kara, and Nia are walking by. They’re chatting about the launch of the new VR program, and how it’s Alex’s first day out of the DEO and as a free agent at The Tower with J’onn.

Kelly shows up because she’s packed a lunch of Alex’s favorite foods for Alex’s first day at her new “job.” (Even though I’m still not entirely sure if she’s being paid?) And despite the fact that I have some concerns about how exactly a hot pocket, mac and cheese, and dumplings are situated in the lunch box, they’re pretty damn cute, if I do say so myself.

And there are even dumplings in this lunch, which Kara adorably envies. William approaches this group of gals and Alex and Kelly promptly scatter to leave the CatCo employees with the potential post-rejection awkwardness. But it turns out William doesn’t feel awkward at all; he has Nia and Kara’s coffee orders down pat and has one in hand for each of them.

He skips off and Nia is surprised he’s being so chill after being rejected. Kara just feels awkward.

Upstairs, Andrea is ready for her big new launch, feeling untouchable. But then the elevator she’s in goes haywire and she starts plummeting down. She cries out for help, and help of course Supergirl is there to save her.

When they get into the CatCo office, they find a manifesto that speaks as though Andrea is dead, saying if they don’t cancel the Obsidian VR launch, more people will die.

But Andrea is determined and won’t let a little near death experience get in the way of her launch.

Down in her lab, Lena is testing Non Nocere, getting a vicious alien and a puppy to get along.

Lex is impressed, but Lena is worried that human brains are more complex and she doesn’t know if it will work. Plus, she’s worried about what the Superfriends said, how they think she wants to puppet master people, that she’s going down a dark path. But she really does just want people to be the best versions of themselves, to be more free and creative without their anger and violence weighing them down. Lex tells her she seems awfully concerned about what Kara thinks of her and that she should buck up because he has human participants for her. Prisoners who are volunteering to be part of her experiment. He leaves, proud of himself, and Lena is rightly suspicious.

Lex heads back to the DEO, where Brainy is hard at work trying to reverse Toyman’s immortality code so they can take down Leviathan. But Brainy says that even once he does crack this, he assumes they are impenetrable like Supergirl is, so they have to find a way to weaken them before they inject them with the anti-immortality serum. So they have to find, essentially, Leviathan Kryptonite.

Lex decides that he can use the Obsidian launch to his advantage to get closer to Gemma, so he has the DEO offer Supergirl as Andrea’s personal bodyguard. (Side note, the name of this episode was The Bodyguard, which I think means technically Kara and Andrea should have kissed or Kara should have at least sung I Will Always Love You about Lena on a balcony but whatever.)

Supergirl is a little insulted to be asked to be a bodyguard but Brainy tells her the odds and Lex low-key threatens her, so she agrees. There IS a violent alien on the loose, after all.

Across town, Alex and J’onn are in the Tower working, and Alex admits she feels a little untethered. She’s never not had a boss, or a clear mission or responsibility. Frankly, it’s even been a long time since she hasn’t had a gun and a badge. But J’onn assures her she’ll find her way.

Supergirl flies in and complains about her new assignment, and asks for their help. She describes the kind of alien who attacked and J’onn thinks it sounds like a race of alien that usually uses their powers and energies to farm, and aren’t usually a violent people, but they’ll use that as a lead anyway.

Lex goes to meet with Gemma and do some wily dealings, and I’ll be honest with you, I’m starting to feel about Lex the way I feel about Constantine on Legends. He’s in his own sideplot that I don’t really care about at all and I kind of wish he would just go away and Lena would re-join the Superfriends. I really enjoyed Jon Cryer’s take on Lex but I think this has run its course.

The only blessing is Gemma seems as annoyed by Lex as I am.

Lena goes to the prison and is surprised to see how many people volunteered, from very violent men to the squirrely guy Steve that we’ve seen before. Steve is being beat on by a man named Toby and he tells Lena that he’s super excited for the idea that Non Nocere would end his torment. Lena is feeling the pressure.

At the first Obsidian event of the day, Andrea is positively delighted to have what she dubs a #SuperGuard and takes a selfie.

While she’s watching her charge, William strolls in and giddily introduces himself to Supergirl. Supergirl is concerned with him being near Andrea while she’s under attack but he says he’s an investigative journalist and that’s part of the job. (Kara wouldn’t know, she’s never done her job a day in her life.) Supergirl calls him heroic and Kara reconsiders rejecting him and I yawn and yawn and yawn because I’m still not buying their chemistry; I like them as chums.

On an investigative mission on their own, J’onn and Alex go to the gaylien bar to ask if anyone’s heard about this pink-energy wielding alien. The bartender points them to a man named Dimitri, who isn’t too pleased to see Alex. But once she assures him she doesn’t work for the government anymore, he helps them out and gives them a tip.

Alex calls the tip into Brainy to see if he can find a location, despite J’onn’s concerns about using Lex’s resources for this, but Alex says Brainy is family and trusts him to tell her if he doesn’t think he can get away with helping. Brainy says he can help but then tells Alex that he didn’t find any information, which was a big fat lie.

This lie sends Brainy into a bit of a spiral and so he beckons Hip Brainy from the Big Brain to ask for his advice. He knows that he’s supposed to be helping Lex but he’s worried about his friendships because he’s a good pure boy. Hip Brainy tells him that aligning himself with Lex is the only way to be sure his friends even survive to decide to be his friend or not, so Brainy reluctantly continues on his duplicitous journey.

In the prison, Lena gives everyone lenses and starts her first human trial of Non Nocere. As soon as they take out their lenses, the energy is more chill. Steve’s bully asks him on a lunch date. Lena is so happy.

While Andrea is interviewed for a talk show, William and Supergirl chat about their stance on VR in general, and how William used to be into it until he started making real life connections via karaoke and game night. He says VR can’t replace real connection, and it seems that’s Supergirl’s stance on it, too. (The Kryptonian and the show at large.)

“Supergirl” Episode 513 Recap: One Hundred Lives to Live

Previously on Supergirl, we had 100 episodes of Kara Zor El saving the world. 100 episodes of laughter and hope and tears and frustrations and more hope. 100 whole episodes, and still plenty more to come. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last we left Kara Danvers, she had wished she had done something different so that Lena didn’t hate her, and her and Alex had opened the door to find Mr. Mxyzptlk standing there.

Mr. Mxyzptlk explains that he’s here on an apology tour of sorts; he got in a bit of trouble after the last time he stirred things up in National City, and can only use his powers to help those he’s wronged now. Alex feels no sympathy for him.

Kara asks how he intends to help her, and so to remind her of the part of her that hurts the most, he uses his magic to put a clip of Lena yelling at her in the Fortress of Solitude on the TV. He says he can give Kara a do-over, to go back in time and tell Lena she’s Supergirl in a better way, at a better time. To see what the world would look like if she could choose what happened.

As a show of good faith, he gives her a tape recorder with his name said backwards on it so she could always send him back to the Fifth Dimension. Which Kara, hilariously, immediately takes advantage of. All that’s left when Mr. Mxyzptlk blinks away is Lena on the TV saying the line that stabbed us all deep in our heart places, “I’m not a villain. You shouldn’t have treated me like one.”

Then J’onn comes in, confused as to why his girls look so… shook.

After they explain the Mr. Mxyzptlk situation to J’onn, Kara reveals that she is tempted by this offer. Alex is like, “You’re still trying to call this a friendship? Even though you literally want to change the course of history for it? Sure, Jan.” But Kara doesn’t want to be on the opposite side of the line from Lena. Because she doesn’t know if she has it in her to do what it would take to stop her. Just as Alex and Kara decide maybe they could consider Mxy’s offer, Mr. Mxyzptlk crawls out of the fridge. He sends Alex and J’onn into a magical paintball game, and he and Kara start their journey.

Mr. Mxyzptlk says that the deal is, they’ll go back to an important moment, Kara will change it, they’ll pop back to present day to see what changed, then Kara can decide whether or not she wants to keep the new reality.

So they start to scan Kara’s life to see where in their three years of friendship, Kara got it wrong with Lena.

Mr. Mxyzptlk shows Kara the scene on the airplane, where Lena bravely said she’d land the plane and Kara faked being knocked out and Kara is horrified. “This is awful,” she says. “I’m awful.” And while “awful” isn’t the word I’d use, I think this is good for Kara to think about. How many specific times Lena is probably going back through, having to reframe their entire relationship, every single interaction they ever had.

Kara asks Mr. Mxyzptlk to take her back to right before Mercy attacks.

So Kara is zipped into Lena’s office, right before they’re about to share some Big Belly Burger. And Kara comes out to Lena as Supergirl. It’s gentle, kind, and quiet. She frames it with understanding and apology, and Lena is just… stunned.

Kara hears Mercy attack the building so she zips out to take care of it, but when she gets back, Lena is gone.

Kara goes back to Mr. Mxyzptlk to figure out what happened, and Mxy shows her that Lena went to find Sam to tell her Kara was Supergirl. Something tells me that Lena wouldn’t go telling Kara’s biggest secret to the first person she could, but also I wasn’t mad about seeing Sam again. Lena tells Sam that she’s thinking back to when she used kryptonite to split Reign and Sam, and remembers how mad Supergirl was. Knowing now that it was actually her best friend with that much rage has her in her feelings. She says if Kara, the kindest, most forgiving, most hopeful person she knows saw her as a villain… maybe she is one? Sam stops her right there. Lena did what she had to to save Sam. She’s a hero.

At first Kara thinks maybe this is a reality she can work with, but then it starts raining Kryptonite. Kara is sure that, even hurt, Lena will still save her like she did in the real timeline. Mxy says she would, if she could, it’s true… but she’s too far away. And Kara Zor-El dies. And I guess that’s not 100% enough to convince Kara to undo this scenario, but what is MORE than enough for all of us is Alex crying at Kara’s grave, saying she’s so lost without her. No. thank. you.

So Kara decides to go back even further. Lena mentioned the fight that she and Supergirl had about Kryptonite, so Kara decides maybe going back to that point might be the right spot. But first they take a pit stop in the scene where Kara asks James to see if Lena has any more kryptonite, and Kara winces; she sees now that she shouldn’t have done that.

Kara gets plopped back into the moment when Supergirl confronts Lena about kryptonite. She takes the moment to tell Lena that she is Kara, that Supergirl is Kara, Kara is Supergirl. This is why she’s so upset about Lena having kryptonite. But this doesn’t turn out to be the right time either, because all Lena can think about is how she could have used Supergirl’s help saving Sam. And Kara butts up against the same problem as before; Lena feels like she can’t trust someone who has lied to her so many times over the course of their friendship.

Kara is frustrated but she still thinks this timeline is salvageable; she asks to go to the time she went to Sam’s mom’s house since in this timeline, Mon-El is there, to try to get his perspective. Mxy hilariously says he doesn’t know what Kara saw in him, which is the kind of meta self-burn I’m here for.

And I don’t know if distance makes the heart grow fonder, or my love for Chris Wood has eclipsed my hatred for the Daxamite, or if they wrote him to be the best version of Mon-El, but I didn’t hate this scene. Mon-El points out to Kara that everyone else in Lena’s life who lied to her was doing it to manipulate or use her, but she was doing it to protect her; he’s sure, in time, Lena will see the difference.

He then says something I think we all could stand to hear: “You deserve the same compassion you show others.”

Reign shows up to fight and Lena shows up just in time. Kara is so happy to see her, and Lena blasts Reign with something, bringing Sam out, and proudly telling Kara she did it without using kryptonite.

And just when we think we’re going to get the perfect timeline we deserve, Reign takes back over and kills Lena; by the time Mon-El and Sam die, Kara is in a full panic, begging for Mxy to take her out of this nightmare.

And one thing this episode is teaching us, beyond the importance of Kara and Lena’s friendship, is just how many times Lena saved the whole goddamned day.

Anyway, Kara decides to go all the way back, to the moment they took that first step down the path to friendship, which also happens to be the moment Lena said she wasn’t interested in any kind of friendship.

Kara takes this moment to fly out of Lena’s office and back, and tell her that she’s Supergirl. Lena is taken aback to say the least.

She says, “Kara Danvers is Supergirl,” with an almost awestruck wonder, and Kara realizes she’s not mad. Lena says of course she’s not mad. She calls Kara incredible and asks why she’s trusting her with such a big secret. Kara says what she’s been trying to tell Lena in every timeline: Lena is good, and Kara trusts in that. Kara says that her cousin and Lena’s brother had it all wrong, and that they have the chance to redefine what a Super and Luthor can do together. Says they shouldn’t be enemies, but partners.

We flash through three years of headlines, of Lena and Supergirl being an unstoppable duo. Lena is even testifying at Lillian’s trial, and pleads the fifth under oath when asked about Supergirl’s true identity.

Kara fucking loves this timeline. It’s a world where she does no harm to Lena, and where everyone sees Lena as the hero Kara has always seen.

But of course, this is all too good to be true, and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. Ben Lockwood approaches Lena on the street; in this universe, Byron Montgomery’s Kryptonian Cult, the Church of Rao, has gotten out of hand, and Ben’s family jumped off the roof to their deaths, thinking Supergirl would save them. Ben demands to know who Supergirl is, thinking if they knew she was just a person like everyone else, they would stop worshiping her, but Lena refuses. As thanks for her loyalty, she is kidnapped.

Ben records his manifesto, telling Supergirl to reveal her identity or he’ll kill Lena and Chad Lowe. Even though she’s tied to a death trap, Lena shouts, “Supergirl, don’t do it,” brave til the end.

And Kara reveals a devastating truth that seems so obvious now that she’s said it out loud but that I never really thought about; Kara wakes up every single morning afraid that this will be the day her being Supergirl will get someone she loves killed. And now she’s faced with her biggest fear coming true; the person she loves third on this planet (only coming after her Earth Mother and sister) is in danger just for knowing her.

“Supergirl” Episode 512 Recap: Compulsory Heterosexuality

Previously on Supergirl, Winn came back from the future to stop his alter-Earth-ego from destroying his reputation, Brainy was convinced by his female counterpart that he had to work with Lex to save the world, and the Toyman that Team Super thought they stopped didn’t seem to be fully gone.

We open at the gaylien bar, where it’s karaoke night. It’s Winn’s last night out and they’re trying to enjoy their time together. He tells them about his call sign, Computer Lad, which is definitely not Cisco approved, and they tease him for it. William shows up and everyone gives her faces about it. He is pumped it’s karaoke night and they do an admittedly cute rendition of “Africa” by Toto.

While they sing, J’onn asks how she’s handling working for Lex, and she hates it but she’s sticking it out because she wants to keep an eye on him. She has spyware in the system to keep tabs on what he’s up to, and when J’onn tells her to be careful, she says that Brainy has her back.

Unfortunately, we then cut to Brainy chit chatting with Lex, talking about Gemma Cooper and how Lex knows Alex is spying. Lex tells Brainy to keep Alex in line, and asks if there are any technical difficulties. Brainy is confused and says no, but as soon as he hangs up, some drones attack him.

Alex gets called in to help and Winn says he’s going to join for one last mission. Winn goes to get Kara, who is being asked on a date by William. But Winn, apparently very rusty with the whole secret identity thing, almost calls Kara “Supergirl” and makes up a very bad lie about Kara’s “Gran Gran” being sick and Alex needing her. So Kara excuses herself before she can give William an answer.

The SuperFriends show up and save Brainy from the attack of the drones, and as soon as they do, they hear a song coming through on their comms that Winn recognizes it as a song his father would play.

Brainy explains that the Toyman uploaded himself digitally, so he’s basically like AI now, a hyper-consciousness in the mainframe. If he leaves the DEO network, he’ll have access to things like air traffic and other dangerous things a madman shouldn’t have access to.

They realize that Toyman used Obsidian lendes to accomplish this and find the laptop he used. Winn says he can create a kill code, but before he can run off and do that, the DEO goes under lockdown as the Toyman appears on a screen and shows him a little of what he can do, manipulating their own lasers to attack them.

Brainy deactivates it but he knows it’s just a bandaid and won’t last long.

Alex tells everyone to start collecting tech so Supergirl can fly it to safety, because they have to keep the Toyman contained to the DEO’s network.

Then suddenly Alex hears a landline ring. She finds an old rotary phone under the war room table and it’s Lex, because of course it is.

She tells him the plan, and Lex says that they have kryptonite defenses on all their stuff so Supergirl can’t fly everything out like Alex planned. Alex says they have anti-kryptonite technology for Kara, but Lex points out that they don’t have those suits in this universe.

Alex is annoyed because she doesn’t think it’s reasonable for Lex to ask her to have her crew do all of this work on their own, but he tells her she has no choice. Annoyed, she relents.

As soon as she hangs up and heads out, Brainy picks up the phone and calls Lex himself. He knows now that Lex knew this was coming, and Lex says he had his suspicions. He tells Brainy that he wants Toyman’s code to beat Leviathan because mutual immortality will even the playing field. I personally don’t want this at all because Lex should be dead as it is, I don’t need him around literally forever, please and thank you. Cryer is doing a great job, but I’m sick of Lex.

Over at CatCo, Andrea is in her office eating a lobster tail. Because why the hell not?

But she has an allergic reaction and snaps awake and we learn that she had been in Obsidian lenses. She asks Kelly (hi Kelly!) why that happened, and Kelly explains that it has something to do with the biolink. They’ve been trying to get eating digitally to provide real nutrients but there are wacky side effects and she can’t quite figure it out.

Andrea gets a call that Lena is waiting for her in her office, leaving Kelly in her Lab of Isolation for the rest of the episode. Andrea is thrilled to see her old pal Lena, who is here to give the new Obsidian Platinum a test run.

Andrea admits it’s not ready yet because of a few kinks they have to work out, and Lena offers some biolinking tech she’s developed. Andrea doesn’t want to risk their friendship by working together again, because apparently this universe’s Andrea is not as ambitious as the one we once knew.

Lena fakes a smile and excuses herself but you can tell she’s bummed this plan didn’t work out as she planned.

Back at the DEO, Winn and Supergirl head to the servers to find Toyman while Brainy and Alex stay upstairs to stop Toyman from getting up to anything shady. Alex says something about how we use technology to watch things but it’s watching us back, and I hate how this season all of a sudden everyone has a boomer-esque conspiracy theory about modern technology. When time and time again, it’s not the technology that’s the problem, it’s the people who misuse it.

BUT I’ll go on my diatribe about how the internet saved my life and continues to do so some other time. I have a feeling there will be plenty of opportunities this season.

Before going down to the servers, Winn pulls Brainy aside and asks about Lex, and Brainy says he doesn’t really know what Lex is up to but he’s handling it, and Winn trusts him because why wouldn’t he? It’s Brainy!

At LuthorCorp, Lex brings his sister coffee and asks her how her science is going. She says she needs a distribution method, and explains how she thought she could use Obsidian but Andrea turned her down. He offers to help her but she doesn’t want anyone murdered. He insists he has other skills, but Lena is rightly suspicious.

However, she’s desperate for Non Nocere to work, so she accepts his help.

Supergirl and Winn go down to the server rooms and Winn admits that he’s the one who came up with the code Toyman used to upload himself, because he had wanted to be part of a video game when he was younger. But he changes the subject to Kara and William, and Kara admits she’s hesitant…because of Lena. She says the word “friendship” but if she didn’t you wouldn’t know she wasn’t talking about an ex. Living a double life ruined her relationship with Lena, and she doesn’t want to risk going through that heartbreak again. To start another relationship on a lie. Winn says it’s just a date, but Kara is still unsure.

Alex’s team has been de-linking all the digital stuff, but the Toyman got into some robotic flying monkeys and has them go attack Winn and Kara. Winn’s dad comes onto a screen and reveals he was also uploaded, and he tries to help Winn, but Winn doesn’t trust him. So he goes a different way than his dad says while Supergirl thunderclaps the monkeys away.

Across town, Lex finds Gemma Cooper and introduces himself, pitching the same thing Lena did, but going over Andrea’s head about it.

He also pitches a longer-term partnership between Obsidian and LutherCorp, and she seems intrigued by this proposal.

Back at the DEO, before Alex de-links her tablet, she checks the activity on her spyware and realizes that Brainy deactivated it.

She goes to confront Brainy about it, and he insists that he did it for her own good, that Lex would have definitely realized it and that it would have been bad for everyone. She’s pissed and says that he’s been acting shady ever since all the other Brainys left and she doesn’t think it has anything to do with his personality inhibitors being removed. He says that technology can always be used against you, and promises her he’s on her side. And while I believe he believes that, I’m not so sure that’s true.

“Supergirl” Episode 511 Recap: All We Do is Win(n)

Previously on Supergirl, you may have heard, there was a Crisis, and after that Crisis some folks from some of the Infinite Earths that were destroyed got rocketed to the newly formed Earth Prime, including a bunch of Brainys, including a Lady Brainy who told him that dumping all his emotional connections and working with Lex Luthor is the only way to stop Leviathan.

And so, Brainy does. At the top of this episode, he breaks another Earth’s Winn Schott out of a prison transport bus and takes him to Lex Luthor. It’s all very ominous.

Across town, Kara, Alex, and Kelly are having a breakup feast for Nia, who is trying to put on a brave face about her breakup with Brainy.

They’re all being so cute and supportive and I love it. Nia tries to change the subject and they talk about how they’re all nervous about what Lex is up to instead. ‘

After Brainy delivers Not-Winn to Lex, they have a drink and Lex is impressed Not-Winn managed to get himself arrested within 16 hours of being on this Earth. Not-Winn calls himself the Toyman, like his father, and Lex wants to help him for reasons that will not become clear until later in this episode. He gives Toyman a ticket to ToyCon and access to a nemesis.

Then it’s off to find his sister, who is pissed he stood her up.

This Earth doesn’t have the q-waves she needs to complete Non Nocere, and she’s back at square one, and could have used her brother’s genius, evil as it may be. Lex is a little salty because Lena seems to have undersold Leviathan, and Brainy agrees that they’re the biggest threat right now. Brainy promises to abide by Lena’s “nobody gets hurt” rule, so Lena agrees to talk to Andrea to see what she can find out about Leviathan. In return, Lex promises to get her a new source of q-waves.

The next day, at ToyCon, Lex is admiring his little action figures when Kara and William approach for a quote, overcompensating for their hatred with a high dose of cheer. That is, until partway through the interview when William “What is Chill” Day starts interrogating Lex instead. So Lex pulls Kara aside and tells her to get her British Ken Doll in line or he’ll make sure he can never report anything again.

He then makes sure she has to destroy whatever she did record by saying “Kara Danvers is Supergirl” into it, which was kind of funny because of how flustered Kara got. And anyway, Kara can’t talk anymore because Alex calls in to tell her that there’s a sniper at ToyCon so she has to go suit up.

Alex and Kara survey the scene and realize that all of this is starting to look oddly familiar…

And Kara realizes the toy monkeys are bombs just in time to dive over them and protect everyone. They see Toyman, who looks an awful lot like their friend Winn, but before they can even really begin to wrap their heads around it, another Winn shows up, this one in a Legion ship and with a future suit on.

Future Winn frantically tries to ask Brainy for help and Alex talks him down and asks him to explain what’s happening. They learn that Winn has a wife and daughter, and Alex and Kara are so, so happy for him.

Winn explains that in his timeline, some Time Cops showed up to arrest him for the Toyman’s crimes, and if they don’t stop him, he could mess up Winn’s timeline and make it so he never met his wife and children. I’m not entirely sure how both of those things could be true but I gave up trying to understand the logic of the Arrowverse’s concept of time and space about three seasons of Legends of Tomorrow and two Crises ago.

Brainy offers to help Winn park his Legion ship at the DEO, but Alex doesn’t want Lex to have access to it, so she says she’ll leverage an old friend to put it somewhere. (Should I know who that old friend is? I feel like I should know who that old friend is.)

Winn is confused; why wouldn’t she want Lex Luthor, American Hero, to be near his ship.

The Danvers sisters decide they need J’onn to fill Winn’s memories in ASAP.

Over at CatCo, Lena goes to talk to Andrea about Leviathan.

Andrea is relieved to not have to lie anymore; she was just trying to protect her friend. But Lena quickly learns that in this timeline, Leviathan never called on Andrea. She was never The Shadow. Andrea looks scared. Lena reassures her that they’re in this together. She invokes the promise of their youth: You jump, I jump.

I really thought Andrea was going to kiss her and Lena was going to be like, “What are you doing?” and Andrea was going to remind her that of course they dated because that’s the most romantic fucking line. But alas.

But after she leaves the CatCo office, Lena’s face is stone again as she calls Lex and says the deed is done. She has Andrea wrapped around her finger and they’ll know if Leviathan calls on her.

You know how they say that if you smile in the mirror enough your mood will actually start to improve? I’m kind of hoping that if Lena keeps trying to fake friendships it will remind her how nice friendships can be, despite the risk of pain. We’ll see.

Alex and Kara head to J’onn’s office to show Winn the new place, and Kara is delighted to find that there’s a secret elevator that leads up to a secret lair. J’onn reveals that he built them a SuperFriends HQ, just like Star Labs, or the Arrow Cave, or even the Waverider; a place they can meet and plan without a bunch of randos eavesdropping. Or, you know, Lex Luthor. He was inspired by Barry’s idea to secure the Hall of Justice.

They’re going with The Tower for SuperFriends HQ, but we’ll see if that sticks. J’onn gives Winn back his memories of the pre-Crisis timeline, and after a bout of extreme nausea, he remembers everything.

Back on the other side of the good/evil line, Brainy says that Lex has what he needs, so he should call off the Toyman now, but Lex says that’s someone else’s problem now.

“Supergirl” Episode 510 Recap: A Whole New World

Previously on Supergirl, there was a bit of a CRISIS, a trio of witches tried to start a band called The Worldkillers, and a mysterious entity called Leviathan was up to no good.

We open on a commercial for the DEO, voiced over by Lex, starring Supergirl, and featuring Lena. Alex and Kara are walking down the street while this plays on a giant billboard outside and Kara absolutely cannot stand it.

Alex is trying to reckon with the two versions of reality in her head, but after spending a few months not remembering her own sister was Supergirl, she’s probably grateful to know the truth. Kara wishes J’onn could fix everyone in the world’s memories so no one would buy Lex’s shtick, but J’onn says that would be too dangerous, because not everyone would be equipped to handle such an existential… well, crisis.

Alex isn’t sure what they can do, and calls the DEO a Hellmouth, which makes her a canon Buffy fan, no take backs. Kara reports that things are mostly the same as she remembers at CatCo except for all the Lex Luthor hero worship. And speaking of Luthors and worship, Kara has to go talk to Lena and tell her everything. Alex says maybe she doesn’t have to, because Lena and Supergirl are partners in this timeline, but Kara won’t spend another second lying to her like she did the last time around. (Also when Alex said ‘partners’ at first my heart skipped a beat but when Kara didn’t react I realized she meant literally partners.)

Lena, as it turns out, doesn’t need to be told anything. Because she wakes up on the couch of her apartment and is very confused as to why the brother she killed is standing there.

Lena remembers everything, and apparently Lex drugged her so she has been asleep for as long as it takes for Paragons to take down a giant Beebo.

Lex tells her that it was part of his deal with the Monitor that she stays safe and with her brain fully in tact, so now they’re in his version of the perfect world, which she decides is her own personal hell.

Lena tells him to get out of her life but he tries to convince her that she needs him. He says he knows what went wrong with her last plan, and that she doesn’t need friends; working with him will solve both of those problems. Lena says that Lex was a Leviathan puppet before and asks what would stop him from being one again, but he has no idea who or what the heck Leviathan is.

Meanwhile, Brainy and Nia are having a cute, romantic walk down by the water when they run into… another Brainy. It takes Nia a second to process what’s in front of her.

The Brainys… well, Brainy, eventually deciding they need to go to the DEO but having different opinions about who is taking who there.

Supergirl flies to see Lena and tell her everything, but she stops her; she already knows everything. Lena asks if she thought it would make things right, being forthcoming this time around, but to Kara’s credit she never matches Lena’s barbs with being overly hurt or even defensive. She just calmly, and plainly says, with kindness in her eyes, that she will never hurt Lena again.

She will never lie to her. Kara thinks they should work together, and Lena smirks and points out that Lex gave her a very similar speech asking her for the same thing.

Kara is mildly horrified but quickly backs down because she knows a lecture isn’t the way to get Lena to trust her again. So instead she just bids her to be careful and leaves.

When the Brainys storm into the DEO to demand action from a very confused Brainy, they soon learn that they’re not the only two; on top of our Brainy and Nu-Brainy, there is also a Lady Brainy.

(Fun fact: Lady Brainy is played by Jesse Rath’s real life sister Meaghan.)

More Brainys show up, including an Emo Brainy and a Brainy with an eye patch, who stumbles in warning something about a bottle then dying in front of them. Our Brainy, who the other Brainys start calling Brainy Prime, looks a bit overwhelmed as Alex and the other Brainys realize that the dead Brainy was killed by a biosynthetic virus called the anti-life equation, and that they all must have gone through a wormhole of some kind.

What they don’t realize, until Our Brainy tells them, is that the multiverse is gone; so while yes they traveled from another Earth to get here, there is no going back.

While the Brainys try to process this news, Lex calls Agent Danvers and Supergirl into a conference room. He tries to get them to stand by his side voluntarily, and when it’s clear they feel resistant to this plan, he threatens them instead.

Across town at CatCo, Andrea is talking business plans when in walks her college mentor, who she introduces as Gemma Cooper, but is actually Gamemnae, the woman who took over Leviathan. Whether that means she’s not actually part of Leviathan in this timeline or that Leviathan is done working from the shadows is anyone’s guess.

At the DEO, the Brainiacs talk quickly and hivemind and realize they’re the only Brainys left, but Our Brainy can’t quite keep up. But still he goes with Supergirl to a bar, where there was apparently a wormhole, so everyone who was in any Al’s Bar in any universe, ended up here on Earth Prime in Als’ Bar. (There are multiple Als now.)

Included in this group of wormhole jumpers are a version of the three witches that tried to re-terraform the Earth using the Worldkillers. But, after a moment’s hesitation, Supergirl realizes this version of them do parlor trick magic for extra cash and seem relatively harmless. That’s when she realizes that the people in this bar are just orphans; their worlds were destroyed and they have nowhere left to go.

One of the Brainys, who I guess I’ll call Hip Brainy because he’s got a bit of a 70s vibe and a chill ‘tude, sees the glass a little more half full than that. These people are a miracle. The entire multiverse was destroyed but somehow, some way, these people survived.

Realizing that she’s no longer in jail, Lena goes to see her mother, who is in her ivory tower and dressed like a Desperate Housewife. Lillian didn’t have the pleasure of having her memories retained by her son or restored by the Martian Manhunter, but Lex did tell her everything and she took it at face value. Lena tells her that she wants to fix people at their core, and wants her mother to help her. But Lillian likes her life here and isn’t interested. Lena, I guess hoping that this version of Lillian will be a better source of motherly advice, tells her that she’s considering partnering up with Supergirl.

I’m hoping that really Lena was doing that thing where you ask someone you don’t want to emulate what THEY would do to know what not to do? But I guess we’ll find out. Lillian tells her that sure, she could work with Supergirl again, but the chances are pretty high that she’ll eventually let her guard down, because she’s seen Lena and Kara together and knows that chemistry is undeniable. Whereas with Lex, there’s already no hope and no chance of ever trusting him, because that trust was never really built in the first place.

Speaking of parental advice, Alex is on the other end of the spectrum going to a healthy parental figure and asking her Space Dad what she should do about having to work for Lex; she doesn’t want to support him in any way, but she also doesn’t want to let the DEO down. He tells her a story about a time he broke the rules to do what’s right, He tells her to do what’s right, to listen to her own truth… and then makes a metaphor about running toward the bomb to be a hero, which I feel like is taking this good advice to a bad place when we’re talking about Alex “sure I’ll just jump out this window backwards” Danvers.

Next page: Lady Brainy’s… wife!

“Supergirl” Episode 508 Recap: Who Will Save Your Soul?

Previously on Supergirl, National City was plagued by an ancient earthbender and his secret society Leviathan, the Martian brothers made up and stopped trying to kill each other, Lena confessed to Kara that her heart was broken and trapped her in a Kryptonite cage in the Fortress of Solitude while she took off with the Myriad technology to set her Do No Harm plan into motion.

After realizing she wasn’t responding to their comms, Alex and Brainy show up to the Fortress to save Kara before too long, but she still wasn’t even trying to break out of her little cell. As soon as they get her out, Kara’s immediately talking about Lena, saying she has to go after her. “She hates me,” she says with her sad eyes. She broke Lena’s heart and she wants to fix it.

Meanwhile, Lena is in Lex’s old bunker using the satellites to prepare Myriad. She’s going to make this world a place that can’t hurt her anyone if it’s the last thing she does. Lena is so happy Hope has been by her side through this; her help has been invaluable. Before they can start the process of launching Myriad, Lena realizes that Supergirl has tracked her down and is outside the bunker. The bunker’s built-in defenses already have cannons pointed at Supergirl, and Lena just has to decide what to do.

She hesitates briefly, but then tells Hope to deploy. Supergirl is blasted back a bit, and Lena is sure this will give Kara the signal she’s sending and she’ll back off. But when Supergirl doesn’t leave, the cannons switch to a Kryptonite blast. Outside, Kara sees the beams turn green and looks like someone just slapped her across the face. She floats there, hands up, quietly begging Lena not to, clinging to the hope that Lena won’t fire.

And Kara’s hope is warranted, because Lena doesn’t hesitate this time, she immediately and frantically tries to shut down the blasters when she realizes they’ve turned fatal. She shuts them down just in time with a sigh of relief.

When she regains her composure, she tells Hope that she did that because they don’t kill people, “no matter how much they’ve hurt us.” She’s nowhere near the line she’d need to cross to become a villain, but she’s also not ready to make nice.

Back in the Leviathan lair, Rama Khan returns only to find Gamemnae (the woman formerly and briefly known as Tech Lady) telling him that there are whispers that he’s losing his touch. That the Elder might be putting someone else in charge instead. She reminds him that her tech is still an option, and warns Rama Khan that the humans will destroy the planet if they’re not stopped (fact) and that Supergirl will die before letting them harm the humans. But tonight the planets will be aligned just so, and they can take advantage of that to make a second Pompeii using the dormant supervolcano that has apparently been in National City this whole time. All they need is a staff, and to harness the medallian’s powers, aka Acrata’s powers.

After finding herself unwelcome at Lena’s bunker, Supergirl goes to the DEO to ask if there’s a way they can communicate with Lena while she’s inside.

Kara tells Alex all the things Lena revealed to her in the Fortress, about how she’s known Kara was Supergirl for months, how Lena killed Lex to protect her, how she stole Myriad. There’s no anger or frustration in her voice, just a deep and heavy sadness. Guilt, even. She just wants to talk to Lena, but Alex has concerns.

Kara insists there’s still time to reach Lena, that she can fix this, so Brainy tells her they can project a hologram into the bunker.

They don’t really understand why Lena would need Myriad anyway, but J’onn pops in saying he knows how, and doesn’t warn anyone before his brother pops in right beside him. A little “heyyy a former fugitive who was trying to kill us all is gonna show up in a second but DON’T WORRY” would have been nice, but alas. Alex kicks into Attack Mode but J’onn talks her down, saying they’re linked now and J’onn is sure Mal is good and here to help.

Mal explains what he knows about Lena’s Do No Harm plan, and how she was harnessing his Q Waves and powers to do it.

Kara looks to Alex to see if she sees what she sees now. Lena thinks she’s doing good. “She’s hurting,” Kara says, guilt dripping off every word. Mal agrees with her, and Kara insists again, “I can still save her.” She blames herself for this hurt Lena is wielding, and she says it again, hoping she can speak it into reality. “I’m going to fix this.”

Rama Khan goes to get Andrea to do another job, but Andrea has had enough. She was doing it to save someone she loves, but someone else she loved died in the process. Rama Khan offers her one last job; then she’ll be free of her contract. She asks about her father and he spits that he can keep his riches, and her eyes fill with heartache because that’s not what she was trying to save.

Lena is in the bunker and almost ready to launch Myriad. Lena is so ready to save humanity she’s practically glowing.

But then Supergirl beams in. She tries to stop her from using Myriad, and Lena thinks that Kara thinks she’s using it for evil and she’s offended.

Kara apologizes again. She’s sorry she was weak and she lied to Lena for so long. She knows that she made a mistake, she knows that all Lena ever asked of her was honesty and it’s the one thing she didn’t give her. She says that Lex used Kara’s weakness, her lies, to try to break Lena and make her more like him, but she’s better than him, she always has been. And Kara has given speeches like this in the past. The last-ditch effort before a fight, the “we don’t have to do this” appeal. But usually her voice is strong and her head is high and she speaks with an earned righteousness, with clarity and confidence, laced with an abundance of hope. But not this time. This speech is full of apologies and sorrow. It’s tinged with borderline desperation, her voice is wavering, her hope dwindled to one thin strand she’s clinging to with everything she’s got.

(PS. This has nothing to do with anything except that writing about Kara’s teary eyes and strength reminded me, I highly recommend watching Melissa Benoist’s IGTV video she posted about her history with intimate partner violence (if you’re able), so you can see that Melissa is stronger and braver than we even knew. I stand with Melissa, always have and always will.)

Lena knows this, she knows that even though she’s in Lex’s bunker using evil technology that she is not like the antagonists they’ve gone up against in the past. She is good. This is good. She tells Kara that her words mean nothing to her and turns off the hologram.

Kara goes out onto the DEO balcony to process and Alex comes out to check on her. Kara is heartbroken that she couldn’t get through to her. She understands why Lena is doing what she’s doing. Her voice quivers as she tells Alex that she knows it’s her fault.

Alex reassures her that Kara wasn’t keeping her identity a secret to hurt Lena, but to protect her, to protect everyone. That impact is important, but intent should be considered, too. She loves Lena too, but there’s more at stake than Kara and Lena’s relationship. The fate of humanity is on the line, and if Lena has gone too far to pull back to them, they have to treat her like someone who is not on their side. Kara shakes her head. “This is not our Lena.”

But with this new information, this new turn of events, Alex isn’t sure she knows who their Lena is anymore. Lena’s upset that Kara lied to them for months, but then she turned around and did the same thing. Showed up to countless game nights harboring secret resentment. And it’s not the first time she lied to them. Though, in this moment, Alex goes against her own advice, and is ignoring Lena’s good intentions in every instance she mentions. Kara says she will not, I repeat, WILL NOT treat Lena like a villain. But Alex has to. Despite Alex’s words coming out all calm in rational, I think what’s really happening is that Kara is hurt and Alex wants to fix it. I don’t think Alex thinks Lena is a villain, I don’t even think she really holds all those things against her (though she did come up with them awful quickly), I think she sees the pain in her sister’s eyes and all ability to see two sides to this flew off the balcony.

Alex proves she means business by telling Kara that they snuck a virus into the bunker with the hologram that will slow down Myriad and give her time to surrender before they take any action. Alex says they have to start thinking with their heads, not their hearts.

Back at the bunker, Lena tries to launch Myriad, but something blocks it. Hope says that the hologram had a virus, and Lena is hurt. And I’m screaming at my TV that Kara didn’t know, but Lena is resigned to yet another betrayal. I haven’t been paying as much attention as I should to when Lena calls Kara “Kara” vs “Supergirl” since she learned they were one person, but in this instance when Lena calls her Supergirl, for some reason it stabs me in the heart.

They need to manually adjust the satellites but Lex made it dangerous to do so. Hope is more than ready to go do it, since launching Myriad was part of her coded objectives, but Lena panics. Don’t go, she pleads. She walks it back a little, saying, “We may need you,” trying to sound dispassionate and logical about the AI she built and put in her ex-assistant’s body.

At the DEO, Kara runs to Space Dad to say her sister’s trying to hurt Lena, and that she just needs time. J’onn is sort of in the middle on all this, and can see both sides; all he knows for sure is that they think they can use Mal’s Q Waves to stop Myriad.

Rama Khan takes Andrea to the volcano, she realizes what he wants her to do and refuses to do it. She warns him that Supergirl will just stop him, but he roars something about being a god and attacks. Andrea grabs the staff and Shadows off to the DEO, trying to warn them before Rama Khan yoinks her back and traps her and the staff into a dirt mound he can use as an energy beacon.

Her brief visit to the DEO was enough for Brainy to link the staff to Pompeii and guess at Rama Khan’s plan. Alex is giving orders to everyone to stop this, but Kara interrupts and tells Alex about the Q Wave plan. Alex almost laughs at the idea of trusting Mal to help them stop Lena.

Alex’s current plan to stop Lena if she doesn’t surrender would result in Lena’s death, and Kara pleads with her sister. Lena is their friend, she’s part of their chosen family, and if Alex kills her, there’s no turning back from that. It will have lasting consequences on all of them.

Now it’s Alex’s turn to go to Space Dad for advice, and Alex says that this decision isn’t as easy for her as Kara is making it sound. She doesn’t want to have to hurt Lena but her job is to make the tough choices and ultimately do what’s best for the world, not just the people she personally cares about. But J’onn tells her that they can’t just write people off for their past mistakes. They have to give them the chance to try to be better.

The DEO sends Lena another warning, another request to surrender, but Lena tells Hope to delete them. Hope asks again if she can go rearrange the satellite dishes. She believes in Lena, and Eve did too, and she wants Myriad to be successful. She was designed to want Myriad to be successful. Lena refuses again, saying they’ll find another way, because she doesn’t want both Hope and Eve to die, and Hope is the only friend Lena has left.

But Hope reminds her she is not Lena’s friend. She’s her AI. Lena’s face falls. My heart sinks. Two things are happening here all at once. The only person Lena trusted just reminded her that she’s not her friend. And also Lena realizes that she grew emotionally attached to the AI she built to work by her side so she wouldn’t be hurt…and it hurt her. Because no matter how hard she tries, Lena is full of love and her instinct is to trust despite the pain she’s been through. So she loved and trusted Hope despite her being in a betrayer’s body and hell didn’t even want Eve to be gone forever.

This poor woman doesn’t need to “fix” humanity she just needs some therapy and maybe a puppy.

Supergirl and the Martian Manhunter go to fight Rama Khan while Alex is torn between using the Claymore satellite, which will definitely stop Myriad but probably kill Lena, or to trust Malefic, which will probably stop Myriad but definitely not kill Lena.

Having been slapped on the wrist by reality, Lena lets Hope go out to the satellites and together they crack Lex’s code and access the manual overrides, and finally Myriad is ready. So Lena launches it.

They have 30 seconds before Myriad reaches earth and all of humanity is hit with the Do No Harm waves, and after a moment of deliberation, Alex chooses to trust Mal because if there’s a chance to save her friend, she’s going to take it. If not for herself, for Kara.

Mal is almost successful but needs a little more power to fully overcome the Myriad beams, and Brainy says the only way to do that is to shut off the DEO inhibitors. Alex is scared but when it comes down to it Alex chooses to trust, and Mal is successful; Myriad has been stopped.

Rama Kahn buries Supergirl in cinderblocks and is giving her his best villain speech, but when she hears that Alex chose the save-Lena approach to stopping Myriad, Kara feels a surge of hope that gives her the energy she needs to throw off her concrete blanket and freeze the Earthbender. At the same time, J’onn gets the staff out of the ground and Arcata is set free to tackle Rama Khan and shadow him away.

In the bunker, Lena is defeated. Hope asks what they should do, and Lena just resigns to the fact that she lost, saying sometimes the good guys don’t win.

Shadow takes a stabbed Rama Khan to the Leviathan lair, where Gamemnae takes the staff out of him, yoinks his pin off his robe, and tells him that she’s in charge now. His reign is over. Patriarchy = toppled.

Lena and Hope teleport back to her lab, where Lena makes sure her gun is loaded before handing it to Hope. And for a breath I was terrified. I thought she was going to have Hope shoot her, or herself, I didn’t know where this too-calm Lena was, emotionally. How defeated she really felt. If her hopelessness was leading her to want to be Hopeless. But in reality she’s just the cleverest girl. Agents come swooping in and Hope gets what Lena wants her to do. She pretends to hold Lena hostage, and Lena plays the victim, calling Hope “Eve” and acting innocent as a babe.

At the DEO, Alex finds Kara on the feelings balcony again (I like that every building in National City has a feelings balcony) and tells her the story Lena’s giving the authorities. Neither of them believe it, they know what Lena did, but Kara is just so happy she’s alive. And now Alex is on her side; they’re going to save Lena’s soul, they’re going to get her back from the brink, together.

Later that night, Lena is drinking alone in her apartment and looking longingly at a picture of her and Kara, while at her loft, Kara is also looking at the same photo of them. And I’m sorry, but RIGHT before this scene, there was one of Andrea looking with that same sad look at a picture of her and Russell aka the person she LOVES ROMANTICALLY. So please explain to me the logic behind this. Please explain to me how the writers can keep calling them friends and yet having them do things that more-than-friends do in the same universe, the same show, the same EPISODE. There was a time I could see the argument both ways; that I could see why SuperCorp was a ship and I could see how the writers thought they were writing friendship between a superhero and a billionaire. But that time is long gone and if they finish this season not even mentioning one time that maybe there was more than friendship feelings at least on one side of this, I’m going to launch Myriad myself so no TV show can do harm to me ever again.

Alas, even if such a confession were in our future, it’s going to have to wait, because, as you may or may not have heard, a crisis is coming. A character I called “Stupid Crisis Man” in my notes (but is actually called Mar Novu/The Monitor) shows up to J’onn after he sends his brother away in his rocket car to see M’gann and says J’onn passed his test. The Monitor says he’s been watching J’onn since the Elseworlds crossover and thinks he should join this crossover, too.

When The Monitor leaves J’onn, he goes back to a weird floating floor where Lex is alive and well and playing chess. The Monitor apparently brought Lex back to fulfil his destiny and become a hero, and Lex says he’s always been the hero, because WHEW that man is living in his own elseworld, but first Lex wants to discuss his sister. To which I say, “Keep her name out of your mouth, SIR.”

The Crisis set up that was at the end of Batwoman and Supergirl, that I imagine will be at the end of all the Arrowverse shows this week, is the newest rendition of Harry standing in the tunnel he found when he was following The Monitor. He presses symbols that I imagine represent Supergirl, Batwoman, Flash, Arrow, and the Legends, in that order, and the door (to infinite earths??) opens up and sucks him in.

The Crossover will be in five parts, the first three next week, and the last two in January, when our beloved Legends will finally return unto us.

“Supergirl” Episode 507 Recap: Sticks and Stones

Previously on Supergirl, Leviathan was looming, Lena was seething and incepting, Kara was stressing, Alex was fighting, Kelly was worrying, and everything was a big gay mess.

We open this episode with Supergirl sparring with Space Dad. He says she seems a little off, she counters that he does, too. She admits she’s punching away her anxiety about the Leviathan unknowns and is still wrestling some leftover guilt from the Lena thing, which was kind of rekindled by William finding out his friend was RipRoar. Before they can talk all that much though, J’onn gets knocked down by some kind of psychic blast.

Meanwhile, Lena is home reading a book in the dark, sitting straight up on the couch, still wearing her jeans, as you do.

The Leviathan woman shows up for the medallion but even though she strolled right into Lena’s living room, she can’t get to Lena because of all her security. She looks the Leviathan woman in the face and says she’s not afraid, and the Leviathan woman assures her she will be.

Hope comes out, which honestly alarmed me, but I guess it would be weird if a janitor or something saw Eve Teschmacher sleeping on a stool in the lab. So Hope tells Lena that it’s not really logical to keep a technically useless medallion that a mysterious and dangerous organization wants, but Lena feels very finders keepers about it. Besides, her mother would want her to have it. Anyway, Lena can use it as leverage. And speaking of leverage, she also wants to use her leverage with Kara to get into the Fortress of Solitude.

Hope thinks Lena should cancel the L Corp event because Leviathan could attack, but Lena just smiles a haughty smile and says, “Supergirl will save me.”

After leaving Lena’s apartment, the Leviathan woman goes to a mansion of sorts that also serves as Leviathan HQ. When she gets downstairs, she greets a man and for the first time, she doesn’t sound like the all-knowing leader of an underground society. She sounds like a nervous henchperson who failed her mission. She insists she was no match for a Luthor, but the man, Rama Khan, says that they’ve been around since they accidentally killed all the dinosaurs with their spaceship (lol) and that she shouldn’t have failed. But another woman appears from the shadows and says that maybe it’s Rama Khan’s fault and that they should use her tech instead of Rama Khan’s brute force, but he waves her off and goes about his business.

His business, of course, being attacking Lena’s charity event.

Lena presses her Supergirl call button and leaps off the cliff, which frankly was a risk that had to involve some level of trust whether Lena wants to admit it or not. And of course, Supergirl is there just in time, saving her first, asking questions later.

When Lena says it’s Leviathan attacking, Supergirl shoots her laser beams at him but he just heals up so she flies them to safety. She takes her all the way to the DEO, where they consult with Alex and Brainy about who this man could be.

Brainy calls him an Earthbender, and says he must be thousands of years old, if not older, therefore definitely an alien, and from a sister planet to Krypton. Lena casually says it’s too bad Lex’s Kryptonian-killing weapons were destroyed, and Kara plays right into her hands, saying they’re in the Fortress of Solitude. Lena offers to give Kara a list to bring, a clever ploy; most people would beg to come and make up some lie about why they should. Lena just makes it sound like she’s unconcerned with going, while also making it sound mildly inconvenient to NOT invite her, and Kara trusts Lena, so of course Kara tells her they’ll make a road trip out of it.

Lena asks if Kara is sure it’s okay that a Luthor can go there, and Kara playfully insists that it’ll be fun, and that Lena will need a jacket. A fox running off with the hound.

Back at the DEO, Brainy is looking for Rama Khan but finds RipRoar instead. But when he and Alex show up at the scene to get him, they realize it’s a trap and they get a little exploded. At first Alex says she’s not injured, just angry, but before she can finish fuming, she falls down.

In the Fortress of Solitude, Kara and Lena barely get a few steps in before the defense system clocks that there’s a Luthor inside and shoots up an ice cell around her. Supergirl disarms it just in time but the whole thing is pretty harrowing for both of them.

Kara apologizing, saying that Lena is not Lex. Lena knows that Kara isn’t her cousin either. Lena says, “We are miles beyond those boys with their sticks and stones.”

And she’s right, of course. But unfortunately she doesn’t mean they’re above fighting each other. Lena just means she’s elevated her tactics. They don’t need to punch or explode each other, because they’ve got the power of emotional manipulation. Cuts much deeper than any Kryptonite blade.

Back at the DEO, Kelly comes to visit Alex, who is just mildly concussed so she didn’t bother texting Kelly right away; but she heard from Nia that she and Brainy were in an explosion.

But when Kelly sees Alex is fine, she starts to cry. She was so scared. Alex is a little surprised by this reaction but she promises to call or text and tell her exactly what’s going on next time. Alex is ready to get back up and at ’em but Kelly is too worried about her and her lil concussion, so Alex agrees to stay for a little while longer.

While they’re walking through the Fortress of Solitude, Lena does this thing that I am so guilty of and politely, almost jokingly, brings up things that have been weighing on her. Like how it’s soooo hilarious that she risked her life for her squishy little friend Kara over and over, having no idea that Kara was literally bulletproof and also could fly. How absolutely hysterical it is that when she thought she was making her own choices, Kara was secretly saving her time and time again. “You’re an excellent actress,” she says, a smile blooming like a poisonous flower.

It works, this angle, because Kara is positively squirming. She feels horrible. For all the times she lied. For all the danger she put Lena in. For all the memories Lena has to go over again with sharper vision now that the wool is off her eyes.

Back in National City, the young, blonde, Leviathan woman whose name I don’t believe was said and is definitely not on IMDb, so I will just call Tech Lady for now (listen, I’m no Cisco), tries to get Rama Khan to see that the world has changed, and a little biblical flood or volcano eruption isn’t going to solve the climate issues they have, but her technology might. Because apparently, in what may be the biggest plot twist in history, Leviathan just might be eco-terrorists? Anyway, Rama Khan ignores her AGAIN (which I can almost guarantee he will come to regret) and says that since he can’t sense the medallion on Earth anymore, it must be in the one place on the planet that is not of this Earth at all.

Kara and Lena get to the quantum processor, which Lena recognizes immediately even though Kara couldn’t have named it if you asked her to, despite having used it before. Lena asks if she can use it to send Brainy a message and Kara lets her, amused by her nerdy excitement.

Lena and Kara find the gun that can weaken Rama Khan enough to get power dampening cuffs on him. Lena says, “It was designed for evil but maybe we can use it for good.”

But while they were looking for the gun, Kara points out Myriad, the weapon her Aunt Astra used to turn everyone into mindless zombies.

A lot is about to go down, so I’ll take a break right here to give you a Space Dad update. J’onn’s storyline, despite being the closing chapter in a book we’ve been reading all season, is buried beneath all the drama and angst of the other stories. They packed so much into this episode, and I have to imagine it’s because they’re preparing for a crisis. (I don’t know if you’ve heard.) J’onn meditates and his father helps him and realize it’s not his guilt making him sense his brother, his brother is actually nearby. So J’onn finds him, apologizes, and lets Mal see into his mind to know he’s telling the truth about never hating him, never wanting to hurt him. So in the end, Mal offers a hand to his brother, and perhaps they can help each other now instead of fighting.

Back at the DEO, Alex and Kelly are playing cards, and Alex tells Kelly that she appreciates her taking the time to make sure Alex took care of herself. That she’s used to just dealing with things (or decidedly not dealing with them) on her own. Alex tells Kelly that being with her feels like home, and all of Kelly’s anxieties bubble up and spill over.

She admits that when she had to hear through Nia and had no message from Alex, she assumed the worst, which in anyone else’s case might seem like an overreaction, but Kelly has literally been through the worst, and Alex’s job is literally life or death. Kelly tried to convince herself she could handle it, but she tells Alex now that she doesn’t think she’s strong enough. But she knows how important this job is to Alex and would never, ever ask her to change.

But Kelly isn’t sure she can keep going through this. Brainy comes in and tells Alex they have to leave immediately, but Alex is so confused as to what the hell just happened. Kelly tells Alex she should go back to work, and Alex knows that there will be time to talk later but Leviathan is more important right now.

And honestly this scene broke my heart. Because it’s once again someone telling Alex, “I love you but I can’t.” It’s once again someone telling her they don’t want to change her, but that their situation just won’t allow them to stay. Because “I don’t love you” and “I love them more than you” hurt in obvious ways. “I love you, but” can come out of nowhere. “I love you, but” can feel like someone flipped the switch on gravity and suddenly the wall is the floor. “I love you, but” can be like following the map only to find there’s no bridge where it said there would be a bridge. What can you do with, “I love you, but”? When they insist it’s not you, or them, or us, but the situation you have no control over? What do you do when you feel like you’re not enough?

But also, Kelly has trauma and I can’t fault her for not wanting to be in such a triggering situation. All in all it’s a lot of emotions and it all hurts.

Alex tries to shake it off while she goes with Brainy to where he thinks the Leviathan Headquarters are but they find themselves in a cave, since Leviathan HQ obviously has better security than an unlocked door and a hackable elevator.

The Earthbender has made his way to the Fortress of Solitude, proud of himself for figuring out where they were, but Supergirl just tells him it’s impolite to come inside without an invitation and prepares to fight.

Unfortunately, Supergirl isn’t quite a match for the ancient alien, until she uses her brains over her brawn and freezes up the cracks in the floor so Rama Khan has no earth to bend. Realizing he probably could not face her in such conditions, and that he has no idea what else she has hiding in this cave of wonders, he cracks the floor and nopes out of there.

When Kara heads back into the weapon’s closet, she sees Lena with Myriad in her hand. Where was she going? What was her endgame? She couldn’t have walked home. She didn’t bring a backpack. And you better believe Lena didn’t decide last minute to grab this thing. Besides, she had already fiddled with the quantum processor. So I think she was just wandering around back there with Myriad in her hand, waiting to be caught.

She even says, “You caught me,” with such an even tone. She wasn’t surprised, or guilty. She was just ready for this stiletto-heeled shoe to drop. She reveals that she knew Kara was Supergirl weeks before she told her, tells her she found out with her brother’s dying breath. Kara is confused, she thought she killed Lex. (Something I don’t think was properly processed on either count. Kara and Lena both thought they killed a human man.) Lena says that she had the gun pointed at Lex and every fiber of her being rebelled. It went against her every instinct, her very nature. But she knew killing Lex would save the world, save her friends. Save Kara.

Kara’s eyes are filling up with tears. She didn’t mean to hurt her. Lena scoffs at the idea. Lena had told Kara that everyone she ever trusted betrayed her. She didn’t even WANT to trust Kara, but she was so warm and welcoming. And she promised, PROMISED, she would never lie to her, never betray her, that she was different, that she was Lena’s one true friend.

Lena’s practiced speech starts to unravel now, her even tone wavering. Tears fill her own eyes. “I killed my brother for you,” she yells. Kara, to her credit, doesn’t get angry or defensive. She just looks so, so sad. She inches her way toward Lena this whole time. Never flinching away, never backing down. She asks why Lena didn’t come to her, or out her. Why did she pretend to be her friend for so long, pretend like everything was fine? Lena admits she wanted Kara to feel what she felt. She wanted Kara to truly understand what it felt like to be lied to, to be betrayed.

Kara understands. She says Lena is right, but that Lena shouldn’t use Myriad just because Kara fucked up. She’s not her brother. But Lena is still seeing red, so she just snaps that Kara doesn’t get to say who or what Lena is.

An ice cell like the one that appeared around Lena when she entered shoots up around Kara now. Kryptonite seeps into her and she can’t move. With big, sad eyes and a defeated tone, Kara lets out a quiet, “Are you going to try to kill me?” She’s not afraid of dying. She’s afraid of Lena killing her. She’s not scared or angry or sassy. She’s just. So. SAD.

Lena says she’s not, by the way. Going to kill her. Though she calls her Supergirl in this moment. Distancing herself from the woman she once thought to be the most important person in her life. “I’m not a villain,” she says, again, maybe as much for herself as it is for Kara at this point. “You shouldn’t have treated me like one,” she adds, to the only person who never did.

And what hurts is that I get it. They’re both right, they’re both wrong. They’re both hurt. If they were just regular people they would have to fight it out, talk it out, work it out. But they’re a Super and a Luthor. They’re a superpowered alien and a supergenius scientist. There’s more at stake here than just their relationship with each other. And on one hand, maybe it’s good that it’s all out there now. Now that all the blindfolds are off, maybe, just maybe, they’ll be able to see a path to forgiveness.

As if that wasn’t enough of an emotional roller coaster for one episode, next up we have Alex and Kelly. Alex starts the scene by showing us how much she’s grown. Two seasons ago Alex would have run in this room begging and crying and pleading and bargaining. But Alex now walks calmly up to Kelly and tells her that she understands. She was hurting too when they first met, but Kelly helped ground her.

She wants to do the same for Kelly, now that she has both feet on the ground. Kelly asks what if it’s not possible, what if she’s just broken? But Alex knows she’s not. Alex knows they can heal each other because Kelly’s already done it for her. Alex repeats what she said before because she means it: Kelly feels like home to her, and she’s going to fight to protect it. Kelly says Alex feels like home too, and they pull each other close, giving my poor gay heart a goddamned break for once.

This all felt so inherently queer to me. In my own queer circles, at least, we almost all have our traumas and/or anxieties; even without something as big as what Kelly has been through, I think just the nature of having grown up in a society where heteronormativity is assumed and having to come out into a society where it’s still not entirely safe or accepting of us is traumatizing in its own way. So we find ways to get through it, together. We do our best to make safe spaces and have open hearts and we take turns healing each other. So that’s why I loved this scene, because Alex and Kelly are making room for each other, not trying to change or “fix” each other, but to heal. To just be a warm fire to thaw the parts that were frozen by fear, to be a hot meal to fill the spaces that were hollowed out by sorrow, to be four walls and a roof to keep each other safe. To be each other’s home.

But don’t worry, lest you think an episode of Supergirl end on such a warm, fuzzy feeling, it cuts back to the Fortress of Solitude, where Kara is just CRYING IN HER ICE PRISON. Despite all the things we’ve seen Kara do (or try to do) while her veins are glowing green, Kara isn’t even moving. She’s not pounding her fists against the ice, she’s not trying to use her heat vision in small bursts, she’s not calling Alex for help. She’s just crying.

We’re off next week, but we’ll be back in two for 508, the last episode before the CRISIS. Good luck with all those feelings! Bye!

“Supergirl” Episode 506 Recap: Shadows Hold Their Breath

Previously on Supergirl, Lena Luthor lived a hundred lives. She went to boarding school with Andrea Rojas, she dated Jack Spheer, she developed nanotech, she started L Corp, she saved the world a few times, she kidnapped a Martian and she learned to incept people’s minds. Also Leviathan is running around, being a confusing mess of bad ideas, from what I can tell.

We open at the DEO, where Supergirl has brought William in to try to reach RipRoar, who hasn’t been saying much, seemingly lost inside the tech that’s too embedded in his biology for them to remove. Before they can get through to him, however, the DEO is invaded, and the shadow figure that killed the Spider Woman is zipping around trying to get to RipRoar, which Alex isn’t too pleased about.

The Shadow gets away without her target, and when she steps into the light, it’s revealed to be none other than Andrea Rojas herself, which genuinely surprised me in a way I didn’t think this show was capable of anymore.

Her DEO mission unsuccessful, Andrea decides to go to the smartest person in National City, who is just hanging out in her apartment looking stunning in a ponytail, hilariously asking Andrea, “What’s the DEO?” even though Andrea is also in top five smartest people in National City and totally knows she knows.

Andrea tells Lena that she knows who was behind the tidal wave and has been instructed to kill the agent, who is in DEO custody, but Lena is appalled Andrea would dare ask her to help kill someone. Andrea explains that she was INSTRUCTED to kill the agent, but he’s too important to her, so she’s trying to save him, but Supergirl is in her way. Andrea begs her, as a friend, and Lena snaps, “We’re not friends.”

But Andrea says they used to be.

We flash back to a young Andrea taking new kid Lena Luthor under her wing, teaching her how to underage drink and bonding over their love of the movie Titanic. Little Andrea shares her dream of traveling the world, and Little Lina shares her dream of… bending shadow to her will. Which is just so very Lena in so many ways. Mostly because it’s dramatic as fuck. But also because Lena has lived her whole life in the shadows that other people cast. Of course she wants to control them. So Lena tells Andrea about the story her mother used to tell her about an ancient magic medallion, and Andrea agrees to go on a quest with her to find it. Andrea says, “If you jump, I jump,” which is one of the lines used in what is often touted as one of the most romantic stories of all time, so, fine. Best friends. Sure.

A few years later, Lena and Andrea meet up because Andrea’s father is falling apart and Lena is losing her brother to his obsession with Superman.

Lena needs to find an element before Lex does, and also spoiler alert she DID already find it, and it also happens to be linked to the medallion, so off they trot to go find it. Together.

It’s in Costa Rica, where I also once traveled with a friend I later realized I was more into than I allowed myself to admit, so at least Lena and I have that going for us. They use Lena’s mother’s storybook as a guide, dressed like Bering & Wells in that one episode of Warehouse 13 (you know the one) until Andrea falls down a hole and Lena lunges to save her.

Down in the cavern she tumbled into, a messenger appears and offers Andrea an exchange; the power of the medallion for a favor. At first Andrea hesitates, insisting her friend Lena deserves this more, has been searching for it longer. But the messenger tells her that this is the only thing that will save her father. So Andrea takes the medallion, and is told to keep it on her person always, but never speak of it. And someday they will call upon her.

Lena uses a rope to climb down into the cavern after Andrea to save her, wrapping her in her arms when she sees that she’s safe. Lena sees the carving in the wall that matches the one from her story, and is so delighted that her mother’s story is coming true.

But then she realizes the medallion itself is gone; Andrea says maybe someone else already found it, and Lena is so, so sad.

Flash forward a few years, Andrea still has her medallion, her father didn’t die by suicide, Obsidian’s stock prices are up. Things are going well. Until Lena goes to a gala with Jack and sees Andrea with the medallion hanging from her perfect neck.

And once again, Lena is betrayed. For the first time by someone she wasn’t related to. Someone she trusted with her deepest hopes, someone who stole her light.

Lena decides to leave this life behind her and move to National City and redeem the Luthor name, leaving Jack behind because she can’t trust anyone anymore.

Andrea is sitting in a bar moping when a handsome man comes to flirt with her. It turns out to be Russell, someone she was supposed to have a meeting with but blew off because she was so sad about her ex gal pal. Since they’re not going to be business partners now, he asks her on a date.

Fast forward a bit more to three years ago, not too long after Lena moves to National City. Kara goes to see her in her office, having stopped a leak of L Corp’s private emails from getting to the CatCo presses. Lena appreciates it, but when Kara invites her to her and her sister’s weekly game night, Lena balks.

She says she just wants a business relationship, and will give the emails back if Kara thinks this is a promise of friendship. But Kara didn’t do this expecting anything in return, so she leaves Lena with the USB and with the open invitation to game night.

Andrea, having celebrated her six-month anniversary with Russell and feeling peak happiness, is visited by the consequences of her past, so it goes. The Leviathan woman comes and speaks as the messenger now, telling Andrea she needs to kill someone for them. Andrea is shocked; this isn’t exactly what she thought she was signing up for. But they can take Andrea’s father’s life as easily as they gave it, so she follows the woman’s instructions and taps the medallion three times, thus becoming The Shadow.

Her first kill is a governor, so she slips via shadow into his office and…SNAPS HIS NECK! I guess when Andrea does a thing she doesn’t do it halfway. Not that I think there’s a good way to like… ease into murder, but that seems like an aggressive start to me.

Later, at a restaurant, Kara catches Lena watching the Andrea news, and lets her know that the friendship offer still stands.

Kara catches Lena watching Andrea on the news; Kara lets her know that her friendship offer still stands; Alex cancels and Kara offers to leave but lena invites her to join her; maybe because she’s lonely, maybe because she decides she wants to start using friendship as a weapon the way she feels Andrea did, or maybe it’s because she can’t resist Kara’s charm and excellent points about letting people in. Maybe she thought she was ready to trust again and this sweet sort-of-reporter seemed like a safe bet. But either way, Lena gives in to Kara’s advances of kindness.

Back at her apartment, Russell says he’s worried about Andrea. She brushes him off, but then he finds her medallion, and it’s bloody for some reason? So either this was implying she killed an entirely different person, or she did a really bad job snapping that guy’s neck. Anyway, by the time Andrea finishes washing away her sins in the shower, Russell is taken away because he got too close. Andrea begs for his life, so instead of killing him, they turn him into a human weapon and use the biotech he was developing to give him the extra arms, and RipRoar is born.

Eight weeks ago, Lena saw news about Andrea and decided that she could be useful, which is when she called her up and offered her CatCo and the building space for Obsidian North. Cut to today, when Andrea feels horrible about everything she did, even though she did it to save her father.

Lena is horrified, and Andrea is sorry, but as Lena knows first-hand, apologies don’t always make things better. Andrea explains the medallion’s powers, her Shadow self, and that it cost her the love of her life and her best friend, and while I know in my logic brain that she means Russell and Lena, in that order, in my gay heart I decided to believe both things applied to Lena.

Andrea asks for Lena’s help, and even though she’s still upset, she wants everyone to stop killing and being killed so she agrees to join forces. When you jump, I jump, remember?

Back at the DEO, Alex and Kara are still trying to get information out of RipRoar.

But all he says is, “Leviathan.”

Lena uses her Supergirl pager to call her to her side, faking like she was injured to distract her.

Meanwhile, Andrea plants a Do No Harm beam in the DEO, and apparently everyone in the room was off to do harm, because they all just stop moving entirely. J’onn senses the Martianesque psychic shift and warns Alex, who puts in a psychic inhibitor. She goes out to find her agents all frozen in place, and realizes she can’t get through to Supergirl.

Agents free the spider tattoos, put Alex in a holding cell, and head for RipRoar. But then Alex shouts for Supergirl as loud as she can, a frequency Kara is in tune with, a fact that Lena didn’t take into consideration. So Supergirl flies off to save the day.

But the Shadow escapes with RipRoar. Lena manipulates Andrea into giving her the medallion, then she sends RipRoar and The Shadow away.

Team Supergirl is at a loss as to what the heck just happened and what to do next, but they know the name “Leviathan” now so at least that’s a place to start. Russell finally starts to snap out of the RipRoar haze and is actually talking to Andrea, but before he can say too much, he’s sniped down. The messenger tells her that even though she doesn’t have the medallion anymore, the powers came from her own shadows deep within her, so she’s still their Shadow agent.

Meanwhile, Lena is using her VR tech to watch her mother playing happily in the field with her younger self. The first person to love her, the first to leave her.

Hope tells her that the medallion doesn’t have powers anymore, but the markings spell out Leviathan, so Lena has Hope access all of Eve’s memories on the subject.

And sweet Rao I hope someone gives Lena a fucking hug soon. The poor girl is lost and needs a friend.

“Supergirl” Episode 505 Recap: Tidal Wave of Feelings

Previously on Supergirl, J’onn erased the memory of his brother Mal and how his father treated him like a criminal for being born different, Team Supergirl thought they sent Mal to the Phantom Zone but Lena had re-calibrated the weapon to send him to her lab instead, William revealed he’s only PRETENDING to be a jerk, and also Leviathan is coming.

We open with Andrea Rojas in a commercial for her VR lenses, which will be going public soon. It’s a little creepy but also pretty cool, which I guess is how I feel about technology in general. When real-life Andrea finishes showing this commercial to her CatCo employees, she tells them to work in a mention of the launch into all their articles, which makes Kara and Nia feel a little icky.

After the meeting, Nia expresses her disappointment that Kara didn’t find anything at William’s address, so it seems like Kara didn’t fill her in on William’s undercover-ness. She plays into William’s ploy, telling Nia he’s just a regular jerk, not a jerky criminal mastermind. But on that note, she has to talk to him, so she heads out to meet him.

On the way she runs into Kelly, who asks Kara for advice on what to get Alex for their dativersery (cute), and Kara tells her to get her a motorcycle helmet (gay). It’s a sweet and cute lil interaction, and Kelly says that she’s glad that Kara is the delightful little gift-with-purchase she gets from dating Alex.

In the coffee shop, William tells Kara to drop it but Kara says she can use her sister’s connection to get them more information but only if William keeps her in the loop. He doesn’t want her to get hurt, but Kara insists that she can take care of herself, so he concedes.

Meanwhile, in the Luthor Lab, Lena and Hope are trying to map Mal’s brain to learn how to make technology that can mimic his inception powers. But when Hope tries to start the mapping, Mal incepts her and overloads her and uses her to yell at Lena for poking around in his brain without permission.

William and Kara go to the DEO, and Alex is going to let them sit in on an interrogation but tells them to be quiet. Alex doesn’t want to take down Obsidian North all willy-nilly so they have to be super sure Andrea is involved before they start accusing her of these huge allegations. Alex interrogates the woman who tried to kill Elena, whose code name is Breathtaker, which is fucking badass if you ask me.

The truth-seeker confirms that she’s telling the truth when she says that she’s just a hit-alien and doesn’t know or care about who hired her or why, just that she gets the bitcoin she’s owed. She mentions that one of her contractors is a man with four arms and William flips the flip out. He shows her a picture and starts yelling incoherent questions until Alex kicks him out. When Kara asks what the heck that was all about, William says that the four-armed man, RipRoar, killed his best friend.

After Kara leaves the DEO, she goes to J’onn to check in with her Space Dad. She’s feeling a little weird about how wrong her instincts seemed to be about William and Andrea, and we seem to get to the bottom of her VR issues when she says that she’s having a hard time knowing what’s real anymore. And as someone who has been traumatized with fake but realistic visions of her parents and the life she could have had if Krypton wasn’t destroyed, I suppose that’s warranted. J’onn gives his best Space Dad speech and says that as long as you’re sure of the people who love you, the rest will fall into place in time.

Kara goes from there to the DEO, where Alex tells her that RipRoar broke into the Fort Summit army base and stole a Marathon Laser from Lex Luthor’s vault…which is basically a sniper-beam and a bad thing to fall into the wrong hands. They don’t really get what this guy is up to because the Obsidian North VR launch is virtual, so it’s not like he can be planning an attack on the event. Brainy suggests interviewing the spider tattoos, even though it will mean they need a host.

Back in the Secret Lab of Secrets, Lena tries to level with Mal. She explains that she wants to study his brain and map the frequency of his inception powers, but he doesn’t trust her or anyone interested in the skill that got him locked up for most of his life. But she reminds him that she saved him from the phantom zone he had been banished to.

Mal offers her a deal: if she can remove the part of his Martian brain that makes it impossible to kill his brother, he’ll help her. She says that her goal is to have people STOP hurting each other, not to get someone killed, but he senses her desperation and believes she’ll sacrifice the one for the many. And when she agrees to his terms, for a moment it seems that might be true.

Back at the DEO, Brainy comes the host for the spider tattoo, who is gross and keeps using sweet Brainy to be rude to our girls.

But also it’s yet another hit-alien who cares not for whomst they kill.

Kara is so, so frustrated, and wants to confront Andrea, but Alex points out that she might not even be involved. Kara had a bad feeling that something big is going on, and she’s having Lex Luthor flashbacks and she doesn’t want to cut things as close this time. But Alex reassures her that they’ll be fine; she trusts Supergirl’s gut and her sister’s heart but they just need to take it slow.

At the lab, Lena explains Q-waves to Mal and tells him that she needs him to incept three different aliens of various levels of ferocity and pacify them so they can map out the frequencies that allow him to do such things. He agrees to this task and no one asks how on earth Lena got her hands on these creatures.

Upstairs, Kelly brings Alex dinner because she has to work late, and they exchange work stories, including Kelly’s first success story from one of her VR therapy patients. She also booked a reservation at a waterfront restaurant for them to celebrate their Dativersary together and they toast with their dumplings and it’s all very sweet and pure.

On a slightly less pure side of the spectrum, Kara and William are doing some light breaking and entering into Andrea’s office to look for clues. Kara finds a secret hiding spot that has a lockbox of foreign currency and a photo of Andrea and William’s friend Russel. William confesses that the best friend RipRoar killed was in love with Andrea, which I feel like would have been relevant information to have earlier, but whatever. Anyway, the day after Russell told William about Andrea is the day William found RipRoar in Russell’s house but no sign of Russell. Turns out Russell going missing is how William got into researching Andrea and the Rojas family in the first place, and he wants to confront her but Kara tells him to cool his heels for now, telling him what Alex told her about needing to be sure before they show their cards.

Alex calls Kara to tell her that they tracked the Marathon Laser to New Mexico, so Supergirl flies off to stop RipRoar. But he had already used a satellite to modify the marathon laser to make it hella powerful; powerful enough to temporarily knock Supergirl on her ass.

Luckily she called for backup before she passed fully out, so she’s back in the safety of the DEO before she knows it. J’onn tells her that he didn’t find any violent psychic imprint at Russell’s apartment, despite William’s description of the mess when he arrived, so it’s possible Russell isn’t dead after all.

Kara is so sure all of these crazy things that are happening are connected but they’re running out of time to figure out what and why.

Meanwhile, Kelly just wants to have a nice dinner with her girlfriend so they can relax together because this sweet summer child is still new to National City.

Mal has been passing Lena’s test with flying colors, pacifying the aggressive animals easily, surprising even Lena with the ease at which he turns a vicious little monster that probably gave her flashbacks to a past life where she was eaten by a dinosaur into a harmless little lizard. And just like that, the frequencies are mapped, and she’s ready to finish her technology.

Brainy tracks RipRoar to Antarctica, so Supergirl and the Martian Manhunter go there to fight him and stop him from melting the polar ice caps. They make a whirlpool to stop the flood while Dreamer stays back in National City to use her dream energy to stop a tidal wave from taking over the waterfront.

The waterfront, mind you, that Kelly is sitting at, blissfully unaware because of her VR contacts.

They don’t really go into the mechanics of why or how Dreamer’s energy can stop a tidal wave, but honestly her proud little smile and nod at the end of it when she saves the day makes me not even care about the metaphysics of it all.

When Kelly finally gets out of her contacts, she sees Alex saving people’s lives from the damage of the incoming tidal wave, including a bunch of people who for some reason decided to go into their virtual realities while also walking around outside? Which just seems foolish.

And when Alex gets back to the DEO, she tells Kara that Andrea couldn’t have been behind it, because if they hadn’t stopped the effects of RipRoar’s actions, Obsidian North would have been out billions of dollars. So they’re back to the drawing board re: suspects.

Meanwhile in the bathroom that apparently CatCo and Obsidian North share, Nia walks in on Kelly having a bit of a panic attack because she saw a news segment about the tidal wave and seeing Alex on the front lines triggered her trauma about losing her fiance in battle. She tells Nia that she knows Alex can take care of herself, but she can’t help living in fear for her girlfriend’s life, and she’s not sure how to or if she can shake it. Nia realizes that Kelly hasn’t really been part of the group aside from being Alex’s plus one yet, so she offers to go to lunch with her so she has an unbiased party to talk to about these things that isn’t Alex or Alex’s sister.

And this might not have been their intention at all, but I think this scene happening in the women’s restroom of the CatCo building is a really nice touch, since Nicole Maines spent much of her adolescence publicly fighting for her right to use the women’s bathroom when her school banned her from using it, ending in a landmark anti-discrimination court ruling.

Down in Lena’s Lair Lab, Mal tells her that he’s decided how he’s going to kill his brother, and she just cooly lays it on him that she lied and didn’t remove his fratricide freezer. He goes to attack her but her eyes glow green and she tells him he likes it here and he calms down and agrees with her.

When Kelly gets to Alex’s apartment that night, maybe she was planning to tell Alex all the things she told Nia in the bathroom, and Alex in a silk purple robe holding two glasses of wine distracted her, or maybe she’s hoping she can work it out on her own before telling Alex why she feels unsettled. All she knows right now is how she feels about Alex, and how much she loves that Alex wants her to be her riding partner so badly that she gave Kelly the same helmet Kelly got her for their Dativersery.

Across town, Kara goes to talk to William because she found out something he might want to know: RipRoar is Russell. Russell is RipRoar. William is so grateful to have answers and thanks Kara for all her help. And…I won’t lie to you, in a moment that surprised even me, I realized I actually like William. Now that we’ve seen his non-jerk persona, he’s actually just a dude trying to find out what happened to his buddy. He seems to really respect Kara and also have you heard his accent? I still don’t think Supergirl needs a love interest, even though I have no doubt that’s where this is headed, but I think I could get used to him being around.

The episode ends with Andrea getting in her car and the Leviathan woman waiting for her. And while it was clear Andrea had no idea that the tidal wave situation was happening, something tells me that Andrea knows exactly what the woman means when she says RipRoar is a problem.

Next week, Alex is in danger, must be Sunday.

“Supergirl” Episode 504 Recap: Variable Inception

Previously on Supergirl, J’onn’s brother Ma’alefa’ak escaped from the Phantom Zone to kill him, Brainy broke up with Nia when she asked him to tone it down, and Alex got so nervous that Kelly psychically linking with Ma’alefa’ak put her in extreme danger that she sent her girlfriend out of town.

Which is why, when we open this episode with Kelly walking down the streets of National City, we know something is up. And sure enough, as soon as Ma’alefa’ak appears, J’onn reveals himself and the rest of Team Supergirl drop their disguises; the Martian is surrounded. But they soon realize though that they were not as prepared as they thought, when Ma’alefa’ak incepts them through their fancy tech, and phases through their Phantom Zone gun ray.

Meanwhile, Kelly is on the road with her brother when she gets a flash of pain and a vision of the agent Ma’alefa’ak incepted back in National City.

Unsure what to make of it though, she instead talks to James about Calvintown, the place they were raised by their aunt after their dad died that is now largely taken over by the prison. And, despite the headlines written by James’ old mentor Nelson, the prison doesn’t seem to be doing the town any favors.

Back at the DEO, Alex is stomping around, furious their plan didn’t work. She’s convinced that was their one shot to trick him, and that now Ma’alefa’ak probably knows she isn’t in National City and Kelly could be in danger. Alex’s Kelly.

She mentions a gun Hank Henshaw had built that was specifically constructed to kill Green Martians, but Supergirl steps in as the oft-needed moral compass, saying that the gun should be an absolute last resort, especially while they have a Green Martian on their own team.

Instead, Kara recommends calling their star player off the bench and letting Lena help Brainy with the science of it all.

Nia calls Kara then, and has been apparently doing more research than Kara ever has, so she has some news to report. William’s wife is a fake, he has been meeting sketchy people in the park, and he’s off to Mexico next to see someone called Elena Torres. Alex sends Kara off on that mission in case Elena is in danger, and she calls Lena to ask for her help, which she does not hesitate to offer.

In the lab, Hope tells Lena that the next step in their experiment is unclear because there are too many variables, but Lena tells her that they’re in luck, because they can study Ma’alefa’ak’s inception powers to learn how to redirect pathways in the brain. Hope points out that Team Supergirl won’t like the idea of her testing on a prisoner like he’s a lab rat, but Lena is well aware. In fact, that might make the option that much more enticing.

When Kara gets to Mexico, she is disappointed to learn she’s too late when she asks after Elena Torres and is directed to the smoking remains of a horrible car accident. But she does see William leaving the crime scene and gets the license plate number of the getaway car, and when she calls Nia to report back, Nia has MORE information, which is that Elena Torres was an accountant for Obsidian North Worldwide. More proof William might be more than just a jerky coworker.

Back at the DEO, Brainy is working to zap J’onn with the Phantom Zone gun but it’s not quite working the way he wants it to yet.

Alex is getting stressed that the smartest person in the multiverse and a twelfth-level intellect haven’t figured this out yet, and really wants to prep the big bad weapon because she’s convinced it’s her fault that Kelly is in danger.

When James and Kelly get to their destination, they are surprised to see movement in the house they thought to be empty. Kelly of course worries that it’s Ma’alefa’ak, but it’s soon revealed that it was just a teenager and his friends who were squatting to do their homework.

When they go to the market to get food, they see the same kid being accused of stealing by the store owner. Kelly steps in to stand up (and lie) for him, and the store owner backs off. James invites the kid, Simon Kirby, over for dinner, and he’s a little overwhelmed; it seems no one has shown him the kind of kindness the Olsens are capable of.

Still in Mexico, Kara goes to investigate Elena’s apartment, where she finds a strange string of numbers, and also a woman with wind powers who didn’t get the memo that Elena is dead and throws Kara out the window with her wind powers. Kara suits up and flies back in as Supergirl, adorably indignant about “that woman” she blew away. They fight and Kara eventually overpowers her enough to take her back to the DEO.

Alex has just enough time to tell her colleagues that Supergirl is coming in hot with a plus one before realizing that one of her agents has been incepted and Ma’alefa’ak very soon takes Alex over as well.

When Supergirl does fly in with her prisoner, she can tell something is a little off with Alex, but enough alarm bells don’t go off for her to do anything about it just yet. Alarm bells ARE going off for Kelly, though, who gets another painful vision, this time of her girlfriend.

On the other side of the DEO, Lena tells J’onn to take a break from being a test dummy and tries to talk to Brainy about what’s so obviously bothering him and why it seems like his little boxes got knocked over.

She wants to help him get out of his head and back in the science, so she impolores him to change a variable. Any variable. Even if that variable is accepting help. So though it physically pains him to do it, Brainy eventually asks Lena for her help, and she gleefully agrees.

Though as soon as Brainy is looking the other way, Lena starts fiddling around in a shady, albeit still attractive, way.

Back at the Olsen House, James is talking to Simon about his mother, who was given a 10-year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread a $30 space heater. James doesn’t think that sounds right, but Simon feels defeated. What can they do? The judges and lawyers are all in the prison’s pocket. It’s very disheartening but not at all unrealistic to see a teenager wonder what the point of fighting is if you’ll never beat the system.

But James has never met a problem he didn’t want to punch, so he heads to the local paper and pitches a story on the corruption of the prison system. But he’s frustrated to learn that the paper is in the prison’s pocket, too.

Back in National City, Kara goes to talk to Nia, and has actually uncovered some information on her own (Elena Torres’ death was faked!), but Nia still has EVEN MORE information since they last spoke.

Turns out the numbers were for an active off-shore bank account, and that there’s an encrypted address attached to it.

At the DEO, Alex finds J’onn and starts letting him have it about the true story of what happened to Ma’alefa’ak, about how pissed she is that he let her think it was her fault Kelly was in danger, and that Ma’alefa’ak isn’t the monster, J’onn is. It was everything he was fearing she’d say, this woman he respects so much, it’s why he didn’t want Nia to tell her, or anyone. Because he was afraid that Alex would look at him exactly how she’s looking at him.

When Kara gets to the DEO, she finds J’onns sulking after his encounter with her sister. When he tells her the truth, Kara is patient and understanding; she reminds him of the good things he has done, that he doesn’t have to let this one bad thing define him, especially now that he could have a second chance to make things right with his brother, or at least make different choices, show more compassion.

J’onn says that in the end it’s best that Nia told Alex, but Kara points out that Nia couldn’t have, since she was doing research for Kara’s paranoia project all day. So they instantly know Alex was incepted.

J’onn tries to use his meditation powers to get in her head, and it works for a moment.

But in the end Ma’alefa’ak is more powerful and takes control of Alex back.

This time, when Ma’alefa’ak incepts Alex again, Kelly can’t ignore her vision or the feeling that her girlfriend is in trouble, so she has James use Lex’s watch to teleport them back to National City ASAP.

Ma’alefa’ak demands J’onn meet him at the Planetarium, where he has incepted the screen to tell a strange history of the Martians, and where he’s still using Alex to do his dirty work.

But after J’onn makes a heartfelt speech to his brother, explaining why he did what he did, acknowledging that he fucked up and is sorry, all hell breaks loose. Alex gets unincepted, but she’s strapped to a bomb. She, cool as a cucumber, hands out orders, including telling Kelly to keep an eye out for Ma’alefa’ak, since she’s the only one who can still tell who he is when he’s shapeshifting. The team works together, Kelly pointing out the baddie, Supergirl doing her superthing, J’onn phasing Alex out of the bomb strapped to her chest, and then Ma’alefa’ak being shot back into the Phantom Zone. The battle’s done and we kinda won.

Later, when things quiet down, Alex expresses disappointment when J’onn believed Alex would say those hurtful things to him, but when someone tells you things you’ve been telling yourself, you believe them. But she assures him, she still loves her Space Dad.

Kara goes to talk to Lena, much more relaxed than their last meeting, giggling like Kara despite wearing her supersuit. She thanks Lena for helping, and says she’s officially a Superfriend now.

She invites Lena out to drinks, and even though six months ago, nothing would have made Lena happier than to be one of the Superfriends, she has her own thing going on now, so after Kara calls her a “world-saving super-genius,” she retreats to her lab…but not before swiping something.

At the bar, Kelly tells Alex that as exciting as today might have been, she’s perfectly fine with not being on the front lines with her, and would rather just cuddle instead.

Brainy and Nia start to make up, and Team Supergirl toast to their togetherness. However, that togetherness won’t last too long, because James has decided to go back to Calvin Town for good. To buy the newspaper and help out the people in the town in ways that Supergirl can’t. And to start going by Jimmy. He came here to keep an eye on Kara for Clark, but she doesn’t need him. She never did. She not only can take care of herself, but she’s always had Alex.

So he’s going somewhere that could really use a Guardian right now.

Kara has to leave this touching goodbye because Nia got the encrypted address and it’s here in National City. When Kara gets there, she finds a murderboard, and while she’s inspecting it, William walks in. He immediately acts like an 8-year-old caught stealing candy and starts spilling his guts, rambling on about being undercover and investigating Andrea Rojas, and that he hates having to pretend to be rude to her and actually loves her writing.

The whole thing seemed a little too neatly wrapped up for me to buy it, and he seemed to be laying it on pretty thick, but something about this actor’s face makes me inherently want to trust him when he’s looking at Kara hopefully. That said, I hope William is just going to be part of Kara and Nia’s Nancy Drew team. I find his accent charming and his face isn’t hard to look at, so I could totally get behind that.

That said, anyone who is that good at being a jerk to Kara “The Puppy” Danvers should be kept at arm’s length until we know what’s up.

Cut to Lena’s secret lab of secrets, where she’s secretly cooked up another secret. Instead of helping Brainy fix the Phantom Zone gun, she apparently rewired it to dump Ma’alefa’ak into her holding cell. And she tells him they can help each other.

And that’s all she wrote for this week. I am worried Lena’s going to get in over her head now that she has an inception-wielding Martian on her hands. I’m glad James got a proper little send-off that left me with warm feelings in my heart (even though I still feel strongly that we traded up re: Olsens). I’m glad Nia and Brainy are seeming to work things out. But Rao knows all of those feelings could be upended by this time next week. See ya then!

“Supergirl” Episode 503 Recap: The Girl with the Spider Tattoo

Previously on Supergirl, J’onn’s brother attacked, Kelly helped J’onn explore his missing memories, Lena put her AI into Eve’s body, Andrea and William were turning CatCo on its head, and Brainy was bugging the heck out of Nia.

We open this episode with a very lovely, very tattooed lady at a bar.

William is in this same bar, fighting with a man who ultimately decides to blow William off to go hook up with the Spider Woman. Unfortunately they don’t get very far before one of Spider Woman’s tattoos COMES TO LIFE and crawls INSIDE HIM and kills him dead.

Outside Catco, Kelly is therapizing her barista while she gets her morning coffee, which honestly is relatable, and this leaves Alex concerned about her girlfriend’s openness, what with a shapeshifter running around.

Kelly waves off her concern, kisses her goodbye, and heads into work.

When she’s gone, it’s Kara’s turn to worry, because she’s having lunch with Lena today, their first time since Kara’s coming out. Alex reassures her that it will be fine and that they’ll get their relationship back on track; Kara just has to let go and let Lena love her.

In her secret lab of secrets, Lena is getting frustrated because she can only figure out how to use the Q Waves to map the brain, not to change it. Or at least, not to change it without obliterating willpower. But Hope knows Lena doesn’t want a world of robots, just better people. This prompts Hope to hug Lena, maybe acting in instincts taken from Eve, but either way, Lena is taken aback.

Hope suggests that Lex’s research could help Lena, and Lena knows just the person to help her get his journals.

At Nia’s apartment, Brainy is still shouting poetry (and villanelles!) at his girlfriend, and not getting her hints when she asks him to tone it down a bit.

At the CatCo morning meeting, the death of that man in the club comes up, and turns out it’s Dr. Niles Jarrett, the man Andrea was fighting with in the photos on William’s computer last week. Andrea and William shut down Kara’s request to look into his death, since she had interviewed him about gene manipulation once, which makes her a bit suspicious.

Kara tells James about this mysterious behavior, and James offers to help by talking to the M.E. about it. He still hasn’t made his career path choices yet, so he’s down to Superfriend the case with Kara as a little distraction.

Across town, J’onn’s brother, as a Martian fly, goes into Kelly’s apartment and inspects her pictures and becomes one of the men he sees. Which is risky but a bold move. And my question is… can J’onn do this? Can he shapeshift into anything he wants? We’ve seen him be people but can he also be animals? Can he be a cactus? Or a trash can? I feel like he’s been holding out on us.

Anyway, the Martian goes to see Kelly, who seems excited to see her old pal Pete Andrews. He asks for her help, and of course she offers to help him, because she has a big heart.

And if there was supposed to be some kind of parallel there between her helping the barista and her helping her old friend, I’d like to call foul.

Anyway.

If, before I watched this episode, you told me that Kara Danvers flew all around the world to get Lena her favorite foods, I would assume you were talking about a fanfic. But guess what? I did watch this episode and Kara did fly around the world to get Lena her favorite foods and it was NOT a fanfic. It was real life. And Lena is delighted.

They talk a little about work and how Lena’s old boarding school buddy is low-key ruining Kara’s life, but Kara wants to talk about how Lena is doing. And Lena, oh Lena. Lena lies. Lena lies BIG. And Lena lies WELL. She tells Kara she’s been having nightmares about Lex and that she thinks the only cure would be reading Lex’s journal. Like how I listen to true crime podcasts to quell my fear of being murdered. Knowledge is power. She knows Kara is feeling guilty and like their relationship is fragile, and she knows Kara will do just about anything, now more than ever, to make Lena happy, and Lena takes advantage of that.

And Lena is brilliant about how she does it, too. She never asks Kara to do anything. She lays out the bait and Kara predictable eats it up. Offers to help. Lena even insists she could never ask Kara to do such a thing, knowing full well that it would make Kara double down on helping.

To her credit, when it works, she does appear to have a flash of regret, or questioning. Like maybe this win didn’t feel as satisfying as she might have liked.

When Kara and James get to the morgue, Kara scans Niles and sees a spider tattoo… on his heart. Which is disconcerting to say the least, but proves her point that this death was suspicious and worth looking into.

Meanwhile, J’onn is still having some brain issues so he asks Nia to use her dream powers to help.

J’onn unlocks a memory of his little brother being teased for not being able to connect to the hive mind aka cheat at hide-and-seek. When they realize he can also control people’s minds, he’s also locked away by J’onn’s dad. But soon White Martians come and take him away, causing J’onn’s dad so much grief that young J’onn panics and erases the memory of his brother from the entire hive mind, which to Martians is a fate worse than death.

That night, at Kara’s loft, Alex asks Kara about her Lena lunch, and Kara tells her about the favor she agreed to do. Alex has… concerns, to say the least.

Kara insists it’s a victimless crime and it would be worth it to help ease her gal pal’s mind.

And besides, Alex doesn’t really have a leg to stand on re: “we can’t do that, because it’s wrong” considering they break the law all the time. This very moment, Kara is reviewing security footage from the bar that Brainy hacked to get her. Alex huffs a little about that, but they have more important things to worry about, like the Spider Woman in the video who definitely killed Niles.

Alex takes this info back to the DEO and explains that the tattoos are actually an alien, and the woman is a host. So Supergirl flies off to this woman’s apartment and finds a flash drive, but she gets Spider Pinned to the wall and Guardian has to swoop in to help. Supergirl eventually gets herself unstuck, but not before the woman flings a spider at/into James.

Supergirl takes him back to the DEO, where Alex shoots him with science and collects the spiders for them to study. James putting himself in danger to help her inspires Kara, and she decides to do the thing for Lena after all, getting Lex’s journals and also swiping a watch while she’s at it.

She gets back just in time to kill a spider thrown by the Spider Woman, with Alex none the wiser about her side quest.

At Obsidian North, Kelly starts to scan Pete’s memories with Q Waves but quickly realizes it’s J’onn’s brother, not her old friend. His mind-control powers are back and the first thing he decides to do with it is try to force Kelly to kill herself.

But Nia gets a dream-blast warning that Kelly is in danger, so J’onn gets there just in time. And as J’onn’s brother tries to get away by shapeshifting, Kelly realizes that she can tell who the Martian is, even when he’s shifted into human form.

Back at the DEO, Alex uses her science gun to get the spider alien out of the host woman, but while she’s interrogating her, a shadow swoops in and kills the woman without warning. When she hears about the attack on Kelly, she of course goes to check on her girl.

They figure out that apparently the explosion at the Obsidian lab somehow linked Kelly and J’onn’s brother. J’onn feels horrible that he got all of his friends into this mess, but the Superfriends have his back no matter what. Alex inexplicably wants Kelly to go somewhere far away from Supergirl to be “safer” which makes no sense at all but okay. I would personally have handcuffed her to Kara but whatever helps her sleep at night. James offers to go with Kelly, which is the only reason Kelly agrees to go in the first place, because if James is willing to back down from a fight for her, it must be serious.

Nia, seeing that J’onn learning the truth about his brother hurt him but ultimately was for the best, decides to go home and tell Brainy that he’s being a little too over the top for her, but instead of being grateful to know the truth, Brainy explains that he operates at 100% so if she doesn’t want his excess of love, she doesn’t want him at all.

While all this is happening, William is being shady with a man in the park, who gives him money and tells him to keep on keeping on, so I guess William is going to be more than just a foil for our Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter.

Since the fighting all seems to have settled down for now, Kara suits up and flies over to Lena’s to give her the journals, but not before gazing down into the window at her for a minute. Lena is delighted to see Kara in the moonlight.

Then there are intercut scenes that are both taking things too far in opposite directions.

Kelly says she’s too open and trusting, which is unfair to her because of course she was open and trusting with a man she thought was her friend, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing that she was running around being terrified that everyone she talked to was the Martian who wanted to kill her friends.

And on the other hand, Kara is telling Lena that there should be no boundaries between them, which is just a bad idea for any kind of relationship. Romantic relationships, friendships, coworkerships, twitter mutualships, they all need boundaries.

After she leaves Lena’s, Kara goes to meet up with Alex, where the Danvers sisters see the Olsen twins siblings off. Kara gives James one of Lex’s portal watches, and they all say their goodbyes.

Alex is still worried about Kelly, because she’s “so open,” which is also technically something she worried about for Kara becoming Supergirl back in the day, and now she’s encouraging Kara to come out to people and Kara is giving her identity away to random bakery cashiers in other countries. So maybe Alex will come to trust that Kelly knows what her own boundaries are, too.

In her lab, Lena is reading Lex’s journal.

She gives Hope Lex’s journal and tells her what kind of cipher it is, and Hope immediately gets to work decoding it. As the screen starts scrawling out notes about Q Waves and mind control, Lena gets ready to get to work.

Which… can’t be good. Lena should have learned from the last time she made some awesome science and the military tried to weaponize it that just because her intentions are good doesn’t mean this is a good idea. It’s the age old mad-scientist conundrum: just because you CAN doesn’t mean you should.

“Supergirl” Episode 502 Recap: The Eve of Hope

Previously on Supergirl, Kara came out to Lena (as Supergirl), Brainy and Nia stepped up their relationship, Alex and Kelly remained adorable af, someone claiming to be J’onn’s brother was terrorizing the city, and Lena sold CatCo to Andrea Rojas because she has bigger things to focus on now that she’s not spending all her energy on Kara, like building an AI named Hope to help her save humanity. Oh, also Eve got kidnapped.

We open this week with Supergirl having to stop a car accident because of a girl texting while she walked and not paying attention, while at the same time an ad for Obsidian North interrupts a news story about the upcoming election, and Kara gets huffier than a parent at a phone-filled dinner table.

Across town, Alex makes Kelly breakfast, which is a combination of poached eggs, bacon, and blueberry pancakes, one of which Kelly doesn’t care for and one that she’s deathly allergic to. Kelly doesn’t get very fussed by it; she says she may not like blueberries or eggs but she likes Alex quite a lot and gives her a kiss and a hug.

(PS. I’m sorry that all the screenshots have double CW logos…the site was glitchy and I couldn’t fix it! Don’t worry, it’s bothering me, too.)

But Alex gets that wild overthinky look in her eyes as she realizes she doesn’t know these basic facts you usually know about a person before you’re at the making-breakfast-for-them-at-your-apartment stage.

On the other end of the spectrum, Brainy has prepared the perfect breakfast for Nia, which is breakfast burritos and nitro coffee, and Nia dives into it with spectacular passion, her adorable enthusiasm understandably something Brainy wishes to replicate as often as possible.

While Kara and James are on a walk where Kara rants some more about technology and youths and James tries to decide his new career path, they get to J’onn’s office and find him injured. He tells them about some kind of special Martian fraternal injury that can only be cured by q waves, which Brainy thinks won’t be discovered for a long time, but turns out Kelly uses them at Obsidian North right now. Which made me raise an eyebrow about where exactly all this tech comes from but no one else seemed to clock it, so maybe that’s just me.

This meeting is interrupted, however, when Kara gets a call from Nia that the new boss in town is having a MEETING and expecting her to BE THERE. Exhausting!

In her secret lab of secrets, Lena Luthor is doin’ some science, chatting with her AI, being cute.

Lena was researching the lenses Andrea gave her; you see, she built Hope to be incapable of causing pain, and humans cause pain because of their emotions. She’s working on a program called Do No Harm (she also says it in Latin but for everyone’s sake and also my own I’m just going to call it the Do No Harm or DNH project). She’s using the link the VR lenses use to connect to the brain to help keep people from harming each other. It’s given like a villain’s monologue, but with a noble (albeit shortsighted and flawed) goal.

People keep hurting her, so why not get rid of their ability to harm others? Her emotions keep hurting her, so why not just eliminate those, too? She’s reeling in pain and she has no one to confide in but an AI of her own making; no one to remind her that emotions can be good, that she’s taking this a bit far. No one to hold her and tell her that it’s okay to feel.

Hope interrupts her little spiel to tell Lena that her subject is awake. And that subject… is Eve.

When Nia and Kara show up to the CatCo meeting, Andrea is still smiling that knowing smile. She gives everyone tablets and tells Kara to do a fashion report, which Kara has deemed too low-brow. She would rather do a report on the new potential candidate for Senate (aka James) so Andrea asks her to do both. Now you know normally I’m 100% Team Kara, but this all seemed a bit unprofessional of her to do in a team meeting, and also surely she should have guessed she’d have to ease a new boss into her “I only write one story a month and come and go from the office as a please” methods of working. Andrea wants her to do both stories (which I personally think is a good compromise) and wants the fashion piece by lunch (which does sound unnecessarily fast for a fluff piece).

In the lab, Eve begs Lena for her life, insisting that “they” made her do everything she did, that she never wants to hurt her. Lena doesn’t believe her though, so she starts interrogating her old assistant.

Eve admits she had been groomed since she was 16; her parents had died, she was in debt, she was already in college and probably in over her head peer-wise. So she was the perfect candidate for an evil organization to scoop her up. Eve says she hated hurting Lena, but Lena remembers Eve’s face when she pointed that gun at her. How she looked giddy with power. All she wants from Eve is the truth.

Kara calls Alex from work to tell her she has to stay at CatCo for a while, and then takes some of Nia’s extra sushi lunches because Brainy tried to replicate the morning’s delight but went too far.

And while Nia tries to decide how she’s going to tell Brainy to turn it down a little, Brainy is at the DEO bragging to Alex about how he’s the perfect boyfriend because he knows all of Nia’s favorite foods.

Brainy insists that the key to a good relationship is knowing everything there is to know about each other, which makes Alex uncomfortable.

Alex admits she almost poisoned Kelly and that she’s feeling insecure about it. She’s starting to worry that her big feelings about Kelly are disproportionate to how well she knows her. Which I’m pretty sure is just how queer people operate, but also I can see how it could shake a person.

At Obsidian North, Kelly treats J’onn with the Q Waves and speaks gently with him and offers to go into his mind palace with him to heal the broken memories she found. So I guess Kelly just knows everything James knows? Is that a safe assumption? All I know for sure is that I love these crazy VR contacts and they sort of remind me of the show Humans (RIP) and I just love when eyes turn colors eyes shouldn’t be. (See also: Gooverly on Wynonna Earp.)

At CatCo, William and Kara are both on computers looking for images (Kara scrolling through them hilariously fast) and William gets up from his desk at the same time Kara gets a call; there are photos on his computer screen of Andrea and someone called Dr. Niles Jarrod and even though Kara is talking about something else entirely, William is worried her call is about the same thing his call is. He clearly knows more than we do about those photos, and it’s making him jumpy, so he has someone track Kara.

The problem is, William tracks Kara down into the sewers, where Alex, Brainy, and Supergirl are fighting a White Martian. Supergirl yells at him to leave but if he got a good look at those bangs, we’re in for it.

Kelly helps J’onn get back some missing memories about a traitorous brother who poisoned their memories and remembering heals his fraternal injuries, but the problem is, it heals his brother’s too. He gets to the White Martian and zips them both away, leaving Team Super without anyone to fight.

They leave the sewers and Brainy tells Alex she’s stinky and Kara loves it; it’s a very cute moment even if it’s just a vehicle to get Alex back to her apartment faster instead of going back to the DEO. They split up, but when Alex gets on her motorcycle and rides off, she’s trailed by the Martian brother.

By the time Kara gets back to the office, William has written Kara’s fashion piece, that she had already been working on, which I feel like…is not how journalism works??? I’ve heard of getting pulled from a piece but this feels a little ridiculous. Andrea asks her to do some copy editing instead, which Kara deems beneath her, and overall I think everyone is doing a terrible job at their jobs. But then Andrea is told about something being intentionally broken by a specific user.

This news leaves her more visibly shaken/angry than we’ve seen her yet, and she storms off to deal with it.

In her lab, Eve is finally confessing to Lena that she was right, that she did make those choices, that she did enjoy the power, when Andrea storms in, causing Lena to have to quickly hide her prisoner from her boarding school gal pal.

Andrea says, “Your assistant is my best friend’s girlfriend,” which I only mention here because I have a feeling it will come up again? Even though I’m only like 60% sure that Jess character is still Lena’s assistant and I have no idea who Andrea’s best friend is.

But anyway, Andrea could tell somehow that Lena was trying to hack the VR lenses, so Andrea is taking her prototypes back. Andrea is displeased and tells Lena in no uncertain terms that she better not cross her again. Or else.

I can’t help but wonder if Lena would have stood up to her if she wasn’t protecting such a big, human-sized secret behind her.

When Andrea is gone, and Lena makes the walls of her cell transparent again, Eve tries to use the fact that she didn’t call out for help a bargaining chip as to why Lena can trust her. Lena agrees she can trust her, and reveals that she had been mapping Eve’s brain this whole time.

While Alex is in the shower washing off the sewer smell, Martian Brother sneaks into Alex’s apartment and spots a cute picture of Alex and Kelly on the fridge.

When Alex gets out of the shower, all she sees is Kelly there, so she asks her to start opening the wine while she gets a sweater. They have a toast and Fake Kelly tries to ask Alex about their operations.

But as soon as Kelly puts her hand on Alex’s, Alex knows something isn’t right.

Alex presses her emergency Supergirl button and Supergirl busts in moments later. The shapeshifter had transformed into Alex at this point, but Kara knows almost immediately it isn’t her sister. So they start to fight.

The Olsens show up to the scene and Kelly is confused as to why Alex and Supergirl are fighting, but when she learns it’s not the real Alex she runs upstairs to check on her girlfriend. She finds Alex shoved in a closet which is, frankly, rude, and Alex is startled to see her, thinking it might still be the shapeshifter, but is quickly relieved to see it’s the real deal.

Alex and Kelly run up to the roof but Martian Brother tumbles into them, resulting in 1 Alex, 2 Kellys. They do that classic move and each make their case for being the real Kelly, and Alex hardly hesitates before shooting the Martian. Kelly gets knocked off the building, but Supergirl saves her.

As they all debrief in Alex’s apartment, J’onn asks Kelly if they can do the brain thing again but harder this time, but Kelly warns him that doing that could reset his brain for good. Unfortunately the Martian Brother was a literal fly on the wall for that conversation, and later his reflection will tell him that they can use that to his advantage. (Yes, you read that right. No, I don’t really understand what’s going on, either. Totems shmotems.)

Taking advice she got from her Space Dad, Kara holds her head up and struts into William’s office, saying she doesn’t really like him but she’s going to keep doing her job and doing it well and there’s nothing he can do to stop her. She takes the copy editing back, finishes, it, and brings it to Andrea with a bunch of pitches.

Now that all the fuss is over, Kelly and Alex settle in for some cookies, and Kelly gives Alex a little list of all her allergies. Alex admits that her freak-out about the blueberries was more about how she didn’t know all the tiny details of Kelly’s life but that she “really frikkin'” likes her, and she got a little spooked.

But Alex says that when it came down to it, in the moments it really mattered, she knew the important things about Kelly to tell which was the Martian Kelly and which was her Kelly. (She says it! “My Kelly!” I die!)

They kiss and it’s cute and I love them.

But on another ship that isn’t quite faring so well, Brainy misinterprets Nia says she likes more than food and that there are other ways they can spend time together and ends up plying her with poetry the same way he was plying her with food, and she’s getting a little overwhelmed by it all, understandably.

In her lab, Lena decides to fill Eve in on the plan. Explains that she was mapping her brain because there are parts of Eve’s brain she needs, parts she can use.

Lena introduces Eve and Hope and says that Eve did say she wants to be better, and Lena is going to help her. So Hope dissolves into lil nanobots and goes INTO Eve. And you can see it on Lena’s face, that she’s not 100% sure she’s doing the right thing, even though she’s done her best to convince herself. She knows, on some level, she has merely rationalized consent, and hasn’t exactly received it. She knows Eve did some really horrible things, but she also worked alongside Eve for years, and still has those pesky human emotions she’s complaining about, so some part of Lena knows this isn’t quite right, but I’m sure she’s hoping the ends will justify the means.

And after a little montage checking in on everybody at the end of this very long day, which includes Alex and Kelly snuggling—

—Hope walks out and Lena greets her new form.

Lena seems like she has conflicting emotions running through her, pride and exhilaration because of her success, a dash of fear for the implications of this being successful. Because just like that Lena has created her first AI/human hybrid, officially stepping into “playing god” territory.

“Supergirl” Episode 501 Recap: Pants, Hope, and Trust

Hello and welcome back to Supergirl recaps! A lot has happened since the season four finale: Azie Tesfai and Andrea Brooks got promoted to series regulars, the Supergirl cast started a “pants!” chant at SDCC about Kara’s new suit, Katie McGrath played a bisexual lawyer in Secret Bridesmaids’ Business, and I broke my rule about not reading fanfic of shows I cover because of Stay the Night. All of this will likely affect my recaps in some ways, so I just thought I should let you know. But A LOT happened in this episode so let’s get back to it, shall we?

Previously on Supergirl, Eve betrayed Lena, Lex betrayed Lena, then Lex told Lena that Kara betrayed her, too. And just like that, the secret was out there. After holding our breath for years, instead of being able to breathe a sigh of relief, Lex punctured our lungs. And last we left her, Lena was privately pissed but still playing the pal in person.

The new season opens with Supergirl and her new bangs saving kids from a runaway bus.

Kara tells some of the kids to “tell the truth” and a wild Lena Luthor appears, the phrase “that’s rich” dripping off her tongue. Lena confronts the person she thought was her best friend, calling the woman dressed as Supergirl in front of her, “Kara.”

Kara stumbles and stammers until Lena punches her and Supergirl explodes.

And then the virtual reality simulation ends.

Lena takes out her new VR contacts (in a way no contacts have ever been taken out) and starts talking to her new AI, Hope, who wonders why she doesn’t kill Supergirl in real life. Lena tells Hope that she just has some feelings she has to let out and that’s all this is, catharsis; she doesn’t want to kill Supergirl. Though she does want to hurt her the way she’s been hurt.

And can we just talk about how fucking heartbreaking it is that Lena had to BUILD AN AI to have someone to talk to about what she’s going through? Her best friend betrayed her, which means she also doesn’t trust any of the friends she made through Kara. Sam is long gone. She could never trust anyone in her family. She has no one. So she had to build someone. AND IT HURTS MY FEELINGS. Not to mention Lena said that Hope is growing and learning, but Hope is named a bit ironically; Hope not inspiring hope in me. Hope was born of Lena’s anger and fear and insecurities, I can’t imagine this AI evolving into the next Gideon.

Anyway, the real Kara meets up with J’onn, Alex, and Kelly at a digital cafe where everyone is testing Obsidian North augmented reality contacts. Kara, the youngest of the group, starts complaining that no one is paying attention to anything anymore because of technology. I’ll be honest, it falls a little flat to me that she, who uses the power of the yellow sun to enhance her life, would be against humans doing the same with the powers available to them, but fine. We’ll pretend that this TV-loving, earpiece wearing 20-something hates technology. And anyway, she can’t complain more about it right now since Kelly works at Obsidian North now — and in fact, it’s her first day. And Alex is very proud of her.

Also I’m going to mention this here and only here because it’s so ridiculous: Kara apparently won a Pulitzer. Girl is barely a journalist, I refuse to participate in this tomfoolery. I’m just going to call it “an award” from here on out because they should have just made something up. I have suspended my disbelief on plenty on this show, but this is a step too far.

Once Kara finishes putting her foot in her mouth about Kelly’s new company, Kelly heads off with a quick good luck kiss from her girlfriend.

J’onn heads off too, and as soon as they’re alone, Alex demands to know if Kara has told Lena that she’s Supergirl yet. When Alex had told Kara to wait to tell her, she had only intended for Kara put it off until after game night, but it’s been a month now and Kara is still making up excuses. Kara hasn’t felt like it’s the right time, but when is the right time to admit you’ve been lying to someone you care about for your entire relationship? She admits out loud, which I really appreciate, that she’s feeling guilty and scared. That she’s afraid this will be the end, and that maybe having this secret slowly eat away at her from the inside is better than Lena hating her forever. But Alex implores her to be brave, as she always does.

Kara and Alex head upstairs and run into Nia and Brainy who are fighting about who the worst movie villain is. Everyone’s answers are different and hilarious and these are the kinds of conversations I have with my friends so I found it quite delightful.

Before Kara can get to work writing another award-winning article, she runs into a woman named Andrea Rojas who owns Obsidian North… and now apparently also CatCo. Lena sold CatCo and didn’t tell Kara. Andrea is the Editor in Chief now.

Red flag.

Obviously Kara immediately goes to Lena’s office. Lena plays nice and hugs her and tells her she’s missed her lately.

Lena admits that she did sell CatCo, but that she had wanted to tell Kara and James herself. She says she only bought CatCo for Kara and she needs the capital for a new project she’s working on. Lena really lays it on thick, apologizing for keeping Kara in the dark, really hoping she didn’t make Kara feel like a fool.

And here is how I know Kara is in deeper denial about the state of things than I realized. The period of time between when I officially decided I was going to come out to my parents and when I actually came out to my parents was almost more stressful than being fully in the closet. I, like Kara, put it off for weeks because of one excuse or another. But I was also on high alert. Everything they said had me questioning if they somehow already knew. I looked for any hints that they had any suspicions, or any clues that would help me predict how the conversation would go. And even though some of my interpretations were wrong and not red flags at all (apparently my mother really WAS trying to set me up with a prince?) I still always had that feeling of “oh god this could apply to my secret OH GOD” and at first I was surprised Kara didn’t feel that way, too. But I guess, in Kara’s defense, she’s been careful, and nothing new has happened to help Lena figure it out. Kara has no way of knowing or deducing that Lex told Lena.

Before they can finish their conversation, Kara gets a Supergirl alert and has to run off. Lena plays nice until she’s out of sight, but then the pain and anger wash over her again.

Supergirl was called because across town, Kate Micucci is giving some kids a museum tour when a little girl makes the T-Rex come to life so she can steal something from the Kryptonian section. Supergirl punches the dinosaur and it shapeshifts and Superman’s pod goes missing. Team Supergirl is worried someone could make a universe-destroying bomb out of the materials that were just hanging out, barely guarded, in this public space, so they set out to find whoever stole it.

Back at Obsidian North, Andrea is showing Kelly around when Lena shows up and Kelly and Lena are excited to see each other, which makes my heart ache a bit for the game nights we missed.

Lena pulls Andrea aside to talk privately and HOO boy. Tensions. Are. High. Apparently Lena and Andrea go way back and had some kind of “relationship” (Lena’s word for it, not mine) and they’re in cahoots but Lena is not pleased that Andrea didn’t followed her explicit instruction to wait until the next day to reveal that she owns CatCo now.

Lena says, “Everything I do has a purpose,” and Andrea promises to trust her. And reminds Lena that she’s waiting on that big story that will drop tomorrow at 9pm.

Andrea gives CatCo a speech about her takeover and how they’re going to pivot to digital and James and Kara are over here like, “The news is not about clicks” and “we’ll all walk if you try to make our company more successful,” and Andrea says somehow their contracts are a) three years and b) have a non-compete which means if they leave they can’t be in journalism anymore? Which maybe was a fun trick to get Kara to quit reporting forever but also sounds insane??? Was that the original contract?? Why would anyone sign on for that? I mean listen I don’t know how print newspapers work but all of this sounded a little like nonsense to me. Bottom line is, Andrea is here to shake things up and James and Kara feel weird about it.

Team Supergirl trace some energies to a warehouse, where Alex and Brainy have learned about a phantom zone projector.

As soon as they realize they were probably lead here as a trap, an alien who calls herself Midnight appears. Supergirl tries to talk to her as the daughter of Midnight’s jailer, but J’onn says that it was actually him who threw her into the alien space prison. So it’s him she’s here for.

Midnight can scream and create an energy void, which is very inconvenient, but they manage to get away for now.

Across town, James goes downstairs to visit Kelly and complain about his new boss, who also is Kelly’s new boss. Kelly reminds James that he wasn’t a journalist before he started at CatCo, so not being able to be one for three years wouldn’t necessarily stop him from living his dreams. And she does it with this calming energy that makes you feel like she can really fix your life if you let her.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Andrea introduces Kara to William Day. Whomst Andrea has asked to rewrite Kara’s piece. REWRITE. Is that a thing?! Have I been spoiled here at Autostraddle dot com that I have an editor who edits and reviews but NEVER REWRITES MY WORDS and demands a shared byline?! Is Andrea a MONSTER??? Is this how doctors feel when they watch Grey’s Anatomy???? Whether this is common practice or not, Kara will not stand for it. She’ll take the legitimate feedback — like not burying the lede, writing more concisely — but she will not be silenced.

Andrea is frustratingly calm and agrees with everything Kara says, never flinching, even when Kara storms out.

Later, at the awards ceremony, Kara tells Alex all about it and ponders why she was so ready and able to put her career on the line for the sake of the truth but can’t bear the thought of risking her relationship with Lena.

Alex says that tonight is all about Kara and she can take the night off stressing.

Then Kelly comes by and asks her for a dance, and it’s sweet and cute and I can’t wait for them to ruin my life.

Brainy comes over and gives Kara a microscopic device that will deploy her new suit, and then Kara spots Lena in a balcony, what light through yonder window breaks.

Lena tells her that she was practicing her speech, because she’s actually the one who will be presenting her with her award tonight. Kara panics and says she doesn’t deserve it, not from Lena, and when Lena insists, Kara just… blurts it out. “I’m Supergirl.”

She takes off her glasses. “I’ve always been Supergirl.”

She starts an apology that is truly some astounding acting by Melissa Benoist. Her eyes fill up with tears, her voice fights to stay strong and not break. Kara acknowledges that she should have told her ages ago, but that Lena has been hurt so many times, she didn’t want to be one more person who let her down. She said there were so many times she wanted to tell Lena the truth, but then Lena got so mad at Supergirl, she wanted to be able to keep being Kara. To keep Lena. She admits she was scared, she admits she was selfish. She just didn’t want to lose Lena.

She apologizes over and over until finally she can’t take it and she begs Lena to say something. But Lena looks like she forgot all of the words she’s ever known.

And Lena IS truly shocked, just not for the reasons Kara thinks. Lena had been working so hard to convince herself that Kara was just like everyone else who betrayed her, she hadn’t imagined a scenario, in all her simulations, where Kara came clean. Where Kara was honest and empathetic and so, so sorry. Lena doesn’t have the words, because she never anticipated this. So she just walks away, leaving Kara there crying.

As she walks away, Lena can hear Hope in her ear asking her if they should release the file, because it’s getting close to 9pm. But Lena doesn’t answer, and decides to leave Andrea hanging. Which she hates. Also James quits. So she’s not having a great first week of business.

Instead, Lena gives a speech. It’s another loaded message for Kara, about how even award-winning journalists can stumble whilst climbing the mountain of truth.

When Kara realizes what Lena is saying, she’s so grateful. She rushes up to the stage and Lena grabs her by the shoulders and says, “You will always be my best friend.”

And while my heart of hearts wants to believe that means that deep down Lena will never be able to fully hate her, that even though she feels betrayed and hurt, they will always have that time they spent as best friends. But something tells me that it’s another one of Lena’s double-meanings. That what Lena really means is that Kara will always be her best friend because she’ll never have another. She’ll never be closer with or even as close with anyone else, not because of how special her bond with Kara is, but because she won’t be letting anyone else get that close. And it hurts. IT HURTS.

Midnight ends up crashing the award ceremony, and Lena, with an excitement I don’t think is 100% faked, is ready to see Kara put on Supergirl’s mantle. And lucky for her, she gets to be the first one to see the brand new outfit and reveal Brainy created for her. And it’s pants!

Everyone rushes to the theater and Alex is still in her formal wear, which is a very funny bit. They fight Midnight again and Alex shoots her with the phantom phaser again, and Supergirl saves J’onn from a black hole. But the whole time the little dino girl was watching.

The team goes back to the bar and Nia asks the villains question again, and Kelly gives the same answer as Alex, which is apparently a character in Die Hard? It’s honestly the least I’ve ever related to Alex so I dunno but they’re very cute.

Also cute? Nia and Brainy. Nia gets the feeling Brainy is holding back a bit and Brainy finally admits that he’s afraid to hurting her like he did back at the camp when he turned into Brainiac. But Nia insists that she trusts him and asks if he’d like to kiss her.

And he does so they do and I LOVE THEM.

Also cute is the little dino girl until she turns into a Martian (further proving my point that none of these fools should be calling themselves The Last Anything of Anywhere because they’re always wrong) and says he’s J’onn’s brother.

Meanwhile, Supergirl flies to Lena’s apartment, onto the balcony, where Lena is wearing jeans.

Kara is so, so thrilled that Lena seems totally fine and not at all upset by the fact that Kara has been lying to her since the day they met. Lena says that things can’t be like they were, but instead of explaining the real reason that’s true, she just asks to be looped in to everything. Kara agrees, and gives Lena one of her emergency Superwatches, and they exchange shy smiles.

All shipping aside, I’m very invested in the Kara/Lena dynamic – the pessimist and the optimist, the scientist and the writer, the guarded and the fearless… and two of the strongest women in this city. I’m excited that this season is going to explore this relationship.

After Kara leaves, Hope asks Lena why she didn’t send the file to Andrea revealing Supergirl’s identity. Hope asks if Lena will forgive Kara. Lena says that Kara broke her heart. She can never forgive her.

Which is yet another heartbreaking thing about Lena Luthor. She has no frame of reference for forgiveness on this scale, because of all the people in her life who have betrayed her, no one has been worthy of redemption. No one has been remorseful or regretful. No one has ever wanted to fight to keep her love. Her loyalty, maybe, when it comes to her family. But not her love, her friendship, her game nights, her wine pairings, her grand gestures, her dry humor, her smooth lilt, her joy, her genius. All of her. She doesn’t know how to give forgiveness because no one’s ever asked her for it. So of course she wouldn’t know how to move past a broken heart.

Hope asks why she’s not revealing Supergirl’s identity if she doesn’t forgive her, and it’s because Lena’s apparently on a mission to “fix humanity” and is going to use Supergirl to do it. (If someone wants to draw me Lena in her purple suit with Thanos’s Infinity Gauntlet on, I would not be mad about it.) Before we leave her, Lena starts up the simulation again.

The episode ends with Eve getting kidnapped from a diner, where she appears to be working. Though whether or not it was really Eve remains anyone’s guess.

So! It finally happened?? I feel… everything. Kara and Lena had such beautiful, intimate, brilliantly acted moments (in this episode where there is also a dinosaur) that really reminded me why I love this show when it’s at its best. But also my heart is so nervous about what’s to come.

“Supergirl” Episode 422 Recap: A Long Time Coming

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When she shows up in the Oval Office, she looks amazing and surprised to see her mother there, too.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

She just hasn’t felt like this in a long time, is all. As a response, Alex leans in and kisses her.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

“Supergirl” Episode 421 Recap: You Are My Sunshine

Previously on Supergirl, Alex voluntarily got her mind erased to protect Supergirl’s true identity, Kelly went with Alex when she thought she was going to get to adopt a baby but then it fell through, Lena and Kara found out about Kaznian Kara aka the Red Daughter, and Kara went to tell the president about Lex’s nefarious plans and instead of getting a Pulitzer she got black-bagged.

We open in Midvale, in 2007, when adorable teens Alex and Kara are walking through the forest, clapping to some music on their iPod. Kara is trying to convince Alex she can’t go to college, but Alex is sure Kara will make new friends. Kara says no one will understand her like Alex does, but their conversation is interrupted when Kara’s clapping gets a little too enthusiastic and she accidentally thunder-claps them off the cliff.

Before she hits the ground though, Alex wakes with a start. It seems she fell asleep watching TV after her heart-to-heart with Kelly. Because Kelly is still there.

Alex tells her that she had a dream or a memory of Kara, and Kelly thinks it’s probably her brain changing; she has suffered a trauma re: adoption, and her brain is making connections with the parts of her life deeply affected by adoption before. Specifically, Kara.

Alex can tell something is happening in her brain, because she’s starting to feel off again, like she did during the interrogations. Right after her mind was wiped, though she doesn’t know that part. All she knows is that is has to do with Kara.

But before she can figure out what’s going on in her brain, Brainy calls. She’s needed at the DEO.

When the black bag is removed from Kara’s head, she finds herself in a room with some men who clearly don’t know what they’re up against. She easily takes them out, but as soon as she opens the door to make her escape, Kaznian Kara is there with some Kryptonite to knock her out.

Back at the DEO, Brainy and Lena tell Alex about how Lockwood took the Harun-El, Kara thinks Lockwood and Lex are connected, and about the found a Supergirl clone called the Red Daughter. They break to do their tasks, Alex to find the Red Daughter, Brainy to get J’onn to save the aliens being rounded up for Lex to harness their powers, and also to tell Dreamer loves her. That last task got Lena good.

Lena is going to talk to Lockwood and see if she can find out where Lex is. Before she leaves, Alex asks Lena where Kara is, and Lena assures her she’s just in DC and is totally fine.

But in actuality, Kara is slightly less than fine, being held captive by a girl who has her face and an intense wig.

Kara tries to reason with her, to tell her Lex is a liar and will turn on her, but the Red Daughter is sure Kara is the villain here, protecting this corrupt country rife with ugliness and gluttony. But while she’s giving her hero’s speech, the Red Daughter is starting to feel weakened by the Kryptonite. And lucky for Kara, she’s built up an ever-so-slightly higher tolerance to it, so she uses this opportunity to break free and fly away.

Kara shows up at J’onn’s door, injured and so… defeated. She really thought she was at the finish line, evidence in hand, putting down her cape and winning the fight with her research and journalism. But then everything fell apart around her. What’s more, Lex knows that Kara is Supergirl, which means Alex is in more danger than usual, and she really wants to tell Alex the truth so she knows the stakes. But J’onn warns her against that. Telling Alex the truth after J’onn so carefully tucked it away in her brain could cause her to go insane. The only way she can know is if the walls he built in her brain come down on their own. Kara is so, so sad.

Brainy comes by and tells them what everyone is up to, so Kara runs off to join the fight.

Before Lena goes to see Lockwood like she said, she goes to see her mother, who is in her lab. Because Lena bought her prison and got her a weekend off. Because of course she did. Lena slaps a baby truth seeker alien on her mother’s arm and starts asking her questions.

Lena starts with a test and asks about a high school boyfriend. Lillian blurts out that she paid him to leave Lena alone. Since this confirmed Lena’s suspicions, she starts asking her about a procedure to extract the Harun-El. Lillian knows she can do it, and as an incentive to do it quickly, Lena informs her mother that she has poisoned her and she has 24 hours to do as she’s told or she won’t get Lena’s antidote.

Before Lena can leave, Lillian blurts out one more truth, but this is one Lena didn’t suspect: Lillian says she loves her.

After leaving her mother, Lena heads to a parking garage to confront Lockwood, which is a role reversal I’m into. Lena asks where Lex is, and it quickly becomes clear that he has no idea that Lex Luthor has been the puppetmaster of his life for the past few years. Lockwood looks a little ill, his hair is falling out, and he’s mad. He starts yelling at Lena, but she yells back, saying he’s dooming humanity.

After she leaves him and gets back in James’ car, Lena tells James that Lockwood is deteriorating because of the untested Harun-El he stole. She almost calls the mission a bust, but then Lockwood speeds away and they realize he could lead them somewhere useful.

J’onn, Brainy, and Dreamer follow one of Nia’s visions to a shipping company where they find a lot of the aliens rounded up in raids being packed into shipping trucks. Dreamer has a plan.

But J’onn and Brainy think it might be too dangerous. So instead, J’onn is going to do a fly-over to see what he can see before they decide what their next move is. But while he’s gone, Brainy is so frazzled from almost confessing his love to Nia that he agrees to do things her way and they head into the fray with Brainy pretending to be Lockwood and Nia pretending to be his prisoner.

At the DEO, Alex is startled when Supergirl swoops in to tell her that the President is working with Lex. But Alex trusts her, so she immediately shuts off the cameras so they can work in private. Alex starts using sunlamps to get Supergirl back up to full strength, talking about what it’s like to absorb the sun’s energy, when Col. Haley bursts in, horrified to see Public Enemy #1 in her Director’s lab.

Alex tells her the whole thing about the Supergirl copy and the President being corrupt Haley is immediately on board with taking them all down.

Brainy and Dreamer’s ruse is found out almost immediately and they’re split up, despite their protesting. Brainy is tortured and worried about Dreamer and eventually his ancestral memories flood his brain and his emotional boxes get smashed to bits and he’s essentially, in his words, rebooted. Suddenly he’s cold and emotionless. He’s not our Brainy anymore. He’s Brainiac 5.

Alex, Kara, and Haley exchange info and brainstorm and realize that they have to find the Red Daughter before she causes any more havoc in Supergirl’s name.

They find an address, and Supergirl insists on going alone. Alex thinks it’s weird that Supergirl is so insistent she not join her on this mission, but she hangs back.

When Supergirl gets to the Red Daughter’s apartment, it’s eerily similar to Kara’s loft. As she slowly looks around, she realizes she’s been stalked but good. #YouonLifetime

At the compound, Brainy’s voice is deep and scary, and despite his humanity switch being entirely turned off, he does concede to J’onn that they can go save Dreamer, because she might be useful. When he finds her though, he doesn’t save her. He tells her to astral project from the other side once she’s fully kidnapped, then knocks J’onn out so he’ll get caught too, and walks coldly away.

Lockwood is still deteriorating, so he gives himself another injection of Harun-El and storms into a safe house to confront Otis, who confirms everything Lena said about Lex pulling his puppet strings. Lena and James creep in and watch from the rafters as Lockwood realizes that no one else believes in his cause like he does, and that all Lex wants is to fake an attack from Kaznia so he can be the hero.

Otis says that now that Lockwood knows, he has to die, and a fight breaks out. James tries to intervene, but his head starts to hurt and he’s incapacitated.

Kara is looking at a sketch of Alex in the Red Daughter’s journal, along with a photo of Mikhail, when Alex busts in, confused as to why the apartment looks so much like Kara’s. She realizes that you can see into Kara’s loft from this apartment, and starts to panic; she hadn’t considered her normal human sister could be this caught up in all this. She describes the way she worries about Kara feeling like part of her heart is just running around in the world, unprotected.

As Alex tries to collect herself, Supergirl puts her hand on Alex’s, comforting her. Before Alex can examine why it doesn’t feel as weird as it should that her coworker is holding her hand, her mom calls her and tells her that Kara is there. Alex is relieved to hear that, until Supergirl panics and says that Eliza is not safe.

Supergirl flies to Midvale as fast as she can, and the Red Daughter is there, furious at the life Kara had that she didn’t. Kara tries to reason with her, she knows the Red Daughter is having doubts about Lex, but she snaps and says his name is Alex.

Supergirl tries one more time to connect with the Red Daughter, mentioning Mikhail, but instead of being the bonding agent she hoped, it sets her off, because she thinks Americans killed the little boy she cared about. The Red Daughter suits up in her new supersuit, complete with helmet, and flies outside. Supergirl is hot on her tail, and they do some pretty epic fighting in the sky. But the Red Daughter has some kind of purple lightning situation, and punches Supergirl with it so hard, possibly into next Tuesday? Because suddenly it’s dark. And they fall to the ground, where they fight some more.

Alex rolls up on her motorcycle, and when she sees Supergirl getting punched, memories start flooding back to her. She remembers moments in their childhood when Kara would use her powers. She remembers pivotal moments they shared as adults. She remembers the moment Kara saved the falling plane she was on. Laughter and tears, pizza toasts and the time she fell off the clip but Kara saved her. She remembers everything.

So she runs to save Supergirl. To save her sister. But by the time she gets there, the Red Daughter has already heard Supergirl’s heart stop beating and flown away. She does stop for a moment as she watches Alex cry over her sister’s unmoving body.

Alex tries to listen for a heartbeat, pleading with her little sister, she remembers, to come back to her. Alex says she knows her Kara, and Kara doesn’t quit.

Eliza watches and cries as her oldest daughter cradles her youngest. Two pieces of her heart, breaking right in front of her. Between sobs, Alex insists Kara will be fine. She’s only not healing because there’s not enough sun. But there’s sunlight in everything! So she starts shoving handfuls of grass into Kara’s hands, begging her to use the sunlight in the leaves to heal herself. It felt very, “He can’t see without his glasses” and it hurt my feelings.

But then streaks of brightness start to glow around them, and Eliza tells Alex to look. Kara is pulling in the sunlight.

And that’s how Kara always gets back up when she gets knocked down, isn’t it? No matter how many times she’s defeated, how many people tell her she can’t, whether it’s running into issues at CatCo or red tape at the DEO, fighting family members or losing friends, every time it seems that by all measures, Kara Danvers should be defeated by the darkness, she starts pulling in the sunlight. Even though sometimes Alex needs to remind her she can.

When Kara finally wakes up again, and she sees her sister looking down at her with love in her eyes despite being in the Supersuit, she says, “I’ve missed you.” The sisters are reunited. Finally.

Back in Lena’s lab, Lena is going to have Lillian extract the Harun-El so James won’t be in pain anymore, but James wants to keep his strength because the season finale is next week and Rao knows he’ll need it. So instead, they give him another dose. To thank her mother for all her help today, she gives her the antidote.

While debriefing and reconnecting, Alex and Kara get a call from Col. Haley. Lex’s plan has come to fruition. The president is on TV, saying Kaznia attacked, lead by Supergirl, and that Lex Luthor saved the day.

Things look darker than they have in long time, but as long as she has Alex by her side, Kara will be able to pull the sunlight and get through it.

See you next week for the Season Four finale!

“Supergirl” Episode 420 Recap: Fact-Finding Missions

Previously on Supergirl, Alex and Maggie broke up in a beautifully heartbreaking series of episodes because Alex wanted kids and then Alex promptly signed up to adopt a child so her heartache was not for naught, Dreamer was interviewed on TV and became Lockwood’s next target alongside an alien that murdered Mrs. Lockwood, and Lena and Kara found out about Lex’s Kaznian adventures and decided to go see what he was up to.

Kara and Lena head to the airport to fly in of Lena’s custom-built private jets, but Kara is a little antsy because she wants to fly fly. She tries to convince Lena to let her go on her own but Lena wants to look Lex in the eye when they catch him. Not unlike Lady Olenna Tyrell, Lena wants Lex to know it was her when he gets taken down.

Meanwhile back in the staying-in-town camp, Alex and Kelly are going for a jog together, joking about not being in their 20s anymore and how James will never know the feeling of his body falling apart. Alex says it must be weird to have a sibling with superpowers, and I almost forgot she doesn’t know about Kara, CAN WE FIX THAT NOW PLEASE.

They take a wee break from jogging because Alex gets a phone call and has to go. When Kelly asks if everything is okay, much to my surprise and delight, Alex tells her the truth: an adoption agency called, and they have a baby for her. Kelly is surprised but not necessarily in a bad way, Alex looks like she’s feeling every emotion all at the same time.

At Mrs. Lockwood’s funeral, little George is telling sweet stories about his mother when his father gets up and storms back to the DEO. Ben is losing it, and is desperate to find Dreamer and the alien who killed his wife. And also, maybe more than the other two things, to know how James got superpowers.

Speaking of James, he’s a little busy getting flambéed by Brainy and Nia, who are having a great time figuring out his new powers.

James still seems a little disaffected for someone who has been acting like he was invincible for years, but we don’t have time to think too hard about that right now, because Brainy has to go back to the DEO to deal with the spiraling Ben Lockwood.

Lena and Kara hop on Lena’s plane and Lena tries to apologize for not telling her sooner about Lex, because she’s still learning how to trust. Kara reassures her that no matter what happens, they are on the same side. Because Lena is good, and Kara is good.

As they get closer to Kaznia, the plane starts to shake and they realize the storm they’re passing through is definitely not natural. So Lena hops into the cockpit to manually land the plane.

At the same time, Kara nopes right off the plane to help from the outside. (Possibly phasing out? Unsure how how she left the plane without sucking Lena out of it but we’ll just chalk it up to superspeed and metaphysics.)

In a beautiful moment of unknowing symmetry, they both say, “I got this” and do their part to land the plane safely.

As soon as the imminent threat is over, Lena is worried about Kara, but Kara managed to get herself back to her seat before Lena noticed she was gone.

The gal pals head to the army base, but it seems pretty deserted. Lena thinks maybe the lightning was an automatic trap her brother set, so they turn on the lights and start exploring. They find a room that was clearly used for torture, and they presume it was specifically used for aliens. It’s all Amertek machines and paper files, and that’s why Lena knows Eve was involved.

I guess instead of Alex running off to deal with the baby thing on her own, Kelly decides to come over for moral support. Which I’m totally here for. So the deal is, there’s a 17-year-old girl who is in labor and since she only just told the agency she wanted to adopt her baby out, instead of doing the whole thing where she chooses three potentials and then meets them and makes her decision, she just picked one candidate and that candidate was Alex. Alex feels as shell-shocked as we do by this, because it’s been a year since she applied to adopt a child and neither she nor us has heard anything about it since.

Kelly is supportive and patient and kind, talking her through it. Alex explains that this is so important to her. So important, in fact, that she broke up with her fiancée because she didn’t want to have kids. Kelly responds with, “That’s so hard,” like the good friend she is. Alex is having second thoughts because of Lex Luthor and martial law and all the chaos, but Kelly has a rational answer for all of Alex’s irrational fears. Alex really wants to talk to her sister, but her sister is in Kaznia of all places. But Kelly has a rational solution for that too: she tells Alex to imagine what Kara would say if she were here. So Alex gives herself advice: It’s never going to be the perfect time, and this is a gift she can’t pass up. Kelly is proud of her, she answered her own questions.

At the Kaznian base, Kara finds an article about an alien they used to know called Copy who could split himself like a cell, though the more he split the more imperfect his copies became. They also find power-dampening cuffs and proof that Lex had an in at the DEO Desert Facility.

This episode of Kara and Lena: Investigating Girlfriends is interrupted by a sound, and Lena grabs a taser torch off the wall as they wait for the person to reveal themselves.

It’s Eve but there’s something… different about her. She’s more childlike than the Eve we know, saying she loves Lena and Kara so much, she just loves Lex more. She claims she simply couldn’t put up with the torture anymore, but Lena and Kara aren’t buying it.

Lena uses her taser torch to get information out of Eve about Lex’s shenanigans.

Alex has gone to a hotel near where the birth mother of her potential baby is in labor, and Kelly is also there. I sort of wish we had a line where Alex asked Kelly to come with her for this life-changing event, or better yet, that Kelly offered to go, but I guess it’s kind of like when you go to lunch with a friend and then end up going to American Eagle with them so they can pick up a pair of shorts they had been eyeing and then oh they just need to pop into Best Buy real quick and next thing you know you’re keeping them company while they grocery shop.

Alex gets an update from the agency and is a little surprised to learn that the birth mother doesn’t want to meet her until after the baby is born. She takes this as an automatic bad sign, but Kelly reassures her that this is a normal reaction and also gives her chocolate. Are we sure Kelly’s real and not just a figment of Alex’s imagination? Because she’s perfect.

Alex continues to panic-spiral, worried that the newborn will somehow fling itself into uncovered outlets, even though everyone knows babies are essentially loud, wiggly, leaking potatoes for the first three months. Kelly reassures her that she’s just scared, and Alex corrects her: she’s terrified.

Alex explains that one of the reasons she’s so scared to be a mother is because Eliza Danvers is one of the best mothers across all universes. She always made Alex feel so loved, and she did it mostly on her own.

She’s worried she won’t be half the mother Eliza is, but Kelly says that even though their friendship has been short (albeit intense), she can already tell that Alex is a naturally nurturing person.

She tells Alex the absolute truth: She cares too much to fail.

Alex is so appreciative that Kelly is there with her, saying everything she needs to hear. Not so appreciative that she left her any chocolate though. Sorry, Kelly.

In their own kind of bonding situation, Lena and Kara cuff Eve and ask her questions about Lex’s plans. They learn about his plans to have Kaznia attack the US, and they learn about Kaznian Kara, aka the Red Daughter.

When we cut back to Alex and Kelly, they’re laughing and looking at jogging strollers.

Then Alex gets another call. But it’s clear after a few moments the call wasn’t a good one. The girl’s grandparents convinced her (with the help of a priest) to keep the baby, so Alex won’t become a mother today after all.

Upon reviewing the footage of the Red Daughter training, Lena knows that Supergirl must have been exposed to Harun-El. She explains to Kara that Red was basically a blank slate until Lex found her and turned her into a weapon. Kara is sure that if she comes from the same stuff as Supergirl there has to be good in her, but Lena explains that sometimes nurture overpowers nature. There was good in Sam, but not-so-much in Reign.

Lena is a bit shook though; Lex created his own biggest fear, a Kryptonian killer. They ask Eve where Red is, but before she can answer, another Eve strolls in. Kara knows Lex must have used Copy’s powers on her, because that was the only file she read out loud earlier.

Eve sets off a self-destruct timer and disappears, leaving Lena and Kara to find an exit themselves.

They split up and normally I would say this is a terrible and dangerous plan, but in this specific instance it worked out because Kara found the Red Daughter’s room, with pictures of Kara and Supergirl all taped to the wall. Clear as day, impossible to dispute proof that Kara Danvers is Supergirl. And she even has Kara’s journal with a picture of her and Alex tucked inside.

Kara runs out, stunned, confused, probably feeling a little invaded, and Lena assumes Kara looks like she just saw a ghost because she’s afraid of dying.

Kara misdirects by saying they should go up the air vent, but when Lena goes up first and reaches down to help her girl, Kara makes an excuse about her recorder and runs back to burn all the evidence on the Red Daughter’s wall with her laser vision.

Back at the DEO, Lockwood breaks into Lena’s lab despite Brainy’s best efforts to deter him. He finds the Harun-El and before Brainy can warn him against taking it, an agent tells him that they found the alien who killed his wife and he heads up a strike team to go raid the shelter she was staying in.

Lena and Kara figure out that the President’s Chief of Staff is the mole under Lex’s thumb, and then Eve distracts them. They both go running after different Eves, and Kara can’t help but suit up for this fight. So while Kara fights a bunch of Eve copies with Ariana Grande lyrics, Lena fights original flavor Eve with the RETRACTABLE SWORD IN HER SHOE.

Back in National City, Lockwood finds himself face to face with James and Dreamer, and tries to arrest them with all the shelter aliens, but Brainy finally has had enough of trying to politely talk him out of things. Brainy focuses directly on the DEO agents this time, telling them to follow their hearts, not their orders. They start to stand down, and Dreamer is very proud of her fella.

But Lockwood doesn’t need agents, because he’s got a secret weapon. He injects himself with Harun-El and throws a truck at James and Dreamer. J’onn swoops down to save them, and James has him throw Lockwood into a tanker, knowing he would survive the fire but that it would get him off their back long enough to save the aliens. And Lockwood does survive it… he’s MAD though.

While Lena and Eve are fighting, Lena is trying to turn Eve against Lex, telling her that Lex is incapable of loving anyone but himself. She overpowers her and starts to go check on Kara, but then Eve pops up and stabs her right in the chest.

But Lena retaliates by knocking Eve out. Kara’s recorder was right in the place Eve stabbed her, so Lena is fine. WHICH. CAN WE TALK ABOUT FOR A SECOND? Am I totally losing my mind or is this one of the most romantic tropes in cinematic history? Usually it goes, girl gives guy something to remember her by as he goes off to war, guy gets shot, thing girl gave him stopped the bullet. Unfortunately “bullet stopped by gift” only returned some questionable Etsy results, but I feel pretty sure this is a thing that has happened more than once and usually between love interests.

Anyway, Lena hugs Kara when she realizes she’s safe, and they’re disappointed to realize all the Eves have disappeared.

Kara says this mission wasn’t a wash though. They found the information they came for. They have enough information to take Lex down. On the way back, Lena tries to apologize for leaving Kara behind to chase after Eve, but Kara assures her it’s fine. Lena is frustrated because she’s trying to apologize for putting her in danger. Kara starts to explain that she was never in danger. She takes off her glasses and stands up, but Lena is like me and finds it hard to have vulnerable conversations while looking directly at a person. So Lena doesn’t see Kara stand up and put her hands on her hips. Lena doesn’t see her finally, finally open up to her best friend.

And Lena never sees it, because as Lena goes on and on about how Eve lied to her every single day about who she was and that it’s emotional trauma she may never recover from, and that the only reason she hasn’t totally fallen apart is because she has Kara by her side… Kara knows this isn’t the time. Kara knows this will break her. Kara puts her glasses back on and reassures Lena that she will always be there for her. No matter what.

Alex and Kelly are on what has to be at least the third date in this one single day, back at Alex’s apartment.

Alex tells Kelly that she feels like all the wounds she thought were healed up were ripped clean open again, and she’s not sure she can survive the painful healing process again. Kelly believes that wounds like this are scars that you should wear like a badge of honor, and Alex asks Kelly about lessons she learned from her own scars.

Kelly tells Alex that she was engaged once, too. To her sergeant. But no one knew, because they couldn’t be out while on active duty.

I want to take a short break in this heavy story to mention Alex’s reaction to this. It seems like this is the first time Alex is finding out that Kelly is queer, too. Chyler does this absolutely perfect, almost imperceptible, thing with her face, where she registers it as new, exciting information, but checks it immediately because this is not the time to jump up and down and shout about it, despite that sometimes being the reaction you want to have when you find out someone you admire is queer like you. It’s no Sara Lance “what have we here” eyebrow quirk, but it’s a very realistic and beautiful acknowledgement nonetheless.

Okay, back to Kelly’s story. Her biggest scar taught her that there are always second chances. Kelly’s fiancée died on patrol, and Kelly couldn’t even mourn her at first. Probably partially because she couldn’t mourn her properly amongst her peers since they hadn’t been able to be out, but also she was just so numb about the whole thing. But her fiancée had sent her a letter in case she died, and that letter gave her permission to keep moving forward. To find someone else who would make her smile.

So Kelly encourages Alex not to lose hope. Today’s wound is deep, yes. And it hurts like hell. Kelly doesn’t want to take away from that. But she just wants Alex to be able to hold on to the fact that someday this will just be a scar. And maybe that scar will ache when the sky’s grey, but it won’t hurt like this forever.

Also hurt, albeit in a very different way, is little George Lockwood. Ben abandoned him at his mother’s funeral, all to be hyperfocused on this mission George doesn’t even believe in, and George is OVER it. In fact, he might hate Ben Lockwood as much as we do now.

Though this admittedly doesn’t help Ben’s spiral into darkness. I’m hoping losing control will be his downfall.

Since Kara can’t talk to Alex about SuperStuff, she calls James over to debrief after her trip with Lena. The story of the Red Daughter is making Kara feel extra grateful she landed where she did, and was raised by Eliza Danvers instead of Lex Luthor, who was like 40 when she landed. Kara also tells James that she almost came out as Supergirl to Lena, and that she finally is aware that it’s long overdue. She promises to tell Lena as soon as Lex is behind bars, which is risky considering how many people on Lex’s side of this battle know that she’s Supergirl, but at least she’s committed to it, that’s all that matters at this point.

Also, since we’re no longer worried about people who know getting murdered… can Alex get her memories back? Please?

Kara packs up all the information her and Lena learned and heads to the President’s Kryptonite-protected office. Why Kara Danvers, Sometimes Reporter can stroll into the Oval Office is kind of beyond me, but I guess it’s because of how close Cat Grant and President Wonder Woman were? Anyway, Kara explains the whole situation to the President, about the imposter Supergirl, and about the mole in the White House, and hands him the envelope of proof.

The President puts the envelope away without looking at it and presses a button, and before you know it, Kara has been black bagged out of the room.

To quote Georgia Hardstark, it goes all the way TO THE TOP!

Season Four is almost over, and I won’t lie to you, I’m loving this ride. These last few episodes have been the best in a long time, and even though I have no idea how they’re going to wrap up all 87 of their open storylines in two episodes, I’m excited to see what does go down, even though I’m pretty sure my heart is going to be broken eight ways to Sunday.

“Supergirl” Episode 419 Recap: A Dream(er) is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Previously on Supergirl, James was having some PTSD from being shot which was making his Harun-El react strangely, Supergirl became Enemy #1 and decided to help as Kara for a little while, and J’onn headed to the desert to do some Martian-y stuff.

Actually I’ll just get J’onn’s storyline out of the way now since it was just a scene at the end: He went to the desert and Martian-ed around and made a Mufasa cloud of his dad who told him to go rejoin his family. And also one reason he probably wasn’t in this episode is because David Harewood directed it! So hopefully we’ll have him back in a regular way eventually, but for now, he’s just behind the camera.

Okay so we open with Kara Danvers, tip-tapping away and full speed about Lex Luthor while outside some Children of Liberty take enforcing the alien curfew into their own hands. But who will stop them with Supergirl on the bench?

Dreamer, that’s who.

She has an endless supply of dream-energy rope and sleep-related puns and is well and truly badass before Brainy instructs her to get out because the DEO is on their way in.

When she gets back to base, Brainy says he’s worried about Nia because masked vigilantes are a target right now while aliens are under attack. But Dreamer wants to pick up Supergirl’s slack. Brainy can’t fight her on this anymore though because he’s needed back at L Corp where Alex and Lena are looking over James, who is suffering from the side effects of the PTSD triggering his Harun-El.

Lena is trying to extract it but it’s not helping, nothing she’s doing is helping.

Lena is so frustrated; she stole the Ameritek and is following the plans from Eve’s lab, why isn’t this working? Kelly doesn’t like that this seems like it’s making her brother be in even more pain so she asks them to think of a different solution. Which is when Brainy suggests the mind palace route.

Back at CatCo, Kara is journalisting and making a murderboard trying to solve the mystery of where Lex could be next. She’s using her superspeed, which I appreciate, because I think she underuses that particular skill. Kara overhears someone say Amertek and since that’s one of the points on her board, she zips over there and finds her coworker Franklin on the phone under his desk. He was talking to his sister who works at Amertek, and Kara asks him to ask her to call her. Nia comes in and realizes, based on the toothbrush in his hand, that Franklin must have slept at the office. He confesses he was afraid to go home because of a raid on his street, so Nia pulls Kara aside and asks Supergirl to help.

But Kara assures her she had done more harm than good trying it that way, so instead she’s focusing her efforts on finding Lex.

Back at Lena’s lab, Brainy explains the idea of the mind palace and manifesting your trauma and facing off with it, while Alex and Kelly listen, unsure if this sounds like a good idea.

Brainy tells James that if they succeed, not only will he stabilize, but he will be able to control his powers. James seems surprisingly neutral about the fact that his powers are forever, but I guess he has more pressing matters at hand than dealing with how he feels about this news.

Across town, Ben Lockwood and his Children of Liberty and also his literal child George have burst into a lovely suburban home and are dragging a man out of it. The man’s wife begs Lockwood to leave him alone, but Lockwood takes him anyway. George is a little unsettled, watching all this unfold, since this family could just as well be his, but Lockwood tries to reassure him that this isn’t a man, and he doesn’t want George to humanize them. Calls them roaches. But George still looks a little unsure.

Kara meets up with Franklin’s sister, Edna, at Amertek and Edna talks to Kara about how Edna has been low-key taking alien personnel files to protect employees but that they’re rounding people up and Edna is afraid to shake things up too much. Kara finds a name — Sebastian — that she needs more information on, but Edna is too scared because accessing those files would mean logging on with her PIN and they would know it was her if anything happened. She accuses Kara of not knowing what it’s like to be hated for who you are, and runs off.

In Slow-Burn City, Kelly earnestly and emotionally thanks Alex for being there for James through all this. For being there for her.

Brainy takes James into his mind palace with every intention of going right to the Lex Luthor parts of his trauma. So they start off at the Daily Planet, where James worked after he met Superman, when Lex kidnapped him for the first time. But then something goes wrong and he ends up watching his younger self at his father’s funeral while his body out in the real world shoots heat vision, stressing the fuck out of Alex and Kelly.

Up in her office, Lena has improvised a lab since hers is currently occupied, and is sciencing as hard as she can. She apparently has an endless supply of human hearts and is trying to test it but ends up exploding it so I’m glad she didn’t try whatever she did on James. She’s still so frustrated and she’s feeling pretty helpless.

So even though Brainy thought he knew which trauma they needed to tackle first, it turns out James and Kelly’s father’s death is a true source of his pain he needs to deal with first. James says the memories can’t be real because he was locked in the bathroom at the diner across the street during his father’s funeral, and Kelly confirms by reiterating that she was at their father’s funeral alone.

Brainy is sure this memory is real based on the metaphysics and Kelly gets so overwhelmed she storms off, Alex close on her heels.

Kelly tells Alex that even though they’re trying to work through James’s trauma, talking about the funeral is triggering for her own trauma. She was eight years old and her father was dead and her mother was broken and all she had to cling to was her big brother promising her that they could get through this, together. But then the funeral came and went and little Kelly was all by herself the entire time.

Alex listens with her generous heart and her expressive face and says she understands.

She says that Kelly and her share the trait of taking care of everyone else before themselves, and that Alex is willing to do that for her right now. Alex will stay with James if Kelly can’t do this. And if she can’t, that’s okay. But Kelly looks up at Alex and is reassured; she thanks her, but she’ll stay.

Kara is back at her murderboard, trying to piece together who this Sebastian fellow could be, and how he’s connected to all this, when she remembers seeing his name in the L Corp records Eve gave James. So she knows her next stop has to be Lena.

Kara finds Lena drinking alone in her office, and Kara tells her about the article on Lex she’s writing.

Kara has a question about Amertek but Lena is too busy to give Kara a quote. She’s trying to save James. You know, Kara’s old pal? Lena says Alex is here, did Kara even know that? How could she, she’s been MIA all this time. Lena laments that even Supergirl has been a better friend to her. Kara is frustrated, which is partly her own fault for not telling Lena she’s Supergirl, and says the whole reason she’s writing this article and trying to find Lex is for her. Kara’s doing all of this for Lena. Lena scoffs and says Kara only cares about her right now as a source.

Kara wants to explain but knows she can’t, so she leaves instead. Lena is so upset that she can’t even relish winning an argument.

Meanwhile, Dreamer is on the prowl with more sleep-related puns but she ends up following who she thought were baddies into a makeshift alien shelter. She’s about to leave them be when there’s a raid so she takes them on while American Woman plays on the jukebox. It’s one of the most badass fight sequences we’ve ever seen and it was well-deserved.

Mid-fight, the aliens scatter, and George Lockwood starts to chase one down that’s about his size. But when he catches up to the alien, he realizes it’s his friend Charlie. He lets Charlie go, and is, as they say, shooketh.

After Dreamer finishes dream-whipping the Children of Liberty into shape, she turns back to the aliens and tells them they’re safe now.

They look back at her with empty eyes; nowhere is safe now. Their hopelessness breaks Dreamer’s heart.

When George gets home he asks his mom if she ever has doubts about what his dad is doing, but she stands firm in her bigoted beliefs, even though it’s clear that Little Lockwood is starting to wonder if they’re on the wrong side of this.

Back at CatCo, Kara is looking forlornly at a photo of her and Lena because they had a straight almost-fight like all normal gal pals do.

Nia comes in and tells Kara about the shelter and the Lockwood raid and how everyone feels hopeless and she doesn’t know how to help. Kara admits she also feels a little hopeless because she keeps making things worse every time she tries to help, plus she’s been a horrible friend to Lena because she can’t keep up the Supergirl/Kara balance. Nia is fed up. She wishes a thing I’ve wished so many times: she wishes they could all get to know ONE person of this group they think they hate so much and see that they’re not the threat they think they are.

Of course, you should be able to have empathy without experience, but I’ve found that sometimes, just sometimes, someone raised on a diet of bigotry and lies just needs one person to help them start seeing the truth. This gives Kara an idea: she wants to interview Nia, someone who is part human and part alien, and introduce the world to Dreamer. Let Dreamer be the person they get to know so they can see aliens aren’t out here trying to take over the planet. They just want to live their lives.

Back at L Corp, Brainy leads James back into his mind palace to confront what really happened on the day of his dad’s funeral while Alex and Kelly look on worriedly.

It turns out he was at the funeral, but then was told to wait outside, and while he was there, some bullies chased him into the basement and locked him in a casket. James starts to freak out and breaks his connection with Brainy, so Brainy asks Kelly to go in there, because their emotional bond will help him more. Alex stands up for Kelly and says it’s not fair for Brainy to ask Kelly to do that much emotional labor, especially not phrasing it like it’s their only hope. Kelly is inspired by Alex’s defense, and, knowing Alex will be right here waiting, agrees to do it.

While in his memories, Kelly finally understands what really happened. She spent all these years so upset with him, and James had told the diner story so many times even he believed it. James apologizes, and Kelly forgives him.

It wasn’t his fault. So Kelly encourages him to take control of this memory, so James waves the bullies away and helps his younger self out of the casket. He wakes up, and he’s free.

Brainy goes to tell Lena the good news, that James is okay and they didn’t need her help after all. Her drug won’t kill her ex-boyfriend. Everything is fine.

Then they look up at the TV and see that Kara Danvers is interviewing Dreamer. I feel pretty sure that journalists for print don’t typically do their own on-air interviews but it was definitely more impactful that way so I’ll let it slide.

In this interview, Nia Nal proves once again that she is all the best parts of Season One Kara/Supergirl but with more confidence. Nia talks about how she is half-alien and half-human, but was born in America. She talks about how she’s also a trans woman, and these three facts about her made her different, but that everyone is different. She says being your authentic self is a gift to those around you, and that she’s more than just half-human, more than half-alien, more than a trans woman. She’s also a Gryffindor. She likes s’mores and salty snacks. She lost her mom but her dad helps keep her strong. She’s INFP (which is also what I am and I’m honored to share this trait with her) and she loves April and nerdy boys.

Dreamer is proud of who she is, and Kara asks if she’s afraid after giving this interview. Nia admits she is but that she’s not letting the fear define her. She looks into the camera and says that they don’t have to wait for a new day for things to get better. She says, “We are the new day.” And aliens around the country cheer.

Back in Lena’s office, Brainy is wondering what love feels like and Lena is crying. Lena thought she was strong and brave, but seeing this woman living her truth live on national television makes her feel like maybe she isn’t either of those things.

She’s so hung up on the past, and nothing she’s doing is helping. But Brainy reassures her that she can and will move forward. But that it’s going to take a little trust on her end. She’s going to have to stop shutting people out.

Lockwood is furious about this message of hope and sends a team after Dreamer, but Alex has a man on the inside and has her team head her way too.

Alex cuts the power at CatCo and allows everyone to fight without risking exposing themselves, especially Kara, who is using her peacoat to do cape tricks. (And didn’t need anyone to teach her how.) Kara even lets sweet Franklin think he saved her at one point. It’s very cute.

James shows up and smooshes Lockwood’s gun and also his hand and tells him to leave, and Lockwood is confused as to how the man he knew to be human is doing this. He storms out, still determined to get Dreamer eventually, and now also determined to find out how James got powers.

Inspired by Dreamer’s speech, Edna comes to see Kara with the files she asked for, not caring anymore if she gets caught. Hell, she’ll even be a whistleblower on the record if Kara needs her to. Kara thanks her and heads off to try to figure out what Sebastian was doing buying a military base.

Lena shows up at Catco, and locks eyes with Kara from across the room. They exchange a meaningful glance and they decide to meet out on the balcony to clear the air.

Lena apologizes for snapping at her earlier, and Kara apologizes for treating her like a source instead of a friend. But Lena admits that even if Kara had tried to be a friend to her when she needed it, it wouldn’t have worked, because Lena is bad at letting people be there for her. And for as much as I’ve always loved Lena, I never felt I had much in common with her besides her love for pretty ladies. But I’ve never felt more connected to her than I did in that moment. Lena decides that in order to be a good friend to Kara and let her be there for her, she has to come clean. So she confesses that she had been working for Lex for months when he called and said he was sick, and she considers this a weakness and she’ll never forgive herself. Kara almost laughs at her as she folds her into a hug.

Kara tells Lena she is a brilliant, kind-hearted, beautiful soul and that she would never fault her for being there for her brother. Because sometimes a bond like family is hard to break, even after all the things Lex did.

Kara then apologizes to Lena that she didn’t feel like she could tell her this, that she ever thought Kara would judge her. Lena feels almost silly for crying (ALSO very relatable) but is so, so grateful for Kara’s friendship.

And now, this feels to me like a perfect moment for Kara to have also shared HER secret. But I suppose Lena’s been through enough, and I guess Kara’s original reasoning for not telling her (that it would make her a target) is still true.

Oh and while this conversation is happening, George Lockwood has had enough. He throws his dad’s mask across the room and reaches out to his alien buddy, saying he’s there for him if he ever needs a friend. Realizing your parents don’t have all the answers is tough, but I’m hoping this kiddo is gonna help turn this ship around.

Back at CatCo, Kara tells Lena about her research, because why wouldn’t you loop the smartest person in National City in on your crime-solving?

Lena immediately realizes that the name Kara’s been chasing ips a pseudonym of Lex’s, which means probably the name of the military base’s location is a code. Lena quickly breaks it and realizes it’s in Kaznia. Road trip!

When Lockwood comes home from a long day of terrorizing innocent aliens, he’s surprised his wife isn’t at the door with a hot dinner and two fingers of whiskey so he pushes his way through the house to find her. He spots the woman whose husband he took away earlier leaving and knows his worst nightmare came true: Lockwood’s wife is dead.

And if that’s not a self-fulfilling prophecy, I don’t know what is. It’s just like earlier in the episode, when he accused Dreamer of inciting violence when he was the one storming into a peaceful setting with weapons. He traumatized these aliens and is going to blame them for being monsters when he drove them to this violence. Granted, I don’t condone this violence, I’m just saying, if he had chilled the fuck out and stuck to writing about his xenophobia in his journal instead of forming a hate group, this wouldn’t have happened.