Despite ending with Kara letting Lena into her apartment, and that obviously being what we care about the most, we once again start the episode with Lex. Gemma leads him down into Leviathan’s lair, and Gemma has to give him a pin to protect him from the radiation shields that protect the lair.
Leviathan tells Lex that they have the kryptonite beam bracelets and no longer need his help; they’ll take care of the whole killing Supergirl thing, he can sit back and relax.
Now to the good stuff. Lena thanks Kara for letting her in when she knocked, and starts to apologize for things she’s done.
“Do you wanna build a snowman?”
But Kara doesn’t want to talk about the past.
“The past is in the past, let it go.”
Just then, Alex, Nia, M’gann, and J’onn burst through the doors, ready to fight, because they got a 911 text, but Kara body blocks Lena and says that she’s not the threat at hand.
“Look at her! She’s in jeans! No one hatches an evil plot in jeans!”
The team stands down and Kara explains that Leviathan and Lex are working together, and they’re the real threat. The thing is, Rama Khan will know if Supergirl uses her powers, and now he has kryptonite. Kara thinks the team is ready for this, but Alex isn’t sure.
Lena says they still have tricks up their sleeve; she can make Kara an anti-kryptonite suit. She hasn’t done it in this timeline yet, but she remembers how. They just need a way to get to Lena’s lab ASAP.
So M’gann and J’onn shapeshift into Supergirls to act as distractions to get Kara where she needs to go, which Nia correctly points out is like a scene from Deathly Hallows.
Nothing but respect for MY Dumbledore’s Army.
And honestly after Lena being so separate from everyone for so long, seeing her in a room with Kara and two Supergirls feels right.
Making up for lost time here.
Before they head off again, Alex pulls Kara aside and shows her that she took Kelly’s advice and got a vigilante outfit. And she looks GOOD.
Blue IS the warmest color.
Kara literally screams with joy which is extremely relatable.
Once Kara calms down, the team gets ready to go.
Next time Brainy meets up with Lex, he’s ready to end Leviathan, but Lex wants them to kill Team Super first, which is a plan that Brainy hates.
Speaking of Leviathan, they are well fooled by the Supergirl decoys, and Rhama Khan is joined this time by two more element benders we hadn’t met yet. But luckily our Martian buddies weren’t alone, and Dreamer backs up J’onn while M’gann has the newest vigilante by her side. Alex has mastered her new weapon and produces a flame thrower and just…holy shit.
Sara Lance would be proud.
And while the gods are distracted by those shenanigans, Kara and Lena are on a regular ol’ city bus to Lena’s lab so she can make her a new suit. Lena promises she’s going as fast as she can, but Kara is jumping at the bit. She hates that her friends are out there fighting and she’s just sitting here waiting. With someone she should be talking to – I mean, really talking – but doesn’t want to talk to yet.
Alex shows up and explains the new god situation but assures Kara they have it handled. Kelly calls Alex to give her an update on Eve, and Kara uses her superhearing to eavesdrop, and Alex hilariously bats her away, annoyed. You could see a flash of their teenage years in that moment.
Lena is horrified to learn that Eve is back into play in this timeline now too.
I know this is not the point but also HER SHIRT.
Eve, who betrayed her deeply. Eve who pointed a gun at her face. But she swallows that down and just listens as Kara starts to spiral and Alex tells her that the best thing she can do right now is lay low.
They hug and part ways, leaving Lena to mourn the sibling bond she’ll never have, and maybe even a little worrying she’ll never be that close with Kara again.
Or maybe she misses being fucking hugged.
At Al’s Bar, Brainy summons his sister self to talk him through what he wants to do next. Lady Brainy says that even though she was the one who told him to work with Lex no matter the cost, she doesn’t think he has to let his friends die. Luckily, that was never in his plan. He’s going to bottle the gods. Lady Brainy asks about the radiation shields in the Leviathan lair, but Brainy is going to risk it.
Watching all of these Brainy scenes knowing these two are siblings IRL broke my heart even more.
But he does want her to come with him. “I don’t want to die alone,” he says. “YOU WOULDN’T HAVE TO BE ALONE IF YOU LET YOUR FRIENDS HELP YOU,” I shout uselessly at my TV.
Lex, Andrea and Gemma officially launch the Unity Festival in Obsidian and Kara and Lena watch together, nervously. It all feels kind of icky.
Me watching Lex scenes.
Alex’s new suit apparently turned her into a Charlie’s Angel because she drops down from the ceiling of a room in Obsidian North to let Kelly in so they can hack the system. Kelly is…very into this whole situation, and it was nice to see them have a moment of connection that didn’t feel as therapist/patient or even just best friendly as some of their recent interactions have felt.
“Baby, are we in a vending machine?” “What? What are you–” “Because all I see is a snack.” “Oh no.”
Alex admits that she doesn’t feel as badass as she looks, especially now as they face down gods. She has her skills and her weapons, but how long can she stand up against literal gods? But for now they use what skills they do have, and Kelly finds Eve’s IP address, though it’s encrypted, which is where Kelly’s tech expertise hits a wall. And so Alex utters a phrase I’ve been waiting for someone to say for what feels like years. “Better call Lena.”
I also love that Alex, one of Lena’s most consistent defenders, took “she’s on our side now” in stride. She’s pumped to have another scientist on board.
Back in the lab, Lena tries to apologize again, but Kara shuts her down. She really doesn’t want to talk about the past. But Lena doesn’t feel like any of her apologies have really stuck. She knows they need to talk this out. She even encourages Kara to shout at her about it…at least then she’d know Kara cares. (Also because this is an emotional response she’s used to/knows how to deal with.)
Lena knows Kara could snap her in two if she wanted to. Lena also knows Kara would never. So she felt safe enough to tell this impossibly strong woman to let out her anger on her.
It’s this seeming apathy that’s really irking her. Kara claims she doesn’t want to shout at her, or deal with these feelings at all, but then she starts talking about what it’s like to have her team in danger, to have her friends and sister putting their lives at risk for HER. She says the one thing Lena didn’t truly seem to grasp was that sure, Kara hurt Lena, and for that she is sorry, but it wasn’t her intention. Her intention was to protect her.
Also with Lena’s history, it’s a little like when you have to decide if you’re ready to come out to relatives who have said vaguely homophobic things; did they mean to be so anti-Kryptoniangay or were they just ignorance? Will they get over whatever that was because they love me?
And while yes, impact has to be considered in her actions, intention matters, too. But what Lena did next? That intention and impact was just to hurt Kara. Lena got what she asked for. Kara really let her have it. But oof it still hurts.
Lena isn’t defensive, or angry. She just says she understands, and apologizes again. Kara thinks that what Lena wants, based on the sheer number of apologies, is absolution, but Kara isn’t ready to forgive her.
All this shouting has Kara worked up so she officially can’t wait for the suit to be done; she has to go out to help her friends right now. And since she won’t listen to Lena and stay, Lena is going with her.
Kara and Lena head to where she’s interrogating William and in fact has just shot him. Lena gets the gun from Eve and turns it on her, a nice role reversal from last time, and when William starts to worry about his coworker Kara’s safety, and Supergirl is trying to figure out how she’s going to reassure William that Kara is okay while standing right in front of him without revealing herself, Lena steps in without hesitation and promises she just talked to Kara and that Kara is fine.
Now this is what I call multitasking.
It was Lena’s first field test, and she passed with flying colors.
“Perhaps the pastries I got in Paris were not for naught.”
The gods show up and Kara immediately treats Lena like she’s part of the team, telling her to get Eve and William to safety, and Lena says the kryptonite suit is on the way.
A Super and a Luthor. Working together.
And sure enough, just when the gods start to knock Supergirl down, the suit appears and helps her stand right back up again.
Kara’s joy when she realizes she was right to trust Lena is my joy.
And just in time, her SuperFriends show up. She superclaps the gods to dust but they quickly reform; turns out, they’re immortal, so trying to kill them is futile. It’s time to turn their focus on stopping Lex instead.
Lena, starting to test the waters of this whole being-on-a-team thing, and offers a suggestion: what if they ask Eve?
She could have held a grudge against all these people but she’s helping. At every turn.
And so Supergirl goes and talks to Eve. Making it less of an interrogation and more of a reaching a hand out to help and bring her over to the light. Supergirl says that “it’s when things feel most hopeless we have to dig down deep to do what’s right.” It’s two months into the pandemic that you have to fight the urge to give up and start going out to see people again. It’s when things are darkest you have to fight to find the light. So Eve gives in and tells her about Gemma Cooper being Leviathan, and about the Unity Festival being a trojan horse mouse trap like that one scene in Fievel Goes West.
Meanwhile, Nia tells M’gann about how her visions keep glitching and showing her Brainy being green and twitchy in Leviathan’s lair, and M’gann says that her powers are getting stronger, and that she should lean into them. But Nia is still sure it’s just her baggage about her ex and wants him out of her head.
Kara wants to cancel the Unity Day event, but Kelly and Lena said there’s not really anything they can do digitally (and safely) to eject people. Supergirl is going to have to go in to give a classic hope speech. Kara is wary; she JUST gave one, and she’s feeling a little stressed; she’s not sure she has one in her big enough to stop BILLIONS of people from being in VR.
Then, in unison, Lena and Alex say, “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
:whispers: I still low-key ship AgentCorp don’t @ me.
Because they’re the two people who have believed in Kara from the start. Lena didn’t always support Supergirl, but she never doubted her strengths, never underestimated her like Lex does time and time again. And now that she knows? She’s never been more sure of Kara Danvers. And Alex has never wavered in that belief. Lena smiles almost shyly and Alex can’t resist saying, “jinx.”
The plan is that J’onn will taunt Leviathan to distract them while Supergirl goes in to get everyone to log off. The taunting works and the gods storm off to confront him (like literally they look like a storm when they travel), and they find both Martians, Nia and Alex waiting.
Lena gives Kara some kind of protection for the kill switch in case she’s too late, and Kara heads into the VR for the first time. She finally understands the appeal, and doesn’t seem as freaked out as I was by the Hands Across America vibe Unity Day has…presumably because she hasn’t seen the movie Us.
Gemma is afraid that Supergirl is in the VR to interfere, so wants to flip the kill switch now, but Lex says there aren’t enough people logged on yet. Instead, he suggests killing Supergirl’s vulnerable body, using the one Leviathan agent not yet occupied by Team Super.
And so Gemma goes to Andrea and finally activates Shadow, instructing her to kill Supergirl. Andrea doesn’t want to do this, but Gemma threatens her company and thereby her father if she doesn’t.
I didn’t realize how absolutely bitty Gemma was. I wonder if she’s related to Glorificus.
Supergirl tries to give her speech in the VR but people are talking to their dead loved ones, they’re finding peace the cruel, harsh world can’t offer, so they’re not listening to her. Lena hsa an idea though, so she uses the cloning tool in photoshop and makes it so instead of one Supergirl trying to talk to everyone, everyone has their own individual Supergirl talking just to them.
Andrea appears from the shadows in Lena’s lab and has a Kryptonite knife she plans on using on Kara’s immobile body, but Lena will not allow this. Just like she did when she thought her best friend was a squishy human, she puts her body between Kara and the danger without hesitation.
The time Lena protected Kara thinking she was a squishy human was one of the first things Lena remembered in embarrassment after Kara came out. But now she has a chance for a re-do. To actually protect her friend.
Kara gives her hope speech to the people in Obsidian Platinum, saying that VR feels good but pain is an important part of life. Pain helps us appreciate what’s good, pain helps us grow. And to forgive. You can almost see that realization dawn on Kara in this moment. She speeched her own self into knowing that forgiveness is vital. “The cost of escape is too great.”
In the lab, Lena is giving a similar speech to Andrea. Reminding her of their “you jump, I jump” promise. She says that if Andrea doesn’t do this, Lena will stand by her side to help her with whatever backlash comes her way from Leviathan. But that if she wants to try to kill Supergirl, Andrea will have to go through Lena first.
Hands down the sexiest thing Lena has ever done on this show.
And this is huge growth for Lena. She put her life on the line for Kara, AND for Supergirl. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t stand to gain anything from it. She has no true stakes in any of this, except for that she is truly GOOD and doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. She doesn’t want the Obsidian users to get hurt, she doesn’t want Kara to get hurt. And frankly, she knows what killing someone feels like, even though in this timeline it didn’t take, and she doesn’t want her old friend getting hurt by that either.
In the simulation, Kara begs everyone to end the simulation, saying, “I believe in you,” at the same time Lena says, “I believe in you,” at the same time Lady Brainy tells Brainy, “I believe in you.” It’s love and it’s hope and it’s what this show has always been about.
Brainy powers through the radiation burn to bottle the gods, Andrea collapses into Lena’s arms and hands over the kryptonite, and one by one the Obsidian Platinum users end their simulation. For a long time this Leviathan/Lex mess seemed an overwhelming obstacle for our faves to overcome, but finally, finally, the tides have started to turn.
Hope always wins in the end.
Brainy, having successfully bottled the gods, doesn’t seem to have enough energy to crawl out of the Leviathan lair, so he lay dying until Lex shows up and yoinks the bottled gods from him. He knew Brainy would do this but was hoping it would be after they killed Team Super; he’ll just have to do that himself now. But all hope is not lost; Nia finally realizes that her flashes of Brainy aren’t just her subconscious and that he’s in actual danger and plans to do something about it.
In the lab, Lena and Kara bask in the glory of their success.
And I bask in the glory of their glory.
Supergirl saves Eve’s mom, making good on that promise, and Lena is proud of what they accomplished, together.
Lena’s still a little unsure about how this is all going to shake out, but Kara’s arms aren’t crossed anymore.
Lena tells Kara that she understands now why Kara lied to her, even if she wishes she didn’t. And that she overreacted to that pain of getting hurt, that she built up walls she was suffocating behind. She apologizes AGAIN and this time Kara doesn’t push back. She admits that all day, she was waiting for Lena to prove she wasn’t reliable, to let her down, but Lena came through without hesitation time and time again. Kara wasn’t ready to accept Lena’s apology, to let her in, but she is now. Lena is overwhelmed by the relief of this.
And then asks, “What now?” The “we” is implied.
Kara says there’s still one bad guy left to catch and Lena says, “Let’s take my brother down.” And they shake on it.
“Hands touch, eyes meet. Sudden silence, sudden heat. Hearts leap in a giddy whirl.”
And while I appreciate the symmetry of this, the callback to when Lena reluctantly worked with Supergirl way back when, showing how much has changed, how much they’ve both grown, representing a clean slate…Gosh, I wish they just hugged. Maybe this is coming from my quarantined heart, but Lena’s been on her own for so long, and this morning she was afraid it was too late to repair her friendship with Kara. But now there’s hope again.
That said, I know that’s not how these things go, and I get that Kara probably needs a little more time. Lena proved today that she was reliable to work with, but, to steal a bit from Buffy: There’s so much to work through. Trust has to be built again, on both sides. They have to learn if they’re even the same people they were, if they can fit in each other’s lives. It’s a long, important process.
And apparently they can’t just skip it. But Kara has not only opened the door for Lena, she has let her in. She could have sidelined her during this whole fight today, but her instincts to trust her kicked in and she put aside her hurt feelings, and it worked out in her favor. And now, Lena can be more a part of their team than ever, and I for one can’t wait.
Though this wasn’t originally meant to be a finale, it worked as one, since we were left with Brainy’s life in danger, and Lex revealing that he’s working with Lillian. According to David Harwood’s instagram, Alex was going to get a superhero name in the next episode, so unfortunately we’ll have to wait for that, and based on CW’s schedule release, we might have to wait until Fall 2021, but hopefully they’ll use that time to figure out how to ditch Lex once and for all so we can get back to what this episode did so, so well: focus on the women, and their relationships with each other. Once again, my hope in this show is rekindled, and I hope next year we get more superhero Alex, more Alex/Kelly, more Lena as a SuperFriend, more Nia and her growing dream powers. More Kara in relation to all these women. Because after all, the show isn’t called Lex Luthor vs. The World. It’s called Supergirl.
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