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.
“Sure we saved the world but AT WHAT COST?”
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.
I know this is neither here nor there but the purple sweater + jeans combo was really great.
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.
“Was Kara hanging out with that Kate woman again? No reason, just asking.”
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.
“Time travel and restoring the multiverse weren’t on my to-do list but I guess I could try to squeeze it in.”
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.
“Is this a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare?”
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.
“Look, look with your special eyes. Into my puppy dog eyes that cannot be resisted. LOOK.”
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.
Look how much she wants to trust her. It’s right there in her eyes. There’s so much to work through but part of her wants to just… skip it.
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.
She called herself the head of the DEO and Alex puffed up and WHEW it was all a lot.
(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.
“I’m getting this feeling like maybe I was a ghost in a past life.”
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.
New world, same Lex.
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.
“So many metaphorical pods knocked off course…”
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’d watch a whole show that was just Lena walking into different rooms in different business-wear and sitting on different chairs.
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.
“We had a whole five-episode crossover without Sara and I having one single conversation about how we both have girlfriends now and we should go on a double date!!”
Next page: Lady Brainy’s… wife!
At the DEO, Lady Brainy and Our Brainy have a little heart to heart; she notices that he’s a bit different than the rest of them, and he admits that he wears personality inhibitors. He says it helps keep his anger and rage at bay, but she tells him he’s missing out on connecting to the Big Brain, a vital part of being Brainiac 5. Lady Brainy says she was married back on her earth. She says she was stronger, smarter, and better just by being around her. THAT’S RIGHT. SHE SAID HER. A delightful turn of events, to be sure. Anyway, her wife is gone now, but because Lady Brainy is tapped into the Big Brain, it’s like she’s still with her all the time.
What’s this? What’s this?! We have another gay! What’s this! It is a blessèd day.
Lady Brainy assures Our Brainy that the people who love him wouldn’t want him to be less of who he really is. They would want him to reach his full potential.
Elsewhere in DEO HQ, Nia is walking around looking for some Brainys because she brought lunch, when she catches Emo Brainy with the bottle that Dead Brainy warned them about. She fires up a lil dream energy just in case and he drops the Emo act and goes from skittish to calm, cool, and calculating instantly. Bad Brainy tells her that he had bottled up the seven billion souls from his Earth before the anti-matter wave hit, and saved them, but right now they’re in stasis, so he has to release them. Nia tries to talk him down but he fights her and Supergirl ends up having to save her from his chaos, though in the bustle, he gets away.
The other Brainys explain that if Bad Brainy succeeds in opening the bottle on this Earth, both Earths (aka Bottle Earth and the ONLY EARTH LEFT IN EXISTENCE) will be destroyed. They have a little time because the thing Bad Brainy needs to open the bottle most easily was destroyed, but they still need to find and stop him.
Over at CatCo, old “friends” Andrea and Gemma talk business, and Gemma suggests a truly virtual world where people could live our their fantasies indefinitely which surely is a very innocent suggestion and not part of an evil plot at all.
Does this mean Lena knows Gemma? In this world did that whole medallion situation even happen? Was Andrea never The Shadow? I HAVE QUESTIONS.
Kara goes to find Our Brainy, because she can tell something is bugging him. He tells her a story about a vacation his family went on to a snowy planet when he was eight years old, and how his mother had bottled the planet for him when she saw how much he loved the snow. His father was appalled at this, and saved that planet from becoming the plaything of a wee child, and little Brainiac 5 got so angry that his father got scared that he’s grow up to bottle planets of his own, so he put the three orbs in Brainy’s head, the personality inhibitors. Brainy thinks this why he’s been one step behind all the other Brainys, this inability to connect to the Big Brain, and why Bad Brainy got away with his misdeeds.
Then Supergirl looks right into the camera and says, “Valerie Anne, listen to this part, okay?” and then looks back at Brainy and assures him that he will never be his mother, because he is so loved, and that the people who love him will fight for him. They won’t let him go down a dark path. They know who he is deep inside, and they will ring the alarms if he starts to stray too far from that.
Melissa Benoist should record a series of short pep talk videos.I always feel better after Kara peps someone up.
Brainy appreciates those words more than she’ll ever know, and calls Kara’s ability to instill hope practically magic. At the same time they realize who Bad Brainy might turn to for help: the witches.
So Supergirl, Dreamer, and Brainy head to Als’ Bar, where the witches are, in fact, trying to open the bottle with magic, and then have a bar fight… to the song It’s Gonna Be Me. At first I thought my TV was glitching but then when I realized they were really leaning in, I was here for it.
Supergirl tries to talk Bad Brainy down, saying you can’t undo the past, and that ruining the future won’t help.
My D&D party also usually chooses to try to reason with the enemy before resorting to offensive magic, so I get it.
Our Brainy gets thrown to the floor and one of his inhibitors cracks again and he’s feeling overwhelmed and scared, but Nia tells him that it’s okay to take off his inhibitors if they’re starting to feel like they’re hurting more than helping.
Gosh I missed Nia so much in the crossover. I know she was in the last episode but not nearly enough.
So he does, and as he connects to the Big Brain, his skin turns green and his hair turns blonde and he… looks… AMAZING??? I don’t even have any feelings whatsoever about the fact that he now matches the classic comic character more closely, I just thought he looked very suave and badass… maybe I have a secret Elphaba kink, I dunno.
Our Brainy talks to Bad Brainy, telling him that his choices don’t have to defy him. Supergirl adds that it’s not too late to make a different choice. They all agree that they can still find a way to open the bottle, but safely and in a more thought-out way that won’t put anyone in danger. So he gives in and hands them the bottle. Then he and the witches go inside to await their fate with the rest of their Earth.
Supergirl and Dreamer take the bottle to the Fortress, while Hip Brainy and Lady Brainy give Our Brainy their life projectors and leave their earthly bodies behind to go into the Big Brain.
Before she goes, Lady Brainy warns Our Brainy about Lex Luthor, and how fighting him did her no favors on her Earth, and that working with him is the only way forward.
I was rooting for you, Lady Brainy. We were all rooting for you.
She tells him to push away everyone he loves, and focus on Lex and Leviathan, reminding him that he’ll never truly be alone now that he’s connected to the Big Brain.
In the Luthor Lair, Lex tries to butter his sister up, but she’s over it and him.
“I liked it better when I was alone in my L Corp tower thank you very much.”
Lex promises that he’s changed, that he’s using the new lease on life the Monitor gave him to change his ways; he doesn’t want revenge on her, he wants to work with her. He even brought a Truth Seeker to prove it. Lena asks her questions, confirming her assumption that he’d betray her if he had to, and her last question is why he wants to work with her at all.
Truth Seeker or not, I would tell Lena everything she wanted to know if she was looking at me like that.
And he admits he just doesn’t want to be alone. They shake on it, but I still think Lena has a few tricks up her sleeve.
Later, Brainy shows up at Nia’s apartment, and she’s so happy that he’s here and he’s safe and he’s the only Brainy left and that he’s free to be who he is.
Let’s live in this moment here, where she’s happy and pure, and never get to the part where she’s crying.
Brainy solemnly says that things will have to change, and she says they can handle whatever change they have to if they face it together, but he insists there can be no “together.” He leaves her crying and wondering if this is even her Brainy and I loved Lady Brainy but this was BAD ADVICE. El mayarah or bust baybee!
At some other ceremony or speech or whatever, Lena is introducing Lex when Kara finds William lurking close to the door. He’s wary of Lex, and on this Earth, he didn’t come to CatCo to investigate Andrea, he came to keep an eye on Lex. He thinks Luthors are no good, but Kara comes to Lena’s defense, again, still, always.
“You say one more even remotely negative about Lena Luthor and I WILL cook your intestines with my eyeballs.”
She says Lena is in just as much danger as anyone else, and Lillian and Lex’s chit chat in the wings seems to prove her right.
After the ceremony, Brainy goes to see Lex and says that he’s willing to work together to defeat Leviathan. Lex is thrilled to have a twelfth-level intellect on his side, and says their next step is to get future knowledge from another Crisis paradox: a criminal that looks an awful lot like Winn Schott.
I really enjoyed this episode and I think it will be really fun to spend the rest of the season trying to parse out the Crisis aftermath. What’s new, what’s missing, and what that means for our National City friends. And all the cities for that matter… did you see that Lena Luthor was mentioned on the cover of the issue of CatCo magazine where Batwoman gave Kara Danvers an exclusive interview? What’s up with that??
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Leaving aside Lena & Kara, I really hope that they don’t try to push William & Kara together, just because there is REALLY no ‘there’ there. Like there is no chemistry at all, and we all remember how badly that worked out when they tried to force Mon-El as a love interest. James in the first season at least had chemistry with Kara, but I saw William pop up in this episode and I was all “Oh yeah, you exist wonderbread, I forgot”.
And Nia is totally Baby Yoda for me at this point (oh yes, look at me, crossing the streams), I would die to protect her, and will drop a building on anyone that will hurt her. I’m looking at you, Brainy. I’m looking at you.
Seriously, Oliver Queen needs to sit every single damn character down in the CW DC universe and have a talk about the follies of putting people at a distance in secret in order to protect them.
Thank you, Valerie Anne, for your recaps and seemingly endless references to Buffy and Wicked. To cross reference with an earlier comment, “this is the way”.
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended in 2003, the same year Kara landed on Earth. Alex was grounded for a month when Eliza found out she was using the show to teach Kara “what high school is like on Earth.”
This, too, is canon, and you will not convince me otherwise.
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If they do another bar fight with an on-the-noise needle drop it will officially be a trope and I am here for it.
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One episode post-Crisis, and platonic SuperCorp is still buried in rubble, and now BraiNia is destroyed. Quickly, lesbians, form a phalanx around Dansen before the writers decide we need more angst!
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Holy shrap. I watched last night’s episode of Batwoman – the appropriately named “How Queer Everything is Today” – and I completely missed that Lena was mentioned on the cover.
If this doesn’t yield a meeting between Kate and Lena, I will be as angry as a Beebo that has never been hugged.
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“Brainy, you are good to your core. You will never be your mother… because you’re loved. And the people that love you will always fight for you.1”
“You’ve made some bad choices, but they don’t have to define you… It’s not too late to make a different choice. Let us help you.”
They keep saying things to each other – important things, things they need to hear – that they need to say to Lena. Because I feel like Lena is being a hypocrite right now.
She knows Lex has betrayed her. She knows Lex will betray her again. He has never done anything for her without an ulterior motive, so she must assume his deal with the Monitor to make her a Paragon must come at a price. More than once she has not trusted, but worked with Lex, and every time she has gotten hurt.
She knew Kara would never betray her. She knew Kara would always be there for her. She knew Kara was her hero. But one mistake, one bad choice, and that’s all gone?
Will someone please call her out on that? Politely?
——–
Lillian Luthor in pastel pink but still perfectly evil is a serious 2020 mood.
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Lena Luthor named her teddy bear Little Miss Pizzly?
Wait, isn’t there fan art of that?
I’m hoping that Kara coming right to her this time around, thinking she was going to have to “come out” all over again, softened Lena at least a little. Because while I totally understood why she was so hurt at first, surely Kara has started to prove to her that she’s not going to abandon her, that just because she lied about that one (albeit huge) thing doesn’t mean she loves her any less, or believes in her any less. Most people betray Lena like a mic drop and disappear from her life. Kara betrayed her to stay close to her. To protect her. I’m hoping as she starts to work with her family again she starts to see the difference and comes back to her best friend.
I hope you’re right. I can’t see the show surviving the inevitable departure if Lena doesn’t get a redemption arc.
I really wish the writers would give us more scenes with her. Maybe I’m spoiled from Lena POV fanfics, but I want some gorram text to the anguished subtext in her silent expressions.
– Why isn’t William gone yet?
– I’m trying to picture Lex frying eggs. I both can and can’t. Of course he COULD do it, but I just can’t see him stooping to actually doing it. Then again, it is for his sister.
– You’re putting up a good fight, Lena. But we all know you want to forgive Kara.
– Brainy and Nia are back together. That’s good.
– Except there is a multiverse again. Just not the old one.
– I thought that the personality inhibitors had something to do with THE Brainiac.
– Female Querl had a wife.
– The Bottle Episode. Cute.
– Okay, that music during the fight scene felt really bad for me. It just totally took me out of the show.
– Updated Brainy looks good.
– Hmmmm…knowledge of an alternate Leviathan.
– What will this Luthor partnership bring?
I really enjoyed this episode, but I was very confused the whole time because I thought there still was a multiverse??? It just wasn’t the same as the old multiverse, and the earths from Supergirl, The Flash, and Black Lightning all merged into one? (Is Lucifer also on their earth now? I assumed he was still on a different earth, but now if there are no other earths… I’m very confused.)
I really hope they use the earth reset to fix the various continuity errors they’ve had over the seasons, and maybe recast characters whose actors won’t come back, like Lucy Lane, or if they want to use Maggie on Batwoman. There’s been a lot of wasted potential on this show over the years, and hopefully now is the time to do something about it.
Oh I thought there wasn’t a multiverse, just the one universe but still with multiple planets (like Argo still being in tact.) But honestly who tf knows at this point!
Recasting Maggie would be FASCINATING.
I had to read a few pieces to understand that last bit of Crisis but I think there IS still a multiverse, just a much smaller one. So Earth-2 (Stargirl’s Earth), the Teen Titans Earth, and a few other exist. But all the major players are on Earth-Prime, which mostly just involves bringing Black Lightning and Supergirl to Earth-1 since they were on their own Earths.
I agree with the recasting, I also commented to a friend that this would be a fantastic opportunity to recast Julia Pennyworth, who is black in the comics but was portrayed by a white woman in Batwoman.
Ahh, I got it. So there is still a multiverse, it’s just much smaller, and it’s different now. I guess the super friends just didn’t get the memo.
I did really enjoy the actress who played Julia on Batwoman, but I do 100% agree that she shouldn’t have been played by a white woman. They still could’ve done the Batwoman fakeout to Sophie using a lighter-skinned black woman. It’s not like they were in a terribly well lit room, they definitely could have made it work. They could use the actress who played Julia in another role and make it extra trippy.
I know there’d be backlash from hardcore Sanvers fans, but I really do think it’d be great for them to recast Maggie and have her on Batwoman at some point. Kate and Maggie are a big deal in the comics! There could be a crossover where Alex meets her, and her conflicting memories of her Maggie and this Maggie would be an issue.
Recasting Maggie to go onto Batwoman would be absolutely amazing. I would love that so hard.
I know my entire role in this comments section is always thanking you for your Buffy references (I swear the “Slay” username actually comes from my actual real life name, and is not just for the Buffy love), but: I see and appreciate your “just skip it” reference, and I really hope what follows for Kara and Lena is less tragic.
I know this wasn’t an intentional message on the part of the show and that they’re literally called “personality inhibitors” but the Brainy storyline felt a lot like telling people who take lifelong psychotropic meds (mood stabilizers, antidepressants, etc) that they’re not their true selves unless they stop, and it made me feel icky.
I think the psych meds thing is complicated, because there’s definitely the narrative out there that people aren’t their true selves when they’re on psych meds, but there’s also the narrative that anyone who’s having problems with their medication needs to suck it up and deal because going off your meds is always bad. Sometimes the side effects DO cause a pretty big quality of life issue, including not really feeling like yourself anymore for various reasons, and people should get to explore their options.
Ideally, that means finding another medication with more tolerable side effects, but sometimes individual people’s options are limited – for me, I should never go off my antidepressants ever, but my anxiety meds make me too sleepy to do anything and the only clinic I can afford doesn’t prescribe the kind that does work for me, so I only take them as needed even though I’m supposed to take them regularly. It’s not a great option, but it’s currently the best option for me.
I fully believe that this show is not exactly exploring all the nuance of the issue, though.
I can’t not make Buffy references, they come to me unbidden, so I’m very glad you appreciate them.
I thought of that too, about the personality inhibitors, but I didn’t want to make the connection just yet until I saw how this played out. I’m kind of hoping that Brainy ends up putting like…one back on? To be like “ah yes I wanted to see what this was like since it wasn’t a decision I made for myself, but actually I do need them just maybe a different type/dosage”?? I don’t know… but I also was hoping that wasn’t what they were going with there.
THE RETURN OF WINN SCHOTT
I think I’m probably the only person who loved Jeremy Jordan but I’m glad to see him back!
I loved the multi-Brainys but hated that they broke up Prime and Nia. How could you look at that face and leave her even if the world depended on it?
As for Lena…girl…I don’t know if it’s that she doesn’t understand how healthy relationships work or if she’s afraid of them so she’s acting out or both. At this point those are the only reasons I can think of to explain why she’s yet again willing to work with and welcome Lex and Lillian back into her life when both have betrayed her (and put her life and millions of others in danger) numerous times yet she continues to punish and shun Kara.
Favorite screenshots/captions: 1
– It’s Gonna Be Me, made my day.
– He did look amazing as a blonde greenie
Still recovering from the Crisis mayhem and also had to catch up with this episode… Woah, exposition.
No fan of Lex, but his presence creates some urgency for those around him. Either to stop whatever he’s plotting, or to come to the rescue of those he’s inevitably going to hurt.
Lena Kieran Luthor, I hope, you know what you are doing (ideally, nothing that will destroy Prime Earth on the way).
Nia and Brainy, oh, puppy love… Really unnecessary breakup, thanks Lady Brainy!
Generally excited with the earth mergers. Hope, we’ll get some low key crossovers throughout. (Full disclosure: I don’t watch the other series but keeping tabs through your recaps, Valerie Anne. As good/better as the real deal 😎)
D’aww thanks!!
I’m very curious about that cover because unless I missed something in the old timeline only Kate Kane is out to the world, Batwoman is not, let’s see what happens over there.
Great recap as usual, they are lovely to read =)