Welcome back! It’s been a minute but here we are, with a recap of Supergirl episode 608, aka the beginning of the end, the start of the final stretch of episodes. Ever. :sob:

That might sound sarcastic, but I’m serious. I know we’ve had our ups and downs with this show, but it has been very important to me over the years for many reasons and I am genuinely sad to see it go.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Previously on Supergirl, Lex banished Kara to the Phantom Zone and when the SuperFriends tried to get her back they released some Phantoms into National City, so everyone was experiencing the cold nightmares the Phantoms provide. Kara found her dad, who she previously thought was dead, and eventually the Superfriends vanquished the Phantoms and got their Supergirl back.

The episode begins with Brainy trying to Mission Impossible his way back to the Tower with a black box while Dreamer is in his ear warning him that the clock is ticking and Lena saying that the “Golden Sleeper is stirring.”

When he gets back, he shows a pristine Welcome Home, Kara donut cake and Nia admits that actually Kara is still sleeping under the sun lamps but they were afraid if they didn’t tell Brainy it was a rush job he’d get distracted and eat the cake.

When Kara does start to wake up from under the sunlamps, she has a nightmare about the Phantoms but as soon as her eyes snap open, Alex is there.

My kingdom for Alex Danvers to be there when I wake up from a nightmare.

Alex reassures her, “We’ve got you, I’ve got you.” Kara tries to lighten the mood, joking how she never wants to see anything Phantom-related for a good long time, including Operas or Star Wars movies. Maybe not even Scooby Doo, just in case. Alex smiles at her; she’s so glad her baby sister is home.

Listen I know Melissa probably needs a break but HEAR ME OUT: Sentinel/Guardian spinoff. I’m just not ready to say goodbye.

Kara asks for another hug and Alex happily obliges. And then she leads her to her proper welcome home party. She gets a hug from Space Dad and Brainy, from her little sis Nia…and she hugs Lena.

How close to accidentally cracking a rib do you think Kara got?

Kara squeezes her tight and says, and I quote, “It’s only because you’re on the team that I’m here.” Tears spill down Lena’s cheeks and she smiles.

*Nervous gay noises*

Kelly couldn’t be there because that scene alone filled their gay quota for the episode, but Kara understands. Zor-El is there too, up from his nap, and he’s excited to go to Argo and be reunited with his wife, but not before he learns a little more about what his daughter’s day-to-day life is like.

They call him Uncle Archie from Midvale and take him to CatCo because they learned nothing from the Mike situation, and Kara is nervous to be back but Nia covered for her while she was gone so she doesn’t think Andrea will suspect anything strange. And in fact, Andrea is pretty happy to see her again.

What in the bisexual pirate tiktok business casual outfit is this?

Kara lies her way out of Nia’s lie, saying that she was indeed undercover for a story but the story fell through…for reasons. Andrea is disappointed but is still glad to have her Pulitzer winner back. She calls a staff meeting and says that CatCo is #8 on the Top 10 list and she wants to move them to #1 by next month because she’s been watching a lot of The Bold Type and she’s pretty sure that’s how journalism works.

Andrea wants Kara to use her Supergirl connection to get a Phantom exclusive. She says Phantom enough to make the Girl of Steel shake a little, especially since she had no idea Phantoms attacked National City.

She goes over to Nia, looking horrified; she blames herself for this. The Phantoms got loose because her team was trying to save her. And she knows exactly the kind of hell the people of National City went through because of it. Nia tries to pivot that blame to Lex, where it belongs, but Kara’s already in her head about it.

Once she gets those lil eyebrow crinkles there’s no turning back.

William interrupts the pity party, and Kara apologizes, but he gets it; he’s been undercover too. And also, as a blessing to all of us, he has a girlfriend! I can’t be sure but I think I’ll like William a hell of a lot more when he goes back to just being the coworker Kara has to jump through hoops to hide her Super identity from without the added layer of him trying to court her. Kara is genuinely happy for him, because she’s the best of us.

Nia is watching over Uncle Archie out on the balcony (a staple of National City architecture), who is a little overwhelmed by his new powers. Nia gets what it’s like to receive powers with no instruction manual. As they chat, they notice a satellite hurtling toward them and Nia is excited; now Papa Zor-El will REALLY see what Kara’s life is like.

Yow that Despicable Me scene that’s Agnes just like rage screaming about how cute her stuffed unicorn is? That’s the kind of rage-joy I feel about how cute Nia is.

They suit up and fly up to stop the satellite, and Kara is just so happy. She went from being the second-to-last Kryptonian to finding her aunt, her mom, her dad, and an entire Kryptonian City alive and well. Kara gleefully hurls the satellite back into the atmosphere and Papa Zor-El uses his new freeze breath to put out a fire the satellite caused on a trash barge.

When they’re done, Kara goes back to work and tells Andrea that she wants to change her story from the Phantoms to the trash barge and how it’s all Lex’s fault because it was full of DEO wreckage. Andrea likes this story pitch but decides to give it to William because Kara is still the only one with a direct line to Supergirl. Out of options, Kara relents.

“This is actually going to make me supremely uncomfortable but telling you that would make me uncomfortable too so I’ll just go suffer in silence instead” is a little too relatable, thanks.

Because the truth is, she can’t tell anyone how traumatized she was by the Phantoms. So she has to go through this list of victims, talk to the people whose pain she blames herself for while also exposing herself to triggers. It’s something we don’t often get to see, how these ordeals actually affect superheroes. But of course it does. Especially someone with as big a heart as Kara’s.

They head back to the Tower where Zor-El expresses concern for the environment. Everyone is like “yeah welcome to the party” but Zor-El is seriously concerned. The oceans going to shit was the tipping point for Krypton and Zor-El couldn’t save that planet, so he is desperate to help this one. He’s hoping Kara still has her pod (the one that got knocked off course) to see if the plans for Krypton are in it but she has a better idea: the Fortress of Solitude. Even though it’s hard for her to be there, she’s happy to show her dad their little slice of Krypton on Earth.

Nia finds Lena working in the Tower, and Lena says she just got off the phone with Kara; she knows she’s at the Fortress. Just a lil update.

“Play it cool, Lena, don’t let Nia see that you’re over the goddamn moon that Kara looped you in but not her.” – Lena’s inner monologue, probably

Nia sort of sadly says she’s happy for Kara, but Lena understands how Nia feels. They’re both genuinely happy for Kara, but also they know that their dead moms aren’t going to magically reappear the way Kara’s parents have. Nia says what she’s supposed to say, “It’s great that they get to share that,” and Lena knows Nia means it, but she also understands the jealousy that comes with it.

No one has ever loved this woman the way she deserved, from the day she lost her mother til the day Kara told her she was Supergirl.

Nia admits that it’s kind of hard to watch. She’d kill for just one more day with her mom. Lena says she’d give anything to just know her mother. Nia asks if Lena ended up conquering her Phantom nightmare about her mom and Lena quirks an eyebrow at her; didn’t they all conquer their nightmares? Nia brushes off the fact that she super didn’t and Lena says that she let the Kelpie overtake her and then faced the memory of her mother. She finally stopped blaming her wee baby self for not saving her mother.

Every once in a while during Lena/Nia scenes I remember that Katie and Nicole are best friends in real life and I become GIDDY.

Lena knows there’s more for her to learn about her mom and Nia reassures her that she’ll figure it out. After all, she’s the smartest woman in National City.

Zor-El is looking over the destruction of Krypton and feeling bereft; but Kara calls him a hero. He feels bad about yeeting her from her home, but she assures him that she found a new one. And he is determined to not let Kara’s new home befall the same fate as her old one.

I keep trying to think of clever captions for these screenshots but then I see Melissa’s face and my stupid lizard brain just yells HANG IT IN THE LOUVRE on a loop.

When the team reconvenes at the Tower, Zor-El says he has an idea for how to clean up Earth’s oceans. Everyone tries to explain that things are more complicated than he’s making it sound, but he’s a man on a mission. He brings out an upgraded version of the little robot Kal-Ex that looks a bit like Alpha from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Next page: #DanversSistersForever. 😭

This new, updated version is Kryptonian tech mixed with tech from other planets, and Zor-El has named him Oscar after a quirky little children’s show he watched while he was waiting for Kara to wake up from her sun nap.

Not me picturing Young Kara singing “C is for Cookie” and eating cookies Super-fast like Cookie Monster just to make her sister smile.

Oscar can turn trash into energy, which he then uses to fuel himself, making him a very efficient lil guy. Which works out because it’s not like Kara can just fly around and clean it up; that barge they ran into earlier actually had some kryptonite on it. Because, not unlike vervain in Mystic Falls, people act like kryptonite is rare in National City, but there’s actually a surprising amount of it.

They want to run tests first but Zor-El’s eagerness is contagious so they send Oscar out.

Back at CatCo, Andrea hates William’s article because it doesn’t put enough blame on Lex. But William insists his research was thorough and the truth is, Lex found a loophole. He did all his shady dealings on the up-and-up.

When William leaves, Andrea starts to panic. People are pulling ads and CatCo is not on its way to #1 like she planned. Desperate, she gets her medallion and shadow bamfs her way into the Luthor mansion. She’s devastated to learn that William was right, that Lex’s trash barge was technically legal. But while she’s lurking around Lex’s office she finds a new angle…the Superfriends.

Has Andrea never met Alex because the photo in Lex’s office wasn’t even of her in her Sentinel gear.

Out on the trash barge, at first it seems like Oscar is doing a great job, but then garbage starts clinging to him. He falls into the water and they lose him entirely. The energy he was absorbing is a potential danger to passing cargo ships so Kara heads off to find him.

Lena Luthor protocol saves the day again.

And she puts on her Lena-designed Kryptonite-proof suit just in case.

When they brief Lena in, she catches up quickly. She realizes Daxamite tech might be to blame, which frankly tracks, about Lena thinks she should be able to uncloak him, which also tracks. Brainy has an idea for how to stop him, but they need to deliver a computer virus via drone. And I’ll be honest, I love how much a part of the team, and an inextricable part of the solution Lena is.

Papa Zor-El hates this plan; he doesn’t want to stop Oscar from doing his job. He wants to save the planet…that he accidentally calls Krypton. Alex realizes what he means but she tells him they have to stop it. It’s not worth the risk. It’s not like they could solve the climate crisis overnight.

“Oh to have the confidence of a mediocre white man.”

Knowing how to talk to a man on the edge, Alex speaks to him firmly and clearly: He can either help or he can step aside. He wisely decides to help.

By the time the Superfriends get to Oscar, he’s a giant trash golem. Though he’s kind of cool looking because the center of the DEO floor is on his chest.

Sentinel and Dreamer start evacuating civilians while Lena works from the Tower to try to break down Oscar’s forcefield. While they do that, Brainy tries to convince Oscar that he’s trash so he can get yanked up to him. Kara’s suit gets compromised in the process and the kryptonite starts to seep in. She starts to have PTSD flashbacks from the Phantom Zone and when Alex sees her frozen and in pain on the ground, SHE starts to have PTSD flashbacks of all the time she’s almost lost her baby sister, and frankly there’s a moment where things look bleak. But the Superfriends get it together just in time and Alex and Kara use their powers while Brainy gets close enough to give Oscar the virus. Lena warns them all to get out of the way and the day is saved.

“Seriously how did they ever survive without me on the team?”

Zor-El is feeling bad about his choices but Lena reassures him; hardly a person in this town who hasn’t done the wrong thing for the right reasons. And besides, Supergirl can fling this particular mistake into the sun. No harm, no foul.

Zor-El gets one last chat with his daughter on the Tower’s feelings balcony. He admits that one of the reasons he was putting off going to Argo to see Allura is that he’s worried that she’ll be upset; he made rash decisions and ended up making everything worse, resulting in the destruction of their entire planet. And then he almost did the same exact thing to Earth. Kara is sweet and supportive; she has a soft spot for people who destroy (or almost destroy) entire peoples on their quest to make the world a better place.

If you play Kara’s story in reverse it becomes a country song.

He looks at his little girl, impossibly grown, and he knows he made at least one good pod-shaped decision back on Krypton. He doesn’t want Kara to suffer the same fate as him; he tells her to put down the weight of the world once in a while.

Lena comes to get Zor-El because it’s time for him to leave, so Kara says goodbye to her father, but this time she knows it’s goodbye for now.

Lena smiles a sad smile seeing Kara get what she’ll never have.

It’s always nice to get along with the in-laws.

At CatCo, William is surprised to find that Andrea published William’s trash…barge article but now she has a new angle for him to work. The Superfriends. She wants to know everything about everyone in Supergirl’s life. What drives them, what their hobbies are, who they’re crushing on, which Autostraddle personality quizzes have they taken. She wants full profiles on each, and she wants a lasting relationship with them. She wants their scoop.

Later that evening, Lena calls Nia. She has already given Kara this news, because of course she did, but she wanted Nia to hear it too, because she helped inspire it. She wants to fully let go of the guilt of her mother’s death, so she’s decided to get to know her the best she can. She’s going to where she was born. Now, she doesn’t SAY Ireland, but I have to imagine she means Ireland.

“And just as a warning I’m kind of an accent sponge so if I come back with a brogue just don’t question it.”

And y’all, I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought there were only six episodes left, and I PANICKED. I was like, are they REALLY sending Lena away when we have LESS THAN SIX HOURS LEFT TOGETHER. The bad news is, it does seem like they’re sending Lena away for a little while, but the GOOD news is, this season is supposed to be 20 episodes, so we have more time together than I thought. I’m crossing all the fingers on my Irish side that one of those episodes is very Lena-centric and we get to SEE her do all this learning-about-her-mom stuff. Maybe find a magic medallion of her own.

Alex is getting ready for dinner with her sister when she realizes Kara is just staring at a blank screen, unable to write about the Phantoms for Andrea. When Alex sidles up next to her, Kara starts talking about what it was like for her in the Phantom zone. The cold, the fear. The hopelessness.

The ONLY time I am even remotely okay with considering what life will be like without Supergirl in it is imagining the amazing projects that will be lucky enough to have Melissa bring this TALENT to them.

Alex says she really doesn’t need to talk about it if she doesn’t want to, but Kara does want to. Avoiding thinking about it is what lead her to freezing up when confronted with it while they were fighting Oscar. To start to heal, she has to deal. And the loneliness was part of the torment, so whatever she can do to feel less alone, the faster she’ll start to recover. And knowing what we know now, it’s hard not to draw parallels here. She says that she was so glad to get out of that terrible situation that she almost forgot to process what she had been through. To acknowledge how afraid she had been for so long. And my heart breaks not only for Kara, but for Melissa, who knows all too well how that must feel.

So Alex pulls her baby sister into a hug. Kara asks what happens if that fear never goes away, and Alex admits that she’s been feeling pretty scared too. That she got to a really dark place when Kara was gone, when they had no solid plan for getting her back. And sometimes Kara’s safety still feels so fragile, but they have each other, and they have to work through their fears to get over them. Or at the very least, learn to live with them.

The Danvers Sisters are very important to me dot blogspot dot biz.

So they agree to heal together, and that gives Kara an idea. She takes inspiration from one of Iris West-Allen’s famous Central City articles and decides to take a similar spin on her Phantom article. Because coming together is exactly what the city needs after being ravaged by nightmares.

Alex is so proud that she is taking this horrible thing that happened to her and turning it into something good. And whether or not Kara realizes it yet, but that’s a great way for people like her to heal. Just like she takes on the weight of everyone else’s pain and problems, she can take on their joy and their healing, too.

These two are MY yellow sun.

The sisters eat dinner together like old times, and for one blessed moment, everything feels right in the world.

But then somewhere across town, Nia wakes up from a dream and only needs to say one word before we’re reminded of the hitchhiker the Zor-Els took back from the Phantom Zone with them: Nyxly.

Next week, Kelly returns! See you then!

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