Goodday and welcome to this recap of Supergirl season 6, episode 18, “Truth or Consequences” aka the one that was entirely too much about Lex Luthor.

We drop into this episode without a previously on, with a reporter telling the Superfriends about Lex’s plans for a Lexosuit army. Nia, cleverly, says the fact that they got this info could be a trap in itself, but Lena says they can just track the Lexosuits and it’ll be fine. Besides, she has important news: she used her rich girl connections to book a VIP suite for Alex and Kelly’s bachelorette party…but it has to be tonight.

I want to know the *exact* nature of Lena’s relationship to this suite-having friend.

Alex feels like it’s short notice, and they JUST learned more about the threat at hand, but Kara reassures her that if she’s waiting for everything to be perfectly good and safe, she’s going to be waiting forever. You have to mine your own joy, however and whenever you can. So after an adorable chant of “do it” from the Superfriends, Alex gleefully agrees.

The reverie is interrupted when Alex’s phone dings because she’s a mom now so her phone is always on a too-loud setting. The message is from Kelly; Esme had a tough day at school so she’s going to go help with mom duties.

This is neither here nor there but I own this outfit with a slightly cooler-toned plaid and I am here for this representation.

After she leaves, the rest of the team gets a news alert so they turn on the TV. Turns out Andrea took Lex’s journals and published them under someone else’s byline, which is a reporting no-no.

Up in the glam rock spaceship, Nyxly is watching the news, too, and she’s grumpy that they called her a psychopath even though they don’t even know her. And I do love that Nyxly doesn’t ever quite react the way a “typical” villain would. She’s not angry, her ego isn’t hurt, she’s just genuinely confused why and how they came to that conclusion. But anyway she can’t be bothered with all that right now, she needs to find the truth totem.

Back at the Tower, Brainy tells the team that he talked to the Legion in the future. He’s pretty somber as he tells them that in the future, Nyxly and Lex are a power couple, Which everyone is grossed out by, especially Lena, who can’t imagine him caring about anyone besides himself.

I need someone to make me a line graph to see if Lena’s buttons are inversely proportional to her hair. Because I feel like we might have a buttons up/hair down, buttons down, hair up trend on our hands.

Brainy goes on to say that in the future, they did complete the AllStone but something happened and Nyxly died, so they figure that’s why Lex is back.

Just then, Lena gets a ping that her algorithms have tracked the Lexosuits, so Team Alien goes to the glam rock space ship to get the totems back. Brainy gets his hands on one, and Nyxly yeets them through a dream portal, but Nia makes one of her own and gets them back to the Tower safely, Hope Totem in hand.

Since this is the totem they originally threw into the sun, they realize now that totems can’t be destroyed, which means the Love Totem is still out there somewhere, too.

“All of us are in the same episode for once, surely nothing will go wrong today!”

Brainy sulks off, suggesting perhaps he learned more about the future then he’s letting on, but that’s a problem for later.

Back at Casa Dansen, Alex and Kelly are cleaning Esme off after she accidentally used rage powers on a bully who made fun of the treat she plans on making for a baking competition? Unclear on what exactly this is for because Esme is in the age range of kids I taught for a while and typically we don’t expect children who aren’t tall enough to see the top of the stove to know how to cook. But anyway, as Alex and Kelly are cleaning Esme off, they notice the flower tattoo on her back that wasn’t there the last time they bathed her, and wonder what it means.

Once Esme’s adoption is final can I be next?

Meanwhile, Brainy finds out from another Brianiac that he has to return to the 31st century and merge with the Big Brain to save the future of his alien race. Brainy is upset; he has a family, he is in love. He doesn’t want to abandon the Superfriends, or Nia. He wants to find another way. And since apparently they can’t just wait 60 years and then have Brainy go to the 31st century for timey wimey reasons I don’t understand, Brainy is left feeling very, very sad.

Over in VillainVille, the crystal ball shows Nyxly where the Truth Totem is, so she heads to a vault and picks up an old timey camera. She says the magic word, and Sir Totem the Great asks her to reveal her inner truths. She starts by just rattling off the easy things; her goals, her plans, her surface level feelings.

Did I miss them say whose camera this is? I tend to zone out when Lex is on screen but if this was culturally significant, I missed it.

When that’s not enough, she also admits she’s afraid of possessing the bad parts of her father, and also that part of her still wants his approval. Which honestly I think is so interesting and relatable and could have been explored further but instead she also says she doesn’t want to be alone and wants to get past her trust issues. The Gauntlet Giver tells her she did great, and the Truth Totem will now act as a lie detector for her. She promptly uses it on Lex, and learns that not only does he really love her, but also he has no plans to betray her.

Alex and Kelly take Esme to the Tower, and Esme is so happy to see Aunt Kara, it’s very cute. They tell her about Esme’s powers going wackadoodle and that they’re going to run some tests to make sure she’s okay.

My mom used to leave my Wishbear or American Girl doll in the car when we went inside places that weren’t home so I appreciate Esme’s moms letting her keep Lovey with her all the time.

Kara tries to be supportive of Alex, and she has an idea to maybe make Esme little lead-lined glasses to help keep her powers at bay so she can fit in at school. This advice INFURIATES Alex, who says Esme has had her powers dampened enough in her little life and she won’t ask her to hide who she is. She just has to understand her powers, not stifle them.

“Not all of us are comfortable in our closets, sister mine.”

Kara thinks perhaps Alex misunderstood her; she’s just offering a solution that she found useful, as an alien herself, an experience Alex couldn’t possibly understand. But Alex doesn’t want parenting advice from Kara, so she storms off. And I wish we had seen more one-on-one conversations between Kara and Alex about Alex becoming a mother in the past few episodes, maybe Alex asking Kara what she herself did that helped Kara feel more welcome when she was first adopted that maybe she didn’t realize was so impactful. Because I think then it would have been even more clear that this is Alex lashing out in that way siblings (or even close friends) sometimes do when their emotions are running high and they know they can react first and apologize later. On one hand it’s sort of nice we didn’t need it…we know Alex Danvers well enough to know that she’s lashing out at Kara because a) it’s a safe person to let her yucky feelings out on because a sister’s capacity for forgiveness is a deep well, and b) that it stems from Alex’s insecurities about being a mother to an alien baby, and about how she and her sister both had to keep secrets about themselves that ate away at them a little. But on the other hand if we spent less time with Lex and more time with the Danvers sisters, we’d all be better for it.

If we don’t get one more Danvers sisters couch scene before the end of the series, I will riot.

On the other side of the Tower, Nia is trying to use the Dream Totem to find Nyxly, but has a vision about Brainy instead. She storms off to find her boyfriend and demands to know why he’s going back to the future and, more importantly, why he didn’t tell her. He promises he was going to tell her soon, that he only just found out himself, so Nia declares that she wants to go with him.

“You know Alex’s ears turn red when someone mentions Sara Lance but I will ask for her number and find you in the future myself!

Unfortunately, that’s not how time and space work, so instead they just have to be sad together. And one idea I had after this conversation, not a new idea by any means, is that once Nia’s journey with the Superfriends is over, perhaps she can become a part-time Legend. That way she’ll live outside of space and time, and she can both continue her life as Nia Nal and continue Dreamer’s legacy, but also be able to visit Brainy. And then we’d get to see her on Legends of Tomorrow now and then. Free idea, CWDCTV!

Contemplating her life and her choices at CatCo, Andrea decides to call the smartest person she knows: Lena Luthor.

I swear Lena Luthor is the only one putting in WORK at the Tower.

As if it’s a former-almost-villain support group, Lena encourages her not to fall back into bad behaviors, even though she does think it’s kind of great that Lex’s stupid journals are public now.

I can’t believe we’ve had an excuse for Katie McGarth to speak directly to camera all along and this is the first time we’ve utilized it.

Lena tells Andrea not to betray her friends, and tells her to think about why she did what she did, what path she’s on, and if it’s a path to the person she wants to be. And if the answer is no…change it. After all, Lena did.

Andrea’s hair looks amazing in this episode. For the record.

After flying around the entire Earth a few times, casually, Kara still can’t find the glam rock spaceship, and she’s about to go for another spin when J’onn catches on and asks what exactly she’s avoiding. Kara tells J’onn about the fight she had with Alex, and how she doesn’t understand why Alex didn’t want her advice as someone who has been an alien child on Earth. She does feel bad about overstepping, but in a moment that was VERY TRIGGERING for me as a Sweet Marley Rose stan, J’onn doesn’t tell her that she didn’t do anything wrong! He just tells her to clear the air with Alex!! When frankly I don’t think Kara did anything wrong at all! Alex could have said “Cool I’ll talk about it with Kelly and Esme” and walked away instead of snapping! If she had told me about that fight, I would have said, “She’s probably feeling very sensitive as a new mom and wasn’t ready for unsolicited advice yet, or the reminder that she won’t ever fully be able to understand exactly what Esme is going through; your heart was in the right place and she’ll realize that eventually.”

It’s not your fault we lost Sectionals, either.

Downstairs, Esme is playing hide and seek with Mama Kelly when a CatCo reporter shows up and reminds us that no one has taught Esme about stranger danger yet. That will be important later.

Kara takes J’onn’s advice and goes to see her sister, who is doing science in the lab, trying to figure out what’s going on with Esme.

Can I nominate a frame of a TV show for an award? Any award. I’d like to submit this.

Alex still hasn’t gotten the results of Esme’s blood test back so she wants to cancel the bachelorette party tonight, but before she can, she gets a message that there’s a new alien student in Esme’s class whose powers are tantrum-esque in nature. So Alex rushes off to get Esme to her baking competition, leaving Kara still feeling very weird about where things stand with her sister.

Luckily, Lena is there to save the day yet again by giving Kara a task. She uses Lena’s intel to fly up to the glam rock spaceship, but it’s a trap, and Lex immediately shoots her Lenasuit with nanobots, ruining it. She fights Lex and Nyxly and eventually manages to put Nyxly in enough danger to get Lex and her to leave, and she grabs the Truth Totem before J’onn gets them to safety.

So now the Superfriends officially have five totems.

Lena, Alex, Kelly, and Esme come to the tower, excited that Esme won her baking competition.

Everyone being so genuinely sweet with/about Esme is a light in my life.

They leave Esme with the reporter and get ready to head to the party; but first, Kara wants to talk to Alex. Kara apologizes for overstepping, but Alex admits her reaction might have been disproportionate to the advice given. The thing is, even though Kara was coming from a place of giving Esme respite from the overwhelm powers can cause, all Alex could hear was the suggestion Esme hide part of herself to fit in.

It’s okay Alex, I also act irrationally* when people give me unsolicited advice or negative opinions about the thing I just said I loved. *aka I mute them

Alex might not be an alien, but there were times she felt like one, because she was trying so hard not to directly look at an entire part of herself for so long. She explains to her sister that it sounded, to her, a little too much like “staying in the closet is better” and that’s why she lashed out. Kara understands now, and reassures Alex that she’s a great mom, and Alex reassures Kara that she’s a great sister, and they hug it out.

The relief they both had in this hug was palpable.

They head to the bachelorette party, where all of the Superfriends are dressed to the nines in their exclusive suite. They toast to the couple, and Alex and Kelly dance.

I’m sorry these are blurry but there was so much wiggling! And it was all too cute to not include at all.

Inexplicably, when they go to the dance floor, Lena…leers? after them? I don’t even know what word you would use to explain what Lena is doing, and maybe I’m projecting, because try as I might I cannot separate my SuperCorp feelings from the reality of this television program, but it almost looks like longing.

At this point I’ve stopped asking for heterosexual explanations from one Lena Kieran Luthor-Walsh.

Brainy, however, has the opposite reaction,and runs off with tears in his eyes, Nia following close behind.

Kara, however, decides to dance with her sisters, and after some coaxing from J’onn encouraging her to take the night off, Kara soon follows.

Kara, your Benoist is showing.

When Nia catches up to Brainy, he admits he can’t shake the sadness that will come with his inevitable goodbye. Seeing everyone so happy feels bittersweet to him. But Nia encourages him to not waste the moments they do have by thinking about the moments they won’t. Stay in the now, celebrate your friends, enjoy it while you can. Don’t let the inevitable end keep you from enjoying the middle. Which I think is good advice for all of us, even if we’re not about to time travel, ya know?

Nia Nal deserves a happy ending.

Brainy had been starting to regret turning off his emotion inhibitors, but he’s now feeling grateful that he’s able to feel this pain, because it means he’s also able to feel the warmth of the love he feels for his family.

And so, with that, Nia and Brainy join the dancing. Just three couples enjoying a jig while their Space Dad looks on.

I love them, your honor.

At the Tower, Esme’s babysitter notices that the security system has been breached so he has her hide like she was earlier. Lex and Nyxly appear and they split up; Nyxly to find Esme, who they now know is the Love Totem, and Lex to deal with the reporter, who he calls Paperboy, which I quite enjoyed.

Nyxly finds Esme and aforementioned lack of stranger danger comes into play, because Nyxly says she’s a friend of her moms’, and Esme just believes her. My mom instilled such a fear of strangers in me that sometimes I would second-guess my best friend’s mom when she tried to pick me up on a day I wasn’t informed she was driving me home. But sweet little Esme, possibly imbued with Nyxly’s imp energy because of her powers so hopefully able to defend herself, somewhat reluctantly goes with the pretty lady.

I can’t wait for Esme to save the day.

Meanwhile, Lex shoots Paperboy, whose ego has caused him to set up his phone to record a video instead of to call one of the Superfriends. Now, I don’t have an iPhone, but on my Android, it takes three taps to open my camera, switch to video, and hit record. Possibly two taps if the last thing I did with my camera app was also make a video. Presuming this man has his “phone” app on his home screen (I surely do not; the only person I call is my dad), that’s also three taps. I can call my most recently texted people in four taps. All I’m saying is, if he wasn’t as committed to “the story” as I am to “the bit” he could have called for help instead of recording what happens next.

Especially because he had to know what was about to happen. After revealing that Lex used his sister’s intellect against, and other too-convenient, demoralizing supervillain stuff, Lex shoots Paperboy twice in the chest.

At the party, Alex and Kelly are being cute and taking a selfie when Alex gets another alert on her phone.

“I need a woman who’ll take a chance on a love that burns hot enough to last.”

Esme’s blood test results are finally in, which Lex had somehow purposefully delayed.

It reveals that Esme has fifth dimensional energy in her, and then they put together that Esme’s new marking looks a lot like the Love Totem. They all rush back to the Tower to save their little girl.

With his dying breath, once again instead of just yelling “Supergirl!” the way the literal child knew how to do, he uses voice commands to send his own snuff movie to Andrea, traumatizing her for life.

The Superfriends fly back to the Tower, but they’re too late. There’s no sign of Lex, Nyxly, or Esme, and the reporter/babysitter is definitively dead.

And on one hand, the fact that they spent the back half of this season shoehorning Paperboy into a one-on-one conversation with almost all of the Superfriends just to fake a bond so that his loss would be impactful to everyone is a move that is usually reserved for women. The particular refrigerator he’s in is actually quite spacious. However, I happened to notice that they made a point to remind us that Paperboy was a man of color earlier in this very episode. Also it is not lost on me that the white cis straight man who was supposed to die but somehow did not is the one who killed him. Lex was already evil incarnate, there was no need for him to cross this particular line, except that in the video he says that the reason he is killing this reporter was because he leaked his journals, which we know was actually Andrea, the receiver of said video. So even though the reporter is the one who died, Andrea will feel guilty for stealing a byline and blame herself for the shooting, Kara will feel guilty for taking a night off, Nia will feel guilty for not seeing this coming, Alex and Kelly will feel guilty for leaving Esme behind. So the question is, who was really the victim in this episode? Because I think it wasn’t only the man who was shot. A man who has done nothing but feel entitled to the Superfriends’ lives and be rude to his (female) boss all season.

I hope the Shadow joins forces with the Superfriends for the big boss battle.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m being too hard on Paperboy, but then I remember how much I love Brainy and how much I understand J’onn’s purpose and actions and I know it’s not just my misandry. He’s an anomaly in this show, especially the back half of this season, and while I appreciate how they pivoted away from him being a love interest for Kara, I never found myself particularly endeared to his character. I won’t lie, between Landon on Legacies and Lex on this very show, I have little faith that he’ll stay dead, but in the meantime, I’m not excited to see our Superfam in mourning, and now the series finale of this show called Supergirl, including the episode that is called Kara, is still somehow going to be all about this man., when they should be enjoying a gay wedding instead.

That said, as frustrated as I’ve been with this show from time to time, there’s still so much about it I love, specifically the women at the core of it, and so when the preview for next week’s two-hour event said “series finale” it felt a bit like a punch to the gut. I’ll get into the nostalgia of it all next week, but this show has been an important part of my life for the past six years and will probably honestly always be something I list as one of my favorite shows.

All I can hope for is a slew of happy endings. I’m too jaded to legitimately hope for Supercorp endgame, but I can hope for it to stay open-ended. I hope for Nia and Brainy to find a way to make it work. I hope for Alex and Kelly to live happily ever after with Esme. I hope for Kara to realize how very loved she is, and how much good she’s done for the planet during her relatively short stint on it. I hope.

See you next week, Superfriends! One last time.

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