Helloooooo, Superfriends! It has been a minute! Though honestly, not nearly as long as it’s felt, since time is broken. I was skimming my Supergirl recap for the Season Five finale before diving into this episode to refresh my memory of where we left off and I read a caption I wrote that said, “Or maybe she misses being fucking hugged,” and I was like “yikes that was aggressive wasn’t this episode before quarantine,” and no, no it was not. It was three months into quarantine, which is why I wanted someone to hug Lena so desperately.

Anyway, here we are, back again, for one final season of Supergirl. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Previously on Supergirl, Brainy’s alter egos convinced him that the only way to defeat Leviathan was to isolate himself from his friends and work with Lex so that’s exactly what he did, Lex worked with Leviathan to take over the VR system Obsidian North and brainwash people, Lena and Kara fought about Lena’s Non Nocere procedure which was technically also brainwashing but with better intentions, and eventually Lena and Kara decided to work together to stop Lex.

Last we left Brainy he was trapped in the Leviathan HQ with poison air, and so still he lay dying. But Nia had a dream about him, so she arrives to help him.

I felt this can’t-get-to-the-person-I-love-because-poison-air moment on a deep emotional level.

While Nia tries to find a way through the glass door into where he is, Brainy tries to say his goodbyes, explain why he was working with Lex, apologize for pushing her away. He even tells her he loves her. But Nia isn’t giving up that easily and astral projects into the room to try to find a way to help him.

Gemma the Leviathan God of Technology bursts in the room to fight them, but the Superfriends show up hot on her heels. They try to fight Gemma but since she’s made of nanobots, they can’t just punch her to death. Brainy and Alex use their supersmarts (and Alex’s magic glove) to find a way for Supergirl to put the anti-life code into the Leviathan computer, and Alex braves the poison air as long as she can to get the code to her sister.

“Ah ha! It’s the very conveniently specific thing Alex somehow knew to conjure to save the day!”

Gemma goes down, and we can only hope it sticks this time.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Lex Luthor, who is revived by his mother Lillian and feeling stronger than ever. He has super strength, a super ego, and a super watch that can beam kryptonite lasers because of course he does. He says that aliens shouldn’t be earth’s saviors, that Luthors should, and thus he’s going to kill Supergirl and all her friends. Then, when he’s done with this earth, his plan is to fix the rest of the planets as if he didn’t have a front row seat to the last time someone tried to do that and it ended in CRISIS.

Lex tells his mother about the stupidly named “I love Lexi” code he put into as many people logged into Obsidian North as he could before it shut down, and he has satellites in place to kill everyone he didn’t infect. Lillian asks what about her and his sister, and he says there’s a Lillian Exception in the code, but that Lena is technically Team Super now so she’s on the hit list. Lillian and I both do not like that plan at all.

It always worries me when I agree with Lillian about something…

Lex’s argument is that Lena killed him first, to which I say, but did you DIE? But Lillian puts her foot down about this. Lena is safe or she’s out of here.

Speaking of Lena, she’s looking all businessy in the Tower, pressing the Supergirl button to get Kara to return to her. Supergirl does indeed show up with the rest of the team in tow, and Lena and Kelly fill them in on what they missed. For example, Eve and her mom are ready to go on record about what Lex did and who he really is.

The return of Dansen!

Lena tells them about how Lex stole her codes for Non Nocere and rewired it to his own whims, and using stories Eve told them about an exploding mouse and her big beautiful brain, she has figured out Lex’s evil plot to kill everyone who is not blindly loyal to him.

“Hey isn’t it nice to have the smartest person in National City on your side?”

As soon as Lena mentions the satellites, Nia gets a vision about Lex being some kind of awful anti-monitor/genie Jafar hybrid and destroying all the worlds. The problem they have now is that there are twelve satellites and they’d have to disarm them all at once and, as Kara points out, “Only four of us can fly.” Which I think is selling themselves a little short. I think maybe saying, “And there aren’t enough of us,” would have sufficed; four is a pretty high number of people who can fly in any given friend group. Even on a CW sci-fi show.

M’gann comes up with the idea for her and J’onn to do a Martian mind meld with the satellites to stop them all at once, and that seems as good an idea as they’ve got so Kara agrees to it.

Kara also asks Lena if she can reverse the Non Nocere code and un-brainwash the people Lex targeted, and Lena looks genuinely surprised. It makes you wonder how long she paced back and forth across the Tower floor wondering if this would be the last time she saw Kara before pressing that Supergirl button based on the shock on Lena’s face when she asks Kara if she’s sure that she can trust Lena, even after everything.

Kara doesn’t hesitate to reassure Lena. Obviously, as it has been established, she didn’t agree with Lena’s methods, but when it came down to it, Lena wanted to help people, and when push came to shove, she came to Kara for help. “I know what’s in your heart,” is literally what Kara Danvers said out loud to Lena Luthor in this moment.

THIS is the Supergirl I know and love. The forgiving and trusting woman who follows her heart.

Kelly will go to Obsidian to get the code Lena will need to undo I Love Lexi while Alex and Dreamer go to fetch a bottle of planet fragments that will be to Lex as Kryptonite is to Kara for Brainy to turn into a weapon.

Meanwhile, Kara will go to the Fortress of Solitude to get Myriad and maybe some more weaponry for this battle. They’re worried about Lex tracking Kara but she’s ready to be a distraction. She’s willing to risk her life if it means saving half the population of the world. It’s not even a question.

“I would prefer it if you would die approximately 200x less than you have in the past when trying to save the world? Thanks.”

And so Kara holograms in to talk to Lex, wears a truth seeker and tells him she wants to meet up. He calls her the “Maid of Might” which made me irrationally furious considering it’s not like “Man of Steel” is alliterative so there was no need to not call her a “Woman of Might” except for the patriarchy. But anyway, he agrees to meet her at the fortress and is so confident that he’s winning this war he started. He calls himself a god and prepares his wings of feather and wax.

After (easily) getting the code Lena needs at Obsidian North, Kelly is on her way out when she sees Andrea sobbing in a stairwell. Andrea says her father blames her for everything that happened and essentially disowned her, that Obsidian North and Catco are both going to be bankrupt by morning.

“It’s just, SYFY promised them a fifth season and now we might not get it.” :sniffles:

Kelly and her kind eyes tell Andrea that even though her father funded it, Andrea is the one who built Obsidian North from the ground up, all while running a multi-media organization that somehow still succeeds in print journalism. She calls Andrea brilliant, and says her father is a selfish narcissist. The only mistake Andrea made was doing this all for her father instead of for herself.

If Kelly is going to start therapizing everyone in her immediate circle, she’s really got her work cut out for her.

Back at the tower, Alex asks Space Dad why he looks so tense. He admits that he’s nervous about this mind meld, because it will mean M’gann will learn things he would have never shared with her, and he’s also worried that his subconscious fears about what she’ll find in his mind will risk the mission. But Alex has gotten enough pep talks from J’onn to return the favor; she tells him that he and M’gann have been through so much together, that he has to trust that she won’t hold anything in his mind or his past against him without having a conversation first. And who knows, maybe it will make them closer in the end.

“In the queer community we have this thing called ‘trauma bonding’ and it’s how we relate to one another.”

Elsewhere in this confusingly-sized Tower, Brainy apologizes to Nia again, and Nia admits that she’s still hurt. She understands why he did it, but she wishes he had let her help him save the world instead of pushing her away. Or at least let her in on what he was doing instead of making her feel like he hated her. Brainy knows she’s right, and gives Nia his Legion ring as an interim apology while he figures out how to make it up to her.

HELP SHE’S TOO CUTE I CAN’T TAKE IT

Later, Andrea sees on the news that her father publicly rebuked her, so she decides to take Kelly’s advice and be her own woman (though I doubt this is exactly what Kelly had in mind.) Andrea puts on her shadow necklace and bamfs away into the night.

Kara leads Alex and Lena to the Fortress, sending Alex off to the armory to find something they can use with the Anti-Lex substance once they find it. Lena has an idea for how to slow Lex down, but doesn’t want Kara to meet up with him. She thinks it’s a suicide mission, and won’t let Kara die like this. “I can’t,” she adds. Canonically.

Next page: Lena Luthor finally gets hugged. 

Kara thinks this is the only way, going face to face with Lex to distract him while the Martians stop the satellites, and she thinks it will be worth it. Lena reminds her what Kara already knows, that Lex will play dirty, that he’ll get mean. Kara is ready though. Kara starts to get Lena set up with Myriad and Lena starts to thank her again for the trust she hasn’t felt she’s earned.

“Forgiveness. Can you imagine?”

And Kara says, and I quote, “You’re the only person in the galaxy I know would do right by it.” IN THE GALAXY. You can’t call me delusional when it’s all right there on the page.

And the little “c’mon” Kara gives her after this is perfect.

Meanwhile, Andrea goes shadow hopping to Buenos Aires to use her father’s money to buy stock in Catco to save it (I think? I barely know how the Animal Crossing Stalk Market works, but either way she saves it) and then disappears back into the night.

Once Alex and Lena are all set up with what they need, Alex tells Kara she’s going to borrow a portal watch and Kara says it’s fine as long as she returns it, and they have an adorable little moment of sister banter re: Alex stealing Kara’s t-shirts in high school.

Love this sisterly moment, so great to see them laughing, hope it doesn’t mean we’re about to endure an unbearable pain!

As their laughter fades, Alex tells Kara she’s glad to see her and Lena made up and Kara admits there’s still some mending to do but she agrees, it’s nice to have her second favorite scientist back. Alex and Kara exchange, “I love yous” trying to trust they won’t be the last and when Lena rejoins them I can’t help but agree with Alex that it’s nice they can all three be together without the tension and distrust.

After Alex and Lena leave, Kara sets up a crystal and starts to make what almost seems like a knowledge will, just in case Lena is right and this does end up being a suicide mission. And for all the times this show has wronged me, that scene right before it was a reminder of how good it can be, and so Kara starting a legacy download — just like her mother once left for her — made me emotional.

Lena takes Myriad to her lab, where Brainy is looking at the Non Nocere code and talking about how fucking terrifying it is and Lena is like, “Yeah, my bad on that one, actually.”

“I know, I know, I’m so smart it even scares ME sometimes.”

And Brainy looks at her with a mix of awe and fear, which feels like a healthy combination of feelings for him to have toward her. Brainy promises he didn’t know Lex’s plan and really thought he could stop him before he did any real harm, but then Brainy was so afraid of becoming a villain himself that he lost track of the plan. He wanted to save the world but is afraid he made things worse. And no one in National City can understand that feeling better than Lena Kieran Luther.

The fact that Kara forgiving her is allowing her to start to forgive herself fills my heart right up.

And she tells him so. She sees what he was willing to sacrifice, and that she finally sees now that in her confidence that she had all the answers and she was the only one who could fix humanity, she became more like Lex than she’d care to admit. She smiles a sad smile and says that hubris runs in the family.

Brainy asks what they do now that they’ve crossed these lines and Lena says the only thing they can do is try to cope. Make up for the mistakes they made, and appreciate that their friends are still by their side. Also, they can work together and save the world.

Speaking of said friends, Kara is about to start Volume 2 of her crystal autobiography when Lex shows up. Instead of having a civil conversation, Lex jumps right to beaming Kara in the chest with concentrated Kryptonite. She’s running out of time.

Alex and Nia find the bottle they’re looking for, but unfortunately they also find Otis and Lillian guarding it.

Blue is the badassest color.

Luckily they are badasses and make quick work of Lex’s lackeys before using the portal watch to gtfo.

While that’s happening, M’gann and J’onn merge with the satellites, and push through the pain long enough to blow up all the satellites at once, meaning it’s safe for Brainy to un-brainwash people, which he does.

Alex and Nia bring Lena the bottle, and she immediately starts working on making its contents into a weapon to kill Lex, and they hope it’s not too late for Kara.

In the Fortress of Literally-Never-Solitude-Anymore, as Kara crumples to the floor, Lex wonders why she isn’t giving him one of her classic speeches. He hisses at Kara about her and her team manipulating people, bending people to their agenda, and it seems he truly does not see the irony through his ire. Instead of using the example of the millions of people he literally brainwashed, Kara’s mind goes first to Lena and how he pitted Lena against Supergirl, against Kara.

Kara points out the irony he so obtusely missed, especially since he now has literal alien DNA in his veins. He’s not here to look inward though, so instead he pumps more kryptonite into her until she seems to stop breathing and he’s satisfied that she’s dead. As soon as he leaves the room, however, the control panel flashes that the Lena Luthor Protocol has been enacted; a little drone of sunlight flies in and a patented Lena-designed supersuit covers Kara’s body.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…”

Lex is having a Risky Business/Home Alone party with his new toys in the Fortress’s armory, ready to tear it all down from the inside, when suddenly Team Super shows up.

“Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

He’s confused; he was sure he bested her this time, but Kara says that he was so predictable that Lena was able to prepare for his every move.

Kara says, “Welcome to mortality, Lex” and Dreamer tries to shoot the Lexonite at him but her gun jams and he starts to fight back. Lex is powerful, knocking people over like it’s nothing, shattering Kara’s supersuit, and Lex takes this as a gift, to be able to take out most of the team at once instead of having to hunt them down one by one. But one thing he didn’t count on was that they are stronger together and Kara gets Alex the crystal, and she calls forth a new Lexonite gun with her magic glove.

Alex is ready for a bank heist.

Lex shoots a weird weapon he found at the same time Alex shoots her gun and the beams collide, leaving Lex mortal, but also yeeting Kara into the Phantom Zone.

Unfortunately whatever Lex used to open the portal to the Phantom Zone is broken so they can’t reverse the yeeting, and even though Lena offers to open a portal there herself like she’s done before, Brainy points out that they would need Kara’s coordinates for that.

Dreamer finds the Legacy Download but Alex gives that a hearty “abso-fucking-lutely not” because Kara is not dead. They will find her. She will bring her baby sister home if it’s the last thing she does.

Lex may be immortal but he is still an imbecile and won’t admit defeat. He threatens to reveal Kara’s identity if they lock him up, which might not matter for Kara anymore, but could mean trouble for Mama Danvers or Kelly Olsen.

And then Lena punches him square in the face.

She immediately looks apologetic, but not at or for her brother. No, the only guilt she feels is that maybe Alex wanted to take that swing and Lena stepped on her moment. But Alex is perfectly fine with this. “Family first,” she jokes.

“That was hot.”

After they take Lex away to be arrested, Lena looks to Alex in surprise and asks if Kelly really doesn’t know Kara is Supergirl. Which is fair because it’s a question we’ve also all been asking. (I was so sure she knew.) And maybe something she should have been told before Lena and Kelly spent some period of time alone in the Tower together. But Alex shakes her head no and looks like she’s going to defend her decision but instead Lena HUGS ALEX. Throws her arms right around her!

:slaps my own wrist: NO, Valerie! No shipping AgentCorp when you already ship SuperCorp and Dansen! Bad lesbian! Down girl!

I love how Lena looks like even she was surprised by this hug.

Lena has come so far and grown so much and I love her to pieces and I’m so, so, so glad she’s back on Team Super where she belongs.

The next morning, Andrea tells her staff that even though Obsidian North folded, by some miracle that had nothing to do with anyone who can hop between shadows like a 6th level monk in D&D, Catco is safe and will continue to grow and thrive, especially now that it has her undivided attention.

Andrea asks after Kara and Nia tells her that she’s off with Cat Grant on a story. William is butthurt that Kara left National City without saying goodbye, but Nia and I literally could not care less about his feelings.

Bruh you should just…give up. Maybe date Andrea instead?

Lillian visits Lex in jail and before they can hatch another dastardly plot, Lena and Myriad show up. And maybe a less trusting person would think she was abusing her powers, but I knew better.

Nia goes to talk to Brainy again and return his Legion ring. Brainy blames himself for Kara being disappeared, but Nia reassures him that they’ll get her back. Nia also tells Brainy that she still cares about him, even if it’s not logical, and that if Brainy’s willing to be open and honest with her, and not treat her like someone who has to be protected, they can start to work on their relationship again.

It is so incredibly rare for me to care about a m/f pairing but HERE WE ARE. I can’t help it, these sweet soft bbs have my heart.

He says, “You’re a woman who stops tidal waves and dreams impossible things,” and she tells him that she’s also a woman that loves him. It’s all VERY cute.

Alex is eyeballing the Legacy Download crystal when J’onn comes back to tell Alex that he and M’gann are still following leads to find someone who can maybe help them get to wherever Kara is in the phantom zone. Alex looks at her Space Dad and says she needs her sister, and he tells her of a woman he once knew who stood guard, who protected. A woman they called Sentinel. So he gives Alex the name and symbol of this hero he once knew, adding a button to the Tower so she can be called when she’s needed, too.

Alex Danvers, The Girl Who Waited

J’onn promises they’ll get Kara back as soon as Melissa Benoist is back from maternity leave, and until then they’ll keep the city safe. Together.

Lena returns to the Tower with Myriad in tow, and fully admits right away that she used it one last time, but in a way she thinks they’ll approve of: she wiped Lex and Lillian’s mind of Supergirl’s identity. To keep everyone in Kara’s life safe. Lena understands now, truly, fully, why Kara had to lie to her for so long. But at the same time, she still wishes she was told earlier. So she turns to Alex and says that she really needs to tell Kelly the truth. Before Alex ends up in an epic lover’s quarrel like Lena and Kara did.

“She’s your person,” Lena says. And she wants Alex to have someone to lean on while she’s hurting, so she doesn’t end up isolating herself the way Lena did when she was in pain.

“Take it from me and my fortress of little boxes that has tumbled down around me.”

And, unsurprisingly, Alex agrees with the smartest woman she knows.

The episode ends with peek of Kara in the Phantom Zone, seemingly unconscious and with a bunch of Gentlemen Gremlin Putty Patrollers descending upon her.

This episode had a lot of work to do to both wrap up the last season that was forced to end prematurely because of COVID, set up a new season, maybe a span of time without Melissa (and I joked about maternity leave but it looks like Melissa is in the next episode too despite being in the Phantom Zone so maybe they just fully delayed til she was back) so it was a lot of lore dumps and neat fixes as far as overarching problems go, but on a character level, I loved it. It reminded me of everything I’ve always loved about the show; it was teamwork, it was sisterhood, it was forgiveness and trust and growth. Plus a superbattle. It focused on Kara and Alex and Lena and Nia, even a bit of Andrea, Kelly and M’gann, and I truly hope this last season continues to keep its women in the spotlight, because that’s why we’re all here.

It’s good to be back in National City with you all for one last season. Let’s have some fun! See ya next week.

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