Hello and welcome to this recap of Supergirl episode 615, “Hope for Tomorrow,” aka the one with Esme’s two mommies.

Previously on Supergirl, Nyxly went to the Netherlands because totems shmotems, Kelly and Alex saved a little girl from failure fosters, and Lena made herself right at home at the Tower.

We open on Kara flying in through Kelly’s apartment window with arms full of toys, cheerfully greeting Alex, who is painting a mural of hopes and dreams. Everyone is very excited to meet Esme. Kara is so ready to be the best Aunt ever, and help ease this little alien into life on Earth the way Mama Danvers did for her.

She’s going to be the best aunt ever and I am EMOTIONAL about it.

Alex is excited but also very panicky in that very Alex way. When Kelly comes home with Esme and leads her to her new room, Alex is so nervous that she won’t like anything, she starts rambling and saying she can change whatever she wants as Kelly and Kara watch, amused.

Classic Alex.

Alex introduces her to Kara, who tells her that she was adopted too, and gives her some stuffies to join Lovey, the zebra friend Esme already has. They introduce her to J’onn and she shakes his hand because she’s THE CUTEST.

Can *I* adopt Esme?

She goes to put Lovey on a shelf and starts to fall through a wall, but J’onn catches her. Scared, she listens quietly while Alex holds her and says that she has mimicking powers and that she’s sorry she didn’t warn her that J’onn was an alien.

I know they #struggled this episode but little things like how they get down on her level to talk to her are huge markers of them being Good with Kids.

But then Esme squeaks out a teeny apology and Kelly pulls her close too, promising she didn’t do anything wrong. A phrase that cannot be undervalued.

This is such a good hug?? I’m jealous.

Up on the glam rock spaceship, Nyxly is annoyed that CatCo is reporting that the Superfriends are the heroes and Nyxly is the villain, but Nyxly is the hero of her own story. She says there wouldn’t have to be so much fighting and chaos if the Superfriends would just leave her to her totem-fetching tasks. But she’s no stranger to someone rewriting history to benefit themselves; most notably, her own father.

Mitch gives Nyxly a bracer infused with the courage totem to pair with her power dampening cuff to give her a little bit of magic. She can now wield the power of courage…and thus, fear. So now all she needs is hope.

Next we go back at Kelly’s apartment, where I presume Alex lives now? RIP the loft? Anyway, Kelly and Alex talk about Esme and Alex feels so bad about how spooked Esme got within ten minutes of being in her new room. All Alex wants to do is protect her. Kelly understands, she feels it too, but she also feels so, so lucky to be starting a family with Alex. And they’re going to give Esme everything she’s been lacking in her life so far.

This episode did nothing for my desires to start fostering kids even though I’d be doing it alone.

Plus, they can and will help her with her powers. They’re the perfect family for a little alien girl.

At the Tower, Brainy is asking what kind of block set he should get little Esme, and Lena and Kara IN UNISON say he should get her a train set. IN UNISON. Lena says it’s because then she can go wherever she wants, and Kara says she would have said the same exact thing.

They’re so in sync it’s borderline disgusting.

Brainy tells Supergirl about Nyxly being spotted at the Hague, so she and J’onn go to stop her. She tries to freeze them with fear, but frankly they’ve seen worse, so they manage to break through. Nyxly gets away, blasting everyone with courage totem energy as she goes, but she doesn’t take the totem with her, so it’s a net positive.

Back at the Tower, Alex introduces Esme to Lena, and Esme promptly says the truest truth the way children often do and tells Lena she’s very pretty.

I feel like they don’t acknowledge how ethereally attractive Lena is enough on this show.

Alex asks Brainy for help learning more about what kind of alien Esme is, and after he rattles off a story, she declares him funny. She’s a smart one, this kid.

Meanwhile, Kara activates the Hope totem, and her gauntlet is to inspire hope that will last, which J’onn thinks he has in the bag.

When Kara gets back to the Tower, she finds Lena there reading her grimoire, trying to find a charm that will act as security around the humanity totem in case it calls into the wrong hands again. Kara updates Lena on her day and her new gauntlet and it’s just everything I wanted from this relationship. Granted, with a little less kissing, but you know what I mean. Lena fully, fully integrated into the team, Kara leaning on her, etc.

Kara is worried about what will happen if she fails the gauntlet like she did with the courage totem, but Lena feels pretty damn sure her hero Kara Danvers has a head start over Nyxly when it comes to solving a hope-based puzzle.

“And historians will call them close friends besties, roommates, colleagues, anything but lovers. History hates lovers.

When Alex comes up and asks Kara if she can help instil some hope in a frustrated little girl trying to reckon with her powers, they figure this is as good a place as any to try to start to solve the gauntlet. Lena even says, “el mayarah” to Kara as she goes.

Alex introduces Esme to Supergirl, but between Esme’s obvious genius and also her power sensing abilities, Esme immediately knows Supergirl is Kara and Kara is Supergirl.

Ah, that moment you realize maybe you’re smarter than some adults. A turning point in a young gifted kid’s life.

Alex tells her to keep it a secret and Kara begins her lesson; they figure that especially since Esme will probably be around Aunt Kara a lot, it’s a good place to start helping Esme gain control of her powers.

Kara is so good with Esme, gently coaching her through superhearing, listening to Alex’s heartbeat, and every time she starts to get a little overwhelmed, Alex just encourages her to push through it, to keep trying.

But she realizes this may be the wrong approach when Esme and Kara overhear an accident outside and Esme calls Alex horrible for making her listen to that and runs off.

Are they going to get Esme little lead-lined glasses to wear around Aunt Kara?

Up on the ship, Nyxly is starting to feel hopeless about her hope gauntlet. She knows she’s no match for the literal Paragon of Hope in this regard. So she decides to take a different route. She’s going to force Supergirl to finish the gauntlet, then take the totem; all three of them, in fact.

All she needs is a little… leverage.

Nyxly is very good at the Bisexual Perch.

In The Hague, J’onn is trying to keep the diplomats from Kaznia and Corto Maltese from declaring nuclear war on each other, but they were affected by the totem so they’re proving hard for him to keep calm. The American woman who is there for some reason, I think they said she’s the secretary of defense but I’ll be honest this totem business was side plot to me this episode, anyway she wants him to brainwash the diplomats into doing what she wants because probably that’s what they would have wanted but J’onn refuses.

Back to the important stuff. Back in the Tower, Kara tells Lena about everything that happened with Esme, and how she feels so bad.

“Do you agree with Esme though? Do you think I’m pretty?”

She’s feeling a bit… well, hopeless. If she can’t even inspire hope in one little girl, how is she going to inspire lasting hope? Lena tells her to just go steal the nukes that are stressing out the countries of Kaznia and Corto Maltese but Supergirl says she’s not allowed to get involved in big picture stuff. She’s not trying to take away free will, or single-handedly affect the course of human history on such a large scale. Just then, Kara feels Nyxly’s glee, a word and emotion that gives her chills for more than one reason.

“I suddenly had the urge to pu ton a newsboy cap….”

Lena gets back to work on using the repelling spell and says maybe Supergirl isn’t the answer for this particular gauntlet. Maybe the world needs to hear from her personal hero, Kara Danvers.

Lena had 90% of the good ideas in this episode, just saying.

Downstairs in the Tower, Kelly talks to Esme gently and kindly, telling her she knows Alex is sorry she had a hard day. Alex is watching from the window like a sad puppy as Kelly tries to comfort the scared little alien girl. Esme just keeps her sad eyes glued to the floor and tells Kelly that she should just take her back to the group home, before her powers hurt Kelly, too.

I don’t even know how to ACTORS didn’t burst into tears at this, let alone the characters.

And somehow Kelly’s entire heart doesn’t stop beating for the pain of it right then and there, and she leaves Esme to her sorrow and goes out to comfort the other devastated party.

Alex feels horrible for pushing Esme. Because the thing is, Alex was trying to parent Esme the way Jeremiah raised her. Because it was the most formative for her, even though it wasn’t the healthiest. So it’s her first instinct. But instead, she should be parenting the way Mama Danvers, The Best TV Mom Ever, raised Kara. She says Eliza was kind and understanding, and she doesn’t know how to just snap her fingers and be like that.

Kelly reminds her that Eliza wasn’t automatically perfect at parenting her adopted alien daughter; they fought all the time, too. Alex waves her hand at that, saying it was different because Kara was a teenager and Esme is a perfect little angel. But Kelly reminds her that even despite the fighting, Eliza and Kara ended up bonding just fine, and Kara thrived for her love and support through the hard times. Kelly implores Alex to cut herself some slack. To give herself some time.

“If we can’t figure out how to raise a child, literally no one should be allowed to.”

Besides, Kelly says there’s blame to share. Kelly assumed that all of Esme’s apprehensions this morning were about her powers, but that’s not all that was happening there. Yes, she’s been taught to fear her own powers; Miss Hannigan’s Group Home had her in a power dampening cuff, her last foster parents wielded her as a weapon then sent her away because of them. But it’s deeper than that. It’s not only the why, but the fact of being sent away; Esme is scared of getting close to Alex and Kelly, because she’s lost so many people already.

Alex reassures Kelly that it’s not her fault, either. They are both nervous and stressed, but they have each other.

We stan healthy queer relationships.

Kelly wishes there was a way to help Esme see the truth, to know implicitly how committed they are to taking care of her, and you can practically see the lightbulb go off in Alex’s head.

Across town, Kara takes Lena’s advice and writes an article about how J’onn is helping keep the peace with Corto Maltese (and Kaznia, but that didn’t rhyme.) But Andrea hates it. She’s been going through it and she fired her therapist friend and her ex-turned-best-friend is a Superfriend now so she seems a bit grumpy. Kara says she wants to try to give a positive perspective and give people good news for once, but Andrea says the world sucks.

“Life sucks then you die, what else do you want from me, Danvers?”

As if to prove her point, this is when Nyxly chooses to bust into CatCo and kidnap a reporter as leverage. Kara sneaks out Andrea’s window and flies back in as Supergirl, and Nyxly says if she doesn’t turn over the Hope and Humanity totems by sunset, she’ll suck the world of its courage until it happens to also lose all hope.

Nyxly makes a move that forces Supergirl to go save Andrea (who hilariously talks to Supergirl like she’s her favorite Hollywood celebrity and has no idea she’s actually the reporter she was just berating) and Nyxly uses the distraction to disappear.

Desperate, Supergirl flies around trying to instill as much last-minute hope as she can, then flies back and tries to take the hope totem, but the mysterious game show voice tells her that she failed the gauntlet.

Up in her tower, a princess Lena is doing some magic, trying to get her repellent spell to work.

“Eleka nahmen nahmen! Ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen!”

When she finishes the spell, she reaches out and the totem zaps her, making her think it worked, but when Brainy comes up behind her and lifts it himself, they realize it’s a one-zap solution and not a long-term protection spell.

Kara comes back, despondent. Losing hope. And bummed Brainy and Lena don’t really have good news for her.

“At least I don’t have bangs anymore.”

Alex and Kelly are also in the Tower, Esme still looking a bit bummed. Alex apologizes again for pushing Esme and explains that she was trying to help but she realizes now that she was hurting Esme and she didn’t mean to.

Normalize apologizing to children and admitting when you made a mistake!

They have something to show Esme, which intrigues her enough to follow Alex and Kelly to meet the Superfriends’ pet TruthSeeker. They explain that it has powers to make people tell the truth, and that Esme can borrow those powers while they tell her something very important. Esme agrees so Kelly and Alex look at her in her little eyes and promise that they will never EVER send her away. Not if her powers get bigger, not if she never wants to use her powers ever again. Nothing she can do can make them send her away. They’re her family now, and it might be hard sometimes, but they’re going to grow and learn…together.

I could think of a few people I’d like to use the TruthSeeker on.

Esme is starting to warm to them but expresses another one of her big fears: She had a family once, before all the foster placements, and bad things happened to them, and then she was alone. Once again somehow Kelly and Alex don’t burst into tears, but instead they tell Esme a secret: They’re superheroes. It’s their job to keep the bad things away, and they’re very good at it. I personally would not have been comforted by them telling me they’re in danger more often than your average moms but Esme has already been saved by Kelly once and Sentinel and Guardian once, so she feels like she can trust them.

To be fair, I do trust them, I just have known them longer than Esme has.

Kara is still feeling the hope draining from her, which maybe is part of the gauntlet, but she shakes it off and puts her hand on her hips and stands tall. She realizes that Lena’s FIRST idea is maybe the way to go; she doesn’t usually get involved in things this big, but the only reason the nukes are on the table is because of Nyxly’s interference, so stopping it will just bring things back into balance. People shouldn’t have to live in fear like this.

So Kara wants to get the hope totem and do what Nyxly asks, and J’onn is stressed but Kara trusts Lena’s spell. So Kara flies to Kaznia and gathers up all their nukes while J’onn gets the ones in Corto Maltese and it’s only right now when I decided to double-check that I was spelling that right that I realized this is also a fictional place; I guess that’s what happens when you’re steeped in the Arrowverse for almost a decade.

Kara yeets all the nukes into the sun then goes back to the hope totem, having very publicly saved two entire nations, at least. And this time she can pull it out, and the escape room voice tells her she performed admirably.

The lily means I dare you to love me.

She uses her earbud to tell Lena that she’s on her way back to her (and this isn’t me exaggerating; she didn’t tell the Tower, she didn’t tell Brainy, she just told Lena. I know it’s because she has the Totem since she’s doing magic on it but STILL.)

Supergirl finds Nyxly and goes toe-to-toe with her, and with the help of Lena’s spell, ultimately saving the kidnapped reporter and getting her hands on all three totems. Hope was more powerful than courage in the end.

The Superfriends look over their spoils; three of seven totems in their control instead of Nyxly’s. But Kara is wondering if they should switch from playing defense to playing offense. Maybe the game isn’t playing keepaway with the totems for the rest of eternity, maybe it’s taking away Nyxly’s ability to win at all. Maybe the only way to keep Nyxly from putting the Allstone puzzle together is to make sure she can never find one of the pieces.

Lena is worried; these totems possess magic that’s on an ancient archmage level and she has barely mastered a third level Glyph of Warding spell. They don’t know what will happen if they destroy one, it could affect life as they know it in untold ways.

“God she’s so smart.” – Kara’s inner monologue, probably

Brainy points out that they technically only have to destroy one piece for the puzzle to be unfinishable; the question now is which. Humanity is way too dangerous, and courage is too risky. So once again, hope is the solution. Supergirl is sure that she can replace hope if destroying the stone starts sapping it. Not just her, them. The Superfriends. As they exist now, and on into the future. It’s their best option right now.

“I will be their sunlamp in the darkness!”

Back at the Olsen-Danvers residence, Alex and Kelly tuck Esme in. They know that the TruthSeeker was just the beginning, that they’ll all work together to build trust, and talk about their feelings. Esme does have one more truth she wants to share before she says goodnight: She loves her room.

“So what’s the deal with Aunt Kara and Aunt Lena?”

When Alex and Kelly are alone again, and admit to each other that it was a rough day, Alex also confesses, tears in her eyes and her voice all wobbly, that it’s better that she ever could have imagined. And what I love about this is that it feels so…right.

So often wlw relationships on TV are only developed to a point and then writers throw up their hands like, “What do lesbians want? They’re both women so probably babies right?” when the truth is, lesbian couples want or don’t want children with a similar variety to any other couple! A wild concept, I know. Plenty of queer couples simply have no interest, so when a couple (or, more often it seems, a single lesbian) on TV suddenly wants a baby, it can feel like a move that means they didn’t know what they wanted to do with the couple anymore.

But not here. Alex helped raise Kara, and has always had a protective instinct. Wanting children someday is why she broke up with Maggie, who didn’t, and for a little while she was so determined to justify that heartbreak she was going to adopt a child alone. But when that didn’t work out, she found Kelly. And then Esme found her. It feels like the correct progression to lead a lesbian character to adopting a child and even if all the scenes in this episode were so cute my heart threatened to fully quit on me, I would support this trajectory.

They even got to smooch a teensy weensy bit this episode!

Outside, Kara puts on her Lena-made space suit and flies up to yeet the hope totem into the sun, destroying it. Nyxly can feel the stone break and knows the allstone can never be whole, but just as she’s about to give up, a present drops down from the sky like it’s from a sponsor in the Hunger Games, with a note from Nyxly’s secret admirer in hauntingly familiar sociopathic handwriting. Inside the box is a watch that turns into a Lexosuit. Nyxly smiles and I scowl.

And honestly I’m so bummed! I forgot Lex was coming back and I’m furious about it. There are only five – FIVE – more episodes left, and these last few episodes have been the best the show has been in years. It was full of teamwork and women supporting women and all kinds of good stuff, and I really don’t want the Men Who Ruined Everything to come back. We can’t even get Lena, Kelly, and Nia all in one episode, why are we adding more people! Anyway, hopefully the show proves me wrong and Lex only comes back long enough for Lena to kill him again.

Unrelated, but with Lena’s hair crimped this episode, it made me think again about the trajectory of Lena’s comfort with the Superfriends, about how over the course of the seasons she went from tight buns and pencil skirts to her hair loose and her clothes flowy…will we see the return of The Sweatshirt? We can only hope.

They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. (Screenshot from Episode 305.)

If you enjoyed this recap half as much as I enjoy creating them for you, please consider donating to our fundraiser. Getting paid to yell about lesbians on TV (and supposedly straight people acting like lesbians) is one of my life’s greatest pleasures and I’d love to keep doing it for you, which I can only do for as long as Autostraddle can afford to pay me. (Thanks, student loans!) Autostraddle’s TV Team brings such a unique perspective to the internet, discussing the representation of marginalized identities being from the point of view of those very identities, instead of by a straight cis white gatekeepy comic-loyalist bro on a mainstream website. Even when you don’t agree with us, or we don’t agree with each other, the fact that these conversations about queer characters are being had by queer people is so hugely important, and unfortunately still pretty rare. I really value this space we hold and the thoughtful, insightful, and often hilarious comments you leave, and I love learning for each other, and would be absolutely gutted if it went away. All this to say, please donate if you can, or send this link to friends and family you think might want to help. Help us be the hope totem we want to see in the world.

AAAAAAAAAAAAnyway. See you next week, when Dreamer returns to us!

Pages: 1 2See entire article on one page

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!