Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 20 - Kara

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Familiar faces return to National City to help stop Lex and Nyxly for good, as Alex and Kelly prepare to walk down the aisle. Meanwhile, Kara wonders what to do with her life now that she's left CatCo to focus on protecting the planet as Supergirl.

Influences

Marvel's Infinity War (the hunt for the Totems mirrors the search for the Infinity Stones, Nxyly now has a gauntlet to hold the totems)


Goofs

The headlines on the TV showing that Supergirl just restored humanity's hope appear seconds after it happened.

It isn't explained just why Lex's portal to the Phantom Zone closes when he says it can't be closed.


Performances

Melissa Benoist and Jeremey Jordan get a great duet together at the wedding.

Honestly, the entire ensemble nail it in the show's final hour.


Artistry

The use of music in this episode is perfect.


Super Trivia

The episode makes a blatant reference to the 1984 Supergirl movie, with Helen Slater, who played Kara Zor-El in the original film and plays Dr. Eliza Danvers in the Arrowverse, commenting that you'd think she was a Kryptonian in another life as she joins in the fight against Lex Luthor and Nyxly. 


Technobabble

Brainiac-5's Legion crown allows him to psychically communicate anything he sees and hears with as many people as necessary. However, he can only use this to share the message. He cannot use it to make them take in the message.

Lena has a spell that can enable people to hear a message with an open heart, but it doesn't last long.

Lena casts a spell to trap and unmake the garbage monster.


Dialogue Triumphs

Supergirl: I've been driven by this idea that people need to be rescued. That it was my job, my mission... to save them. I've believed it was my calling to be... Earth's hero. It's just so clear to me now. We don't need to be heroes. We need to be partners. And we need to actively empower every single person to be the hero of their own life.

Supergirl: At this moment, villains are tapping into your collective life force. They're trying to siphon your truth, hope, courage, dreams, your humanity. They're trying to vanquish your destiny. They think that you're helpless. What they don't realize is that your power is innate. It's always been within you. I know there are so many factors that can cause people to not feel their power but I'm here to remind you that none of those things hold a candle... to the power every single one of you possesses within. I thought I was supposed to save everyone. But I see now, there's only one way for this world to heal and flourish: By all of us working together as a team. When each of us contributes our unique gifts to the world with a full heart, together, we will shine. The power of one individual is enough to move mountains. If we can all tap into the deepest truths of our soul, and own our magnificence, together, we will defeat the powers of darkness. Together... we will be unstoppable. Together... we will create a better world.

Supergirl: People all over the world were inspired to empower themselves and each other. But that wasn't an all-purpose cure for the problems on this planet. Good feelings don't last forever. So we have to do the work every day. We can't let this recent victory go to waste. But if we do keep the fight up, we can accomplish the best in all of us. Not as vigilantes... but as civil servants. Not as superheroes... but as friends.

Brainiac-5: You'll be in my dreams, Nia. You've always been the girl of my dreams. I love you, Nia Nal.
Nia: I love you, too. 

(Kara tells Alex about her job offer from Cat Grant.)
Alex: Kara, that's your dream job. I mean, I'm so excited for you.
Kara: I'm not gonna take it. I'm not taking it.
Alex: Wait, wait, wait, wait. What? What? What am I missing here?
Kara: Ever since we defeated Lex and Nyxly and started the work of empowering people, I've been amazed at how you and all of our friends are flourishing. You guys are living your dreams. Somehow I feel... deflated.
Alex: Accept Cat's offer. Maybe that'll give you a sense of purpose.
Kara: Alex, I quit CatCo because my attention was split. I was never able to really do my best because I was always sneaking off to be Supergirl, and that hasn't changed. If anything, it's gonna be worse because I will have much more responsibility now.
Alex: Your responsibilities as Supergirl have changed because you're no longer shouldering that burden of protecting the planet on your own. Maybe there's a world where you can do both.
Kara: Doing both will always require me to lie about who I am and where I'm going. Who am I now? Everybody is so empowered. And I feel less powerful than ever.
Alex: Well, I wish that I could give you all the answers, but unfortunately, you are the only one that can figure this out. But I, for one, I'm not worried. Because you are amazing. And every time you've come to a crossroad you have always chosen the right path.
Kara: What would I do without you?

(Nia is looking sad. Suddenly, a familiar voice calls out from behind her.)
Brainiac-5: Excuse me, miss? You don't happen to have a plus-one to this event, do you?
(Nia turns around. Brainiac-5 is there in a suit.)
Nia: What are you doing here? What about the...
Brainiac-5: Space-time continuum? The Big Brain? Yes, yes, these are valid concerns. Logical concerns. Sprock logic. I love you, Nia. I love you more than I've ever loved anything. I've devoted my entire life to the pursuit of protecting people, but when I returned to the future, I realized that the pursuit felt hollow. The most important thing to me is devoting myself to you.
Nia: But what about the future? What if us being together does destroy the future?
Brainiac-5: That's the thing about the future. It hasn't been written yet. 

(Cat Grant has called to ask why Kara hasn't taken her job offer.)
Kara: Actually, I'm at my sister's wedding right now, and her life is just blossoming. She's fully at home with who she is, and what she stands for, and it's amazing. You can feel it. - I just feel...
Cat: Bifurcated?
Kara: Yes.
Cat: Inauthentic?
Kara: Well, yeah.
Cat: You know, it reminds me of a quote from an old English lord. "Secrecy is the badge of fraud." And he should know, by the way, because he used to feed his hunting dogs these little baby foxes for lunch. He was a monster. But nevertheless, there is no mystery here.
Kara: What do you mean?
Cat: That it doesn't take Freud to see that you have a secret and it's obstructing your life. And it's not serving you anymore, so screw it.
Kara: Not that simple, Ms. Grant. You can't understand. I don't...
Cat: Oh. You're Supergirl. La-di-da.
(Kara's jaw drops.)
Kara: You... You knew?
Cat: Please, those spectacles disguised you as much as a pair of Groucho Marx glasses, and you should have just added the bushy eyebrows and the moustache. Well, I heard your speech here, in Colombia. Well... "Supergirl's" speech. And "Supergirl" told the people that they should become empowered and that they should take care of themselves. And I'm wondering why that message doesn't apply to you?
Kara: You have a good point.
Cat: Oh, Ker-rah, I always have a point. Now, let's take a look at everything that Supergirl and Kara Danvers have accomplished separately. And then let's imagine what you could do if you became one integrated, authentic being.
Kara: I don't know if I'm ready.
Cat: Ker-rah, you need to stop making excuses, and you need to decide what your course will be. Now, there is important work to be done, and I hope you'll join me. But more than that, I hope that you will choose to become your full self, because that would really be something to see. And it would be interesting because this is boring.
Kara: (breathes deeply) Thank you, Ms. Grant. I really needed to hear that.
Cat: I believe in you, I always have. 

Lena: Hey, what's wrong?
Kara: I'm supposed to be the strongest person on earth, but I think I'm actually the weakest.
Lena: What are you talking about?
Kara: Ms. Grant... My glasses... I give speeches inspiring people to live their best lives. But she's right. I am too afraid to live my own.
Lena: No, that's not true, Kara.
Kara: It is. My entire life, I've hid behind these glasses. It's gotten in the way of every job I've ever had, everything I've ever wanted to do, every relationship, every friendship.
Lena: Maybe we did have a bit of a bumpy road.
Kara: I think hiding who I am is the reason I couldn't pass the courage Gauntlet. I created Supergirl that night because the thought of saving my sister as myself was too terrifying.
Lena: Look, you've had your entire life, people telling you who you're supposed to be and that if you didn't hide your true self then the people would get hurt. I mean, it's tough to move beyond those type of core wounds. When Lillian told me she basically programmed the magic out of me as a child, I felt devastated. But I was devastated because I realized I didn't have a chance to grow up to be the person I was supposed to be. And I think it's the same for you. For me, it was always about protecting the Luthor name. You know, I went from trying to make that name stand for something good to try to be my true mother's daughter. My life was always framed by someone else. It wasn't until Lillian told me the truth that I realized I haven't been living my own life. And finally, now I am. And it feels amazing.
Kara: I don't even know what that would feel like for me. Connecting with someone as my whole self. To not be afraid to just be who I am.
Lena: It sounds like it could be empowering.
Kara: But what if I let myself just be who I am and someone gets hurt?
Lena: You can't always be our savior, Kara. You shine your light and inspire others to shine theirs. Your words, not mine. If somebody does come, if they try to mess with this family, then we will take them on together. El mayarah.
(Kara begins sobbing.)  
Lena: Hey, hey. It's okay.
Kara: Of all the friends I have ever had, you have pushed me the most. Challenged me the most.
(Kara hugs Lena tightly. Lena begins crying too.)
Lena: You've made me a better person. Thank you. 

Cat Grant: Hello, National City. You know her as Kara Danvers. CatCo's ace reporter and new editor-in-chief. But tonight, it is my great honor to introduce to you... Supergirl.
(The camera cuts to reveal Kara. She is not wearing her glasses. She smiles wide, whole and happy.)

Dialogue Disasters

Eliza: You'd think in another life I was a Kryptonian.
Alex: Only in the movies.

Continuity

As the episode opens, the color leaching from hopeless people problem is growing worse around the world.

Lex and Nyxly have not been identified as the two titans battling in National City.

Lillian says she is dying but she's at peace with that, but first she has to tell Lena that she knew what Lena and her mother were and that she pushed Lena towards science and had talismans put in the Luthor home that would blunt her natural powers. At the time she thought she was helping Lena.

Lilian says she wants to set Lena free and that she needs to fully own her power and forget about her and Lex and live her life the way she wants to.

Kara says she was driven by the idea that people needed to be rescued but now she sees they need to be partners. She says they need to empower people to help themselves - not wait for heroes to rescue them.

J'onn suggests that causing people to feel empowered may drain the power from the AllStone fragments Lex and Nxyly are wielding.

Kara says she'll make a speech to inspire people, but Brainiac-5 says they'll need to reach every person in the world at once for that to work.

Kelly points out that many traumatized people won't be able to work through their issues to 

Lena says that Lillian is dead and that she found closure with her before she passed.

Lex and Nyxly crash into National City Terminal. J'onn says this is an ideal place to contain them while Lena works her spell with Kara and Brainy.

Andrea, Secretary Brown, Mitch and Al are among the people shown hearing Supergirl's message.

Kara's speech causes the power of her AllStone fragment to drop to 20%

The SuperFriends confront Nyxly and Lex.

Nyxly summons a dragon (613) and the garbage monster from 608.

Lex summons the Parasite (206), Red Tornado (106), Ubergirl (last seen in L308) and Metallo (212).

Mon-El shows up and shields Kara from an energy-blast. He tells her that her speech made the history books.

Winn shows up in a Legion ship and defeats the dragon.

James Olsen shows up in his Guardian armor and helps Kelly fight Metallo.

Andrea uses her shadow powers to save Lena from Lex.

Brainiac-5 and Sentinel team to stop the Red Tornado and Parasite.

Nyxly summons a swarm of owls to fight Dreamer, but Eliza Danvers destroys them with a shotgun.

Mitch shows up with an alien gun... on the side of the heroes.

Kara takes out the Ubergirl.

Lex opens a portal to the Phantom Zone - one he says he can't be closed.

Orlando leads a mob of people to confront Lex. This causes the All-Stone fragments to lose even more power.

Lex sends the phantoms into the crowd, but they are attracted to Lex and Nyxly as they are the most afraid of everyone there. They are dragged into the Phantom Zone and the portal closes.

Brainiac-5, Dreamer, Kara, Andrea, Alex, Lena, Winn, J'onn, Kelly, Jimmy, and Mon-El attend William Dey's funeral. 

Jimmy is shown to have grown a goatee.

Andrea says she's going to set up a journalism award in William's name. She is later shown having established a journalism school named in his honor.

J'onn says he got a call from the President and Secretary Brown and that they've been given permission to reimagine the DEO as they see fit, with a focus on Extra-Normal rather than Extra-Terrestrial. 

Alex and Lena are worried about the bureaucracy the DEO involved, but Kara says it's a good idea.

Lena is shown establishing a new Lena Luthor Foundation.

Alex, Supergirl and J'onn are shown with Secretary Brown at the announcement of a new DEO.

Dreamer is shown opening an LGBTQ youth center with Orlando and Kelly.

Winn promises to return for Alex and Kelly's wedding. 

Mon-El says he won't be able to make it back due to the Legion having a lot on their plates due to the Big Brain situation. In fact, he says he doesn't think he'll ever return to the past again.

Mon-El says that Kara's speech changed the future inspiring people to be their own heroes.

Brainiac-5 says he can't stay for the wedding either, but tells Nia she will be in his dreams.

Three weeks after Winn, Mon-El and Brainiac-5 return to the future, Kara is shown preparing flowers for Alex and Kelly's wedding, which is said to be tomorrow.

Kara is ready to act to save a cat stuck in National City's oldest tree which is reported on the news but the situation is under control according to the reporter on the scene almost before Kara can take off her glasses.

Cat Grant calls Kara to rant about how selfish people are and how sunscreen is destroying the coral reefs. She still mispronounces Kara's name as Care-ah rather than Car-ah. 

Cat is on a Colombia beach saving sea turtles from garbage.

Cat called Kara to tell her that she just bought CatCo back from Andrea and that she's making Kara her new editor-in-chief. She says she'll be back to National City in two weeks and they will only be working on hard news from now on.

Alex says her caterer broke her arm and they just had to get a replacement at the last minute.

Kara says she doesn't want to take the job because she has to focus on being Supergirl and she was never able to do her best work as a writer because of her split focus.

Alex suggests that maybe there is a way Kara can do both and she believes in her.

Eliza says that Alex has already proven herself a wiser mother than she ever was.

James gives Kelly an upgraded signal watch with teleportal powers so they can watch each others backs if they have to. He asks her not to tell their mom, however, because otherwise she'll want family dinners every night.

Brainiac-5 shows up for the wedding. He decides to come back because his love for Nia is more important than logic and the future isn't written yet.

Winn and Kara sing We Belong by Pat Benatar at the wedding.

J'onn gives away Alex.

Esme is the flower girl.

James gives Kelly away at the wedding. 

J'onn also officiates the wedding.

Kelly says in her vows that she knew Alex was the one after 612 because Alex just supported her and didn't try to fix her.

Kara and Esme worked together on making bird houses as gifts for the wedding.

Winn says the new DEO will be a place of peace, at least according to M'Gann and J'onn's son.

James gives Esme the camera his father gave him.

Kelly and Alex ask Lena to be Esme's godmother.

Mr. Mxyzptlk sends his regards through Winn, who says he still shows up around Legion HQ in the future. He also promises the brides one free wish, worth $40 or less.

Winn, James and Kara talk about the private room they had hidden at CatCo back when they first got started. They also make reference to the events of 118 and meeting Barry Allen before the universes merged.

Cat Grant calls Kara again asking why she hasn't signed her contract yet. Kara says she never really felt whole and has different sides to herself and the two parts don't go together.

Cat quotes an old English Lord - "Secrecy is the badge of fraud." (The lord in question is Sir John Chadwick.) She says it is clear Kara has a secret and it isn't serving her so she should get rid of it.

Cat tells Kara she knows she is Supergirl. She also tells her that her message about people needing to be their own heroes applies to her too. 

Nia catches the bouquet when Kelly tosses it.  Brainy says there is a 100% chance he will marry her.

Lena sees Kara looking depressed and asks her what is wrong. Kara says Cat has a point about her hiding behind her glasses and how she needs to give up her secret identity. She also says the reason she failed the Courage gauntlet because she was afraid of revealing herself to the world.

Lena says she is being true to herself now after her talk with Lillian and is happier and she wants to see Kara be as happy. 

Kara says Lena has challenged her the most out of all her friends. Lena thanks her, in turn, for making her a better person. 

Kara takes her glasses off and leaves them behind as Alex and Kelly leave for their honeymoon in J'onn's car.

The Super Friends are shown enjoying a game night together sometime later.

Cat Grant does an interview revealing Supergirl is Kara Danvers to the world and finally pronounces her first name correctly.


Location

Nuqui, Colombia.


Untelevised Adventures

Lillian Luthor dies off-camera.


The Bottom Line

A fitting capstone for the series. The fight with Lex and Nyxly is rushed, true. Not everything is logical, but as Brainy says, "Sprock logic." The final half hour hits all the emotional high-notes and the ending leaves you wanting more. The cruel irony is that seeing Kara trying to live her life with an open identity is a far more daring and interesting idea than anything we've seen this season. Still... if it must end, it ended well. 

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 17 - I Believe In A Thing Called Love

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

With Lex Luthor and Nyxly joining forces, the Super Friends must face their two greatest enemies together as the hunt for the Love Totem begins. Meanwhile, Alex tries to plan the perfect proposal to Kelly, but work keeps getting in the way.

Influences

Marvel's Infinity War (the hunt for the Totems mirrors the search for the Infinity Stones, Nxyly now has a gauntlet to hold the totems)

Performances

The interactions between Peta Sergeant and Jon Cryer are easily the highlight of the episode.


Artistry

The effects work is generally good.


Super Trivia

The episode title comes from a 2003 song by The Darkness.


Technobabble

The Nyxly AI is revealed to have been made from a future variant of Nyxly whom fell in love with Lex Luthor. 

Lena uses her magic to create a fake Love Totem by replicating the energy signature of the totems the Super Friends control. 

According to Lena, magic is heavily influenced by the caster's emotions so if she tries to cast a spell while angry, the magic will reflect that, assuming she is able to maintain the focus to complete the spell at all.

Brainiac-5 identifies the weapons Lex used to save Nysly as 31st century technology.

Reversing the Totem energy signatures can theoretically create a baseline for protecting against the Dream Totem.

Lena claims that the Totems are most effective when used as weapons and that while they can be used defensively, there's no way one Totem can protect against the power of two Totems used offensively. This also makes it impossible for her to create a defense based on using the Totem energy against one another. 

Despite this limit, Lena does come up with a way to protect Kara from the effects of the Humanity Totem.

Lex is able to fix Nyxly's crystal ball without magic, thanks to his studies of magic and science being melded together in the 31st century.

Lex claims that while the Totems' physical forms can be destroyed temporarily, the power inside them will flow into something else. This means that the destroyed Hope Totem was bound to be reborn, allowing him to claim the Hope Totem.

Dialogue Triumphs

(Lex is trying to convince Nyxly they are fated to be allies. Suddenly, Mitch enters the room.)
Mitch: Sorry I'm late. What is Lex Luthor doing here?
Nyxly: You're Lex Luthor, the madman who sent Supergirl to the Phantom Zone.
Lex: That was some of my best work.
Nyxly: Do you know what I really, really loathe? Men who send women to Phantom Zone!

Otis: Oh, I missed you, boss!
(Otis tries to hug Lex, who deftly ducks under his arm and keeps walking down the hall.)
Lex: Now, why couldn't Nyxly have given me that kind of reception?
Otis: So what if she rejected you? You're Lex Luthor! And your timing couldn't be better. Luthor Corp's returns are through the roof this quarter! Your mom gave me a board seat! 
(Lex freezes up. His face remains neutral but his eyes betray his shock and horror at this.)
Otis: And the way you left everything covered, I think I'm the only one who noticed you were gone. My point is, you don't need that imp.
Lex: See, the thing about that imp is she's the only thing I want. Nyxly is the love of my life.
Otis: I'm sorry, what?
Lex: I know. Me? In love? (scoffs) I've always shouldered this world alone. I've never known what it meant to have a true partner. Who could possibly match my wit, my flair, my unfiltered genius? But when I met Nyxly, I knew. She was the one. This was supposed to be so easy. Come to this time, help Nyxly get the Love Totem before the Super Friends find it, and then return to the future where my Nyxly would still be alive. I can't save her if she doesn't trust me. And she won't trust me if she doesn't even like me. And if she doesn't like me now, how will she love me in the future?
Otis: I did not understand a word of that. But if she loved you before, why don't you just do that again?
(Lex spins on Otis. Otis cringes, expecting to be hit or yelled at. Instead, Lex grins manically.) 
Lex: You big, beautiful idiot. That's exactly what I should do!

Nyxly: How did you know where I was? (sees the small drone hovering above her) What is that? Is that a surveillance drone? Are you stalking me? Creep!
Lex: I was protecting you. If I hadn't shown up when I did, you would be powerless in a prison right now.
Nyxly:You claim to be on my side. But I am no closer to finding my Totems. So get out!
Lex: Uh, this is my home.
(There is a brief pause as Nyxly realizes this.)
Nyxly: Fine!

(Otis suggests Lex brainwash Nyxly into loving him.)
Lex: Otis, my good man, forcing women into loving you is the underpinning of a toxic relationship.
Otis: But you love toxic relationships?
Lex: Not as much as I love Nyxly.

(Lex regards a tied-up Mitch.)
Lex: (mock cheerful) Hello, courier minion.

Kara: I'm not afraid to become that phantom. I've been letting Nyxly convince me that if I stoop to her level, I'd become a monster just like her. But you know what? I have something she doesn't. This team, this family. And no matter what happens, I know you all will pull me back from the edge, which is why I need your help now.
Lena: If I use my magic, I could end up hurting you.
Kara: You've been afraid to become the worst version of yourself because for so long, Lex was the only family you had. He wanted you to be a monster, and there was no one around to pull you back when you went too far. But he's not your family anymore. We are. Focus on the good. On your real family. Use that to fuel your magic... and you won't lose control. 

Nyxly: You had a clean shot at the Love Totem. And you abandoned it to save me. Why?
Lex: Did I? I must not have seen it.
Nyxly: Tell me the truth. What do you want from me?
Lex: You want the truth? The truth is I love you. I love you so much that when you... died, part of me died too. And you don't understand. I don't love anybody. In fact, I hate everyone. From a very young age, I knew I would move through this world alone, riding that solitary high-speed train towards progress and greatness all by myself. But there you were. This radiant, powerful being, vibrating with your own brilliant madness. I never thought anyone could match my ambition, my genius, but... Then I met you. In all the timelines, in all the dimensions, in all the universes, you... were the only one that could match me. But of course, you don't know any of this, 'cause you weren't there. Yet. You haven't met me yet, and I sound insane.
Nyxly: No one has ever selflessly sacrificed something for me like you did tonight. So, no, I wasn't there. But... If what you say is true and you really are here to help me succeed... Well, I don't see why we can't be friends.

Continuity

Lex explains that the AI in the suit he gave Nyxly in 615 was based on her future self and that it used the Dream Totem to manifest him in the current time.

Lex claims that, in the future, he and Nyxly became allies after she assembled the All-Stone, but the All-Stone eventually killed her because she didn't assemble it the right way. Thankfully, he was able to preserve her mind as an artificial intelligence and send her back in time to try and do it right.

Nyxly is not impressed and tells Luthor she will never work with him.

Kara works with J'onn to come up with a strategy to disarm Nyxly once they draw her out.

Nia, Lena and Kelly head to the Watchtower lab to work on the scientific aspects of their plan.

Alex just got the ring she plans to use to propose to Kelly. She wants to do it on the next evening, which is the anniversary of the night she realized she truly loved Kelly. This occurred when the Super Friends were at Al's Bar arguing about what was the best movie ever and they both said Die Hard.

Alex takes Esme with her to set things up at Al's Bar, but Al informs her that they booked the bar for a private event the next evening. Shockingly, Alex didn't think to ask Al if he did private bookings.

According to Otis, LuthorCorp returns for the past quarter have gone through the roof and Lillian Luthor gave him a chair on the Board of Directors.

Otis suggests that Lex do what he did to make Nyxly fall for him in this time so the present day Nyxly will trust him.

William agrees not to publish any new Super Friends stories until their next plan succeeds. 

The Super Friends conferred with the witch hologram to determine the next totem Nxyly needs is the Love Totem.

The Super Friends plan to use a fake Love Totem to lure Nyxly into a secure location where they can ambush her.

Ironically, the location they choose is on Lover's Lane Road.

Lena loses control of her magic when she sees Lex, who shows up to save Nyxly and helps her escape.

Kara is knocked out for several hours thanks to the Kryptonite energy of Lex's weapons. When she wakes up, Lena informs her that she'd rather not try and use her magic until she's sure she's able to do so without Lex interfering with her emotional state. 

Andrea pushes William to write a full expose on Lex Luthor working with Nxyly and refuses to listen to William's reminder how badly going after Lex worked for CatCo, even when they had evidence of Lex's wrong-doing, back in 602.

Andrea gives William until the end of the day to find proof of Lex's wrong-doing or she'll run a story about him anyway.

The Super Friends decide to use the Courage and Humanity Totems as shields from the Totems Nyxly controls, rather than trying to weaponize them.

It is suggested that Brainiac-5 contact the Legion of Superheroes to see if they know what Lex was doing in their time, but Brainiac-5 is reluctant to do so given that the last time he acted on future knowledge it led to his working with Lex Luthor behind his friends' backs.

Lena tries to create a shield against the Dream Totem.

Dreamer tries to forsee where the Love Totem is.

J'onn undertakes the gauntlet of the Courage Totem and is forced to relive the moment he was separated from his children in the concentration camps on Mars. 

J'onn is able to claim the power of the Courage Totem after fighting back against the White Martians to try and save his daughters.

Lex claims that in the future he and Nyxly had matching surveillance drones so they could track each other at all times.

Lex dismisses the idea of mind-controlling Nyxly as creepy. Instead, he kidnaps Mitch and gives him the location of the Love Totem one hour before the Super Friends found it in the original timeline.

Lex also says he can't just tell Nyxly they fall in love, as he believes admitting your feelings to a woman will only scare them off.

Mitch lies to Nyxly, claiming he found the Love Totem in a book, Tale Of An Object Infused with Love, which described Ines De Castro, the Corpse Bride of Portugal and a famous tomb belonging to a pair of lost lovers.

Dreamer also divines the Love Totem as being located in Lisbon, Portugal.

Nyxly is able to keep Supergirl at bay with a waking nightmare that causes her to hallucinate being attacked by Phantom Zone Phantoms and then being turned into a Phantom herself.

The Love Totem vanishes before Nyxly can take it. She also makes her escape.

Legends of the Love Totem say that, unlike the other totems, it has disappeared and reappeared repeatedly throughout history and that it gravitates to people in love or locations associated with love. It is likewise repelled by people who are hateful.

It is theorized the Love Totem teleported itself away when Nyxly got too close to it, as her reasons for seeking the All-Stone are hateful.

Nyxly goes to Lex and asks for his help, but insists that it is strictly business and they will never be friends.

J'onn apologized to Kara for not being able to shield her effectively, blaming the fact that his courage faltered when he saw Kara get hurt by Nyxly's Dream Totem attack.

Kara talks Lena into trying to use her magic to protect Kara from the side-effects of the Humanity Totem, so she can use it against Nyxly.

Alex talks with William about how Kelly was engaged once before and how Alex's attempt to propose to Maggie Sawyer ended badly. (Alex proposed to Maggie in 222, but they broke up in 305.)

William advises Alex to go ahead and propose to Kelly because there's no guarantee they could be alive tomorrow with Lex Luthor on the loose.

Lex tells Nyxly about how they learned to work her magic and his technology together to create "beautiful things." He also says that she glowed whenever she talked about acquiring the All-Stone and how she did ultimately get the revenge she sought. Lex guesses this is why the future her was more receptive to a friend like him.

It turns out that Kelly was the one who booked Al's Bar because she had the same idea as Alex. She sets up a surprise engagement party with the help of Esme, William and Al, who were all in on the plan.

Alex reaches for the ring in her pocket but finds the Love Totem there instead, just as Lex and Nyxly show up to steal it.

Kara is able to use the Humanity Totem to incapacitate Nyxly while Lena's magic keeps her from losing her own humanity.

Lex deflects the blast of the Courage Totem into the Love Totem, seemingly destroying it as he moves to teleport himself and Nyxly away.

Alex says that it doesn't matter if the Love Totem was destroyed because she still feels the love for her friends and family that she did before. In fact, after what Kelly did, she feels more loved than ever.

Lex tells Nyxly the truth about why he is helping her. While she is still cynical about him loving her, she does admit that his saving her is the first time anyone did something selfless for her and she thinks they can be friends now.

Dreamer suggests that they should all chip in and get Kelly and Alex matching motorcycles as an wedding gift.

Brainiac-5 thinks there's something odd about Lex's behavior, having noticed that he risked everything to save Nyxly rather than grab the Love Totem for himself.

Dreamer tells Brainiac-5 to all the Legion and see what they know about Lex in their time.

Lena thanks Kara for pushing her, because she is now sure that she is free of Lex's influence.

William has a secret meeting with Otis Graves in a dark alley.

Andrea uses her Acrata powers to break into Luthor Manor and sneaks a peak at Lex Luthor's diary. It is full of love poetry about Nyxly. 

Lex gives Nyxly the Hope Totem, which he was able to recover after it recontituted itself. He says they can do the same with the Love Totem.


Location

Luthor Manor
Lisbon, Portugal.


Untelevised Adventures

Lex Luthor traveled to the future and fell in love with a future version of Nyxly. It was working with her that allowed Lex to learn how to blend magic and technology together. 

Lex must also have done something to inspire great hope somewhere to acquire the Hope Totem.


The Fridge Factor

Andrea continues to be stupid and journalistically amoral  for the sake of pushing artificial drama.


The Bottom Line

Surprisingly solid, as the series enters the home stretch before its finale. More of Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor is always welcome, and his interactions with Otis are the comedic highlight of the episode, but Cryer also proves to have considerable chemistry with Peta Sergeant and there's just enough of the sly, sinister Lex to make his sudden change of heart believable. It's just a shame that all the other subplots and emotional moments (particularly J'onn confronting his daughter's deaths) don't get as much time. . 

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 9 - Dream Weaver

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Kelly and Kara team-up, as the social worker encounters an orphaned alien boy who is acting out in foster care because he fears something is wrong with his incarcerated brother. Meanwhile, as Andrea pushes CatCo to delve into the lives of the SuperFriends, Nyxly crashes Nia's dreams and asks her for help.

Influences

Various Superman and Supergirl comics dealing with real world issues, with an emphasis on journalists doing good rather than superheroes punching people.


Goofs

It's a little odd that Kara didn't go to Argo City with her father to witness her parents reuniting. Granting that it is totally within her nature to want to get back to work, surely National City could have done without her for another few days? 

There's no connection to the end of last week's episode and Nia saying Nyxly's name as she woke up. (Come to that, there's no indication anywhere that Kara ever told her friends about Nyxly.)

Orlando getting a full pardon and released on a day's notice seems incredibly unrealistic, even by the standards of Supergirl.

Since when is William an on-site news reporter rather than a writer?

Despite the episode title being a reference to her character, Dreamer barely figures into this episode and her subplot stands apart from everything else.


Performances

Nicole Maines has a great turn here as Dreamer, totally selling Nia's torment.


Artistry

The effects work for the fight between Supergirl and the alien convicts is rather good and the fight choreography better than average.

The direction does an effective job of mimicking a chaotic dream during Dreamer's nightmares sequences.


Super Trivia

The episode title comes from a 1975 song by Gary Wright.

Betty Buckley, who played Patricia Arias in Supergirl Season 3, voices the owl in Dreamer's vision.

At one point, Andrea suggests that William and Kara jump off a bridge and interview whatever Super Friend catches them. This tactic was employed by Lois Lane in the comics go get Superman's attention in some stories.

Andrea also references the Bat-Signal, suggesting they project an S in the sky to get Supergirl's attention.

When Kelly visits Joey, he is seen reading a Captain Carrot comic - a DC Comics' children's series about a super-powered rabbit.

Technobabble

Metalomite are an alien race that have the power to bend metal telekinetically.

Obscurans are an alien race that create a residue that makes things invisible. 

Zeltarian  are an alien race that have the power to generate EMPs.

Dynamorphs are an alien race who have the power to unleash energy blasts.

Toradines are an alien race who have the power to create force fields.

5000 pounds of ammonium nitrate is enough to blow up a 50 story building.

J'onn has the technology to track an Obscuran based on the energy signature of their unique residue. 

Nia says that only Naltorians have the power to enter the dream realm in physical form. Nxyly says 5th dimensional imps can do the same thing.

Naltorian women are unique in their ability to make their dreams manifest in the real world.

Bringing the dead back to life is a serious infraction of universal law, but imps can do it under limited circumstances. Specifically, they can only bring the person back for one day.

J'onn determines that whoever is staging the truck robberies is trying to build a dirty nuke and all they lack is uranium. 


Dialogue Triumphs

Nyxly: Nia. You're back. Thank goodness. I'm sorry our conversation got interrupted by that vicious owl. We were just about to make a deal.
Nia: Thanks. But no thanks.
Nyxly: I don't understand.
Nia: Nyxly... I don't know you. But I do know that imps on the whole are not to be trusted.
Nyxly: How would you like to be judged by your species, Nia? Aren't you a hero on Earth?
Nia: Yes, but...
Nyxly: I can grant your dearest wish, Nia. And you can end this cycle of tormented dreams, and finally see your mum for hours. Don't you want that?
Nia: Of course I do.
Nyxly: Then let's help each other!
(The owl hoots and flies at Nyxly again.)
Nyxly: That monstrous bird. Get out of here! Shoo!
Owl: The wise understand by themselves, Nia. Fools follow the words of others.
Nyxly: Don't listen to that stupid owl.
Nia: Owls will bring to light what is in the dark. They're symbols of truth.
Nyxly: Nonsense. That is a ferocious bird of prey who's looking at us like a pair of tiny little tasty sparrows. She's trying to divide and conquer us, Nia, so that she can devour us for breakfast.
Nia: I don't think owls are that devious. My mother revered them.
Owl: Wisdom lies not in seeing things, but in seeing through them.
Nyxly: Oh, shut up, you ghoul!

Orlando: I begged Social Services for help... but they didn't listen. And who's gonna rent a place to a guy making minimum wage? So, I tried to rob a store. When you're desperate, you'll do anything. In prison, I believed what they said... that the work-release program would be the answer to Joey and me being together again. It turned out to be another lie. Face it, okay? No one wants to help people like me. (looks to his fellow prisoners) People like them.
Supergirl: I'm an alien on this planet, too. I've seen how hard life can be for the people that the system isn't designed for, how that system can fail those less fortunate. But I promise you, if you come with me, I will do everything in my power to make sure your voices are heard.

Continuity

Nia is having reoccurring memories of crows attacking her as she chases her mother, who is accompanied by an owl, in a swamp.

Princess Nyxly appears in Nia's dream after she leaves it.

Kelly and Alex are unbeatable at Charades. 

Kelly has a new social work case involving a 10 year old alien orphan named Joey Davis, whose brother Orlando is in prison. 

Joey's species have the power to generate electromagnetic pulses.

Andrea has a white board with all the publicly known information about all the Super Friends. The only real mistake is her belief that Brainiac-5 is a shape-shifter (presumably based on Brainiac-5's image inducer and human form.) It also notes that Dream's race is not known and she is believed to be half-human., half-alien. 

CatCo Worldwide Media is now #3 on the media tracker ratings, after having been #8 in 608.

Andrea makes reference to the interviews Supergirl and Dreamer have given in the past when they try to shrug out of interviewing their superhero identities.

Andrea sends Nia home after she falls asleep on her feet during their meeting.

Andrea threatens to have William and Kara writing classifieds and obituaries if they can't get her an interview with a Super Friend within the next day.

William once tried to bluff his way into 10 Downing Street to get an interview with the British Prime Minister by disguising himself as a pizza delivery man.

J'onn calls Kara in to help him investigate a series of truck robberies that appear to have been committed by aliens.

Obscurans and Metalomites do not typically work together, due to some long-standing grudge between their races.

The truck thieves have stolen computer mother bowards, motor oil and steel casings in their previous robberies. Their latest robbery stole ammonium nitrate. This leads J'onn and Kara to conclude they are building a bomb. 

Ms. Hochschild runs the foster home for alien children where Joey Davis is currently living.

Joey has reportedly been picking fights, disobeying the staff and misusing his powers over the past few days. Two days earlier, he knocked out power to the entire block.

Joey gets monthly visitation with his brother, who is currently in Van Kul Prison. 

Ms. Hochschild blames Orlando for being a bad influence on Joey and says Joey started acting up after their last visit.

Kelly notices an intelligent girl named Esme while waiting to see Joey.

Ms. Hochschild has all of the children wearing power dampening cuffs. She says it is a necessary safety precaution, though Joey is a special case as his powers can short out the cuffs.

Joey says his brother had dark circles under his eyes, which can happen if they use their powers too often and they can become sick if they use them too much. He also says his brother is part of a work-release program.

Orlando reportedly robbed a store because he and Joey needed the money to find a place to live after their parents died.

Kara is familiar with the work-release program Orlando is part of from a piece she wrote and an interview she did with the warden. However, the program is supposed to be working with a clothing manufacturer, meaning there's no obvious reason Orlando should be using his EMP powers on the job.

Kara agrees to help Kelly investigate it, while Alex and J'onn focus on the truck thefts.

Nyxly confronts Nia in her dream and claims to have gotten stuck in her dreams by accident, but says she can help Nia and that she needs Nia's help. 
 
Nyxly says she was banished from her dimension and an evil man took her powers, saying she couldn't cross back into her world in her weakened state. She still has some magic, however.

Nyxly asks Nia to help her cross into the real world by using her powers, claiming she can bring Nia's mother back to life for one day in exchange for her help.

The owl in Nia's dream attacks Nyxly before Nia can agree to help her.

The warden of Van Kul Prison thanks Kara for her article and says the Second Chances program has been getting more donations and corporate sponsor offers since it came out.

Warden Kote says there have been on incidents of the alien inmates using their powers and that they are constantly monitored while on the job. He promises to look into Orlando's case.

When Kara asks about interviewing Orlando, the warden says all visits have to be approved two weeks in advance. 

Kelly and Kara try to make an appointment, but Kara uses her super speed to access the prison records. She determines that Orlando is already on his way to a new job.

J'onn determines that the rest of the robbery gang consists of a Toradine and a Dynamorph.

Kara overhears one of the guards threatening Orlando when he says he can be forced to steal, but he won't hurt people.

The alien inmates escape after knocking Supergirl and J'onn down with an energy blast and making their van invisibe.

The news reports that the warden is assuming that the inmates kidnapped the guard that was with them.

Kara believes someone infiltrated the Second Chances program to corrupt it and goes to tell Warden Kote what she overheard and saw.

Kelly second guesses her instincts, saying that Orlando was just put in danger because of her trying to exploit her connection to Kara. However, Alex points out that they wouldn't have discovered the connection between the truck thieves and Orlando if it hadn't been for her caring enough to do all she could to help.

Kelly tells Alex about her dream from 607 and how she thought maybe she could protect people even if she couldn't fight the same threats as the rest of the Super Friends.

Warden Kote refuses to believe that his program has been corrupted and begs Kara not to write about this because it will destroy all the good the Second Chances program is doing. He remains convinced that the criminals in this case went bad and that his guard is a hostage.

Nia says that everything she has heard about imps says they are not to be trusted.

Nyxly appears in Nia's dream again. Again, the owl attacks her, but this time it speaks to Nia and says that the wise understand by themselves but fools follow the words of others. 

Nia says that owls are symbols of the truth in dreams, as they bring things to light in the dark. She also says that her mother revered owls.

The owl also says that wisdom lies not in seeing things but seeing through them.

Kara asks William if he can call his CIA contact to get information on Warde Kote. 

Kara butts heads with Andrea over how she should be doing real reporting instead of chasing the Super Friends around trying to get an interview. Andrea rebuts that they need eyeballs to do their jobs.

Kelly comes to check on Joey to find Ms. Hochschild inflicting pain on him through his power-inhibitor band.

Kelly notes that there are security cameras in the building and says she thinks Ms. Hochschild's bosses would be interested in seeing what is going on in her house. Ms. Hochschild says nobody has time to look at everything that is going on and says she's been working the system longer than Kelly has been alive.

William discovers that Warden Cote has a luxury beach house, luxury cars and a secret off-shore account in the Cayman islands which has been getting regular deposits on a regular basis - none of which seem possible on his publicly recorded salary.

William notes that there's little oversight of privately-owned, for-profit prisons in the United States.

William tracked the prison's contracts from Summerlin Industries through two dozen shell companies, eventually ending with an LLC in Panama registered to Cypress Holdings, which is a front for Brun Mannheim's Intergang.

Kelly goes back to the foster house and hacks the security system to get the footage of Ms. Hochschild hurting Joey.

Warden Cote calls the guard and suggests bringing the inmates back, but he says it is too late for that and that as soon as they get the uranium they can kill the inmates and they'll be in the clear.

The guard also confirms that Bruno Manheim was the one paying for a dirty nuke.

J'onn is able to pick up the trail of the inmates searching known Intergang hideouts.

Kara is able to talk the inmates down on trying to fight back.

William does an on-camera interview with Supergirl about the corruption of the Second Chances program, giving Kara a chance to talk about how the programs do good work even if this one was corrupted to exploit at-risk workers.

Warden Cote and his guard are arrested  as a result of William and Kara's tracking their connections to Intergang.

Kara says she thinks Andrea has a point, but that Supergirl can be used to make people hear about the ugly truths they would ignore otherwise.

Kelly watches as Ms. Hochschild is arrested for child abuse.

Esme thanks Kelly for what she did, having figured out she was the one who helped them.

Orlando is given a full pardon and picks Joey up.

Kelly says she wants to be the new Guardian.

Alex gives her James' helmet, which she says she picked up after seeing Kelly use his shield to protect other people during S509.

Alex also says she will start training Kelly to fight the next day.

In her latest dream, Nia agrees to help Nyxly.


Untelevised Adventures

At the same time the events of this episode are occurring, Brainiac-5 is piloting Zor-El to Argo City.

Lena is still looking for information about her birth mother.


The Kryptonite Factor

Nia's decision to help Nyxly comes out of left field.


The Bottom Line

A surprisingly good episode that tackles a real world problem without getting preachy and brings the two halves of Kara's life together in a way that works. Shame the Dreamer subplot seems like it was added into the episode at the last minute and is completely separated from everything else. 

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 8 - Welcome Back, Kara!

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Kara returns to work at CatCo and as Supergirl and tries to introduce her father to life on Earth. Unfortunately, Zor-El's overzealous efforts to join her in protecting the Earth lead to a new threat, as Kara tries to deal with the trauma of her time in the Phantom Zone; a task that isn't made any easier by her latest assignment to interview the survivors of the Phantom attacks on National City.

Influences

Captain Planet (the environmental message) and Independence Day (alien technology defeated with a virus)


Goofs

In her presentation on major media platforms that are doing better than CatCo, Andrea Rojas mentions The Daily Planet (#1) and The Central City Citizen (#4). This doesn't make much sense, given that layoffs at The Daily Planet due to decreased sales were why Clark Kent lost his job in the first episode of Superman and Lois and Iris West-Allen said her paper lost 73% of their readers during the time she was trapped in the Mirror World in The Flash. While it was unclear at the time it aired just when Superman and Lois was set in relation to the other Arrowverse series that year, Kara later makes reference to a story that Iris West-Allen wrote in the same episode where she referenced her drop in readership.

While it's believable Lex Luthor wouldn't have issues with dumping garbage in the ocean, it's a little hard to believe he wouldn't try to recover all the Kryptonite that was apparently dropped into the trash island, given how rare it is supposed to be on Earth-Prime.

Granting that Andrea has always been portrayed as publicity minded, it's still a bit of a jump for her to go from being obsessed with bringing down Lex Luthor to being obsessed with learning all about the Super Friends, based purely upon seeing some files on Lex Luthor's desk. (Shouldn't she be more interested in why Luthor is targeting the heroes?)


Performances

The highlight of the episode is Jesse Rath's insulting Oscar and his cry of "I regret nothing!" as he is being pulled into a giant garbage monster.


Artistry

It's a minor thing, but after every time Barry Allen managed to disappear without consequences for months at a time in The Flash, it's gratifying that the script for this episode shows Kara dealing with the fact that her absence was noticed and that her friends lied to cover for her at her job.

The CGI for Oscar the Robot is well-executed.


Super Trivia

The episode title is a play on the classic sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. 

J'onn determines that Oscar bonded with a Teallian, which he describes as a parasitic creature that can inhabit and animate inanimate objects. In the comics, the Legion of Superheroes member Quislet was a Teallian, who rejected his species hive-mind and went off in search of adventure far from their home planet of Teall.

Oscar the Garbage Monster also seems remarkably similar to the DC Comics villain Chemo. Originally created as an enemy of the Metal Men in Showcase #39, Chemo was a living being made of chemicals discarded by scientist Ramsey Norton, who grew into a giant, toxic monster. 


Technobabble

Zor-El analyzes Earth's oceans and determines they are dying in the same way Krypton's did.

J'onn determines the fire on the trash island was the result of a fuel leak from a Dominator Warp Drive.

Zor-El plans to save Earth's oceans by modifying the Kelex robot in the Fortress to shrink trash and convert it to energy safely. It does this through a new Coluan energy core. He dubs the new robot Oscar, named in honor of Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street.

Lena says he did something similar with a high-pressure energy compactor. 

Oscar's absorbs Daxamite technology that also gives him cloaking abilities, a force-field and a Teallian proto-ray that penetrates Supergirl's armored suit.

Lena says she can decloak Oscar with a signal wave blast.

Brainiac-5 creates a drone-delivered virus that can shut Oscar down.

Dialogue Triumphs

Kara: I don't think I ever wanna hear the word "Phantom" ever again. Not in an opera, not in a Star Wars prequel. Especially not in a Star Wars prequel. I don't even think I could handle an episode of Scooby-Doo right now!

Brainiac-5: You sorry excuse for a Roomba!


Continuity

This episode takes place one day after 607.

Brainiac-5 picks up a special cake for a party to welcome Kara back to Earth.

Kara power naps under a yellow sun lamp to recover the energy she spent flying herself and Zor-El to J'onn's ship.

Kara is having nightmares of the Phantom Zone as she sleeps.

Kelly Olsen misses the party, as she's undergoing orientation at her new job with Social Services.

Zor-El says the technology of the Watchtower dwarfs that of Krypton. J'onn thanks him but notes that Watchtower draws upon the technology of many worlds.

Zor-El says that he intends to go to Argo City to reunite with his wife, but first he wants to see the life Kara has built for herself on Earth.

Zor-El poses as Kara's Uncle Archie.

Nia explains to Kara about how she covered her absence by telling Andrea Rojas that she was in deep cover interviewing Darien resistance leader Miguel de Miranda at Cat Grant's request. Nia originally made this excuse in 601.

Andrea is annoyed when Kara says there is no story, resulting in her having the assignment to cover Supergirl's defeat of the Phantom dropped on her.

Andrea threatens to fire the whole writing staff of CatCo if they are not the #1 news outlet within a month's time. They are currently #8 thanks to the public turning on them after Lex Luthor's acquittal in 602.

Nobody had told Kara about Phantoms attacking National City while she was gone because they didn't want to worry her.

William tells Kara that he started dating a pediatrician named Mary while she was gone and it is getting serious.

Kara and her father team to stop a falling satellite. 

Kara and Zor-El discover a garbage island made of cast-off material from Luthor Corp and the DEO 1000 miles off the coast of National City that is full of toxic chemicals.

Kara tries to sell the story of the island to Andrea, but she is uninterested until she finds out Lex Luthor was responsible for the dumping. However, she assigns the article to William and tells Kara to get her an interview with Supergirl.

Lena and Nia have a talk about their nightmares from the Phantom Zone and how Nia is missing her mother even as Kara is reuniting with her father.

Zor-El confirms that Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van designed the Fortress of Solitude. 

Kara has a PTSD flashback of Lex Luthor blasting her with the Phantom Zone projector as they look around the Fortress of Solitude.

William determines that the trash island was made by a third-party hired by LuthorCorp and it all, sadly, was completely legal. Andrea still asks him to find a way to blame Lex for it.

Zor-El binge-watched Sesame Street to learn about Earth culture while Kara was recovering under the sun lamps.

Andrea uses her teleportation powers to break into Luthor Manor in search of proof he's responsible for the trash island. Instead, she finds several files profiling the Super-Friends.

Oscar goes haywire after bonding with a Teallian and becomes impossible to track after absorbing Daxamite cloaking tech. He also acquires a force-field.

Brainiac-5 enters into Oscar's trash pile in order to manually release the virus.

Zor-El admits he is afraid to face his wife again given his failure to save Krypton, even if he did save his family and many lives.

It has been nearly 40 years since Zor-El became trapped in the Phantom Zone.

Andrea published William's article on the trash fires without the Luthor angle.

Andrea says CatCo needs to write more articles on the local superheroes and they can make CatCo big again, like Cat Grant did with Supergirl.

Lena tells Nia that she's going to go visit the village where she was born and try to build a connection with her birth mother. 

Kara tells Alex about how bad the Phantom Zone was.

Alex tells Kara about her nightmares of losing Kara forever.

Kara references a piece Iris West-Allen wrote in F704 about how Central City rallied after the fight with the Mirror Monarch and how she needs to write something similar about National City moving on from the Phantom attacks.

The episode ends with a thunder storm raging and Nia waking up from a dream and saying the name "Nyxly."


Location

A trash island 1000 miles off the coast of National City
Fortress of Solitude


Untelevised Adventures

Brainiac-5 takes Zor-El to Argo City at the end of the episode.


The Bottom Line

A serviceable yet largely flawed episode. While individual parts are groanworthy, the cast makes them work even as the technobabble starts flying and Oscar becomes increasingly implausible.  Andrea is still the show's weak link and it would have been much better if she'd been allowed to gracefully fade into the background at the end of Season 5. At least the romance (muted as it was) between Kara and William has finally come to an end.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 2 - A Few Good Women

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

As Lex Luthor goes on trial for Crimes Against Humanity, Lena must make a difficult choice about how far she will go to see her brother face justice. Meanwhile, as the Super Friends seek out help to rescue Supergirl, Kara finds an unexpected ally and familiar face in the Phantom Zone.


Influences

Supergirl: The Movie (plot of Kara and her father needing to escape the Phantom Zone), Harry Potter (the phantoms of the Phantom Zone resemble the Dementors), Star Trek (Dreamer mentions the Holodeck when she sees Brainy's training simulation), the Babylon 5 episode Whatever Happened To Mister Garibaldi? (Kara's meeting with her father resembles Sheridan's first encounter with Lorien) and Stargate (the appearance of the Phantom Zone portal, theme of legends being aliens)


Goofs

Granting that the legal system in the Arrowverse is probably more efficient than in our world, it's still shocking that Lex Luthor could go on trial, even with an open-and-shut case, and have the trial end as quickly as it did. Particularly given the problem with jury selection given how well known Lex is and the nature of his crimes.

It's a little unbelievable that the episode would waste time showing us William watching Lex's trial, in effect having us watching William watching Supergirl.

Why is Lena watching the trial by herself instead of trying to help rescue Kara? 

For that mater, why don't any of the superheroes who arrested Lex testify against him?

Why, after such a big deal was made about it last week, do we not get a quick scene of Alex telling Kelly that Kara is Supergirl? 

Silas should not have any conflicting memories of how the Phantom Zone looked before Crisis. (Perhaps J'onn restored his pre-Crisis memories off-camera, though there's no clear reason why he'd do so.)


Super Trivia

The episode title is a play on the film A Few Good Men and the scene in which Lena tricks Lex into confessing his evil intentions is based on a similar scene from that movie.

Silas is said to be a native of the planet Transilvane, whose inhabitants inspired the legends of vampires on Earth. In the DC Comics universe, Transilvane was an artificial world created by Cadmus scientist Dabney Donovan and populated with genetically engineered replicas of classic horror movie monsters.

It is revealed in this episode that the Phantom Zone is named after the ghostly figures who populate it, who feed on the fear and torment they cause by making people relive their worst nightmares. This is a new conceit from the modern DC Comucs universe. Originally the Phantom Zone transformed those who were sent to it into phantoms, who could observe the physical world but were powerless to affect it.

By contrast, the Phanton Zone of the Arrowverse does not allow those who are trapped there to see the material world, as Zor-El had no idea that Kara was still alive or that Argo City survived thanks to his efforts.


Technobabble

Natives of Transilvane have enhanced strength, speed and stamina compared to regular humans. They also have the ability to transform themselves into clouds of smoke and bats. They feed on he blood of other beings but are not required to take it by violence.

Silas is able to assemble his Phantom Zone Portal on a day's notice, but insists it requires six months of testing before he can be sure it will be safe.

Brainiac-5 creates a holographic simulation of the Phantom Zone. It is backed by dream energy sensors that will detect any fluctuations, distractions, emotional incongruences Dreamer might experience, as the simulation will also psychically attack her in the same way that phantoms do.

The Phantom Zone is revealed to have been altered by the Crisis on Infinite Earths. When all of the timelines of the old multiverse converged into the Earth-Prime reality, the Phantom Zone fractured. It is now one ever-sifting pocket dimension - what Brainiac-5 describes as a interdimensional archipelago.

Every dimension within the Phantom Zone has its own vibrational frequency. Dreamer would need to travel to each one individually and synch up with it before her powers would work. Between this and the randomized pattern of the Phantom Zone shifting, Dreamer cannot use her powers to track Kara directly in the Phantom Zone.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Lex is sitting at his table in his cell, eying the food before him suspiciously. Suddenly, the cell door opens. Otis Graves and Lillian Luthor walk in.)
Lex: I thought visitors were forbidden in this wing.
Lillian: The Luthor name still commands respect... and the occasional favor.
(Lillian takes the seat opposite Lex.) 
Lex: Ah. Favors. Is that how you secured me that plea deal? Admit to conspiracy and manslaughter, and go away for...
(Otis is about to take a seat at the table, but Lex holds up a hand and shoos him away.)
Lex: Ah, ah!
(Otis stands back up and Lex continues.)
Lex: Go away for 25 years?
Lillian: I'm sure your lawyer advised you to accept it.
Lex: He did. Which is why I fired him.

(Lillian has urged Lex to accept the plea deal.)
Lex: Do you really have so little faith in me that you think I should agree to rot in prison? I will remind you, I have been in prison before. I have been shot and killed and risen from the dead before, and I will not be subjugated again. You should know, I always have a plan.
Otis: Yeah, boss. Kablooey!
Lex: A legal plan, you imbecile.

(Silas begins to power up the Phantom Zone portal.)
J'onn: You sure this thing won't blow up?
Silas: It won't blow up, but I can't guarantee it won't implode. 

(Lex has just been found not guilty of all charges. He is, for once, stunned speechless.)
Otis: (whispering as the judge is thanking the jury for their work) Uh... Wait, you actually won? (quickly apologetic) Not that I'm surprised, boss!
Lex: Well, I am! Clearly I underestimated the value of just... being myself.
Otis (sighs wistfully) No kablooey.
Lex: Of course not, you idiot.


Dialogue Disasters

Lex's sudden speech about jealous women trying to tear him down seems horribly out of character. Granting that Lex has an ego and a deep hatred of aliens, it's hard to see him ranting like a Men's Rights Activist.


Continuity

In the opening scene, the Super Friends attack a man who burgles a Luthor Foundation blood bank.

The vampire, Silas, is a native of the planet Transilvane, which is the source of the vampire legends on Earth. 

Silas is gay and was married to a man named Owen.

Owen was falsely accused of theft and sentenced to six months at Fort Rozz in the Phantom Zone. He apparently went mad due to the torments of the Phantom Zone.

Silas is the only person known to have ever attempted to break into the Phantom Zone. He is quick to note that he was not successful. 

Silas says that building the technology to enter the Phantom Zone is easy; the hard part is dealing with the phantoms from which the Phantom Zone takes its name, as they can drive a person made by feeding on their fears until they lose all touch with reality or die of fright.

Dreamer goes back to CatCo to continue to cover for Kara's absence, but is reminded that they need her powers to find Kara once they get into the Phantom Zone.

Andrea Rojas wants CatCo to focus as much coverage as possible on Lex Luthor's trial and turn the public against him. She assigns Nia and William Dey to cover the trail directly and try to interview the court officials involved.

Lex meets with his mother and informs her that he fired his lawyer and refuses to take a plea deal. He intends to represent himself at his trial.

Lillian freely admits that she cares more about saving the Luthor family name than freeing Lex.

In the Phantom Zone, Kara is rescued from the Phantoms by a man who she realizes is her father, Zor-El.

Kara tells her father that his efforts to save Argo City were successful. 

Kara remembers the Phantom Zone differently than how it was when she was trapped there. This was partly due to her rocket protecting her from the Phantoms, somehow.

The worst nightmare that Kara experienced at the hands of the phantoms was her battle with Reign in 323, where all of her friends and family died and there was nothing she could do to save them all this time.

Zor-El says the only way to stay sane in the Phantom Zone is to accept that you are trapped. This keeps the phantoms at bay. Attempting to move upon the anchor where Fort Ross as rooted in the Phantom Zone only provokes them.

Andrea and Lena meet for drinks. Andrea tries to fish for details on what happened between Lena and Lex, but Lena refuses to speak about it, on or off the record, and angrily kicks Andrea out of her office.

Silas is uncertain he can get the portal to work safely. J'onn becomes angry with him and almost becomes physically violent.

Alex tries to comfort Silas and reassure him that he will help save Supergirl.

Lex Luthor is formally charged with crimes against humanity, murder and conspiracy.

M'Gann has a talk with J'onn about his becoming overly emotional regarding Kara being in danger. 

When Lex cross-examines Eve Tessmacher, he gets her to admit that she loved him and that he rejected her advances in 517. He then tries to spin it that she was a jilted lover framing him for her own crimes as a complicated revenge scheme.

As a result of Lex casting Eve Tessmacher's testimony into doubt, the murder charges against Lex are dropped.

Lillian meets with Lena and offers to sell her Lillian's share of LuthorCorp so Lena will be able to keep Lex from using any of the company resources for his schemes.

Lena refuses the offer, seeing it as a bribe, and tells Lillian that she'd decided to testify against Lex to ensure he goes to prison for the rest of his life, even if it means admitting to her own crimes.

Brainiac-5 makes a holographic Phantom Zone simulation to test Dreamer's ability to use her powers in that environemtn.

Dreamer has a vision of Alex and Kara when they were in high school.

Dreamer is not sure she can use her powers to accurately track Kara through a dream, but Brainy says he has confidence in her.

Kara decides to try and fight through the Phantom Zone on her own. She is overwhelmed almost immediately and saved by Zor-El again. Kara's refusal to give up inspires Zor-El, who agrees that they will go down fighting together if they cannot win.

Lena tells the court about her Non Nocere project and how Lex corrupted her technology.

When Lex cross-examines Lena, Lena tricks Lex into bragging that Lena's designs would never have worked without his contribution and that he did everything Lena accused him of. Lex proceeds to blame women who were jealous of his success and power trying to tear him down for all of his problems.

Silas is able to get the portal to the Phantom Zone open, but the Super Friends are attacked by phantoms.

J'onn is able to use his telepathy to augment Dreamer's energy blasts, allowing them to force the Phantoms back through the portal.

All but one of the phantoms are forced back into the portal, though the Super Friends do not realize that one phantom is in hiding.

Otis disguises himself as a guard at Luthor's hearing and has a plan prepared to cover his escape.

The jury find Lex not guilty of all charges, much to his surprise.

Silas says he'll continue to help the Superfriends to save Kara.

Lex singles out CatCo and their coverage of his trial when talking about how the the media is out to destroy successful men like him.

William is feeling disillusioned by Lex Luthor's acquittal. 

Brainiac-5 starts mapping the Phantom Zone.

J'onn thinks on M'Gann's advice and decides he needs to start approaching Kara's rescue as a soldier rather than as a father.

Alex has a breakdown in private with Kelly over how they couldn't save Kara.

Andrea goes to meet Lena and complements her courage in testifying against Lex.

Lena apologizes to Andrea for jumping down her throat. Andrea apologizes for trying to push Lena into giving her a story.

Amdrea says she still intends to use CatCo to bring down Lex.

Lex says that he now intends to tell the truth as he sees it and trust that things will work out, as people seem to like his "telling it like it is."

Silas is attacked by the phantom and calls J'onn.

In the Phantom Zone, Kara and Zor-El see a group of three phantoms open a portal. This inspires them to try and capture a phantom.


Location

The Phantom Zone


Untelevised Adventures

Zor-El is revealed to have sent himself to the Phantom Zone after rescuing Argo City from the destruction of Krypton.


The Bottom Line

Another lackluster episode which is oddly focused upon the least interesting aspects of the current storyline, with the title character being about #3 or #4 on the writers' list of priorities. Does anyone really care about William Day? Was anyone really wanting to see Lena and Andrea make-up? Or any more of Andrea at all, really? Silas isn't a bad character, but he's just one more member of an increasingly bloated ensemble who really doesn't add anything to the show. Unfortunately, it seems like we'll be working through this Phantom Zone storyline for a while to come.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 1 - Rebirth

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Leviathan is defeated, but Lex Luthor is more powerful than ever and Brainiac-5 is at Death's Door. As the rest of the Super Friends rush to save him and the world, Kara considers the possibility that she may have to make the ultimate sacrifice.


Influences

Superman III (Gamemnae's final appearance resembles the computer woman from this movie), Supergirl: The Movie (Supergirl becoming trapped in the Phantom Zone), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Dreamer and Brainiac 2's scene through the glass wall), Adventure Comics (character of N'orr Cott) and the Supergirl: Rebirth series (the title and the promise of a new direction, rather than the contents of the book)


Goofs

In the official synopsis for the episode, Gamemnae's name was misspelt as "Gamenmae".

The highly-vaunted radiation shield Leviathan employs doesn't work on Martians and Kryptonians for some reason, for no apparent reason other than it requires the team to split up during the fight with Gamemnae.

M'Gann is suddenly back in the control room with Kara as Kara yells for everyone to get out while Gamemnae dies, after vanishing for most of the battle after phasing J'onn through a wall.

Nobody questions the morality of their basically killing Gamemnae. (Granting that she's said to be an electronic life form now instead of an alien, that's still a fine line especially with a techno organic being like Brainiac-5 on the team.)

Andrea Rojas gets off scot-free for her part in aiding Leviathan's plans. Granting that she was a pawn, she still ignored every single problem that Kelly Olsen or William Dey brought to her about how her company was endangering people's lives. Worse yet, we're expected to sympathize with her being held responsible for her criminal negligence by her father, even though he only does this to save his own skin.

Beyond that, it's idiotic to think that nobody is going to find it suspect that he suddenly bought all of his daughter's stock in Obsidian North after publicly calling her out.

Jarhanpur is implied to be in the Andromeda Galaxy, as the Jarhanpurium weaponry in the Fortress of Solitude is stored in a section of the armory devoted to weapons from that region. Yet Jarhanpur was said to be a sister planet of Krypton in earlier episodes and Krypton was said to be located only 2000 light years from Earth. The Andromeda Galaxy is located over 2.5 million light years from Earth. (This could have changed following Crisis)

Why do they need a special Jarhanpurium gun to shoot the Jarhanpurium?  Can't the Hand of the Warrior make something appropriate? (Alex is still mastering the Hand of the Warrior and can only use it to fashion weapons and devices she is familiar with. Of course she winds up using it to hit Lex with the Jarhanpurium anyway...)

The CGI for this episode looks terrible across the board, even allowing that Dreamer's visions are usually distorted and dream-like.


Performances

Jesse Rath and Katie McGrath get a brief but memorable scene as the two most morally flexible members of the Superfriends vent to each other and assure one another that, whatever else may happen with the rest of the team, at least they understand one another.

Jon Cryer is clearly having the time of his life playing Lex Luthor.


Super Trivia

The title of this episode is likely a nod to the 2016 Rebirth movement in the DC Comics Universe that led to the restoration of various classic elements that had been removed during the 2011 New 52 reboot and an effort to launch new titles devoted to characters like Green Arrow and Supergirl who had television series based on their exploits but no monthly comic title. In the case of the monthly Supergirl comic, a teenage Kara Zor-El was made to live as a foster child with scientists Eliza and Jerimiah Danvers and began working with the DEO to fight alien menaces.

Near the end of the episode, J'onn mentions that his partner in the police force on Mars was a Martian woman named N'orr Cott. In the classic comics, N'orr Cott was the name of a male Martian who had been commander of the Martian army and J'onn J'onzz's former best friend.

The Arrowverse version of N'orr Cott was a Martian woman, who was known as the Sentinel because she always stood guard against surprise escapes or ambushes.

Alex adopts Sentinel as her superhero codename at the end of the episode. The code name Sentinel was also adopted in the comics by the first Green Lantern, Alan Scott, during a time when he no longer needed his ring to channel the magical fire energy of the Starheart. 


Technobabble

Alex uses a mixture of Martian nanites and potassium iodide as an antidote to neutralize the radiation poisoning in Brainiac-5's system.

Alex reshapes the Hand of the Soldier into both a hypodermic needle and a portable electronic storage unit.

Lex acquires a new weapon -  a metallic band, similar to brass knuckles, which allows him to fire focused lasers of Kryptonite energy or controlled bursts. The laser is capable of burning a precise image into concrete.

Lex reprogrammed Obsidian Platinum so that all the people who signed into it have become incapable of believing that he can do anything wrong. He calls this program :"I Love Lexi."

Lex also installed sonic weapons in the satellites power Obsidian Platinum that will kill everyone who didn't get the "I Love Lexi" upgrade. Lex created a special device which makes a person immune to these weapons and gave them to Lillian Luthor and Otis Graves, who were already loyal to him without being brainwashed.

The Dorkri Surth-Uh ( or "The Binding" in Martian) is a ritual which allows two Martians to synchronize their thoughts, creating a web of psychic energy that can literally bind onto several things and move them in unison.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Lex explains his evil plan to Lillian.)
Lex: My satellites will be aligned to beam the kill frequency in about five hours.
Lillian: I assume I will be safe without being brainwashed to love you, since I already do.
Lex: Of course, Mother. There's a special do-hickey with your name on it.
Lillian: And your sister. You can't kill her either.
Lex: Why not? She killed me first!

Supergirl: We know you've placed satellites around the world, and when they sync up, they'll send out a signal killing everyone you haven't brainwashed.
Lex: What do you want? A gold star?
Supergirl: I want you to disable the satellites. You do that, I'll give you what you've always wanted.
Lex: What's that? And don't say hair, that's low-hanging fruit.

Brainiac-5: Lena, I... I need you to know that I had no idea that this was Lex's plan. I thought that if... if I was... close to him, I would be able to know... how and when to stop him, but I... (taking a deep breath) I didn't. I was so worried that... by working with Lex I was becoming the villain, that... that I lost track of... of what he was up to. I thought... that by doing this I would help save the world, but... look what it's done...
Lena: Brainy, you were willing to sacrifice everything to save your friends. On the other hand, I was the hypocrite who believed that she had the answers to all the world's problems. It's the closest I've ever come to seeing things through Lex's eyes. Self-pity and blinding hubris should be the Luthor family motto. So if anyone's gonna win the culpability award, I've got you by a landslide.
Brainiac-5: What do we do now?
Lena: Try and cope with the mistakes of the past and... appreciate that we have friends who still believe in us. 

(Alex has just refused to watch the hologram Kara recorded while waiting for Lex.)
Alex: We are bringing her home. (turning to face Lex) And you are going to wish that you were dead while you are rotting in that cell.
Lex: Hmm. About that... I'm not going anywhere near a cell. Unless you want me to reveal Supergirl's identity. She may be gone, but she still has an awful lot of enemies out there. It would be tragic if Mama Danvers or your lovely Kelly Olsen were to become the target of one of...
(Lena punches Lex, knocking him down with one punch.)
Lena: (To Alex) Sorry. Did you want to do that?
Alex: No. Family first. 


Dialogue Disasters

Gamemnae: You cannot kill technology, but technology can kill you!

Kelly Olsen: Your father... is a selfish narcissist. You are a brilliant woman... who built this place from sheer force of will. The mistake was doing it for him. (Well, that and ignoring repeated warnings about how your VR technology was going to doom the world...)


Continuity

Gamemnae reconstitutes herself inside the Leviathan base.

Dreamer is able to follow her vision to find the entrance to Leviathan's base and a dying Brainiac-5.

A delirious Brainy tells Dreamer that he loves her but that the team will have to work with Lex to stop Leviathan. 

Dreamer astral projects her mind to open the door into the sealed control room and immediately falls prey to the radiation shield.

M'Gann evacuates Alex and Brainy while Kara and J'onn fight Gamemnae.

Brainiac-5 determines he can stop Gamemnae with the Anti-Life Equation, which he acquired in 510.

Alex loans Brainiac the Hand of the Soldier, which takes the form of an electronic data storage device.

Alex tosses the Hand of the Soldier to Kara, who uses it to destroy Gamemnae.

Lex uses the power of Leviathan to give himself god-like powers using the alien-energy absorbing machinery on Shelley Island, which was last seen in 422. Lillian Luthor assists him with this.

Among the powers Lex displays are super-strength, energy projection, flight and telekinesis. (He also creates a forcefield, but this seems to be a second feature of his new Kryptonite laser weapon)

Lex will be broadcasting a signal that will kill everyone on Earth who didn't receive his "I Love Lexi" upgrade through Obsidian Platinum in 5 hours.

Lex plans to use the same technology to eventually conquer the universe.

Lena Luthor and Kelly Olsen meet with the rest of the team at The Watchtower.

William Dey is said to have taken Eve Teschmacher and her mother to the CatCo offices, where Eve is going on the record with everything she knows about Lex Luthor's crimes.

Lena determined that Lex twisted her Non Nocere program to create "I Love Lexi."

Eve reportedly told Lena about an experiment that Lex performed on two mice. One had gold eyes and adored him. The other exploded after being exposed to a Q-wave transmission.

Dreamer has a vision of herself in space and Lex Luthor dressed as the Anti-Monitor destroying the Earth. She also sees Shelley Island and a glowing green bottle.

J'onn detects Lex's sonic weapons on 12 of the satellites he launched into orbit in 516. Each of them is armed with claymore cannons that will fire on anything that attempts to tamper with them physically and they are all linked together.

M'Gann and J'onn decide to attempt the ritual of The Dorkri Surth-Uh so that they can safely disable Lex's satellites. 

Lena says she can reverse the "I Love Lexi" code if Kara lets her borrow the Myriad device.

Kelly says she can go to Obsidian North and get them the information on every person Lex has infected.

Brainiac-5 says that Jarhanpurium could weaken Lex and make him mortal in the same way that Kryptonite weakens Supergirl, but there's almost no chance of finding it.

Lena says she can use the machine that made synthetic Kryptonite to make synthetic Jarhanpurium. When she says this, Dreamer mentions the green bottle and Shelley Island from her dream.

Dreamer and Alex elect to go to Shelley Island to get the bottle.

Brainiac-5 stays in the Watchtower to help Lena with reprograming Myriad and making the Jarhanpurium.

Supergirl goes to get Myria from the Fortress of Solitude, along with any weapons that might be used to implement that Jarhanpurium.

When it is pointed out that Lex will be able to track their movements with the power he now has, Supergirl offers to sacrifice herself to act as a distraction while everyone else is dismantling Lex's power base. 

Kara contacts Lex while wearing a Truth-Seeker and promises to meet him in 1 hour at a location of his choosing and let him do whatever he wants if he agrees to disable his satellites.

Lex agrees and names the Fortress of Solitude as their meeting place.

As Kelly is getting the Obsidian Platinum data, she runs into Andrea Rojas. Andrea reveals that her father has blamed her for everything Leviathan has done to their company and that she and CatCo will be bankrupt when the stock market opens the next day.

J'onn is nervous about performing the binding ritual with M'Gann as it will allow her to see everything in his past, including all his memories of his wife and children and every violent thought he's ever had about White Martians. He fears this might derail their ability to disarm the satellites.

Alex points out that M'Gann has gone through just as many problems and she'll have to expose her secrets to J'onn as well.

Brainy loans his Legion Flight Ring to Dreamer until he's recovered.

The Fortress of Solitude armory is divided by where the weapons originally came from and has an area devoted to weapons from the Andromeda Galaxy. This is where the Jarhanpurium weapons are stored.

Lena tries to reinforce the L-Protocol from 507 in the hopes it might slow Lex down. (Apparently it was just disabled in 517 or had been reprogrammed not to attack Lena.)

Kara makes reference to having been trapped in the Phantom Zone for the better part of a decade, having nightmares of her planet's destruction. 

Andrea Rojas uses her Arcata powers to teleport inside her father's house, where she hacks his accounts and buys all her Obsidian North stock. 

Alex takes a Jarhanpurium gun and a portal watch from the Fortress armory. She jokes that she may keep the watch.

Kara stays in the Fortress to wait for Lex, as Alex and Lena leave to go to their respective targets.

Kara uses the Fortress technology to start recording a hologrammatic simulation of herself containing all her knowledge. She gets one volume complete before Lex arrives.

Alex and Dreamer use the portal watch to go to Lex's base on Shelley Island, but Otis Graves and Lillian Luthor are waiting for them.

J'onn and M'Gann are able to disable Lex's satellites. 

With that accomplished, Brainiac-5 and Lena are able to reverse the "I Love Lexi" program.

Dreamer and Alex are able to get the bottle, which Otis drops as he and Lillian escape with their own portal watch.

After Lex blasts Kara repeatedly with his Kryptonite laser and leaves her for dead, the Fortress computer activates the Lena Luthor Protocol, which sends a mobile projector down to saturate Kara's body with yellow sunlight.

Lex starts trashing for Fortress of Solitude while listening to Queen's "We Are The Champions."

Dreamer tries to shoot Lex with the Jarhanpurium gun, but it doesn't work.

Lex arms himself with the Phantom Zone Projector and blasts Kara with it, just before Alex is able to recover the Jarhanpurium and shoot Lex with it.

The data on the Projector is wiped so they have no idea wherein the Phantom Zone Kara wound up. This prevents them from opening a transmat portal to get to her, like Lena did to move the population of Earth-38 during Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

J'onn says he'll take Lex to the authorities and then will travel to Mars to talk to his brother and seek his advice on navigating the Phantom Zone.

Alex wonders how she is going to explain Kara being Supergirl to Kelly Olsen, establishing that Kelly somehow didn't know this despite being privy to the secret identities of all the rest of the Superfriends. 

Andrea Rojas uses the money from the Obsidian North sale to revitalize CatCo and promises to turn the magazine into a bastion of journalistic integrity once again.

William Dae's story about Lex Luthor and Leviathan is making waves in the wake of Luthor's arrest. He shared the byline with Kara.

Nia covers for Kara's absence by saying that she's working undercover on a story with Cat Grant.

William asks about Kara. Nia tells him that he's sure she would have called him if she could have.

Lena breaks into Lex and Lillian's prison sell and uses Myriad to erase their memories of Supergirl's secret identity.

Lena later admits to erasing the minds of everyone who knew Kara Danvers was Supergirl before returning Myriad to Alex and J'onn.

Dreamer returns Braniac-5's ring to him.. 

Dreamer and Brainiac-5 decided to give a romantic relationship a try after Dreamer says that she loves Brainiac-5 as well. They agree that there will be no more secrets between them.

Malefic was only able to find Midnight in the Phantom Zone because he knew her exact location. He did know someone who once mounted a rescue mission in the Phantom Zone. He doesn't say who, but M'Gann is already searching for him.

J'onn tells Alex about his partner, N'orr Cott, and suggests that she adopt her nickname and symbol as her own. 

Alex officially takes up the name Sentinel for when she's fighting crime in costume.

Lena encourages Alex to tell Kelly about Kara and he secret.

The final scene shows an unconscious Kara in the Phantom Zone, surrounded by snarling spectral creatures.


Location

Shelley Island
The Fortress of Solitude
Buenos Aires - The Rojas Estate.


Untelevised Adventures

J'onn travels to Mars and visits his brother.


The Fridge Factor

Kelly Olsen comes off as the biggest idiot ever to not realize that Kara Danvers and Supergirl are the same person, given all the other superhero identities she is aware of in her circle of friends. And she makes a living observing people!


The Bottom Line

A bit of a mess all around for multiple reasons and it is unclear how much of it was the result of the pandemic. The best thing that can be said is that, unlike The Flash Season 7 premiere, it was able to get all its old business summed up in a single episode, even if this does mean rushing through some suddenly nonsensical subplots like everything involving Acrata. Best summed up by the fact that whoever wrote the press release summing up this episode couldn't be bothered to double-check that the characters' names were spelled properly. (Lex Luthor becomes Lex Luther in the Closed Captioning as well.)