Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 19 - Immortal Kombat

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



Plot

Lena and Kara make amends, just in time for Leviathan to declare war on Supergirl and her allies. Alex unveils a new vigilante identity as Brainiac-5 launches his own attack on the alien group in defiance of Lex Luthor's plans for the secretive organization. But will they all be able to stop Obsidian Platinum from triggering an extinction event? 

Influences

The JLA Comics of Joe Kelly.and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Dreamer compares their disguise gambit to the plan to sneak Harry away from the Death Eaters)

Goofs

The green-screen when Alex shows off her new costume isn't blended well.

Eve says that Leviathan is planning to kill 4 million people, but the rest of the episode acts like she said 4 billion. (Probably the later number is accurate, and Eve is a bit panicked, thinking of her mom. Also, she did just wake up with Supergirl over her and is probably wondering if she knows that Eve killed her stepfather.)

J'onn is able to send a message to Rama Khan telepathically, but hasn't been able to track him down?

Jesse Rath is capable of some stupendous, subtle acting. This is the total opposite of what he delivers as he struggles through keeping his hand on a touch-pad.

Artistry

The visual of all the people forming a circle around the Earth is a strong one.

Super Trivia

The two other Leviathan members who fight along with Rama Khan are identified in the credits as Tezumak and Sela. While these are also names of the League of Ancients who were adapted into Supergirl's version of Leviathan, the comic book characters are quite different.

In the comics, Sela was an African warrior woman who was a master tracker and swordswoman. The Arrowverse version is a Caucasian woman with red-hair who has vague air-based powers that includ creating lightning.. 

In the comics, Tezumak was a Mesoamerican warrior who gained enhanced strength and fighting prowess from an enchanted suit of bronze armor as well as telepathy strong enough to blunt Martian Manhunter's powers. In the Arrowverse, Tezumak is a man with African features, who has fire powers as well as some kind of telepathic ability that allowed him to daze Dreamer long enough to attack Martian Manhunter..

While Dreamer is standing before a vending machine, Miss Martian says that she recommends the Chocos. This is a nod to the love that all Martians seem to have for Chocos cookies in the comics.

Technobabble

Leviathan's base makes use of a proto-focused radiation shield, which slowly kills anyone who enters their base without wearing a special pin.

J'onn made Alex a costume that transforms whatever she is wearing into her new hooded super-suit. It also somehow gives her smokey eye make-up. 

Braniac-5 estimates that he will survive for 12 minutes after being exposed to Leviathan's radiation shield. 


Dialogue Triumphs

Lex: (upon seeing the Leviathan base) You know... I pride myself on seeing things. Connections where others see only coincidence. Pathways where others see only walls. I anticipate everything. But I must admit, I didn't not except you to live in a casino. 

Brainiac-5: You think I'm just gonna sit back while Leviathan murders my friends? 

Lex: Former friends. And yes, I think you will. Because if you get on that ship any sooner, you'll die with them.

Brainiac-5: Leviathan is the enemy, Lex. Not Supergirl, not J'onn J'onzz. Not Dreamer. 

Lex: You're right. They're heroes. They would happily sacrifice themselves to save the world. (smiling) Maybe they'll even thank us. 

Brainiac-5: I pushed away everyone I loved because you told me I must. You were right. This planet... my friends... It's worth it. I called you here simply because... I don't want to die alone. 

Lena: I have done terrible things to protect myself and the people I love. But it has never kept me safe from pain. It's just brought me a new kind of misery. And I moved further and further away from the person I was, until one day I woke up and I was utterly alone. 

Dialogue Disasters

J'onn: Oh, it was a scream of delight. Thank H'ronmeer. (Some detective, not being able to tell a happy scream from a scared one from 10 feet away.)

Continuity

Lex is finally allowed into the Leviathan base and meets Rama Khan along with Gamemnae. 

The Leviathan base is protected by a shield that slow irradiates anyone who enters it without protection. 

It is revealed that in addition to the Staff of the Shadow Realm, Lex also recovered several rings that increase the powers of Leviathan's other members. This, coupled with the Kryptonite taken from the DEO, should allow Leviathan to destroy Supergirl.

Miss Martian and Martian Manhunter agree to impersonate Supergirl, to draw Leviathan's fire while Kara and Lena go to Lena's lab, so Lena can build her a Kryptonite--Proof Armored Costume.

Alex reveals the new costume J'onn made her to the rest of the team.

Gamemnae admits that there is one above her, a her, who rules Leviathan.

Gamemnae allows Lex to keep her pin, saying he's now one of Leviathan.

Lex refuses to give his pin to Brainiac-5, saying they need to wait until after Supergirl and her friends are dead to strike at Leviathan. 

Alex and M'Gann face the lightning-wielding member of Leviathan, Sela. 

J'onn is burned by Tezzumak, as he and Dreamer face Rama Khan.

Kelly calls Alex and tells her she hasn't heard from William since he followed after Eve Tescmacher.

Alex says she and Kelly will look for William, while Kara waits to get her new suit.

Brainiac-5 summons his female doppelganger and explains to her his plan to enter Leviathan's base on his own and trap them in a bottle, as his ancestors used to trap planets. This will kill him but ultimately save his friends.

Kelly and Alex break into Obsidian North and acquire Eve's encrypted IP address.

Lena makes reference to her trip to Kaznia with Kara in 420.

Kara expresses her anger with Lena not realizing she only lied to her to protect her and Lena manipulating her for much more selfish reasons. 

Lena and Kara go to save William once they track down where Eve is.

Eve shoots William, but Kara cauterizes the wound with her heat vision.

Miss Martian, Dreamer and Supergirl briefly fight with Leviathan as Lena helps Eve and William escape.

Lena helps to cover Kara's secret identity unprompted when William asks about warning her.

Eve tells Supergirl about how Gemma Cooper is Gamemnae and part of Leviathan and that they plan to attack the Obsidian North Unity Festival.

4 million people are expected to be part of the festival, according to Eve. 

M'Gann talks with Nia about how she clearly had a vision that troubled her. Nia tells her about how she keeps seeing Braniiac-5, but how she's sure it's just her missing him and not truly part of her dreams.

It will take 10 minutes for Brainiac-5 to upload his shrinking code into Leviathan's systems. 

Kara is signed into Obsidian Platinum through a back door to get people to sign out.

Gamemnae decides to send Acrata to attack Supergirl while she's logged into Obsidian Platinum trying to convince people to log out. 

Lena talks Acrata out of killing Supergirl. 

Brainiac-5 successfully traps Leviathan, only for Luthor to steal the bottle holding them.

Supergirl keeps her promise and recovers Eve Teschmacher's mother and brings her to Lena's lab.

Dreamer finally realizes her visions were warning her that Brainiac-5 was in danger.

Kara and Lena reconcile.

The episode ends with Lex giving the bottle holding Leviathan to Lillian Luthor.

The Bottom Line

An uneven mess, much like Season 5 itself, even allowing for the rushed finale because of the COVID-19 crisis. The action sequences feel like filler meant to occupy the supporting cast and the new villains are poorly defined. Also, for all the series has tried to hang a lampshade on how there are some crises that Supergirl can't face by giving a heroic speech, she literally saves the world by giving a heroic speech. Meanwhile, everything else done to stop the villains comes about because of... uh, Braniac-5 and William Dey. That being said, Jon Cryer is still a magnificent villain for what little time he has on screen and the scenes involving Kara and Lena making up are as good as we could have hoped for. 

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 18 - The Missing Link

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



Plot

Rama Khan returns to fight Supergirl and her friends, as Lena and Lex are forced to team up when they're both trapped in the prison housing Lena's experiments and Project Non Nocere fails.

Influences

The JLA Comics of Joe Kelly (Rama Khan and Gamemnae)

Goofs

While it would make sense for Kara to be somewhat apprehensive of Lena's intentions after the last episode, it still seems drastically out of character for Kara to be utterly certain Lena is involved with Leviathan while the usually cynical and paranoid Alex pleads for her to not jump to conclusions.

While this is likely due, in part, to Melissa Beonist's pregnancy limiting what she can do in terms of stunt work and action scenes, it's odd how this episode (and, indeed, most of the second half of season 5) have had Lex Luthor doing more to fight Leviathan than Supergirl and William Dey doing more to investigate Leviathan than Kara.

On that note, it's weird that out of all the people who could help Alex realize how much leaving the DEO has hurt her sense of self, all the heavy lifting is done by a special guest start who figures out what Alex's problem is after knowing her for the span of one afternoon.

It had been previous established that Rama Khan's powers were tied to the Earth and that he couldn't effect alien materials, which is why he could not sense what happened inside the Fortress of Solitude as it was made of Kryptonian crystal. Why then is he able to move Kryptonite around like it was Earth-based mineral? (Perhaps his powers are different in the Post-Crisis reality or the staff allows him to move them indirectly by using the magnetic properties of the Earth?)

Performances

Sean Astin is quite frankly wasted in the role of Pete Andrews.

Katie McGrath slays in this episode and her interactions with Jon Cryer as Lex and Melissa Benoist as Kara in the closing moments of the show are perfect.

Technobabble

Lena determined that the failure of Non Nocere had nothing to do with Myriad being activated. 

The irises of a failed Non Nocere patient become inky. When Lena learns from Steve that the other inmate was hurt by the wild patient before his eyes turned, she theorizes that the natural survival instinct clashed with the programming to do no harm, resulting in his survival instincts kicking into overdrive to adapt to the new program when he sensed danger. When the wild patient turned, he became a predator, triggering the survival instincts in the other inmates, thus sparking the riot.

Protocol 5 is the emergency evacuation plan for DEO Headquarters.

Dialogue Triumphs

Brainiac-5: Okay. I... I know that you've been cozying up to Gemma Cooper for strategic reasons, but there's a distinction between manipulating Leviathan and helping them destroy the world! 

Lex: What kind of operation do you think this is? Mr. Smith Goes to Leviathan? Sometimes, to get what you want, you have to play a little dirty. I cannot get that invitation unless they think I'm on their side and if that means helping them get a weapon or two, so be it. 

Brainiac-5: People could've died. My friends could've died. 

Lex: Three months ago, you said that Leviathan was our biggest threat, that if we didn't defeat them, the global repercussions would be catastrophic. Millions dead, us and the Supers included. And your very words were, "The only way that you could successfully defeat them was by working with me, by trusting me." So, trust me now... because I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that if you can get the location of the Leviathan ship before I get that invitation, you can maybe end this before anyone gets hurt. But that's your anxiety thinking, not logic. I don't want your friends to die either, but sometimes, for the greater good, you have to break a few super-eggs. 

Brainiac-5: And you expect me to just stand back while Leviathan tries to kill my friends?!

Lex: I expect you to trust the process! War is brewing between Leviathan and the Supers and you are not to intervene.

(Supergirl flies off, leaving Dreamer and Brainiac-5 alone. She quickly moves to leave, but he moves after her.)

Brainiac-5: I'm needed here, but I... 

Dreamer: Don't. 

Brainiac-5: Nia... 

Dreamer: No! When you took off your inhibitors, I swore to be there for you no matter what. But, maybe I was wrong. Because I don't know who this Brainy is. But I know I don't like him. And I definitely don't trust him. 

Brainiac-5: Look... I can't explain... 

Dreamer: No more riddles. What the hell were you doing in there with Rama Khan? What was that language? And what did Lex Luthor have to do with it? 

(Brainiac-5 hesitates. He clearly wants to say something but is conflicted.)

Dreamer: Tell me. Right here, right now. 

Brainiac-5:  ... I can't. 

Dreamer: You can't play the game from both sides, Brainy. You can't pretend to be on our side one minute and then push us away the next. If you can't pick a side, I'll choose one for you. 

Lena: Non Nocere is dead. It doesn't work. It can't. It never could. Pain is a necessary part of being human, of life. And I was delusional to think that I could save people, or fix it. (breathes deeply) Humanity will always try to protect itself, to evolve. You can't stop that. You saw Steve, how helpless he was, all because of me.

Lex: I was rooting for you, Lena. But, I have to agree. Humanity can't be fixed. They need to be controlled. Leviathan may be our biggest threat, but they were right about one thing. Humanity needs a firm hand to guide it. To lead it. And not some arrogant alien. It needs to be human.  Lena: You mean, a Luthor. 

Lex: Think of all that we could accomplish together, if we just take our rightful place as humanity's saviors.

Lena: (quietly) Saviors? (starts to laugh softly) Of course. You never change. This was always all about you. Your megalomania. You... knew my plan wouldn't work.That it was doomed. You were counting on it.

Lex: (shouting) How dare you? I gave you the world! Everything! I supported you! I sabotaged nothing! Touched nothing! I set aside my own goals for you! (hissing) Because you needed to see your little project fail with your own eyes. To know the true depravity of humanity. (shouting) To know that my way was the only way!

Lena: (slowly inhaling before speaking deliberately and with purpose) You're a monster. But that doesn't mean I have to be one, too. 

(Brainiac-5 gets into a limo. Lex is sitting opposite him.)

Lex: Eventful day, Director Dox? 

Brainiac-5: I know. I disobeyed your direct order. I interfered with Leviathan and the Supers. I am responsible.(sighs) For everything.

(Lex bursts out laughing.)

Lex: Oh, Dox. Of course, I knew that you'd rush in to help your little friends. You're all gooey hero on the inside. I don't have to be a genius to know that. But don't worry. Everything is right on track. Even the loss of the DEO is a tax write-off. 

Brainiac-5: You wanted Rama Khan to be brought here. To get the Kryptonite. 

Lex: I gave Leviathan a little trinket from the Fortress that, with Kryptonite, will make Supergirl's life miserable. And they were very appreciative. 

Brainiac-5: You got an invite to the ship. 

Lex: I told you, trust the process, save the world. (cheerful) Get some sleep. Big day tomorrow. 

(Kara opens her door. Lena is standing there. They regard each other evenly. Kara turns around and leaves the door open, moving to stand by her dinner table. She turns and regards Lena, who enters the apartment and closes the door. When Kara just keeps staring at her, Lena speaks.)

Lena: I have made a terrible mistake. (takes a deep breath) I was hurt.(voice-cracking, speaking in a rush) I was so hurt. And... I thought I could get rid of the hurt. I thought that I knew better, that I could make the world a better place. But I was wrong. (another deep breath) That hurt, um, took me down a dark, dark path, where I was blind to what I was really doing. To what I'd become. 

(Kara just looks at Lena, saying nothing.)

Lena:You were right. This whole time I became a villain, and then... I'm not looking for forgiveness. I know what I said and I know what I did, but I am... I am really hoping that you will believe me right now. Okay? Lex is working with Leviathan, and they are going to use Obsidian to do something terrible... using the system, that I made with my project. I didn't know I was helping them, but I did. And... now I want to help stop them, so... Please, okay? I want to help stop Lex and Leviathan.

(Kara continues to look at Lena. Arms crossed. Clearly skeptical. Finally, she steps away from the table and pulls out a chair.)

Kara: Sit down.
(Lena nods softly and gulps as she moves to sit.)

Dialogue Disasters

Melissa Benoist's attempt at an Eliza Dolittle voice.

Continuity

The episode opens in flashback, showing what happened at the Luthor-owned prison during the escape of the Sun Eater in 517.

Steve Lomeli is shown to be teaching a yoga class in prison now.

One of the inmates has an anxiety attack and turns violent after getting trapped in an elevator during the Sun Eater rampage.  He is with two other inmates, one of whom is Steve Lomeli.

The action of the episode opens 24 hours after the Sun Eater rampage.

Lex stole something from the Fortress of Solitude, which he intends to give Leviathan to work his way into their good graces so that he can get on board their ship.

Brainiac-5 again asserts that he has a 12th Level Intellect, when he tells Lex that he figured out he was responsible for the Sun Eater escaping.

The previous Leviathan base and elevator with Braniac-5 discovered is no longer there.

Miss Martian is staying on Earth to aid in the battle with Leviathan.

J'onn is busy scanning for signs of Leviathan activity within a 300 mile radius of National City when Dreamer, Miss Martian, Alex and Supergirl hold a tactics meeting.

Supergirl is convinced that Lena is working with Leviathan. Alex says there is no proof of that.

Alex goes to meet with a friend of Kelly's, who is now an archivist with the Library of Congress and an expert in semiotics and iconography. This is later revealed to be Pete Andrews, the former soldier from 503.

Dreamer says she will see if she can foresee some clue as to where Leviathan's base is. 

Lex goes to check on Lena as she's working on fixing Non Nocere.

Steve Lomeli's attitude regarding Lex Luthor has changed in the Post-Crisis reality. He considers it an honor to meet him, as he wasn't in the same cell-block with Lex in this reality, as he was in 418.

Obsidian North announces a Worldwide Unity Festival to celebrate the release of Obsidian Platinum. 

Margot the Leviathan agent's full name is revealed to be Margot Morrison.

Kelly tries to convince Andrea Rojas to delay Obsidian North's launch. She refuses to consider it unless there is definitive proof the software is harmful.

Pete Andrews is a fan of Kara's writing and says her language use suggests a mastery of languages other than English. When he asks if she's traveled extensively, Kara lies and says she was born and raised in Midvale.

Pete Andrews says he's heard whispers of Leviathan's existence, but nothing definite.

Gamenae gives Rama Khan the item Lex Luthor stole from the Fortress of Solitude. The item is later revealed to be the Staff of the Shadow Realm from 508.

Pete says that the symbol of Leviathan appeared in a series of crop circles in Greece in 1752 weeks before a plague of locusts took out the entire region. Similar symbols appeared in 567 A.D in Macedonia and in 1134 A.D, Bavaria just before disasters.

Kara leaves to meet with William Dey after he calls her, saying he found something odd about Margot's manifesto video.

Pete tries to gain access to a special collections room, but his request is denied - he thinks because he specifically asked to research Leviathan. 

A riot breaks out in the prison, as more prisoners have their survival instincts overcome their programming no to harm others.

William determines that "Margot" in the video is someone wearing an image inducer pretending to be Margot.

Kara suggests they check Obsidian North's personnel files, as Margot apparently worked for them.
 

Malefic has begun to broker a peace between the two White Martian factions on Mars, according to Miss Martian.

A growing romance between Miss Martian and J'onn is hinted at as they catch up. 

Dreamer has a vision of Brainiac-5 laughing while playing with a deck of cards, where Rama Khan holding a staff takes the place of all the face cards. She takes this to mean that Brainy is playing games with Rama Khan. The emblem on the back of the cards is the symbol of the Oregon Geological Monitoring Station.

William claims to have gotten a private recipe from Chef Emeril Lagasse.

William discoveres that Margot Morrison spent a lot of time talking to an employee with the badge number 873. 

Kara excuses herself from working with William to go find Alex's missing cat.

William offers to come help, claiming that cats love him. Kara says that the cat gets skittish around tall men with accents.

Brainiac-5 sends DEO agents to back-up the Super Friends while they fight Rama Khan.

Lena, Lex and Steve work their way through the riot to Lena's office, where she can reset everyone with a burst of Q-waves.

Brainiac-5 takes Rama Khan into DEO custody, refusing to let Kara or Dreamer question him first.

Alex and Pete try to sneak into the special collections room during the 5 pm guard shift-change. They are shot at by a mysterious assailant, who chases them into the parking garage.

Dreamer says something about Rama Khan's staff gives her bad vibes.

Brainiac-5 says he will let Supergirl and Dreamer watch his interrogation of Rama Khan, but he has determined that he has an 85% better chance of successfully talking to him without them in the room.

Dreamer tells Supergirl about her vision of Brainiac-5 but how now she thinks it meant that Brainiac-5 was using Rama Khan somehow.

Pete calls his wife to make sure she is okay. He tells Alex that someone is watching their house and that they are going to go off the grid for a bid.

Peter tells Alex that she sounds like a lot of people he knows who still think they are in the military even after leaving and that she had better find a new identity for herself.

Obsidian North employee 873 is revealed to be Eve Teschmacher. The name means nothing to William, but Kelley Olsen knows who she was on Earth-38.

Brainiac-5 knows how to speak Jarhanpurian - the language of the aliens running Leviathan. 

Brainiac-5 tells Rama Khan that he knows about his partnership with Luthor and that he has a similar arrangement. The only thing Supergirl and Dreamer understand of the conversation, however, is the name "Luthor."

Dreamer senses that Rama Khan's staff is scanning the DEO for something, as Rama Khan reveals he allowed himself to be captured.

Rama Khan retrieves his staff and begins causing an tremor that destroys the building, as he summons all the Kryptonite in the DEO to him.

Lena is able to reset Project Non Nocere, but while it knocks out the aggressive inmates, it also causes Steve to lose the sense of peace he had gained.

J'onn and M'Gann arrive in time to save everyone, with M'Gann getting knocked out trying to distract Rama Khan and being phased out along with Kara by J'onn, after he freed Brainiac-5 from under a pile of rubble.  Brainiac-5, in turn, was able to fly to safety while carrying Dreamer.

The DEO Headquarters is destroyed as Rama Khan escapes with the Kryptonite.

Dreamer tells Brainiac-5 she knows he is working with Luthor and that she no longer trusts him.

William and Kelly go to Andrea Rojas with everything they discovered about Eve Tesmacher working under a number of aliases. However, given that Eve was hired on Gemma Cooper's recommendation  and doesn't have a criminal record or so much as a single supervisor complaint, she dismisses their concerns outright and threatens to have them fired if they do anything else that threatens to disrupt the launch of Obsidian Platinum.  

Lena decides that Non Nocere was a bad idea because pain is a necessary part of the human experience.

Lex says that he tried to support Lena and hoped she could find a way to make it work, but he believes that humanity can't be changed - they can only be controlled. And the hand that does the controlling must he a human and, ideally, a Luthor.

Lena cuts ties with Lex again.

J'onn sends Kara home, as she laments that without a Kryptonite-proof suit like what she had on the old Earth, she's useless in a fight against Rama Khan now.

M'Gann kisses J'onn, confirming their romance.

Alex returns home and tells Kelly that Pete has gone into hiding

Alex says that she isn't used to being exposed and she's even more freaked out withe the DEO being gone, even though she quit there months ago.

Kelly tells Alex about Eve Tesmacher working for Obsidian North but that Andrea won't do anything.

Kelly suggests that Alex consider becoming a vigilante in a costume with a mask, saying that is she is going to work with superheroes, she may as well go all the way.

Lex blows up the prison 

Gemma Cooper calls Lex and says she'll send a car for him in the morning so he can meet her friends.

Lex meets with Brainiac-5 and reveals that everything is going according to plan and that he had counted on Brainiac-5 disobeying his orders and helping the Super-Friends. He also tells him that he is finally getting invited into Leviathan's home base. 

William tries to follow Eve Tesmacher, but is jumped following her down an alley.

Lena goes to Kara, tells her that she thinks Lex is working with Leviathan and that she wants to help her stop him.

Location

The Oregon Geological Monitoring Station

The Bottom Line

Largely forgettable despite the major revelation of the DEO HQ being destroyed after four years of being a major set-piece. And yet the final ten minutes do much to redeem the shoddy script and continuity problems. While Kara is awfully out of character, Lena's speeches make up for a lot. 

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 17 - Deus Lex Machina

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




Plot

The details of how Lex Luthor was able to manipulate the Crisis to improve his lot on Earth-Prime are explained, as Lex enacts an intricate plan to bring Lena under his control and pit Supergirl against Leviathan, all with the help of an old ally who is about to meet Lex Luthor again for the first time - Eve Teschmacher!


Influences

All-Star Superman (the baby Sun Eater living in the Fortress of Solitude)

Goofs

While this may be a result of reality changing Post-Crisis, the Martians all seem to be much more powerful than they were previously, with Malefic somehow sensing the change in Earth's Q-waves from Mars and both J'onn and M'Gann now being able to fly through deep space without space suits. On the other hand, Martians in the regular DC Comics are crazy overpowered and the Martians depicted in the Arrowverse have always been severely under-powered relative to the comics, so what we see here is far more accurate to the source material.

Performances

A year ago, people mocked the idea of Jon Cryer being an effective Lex Luthor. This episode finally confirms how perfect that casting choice was.

For that matter, Andrea Brooks is a delight in this episode and it is clear why they keep finding excuses to bring her back as Miss Tessmacher.

Artistry

Setting the montage of Lex's trip around the world to David Bowie's "Man Who Sold The World" was frankly brilliant.

Super Trivia

This episode was directed by Melissa Benoist. It was her first professional directing job.

Technobabble

The Obsidian Platinum lenses interface with the brain by using Q-waves, which operate on a similar frequency as Malefic's brain. This means that just as J'onn could not connect to his brother telepathically, he can't find the missing Obsidian Platinum users.  

Brainiac-5 theorizes that if Supergirl uses Myriad in reverse, compressing the Q-waves in the atmosphere rather than broadcasting Q-waves into peoples' minds, it should make it possible for J'onn to telepathically track the missing people.

A Lexosuit can act as a mini-sunlight chamber if its internal radiation is set to 1,000 watts per meter.

A hydrogen explosive, contained within a Sun Eater, can trigger a reaction that will shrink it to a manageable size.

Dialogue Triumphs

(Lex Luthor screams as he plunges a Kryptonite dagger into a prone figure. We cut to a bedroom, where Lex is kneeling on the bed, punching into the mattress. He is watched by a butler, who looks stunned. He carries a tray in one hand which has a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice, along with a large breakfast. A newspaper is in his free hand.)

Butler: Are you all right, sir? 

Lex: (cautiously) That depends. Am I dead? 

Butler: (chuckle ) Heavens no, sir. But I dare say you're a bit hungover. Coffee?

(Lex hops out of bed and moves past the butler, pulling aside the curtains opposite his bed. We see the skyline of National City.)

Lex: (gasping in relief) I saved the world. 

Butler: It is all in a day's work for you, isn't it, Mr. Luthor? Why else would they be awarding you the Nobel Peace Prize? 
(The butler unfurls the morning newspaper. The front page headline reads LEX LUTHOR AWARDED NOBLE PRIZE FOR PEACE!) 

Lex: (chuckling) I didn't just save the world... I made a new world!

(Lex enters his mansion. He sniffs the air.)

Lex: Do I smell Beef Wellington? 

(Eve Teschmacher enters. She is wearing a neat black dress along with, paradoxically, a pink and red frilly apron with hearts.)

Eve: Victory and role-playing makes me hungry. ( In Margot's voice ) "Amy Sapphire was right. Technology is the greatest evil mankind has ever faced." 

Lex: Okay, stop there. Please don't ever image-induce into her ever again. I might lose my appetite. 

Eve: (laughs and sighs contentedly) I'm so glad we finally have a night to spend some time alone as a couple. 

Lex: A couple? 

Eve: I've been trying to tell you how I feel... and it's not just because you helped me escape Leviathan, it's because of who you are. How could I not love you? 

Lex: Oh... Ms. Tessmacher... you sad, silly woman... of course you love me. What's funny is, you thought I could love you back. 

Eve: (laughs nervously) I don't understand. We're a team. We're meant to be together. We're destined... 

Lex: Oh, we're destined. On another world, in another life, we knew each other very well. And in that life, you said you loved me, too. You distracted me, you made me weaker. But that's not happening this time, honey. I feel nothing for you. I saved you because you were useful. I needed a spy inside Leviathan. Oh, and as for your mother... she's still in danger, but from me. Those cars I showed you? The men in them are just waiting to pull the trigger if you ever betray me. But I'd think twice about that. That man you killed in the Andes didn't murder your father. I never bothered to find out who knocked off your old man. No, the man you murdered is Supergirl's father. 

(Lex samples something from one of the dishes and nods approval. As he continues to speak, the look of adoration on Eve's face changes to one of seething hatred.)

Lex: Oh, that's good. I have video of you killing him, by the way. Defy me, and I'll pass it on. Believe me, you do not want to be on the wrong side of those laser eyes. 

Eve: (bitterly) You are worse than Leviathan. 

Lex: Not worse. Better. 

Dialogue Disasters

Jason Mewes' cameo playing a Mississippi farmer. His Southern accent is beyond belief and breaks the fourth wall nearly as much as the fact that it's Jason Mewes showing up dressed as a farmer.


Continuity

The episode opens precisely 90 days after Crisis on Infinite Earths ended.

J'onn and Kara arrive at the hidden Leviathan ward first seen in 515. They are surprised to learn that Lex Luthor apparently uncovered the base, killed Margot (who was about to kill all the patients) and that Margot left behind a video claiming to be an acolyte of Amy Sapphire's manifesto from 514.

Richard Bates from 515 is among the people trapped in Obsidian Platinum whom Luthor saved.

3 months earlier, Lex Luthor woke up in a bed in a luxurious bedroom with a butler inquiring as to if he felt alright, as he woke up screaming from a flashback to the events of Crisis.

To his astonishment and relief, Lex confirms that he did not just save the world during Crisis - he was able to remake it according to his bargain with The Monitor.

Luthor's apartment is decorated with framed magazines where he is on the cover. This includes a Time Magazine declaring him Person of the Year, a magazine called National City Stars declaring him the sexiest man of the year again, and a CatCo Magazine about him and Supergirl teaming up to save the DEO.

Lena is asleep on Lex's couch. He gives her a shot to keep her asleep and asks his butler to see that she gets home while he tends to some family business. 

Lex informs the Lillian Luthor of the new world of the events of Crisis. She takes the news that reality was destroyed and rewritten quite well and comments, when Lex is surprised by this, that he's upgraded if his mother had been the sort of woman who would be upset by such a thing even if it had been resolved in her favor.

Lex takes his coffee without sugar.

Luthor's first priority is finding the Fortress of Solitude and destroying it and Superman/Supergirl before they can move against him.

Lillian tells Lex that the Kryptonians were his allies in this reality and that, by his account, it was his vendetta against him which led to his death in the previous reality. She advises that Lex focus on winning Lena over, since it was her turning on him that led to his previous plans failing. This sets up the scene where Lex proposes an alliance in 510.

Lena tells Lex about Leviathan and how Eve Teschmacher was an agent in their employ the whole time she worked for him and he had no clue they even existed. 

We see an extended version of the scene where Lex explored the Legion ship in 511. This time, we see Lex using the Legion computer to gather all the information that exists on Earth-Prime's Eve Teschmacher.

In the reality of Earth-Prime, Eve Teschmacher never worked for Lex Luthor, which means she never encountered anyone at CatCo Worldwide Media. This explains how she was able to hide out at Obsidian North without being recognized and why nobody recognized her as the woman who took the blame for Lena Luthor's crimes earlier this season.

In Earth-Prime, Eve Teschmache works as a spy and assassin for Leviathan, having been recruited after they killed her father and threatened to kill her mother. Lex tells her that he knows all about this and wants to help her get free of them. 

30 days after Crisis, Lex reveals that he has three ex-Mossad agents watching Eve Teschmacher's mother, ready to protect her if Leviathan moves against her. He also reveals that he is trying to track down the Leviathan agent responsible for killing her father.

Eve reveals that while she has yet to get onto Leviathan's ship, she did convince Gamemnae to put her to work at Obsidian North on the Platinum VR project. 

Eve reports that she found a way to patch a glitch in the bio-link that developed as a result of the Luthor tech being integrated into Obsidian Platinum which caused people to develop toxic shock while eating virtual food. This was first mentioned in 512.

Lex reveals that this was not a glitch but it was part of his plan. With Eve using her position to stop the glitch from being fixed, Lex will step in and offer his assistance to Gamemnae in covering up the problems caused by the glitch, winning her trust and earning himself an invitation onto Leviathan's ship, where he can use the mortality code Brainiac-5 is developing to make them mortal.

Lex poses as a bartender and gives Richard Bates the idea to hack Obsidian Platinum so he can get back at the man with whom his wife was having a virtual affair. This eventually occurred in 515.

43 days after Crisis, Eve Teschmacher has been moved into a new apartment.

Less reveals to Eve that he discovered a woman on-line named Amy Sapphire who blamed Obsidian Platinum and Andrea Rojas for her husband's suicide. Lex intends to radicalize Amy Sapphire by providing her with a set of gauntlets that will enable her to weaponize her bio-energy. This reveals where Amy got her gauntlets in 514. Lex further plans to order Supergirl to act as Andrea Rojas' bodyguard, enabling him to further endear himself to Gamemnae. 

60 days after Crisis is when Amy Sapphire attacked Obsidian North's offices. (514.) At the time the attack occurred, Lex Luthor was playing chess with his mother and actively ignoring Brainiac-5's calls for help stopping the power core under the CatCo building from exploding.

Eve told Lex that Leviathan was quietly ferrying the people becoming addicted to Obsidian Platinum because of the glitch into a facility in National City.This prompts Lex to provide Richard Bates with the backdoor he needs to hack into Obsidian Platinum for his revenge scheme. This occurs just before Lex goes on a world tour to promote Obsidian Platinum. 

Lex provides Eve with a dossier on the man who killed her father and a poison that will make his death look like natural causes. The man in the dossier is Jeremiah Danvers, whose death was reported at the end of 515.

The montage of Lex's trip around the world s is intercut with scenes from 515 and 516.

Lena approaches Kara to offer her sympathies over her adoptive father's death. She offers Kara a book that helped her get over the loss of her mother.

88 days after Crisis, Lex meets with Lillian and complains that Lena went to Kara and that he never considered that as a possibility. This spurs him to do something that will pit Leviathan against Supergirl and turn Lena against Kara again.

Lex has Eve leak a tip to William Dey regarding the paper medical bracelet he found in 516 and then tells her to move all the bodies Leviathan is hiding somewhere else.

William's mother taught him how to bake. He makes scones, sticky toffee pudding and banoffee pie for Kara and Alex.

The fake clue Eve sends to William Dey turns out to be information on Richard Bates, whose bracelet William found.

Alex recognizes the name Bonnie Walker on the list of people still trapped inside Obsidian VR who can't be found. This was the woman she met while she was playing the Supergirl simulation.

Eve records their conversation from across the street and sends it to Lex, who uses the video/audio to prove to Gamemnae that Supergirl and her allies are plotting against Leviathan. He also reveals that he knows the truth about what she and her associates are. 

Gamemnae reveals that her plan is to kill everyone who is logged into Obsidian Platinum during a global event. 

Lex says that he can stop the plan from being exposed, but he will need the assistance of Leviathan's stealthiest operative.

Lex gives Brainiac-5 a pysanka that was gifted to him by a Ukrainian holy man.

Brainiac-5 says that he was asked to help locate the people who are trapped in Obsidian Platinum and that Alex Danvers thought Luthor was abducting them. Lex promises that is Leviathan's doing - not his.

Brainiac-5 asks Lex to help him find the people that Leviathan kidnapped. Lex says he can't, because that would ruin his plan to be the inside man that brings them down.

Lex also refuses to give the cube from the Legion ship to Brainiac-5 because Lena is using it.

Lex suggests that maybe Supergirl has something in the Fortress of Solitude that might be able to track Q-Waves.

J'onn says he detected Richard Bates' psychic signature at the place where Leviathan had been keeping the victims, but there was some kind of interference blocking him from tracking them. Brainiac-5 reveals this is because Obsidian Platinum runs on Q-waves, which operate on a frequency similar to Malefic's brain. 

Activating Myriad generates an interference that disrupts Lena's experiments. This leads her, after some prompting from Lex, to go to the Fortress of Solitude to see if Kara is using Myriad after she said it was too dangerous for anyone to use.

Lex loans Lena his teleporter watch to make the trip.

Lena is trailed by an invisible creature,who follows her through the portal.

The L-Protocol which defended the Fortress from anyone with Luthor DNA in 507 does not exist on Earth-Prime. This enables Lena to enter the Fortress of Solitude without triggering an alarm.

Lena discovers that Kara is indeed using Myriad.

The invisible being is revealed to be a Morae - one of the aliens first depicted in 410.

The Morae releases the baby sun eater that lives inside the Fortress of Solitude and it drains the solar energy from Kara's body just flying past her.

M'Gann arrives from Mars, saying that Malefic sensed the disturbance to Earth's Q-waves and sent her to help.

Kara is healed after a DEO Lexosuit is reconfigured to charge her body with solar energy. 

The Sun Eater is shrunk back to a regular size and returned to its safe room in the Fortress of Solitude.

The Morae confirms that she works for Leviathan.

While J'onn and Kara are occupied with the Sun Eater, Lex rescues the Leviathan captives, leading to the opening scene of the episode. 

J'onn doesn't detect the presence of the Leviathan captives until after Lex has already killed Margot and exposed the kidnapping plot, while leaving the existence of Leviathan a secret.

Lex explains to Gamemnae that it was necessary for Margot to die to remove any hint of suspicion that Obsidian North was involved in the kidnapping plot. He does admit to underestimating Supergirl and her allies in how they were able to stop the Sun Eater before enough people were logged into Obsidian Platinum for Gamemnae to enact her plan to cull humanity, but says that just proves his point that they have to destroy Supergirl first and that only immortals, like Leviathan, can possibly have a chance of hurting her. 

Lex returns to his mansion to find Eve cooking him Beef Wellington in an apron. 

It is revealed that Eve, wearing an image inducer, was responsible for Margot's confession video.

Eve once again professes her love for him and asks is they can finally pursue a romance now that all their goals are almost achieved.

Lex admits that he was using Eve, that he lied about Jeremiah Danvers killing her father, that his bodyguards will kill her mother if she dares move against him. He also admits that he did make a mistake one year earlier: he trusted that Eve's love for him would be enough to keep her from double-crossing him, which is why he's now blackmailing her with the evidence of the murder she committed and her mother's life to make sure she continues to be the perfect minion. 

Using the watch he gave Lena, Lex recalls the last location used and walks into the Fortress of Solitude.

Location

Fortress of Solitude
Deep Space, close to Earth's sun

Luthor Manor

The Bottom Line

There's one-half of a great episode here and it's the half which explains some of the excesses of the second half of Season 5 as all being part of Lex Luthor's larger plan. The hell of it is that as good as this is, it winds up inadvertently making it look like Lex Luthor is the only character doing anything to thwart Leviathan and makes the heroes look like idiots for focusing on Lex Luthor being a part of the one sinister scheme that he honestly had nothing to do with!  The second half is definitely weaker, with M'Gann showing up out of nowhere, the Martians suddenly being far more powerful than they were before and a CGI extravaganza suddenly being inserted into what had been a nice, character-focused episode until that point. The whole thing averages out to be pretty good, but that's largely due to the charisma of Jon Cryer and Andrea Brooks.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 16 - Alex in Wonderland

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


Plot

Unwilling to cope with her feelings in the face of her father's death, Alex retreats into Obsidian Platinum and begins to play out her dream of being her sister. As "Super Alex" gets drawn deeper into the augmented reality, Kelly and William begin to investigate Lex Luthor and Obsidian North's connection to Leviathan.


Influences

1990's VR science fiction, Alice in Wonderland (the title and the idea of losing touch with reality thanks to a fictional world.) the Indiana Jones movies (the character of Treasure Hunter Tilly) and Superman: The Movie ( Hank Henshaw's method of contacting Supergirl in Alex's dream world)


Goofs

William continues to be the biggest creep imaginable, asking Kelly how Kara is doing in the wake of her father's death.

Granting that he's the villain in a VR simulation shaped by a mentally distressed Alex, David Harewood's overacting as Hank Henshaw remains as painful as ever to endure. It's almost as bad as Chyler Leigh's drunk acting.

A new low for William Dey's skills as an expert undercover journalist - he has his secret NSA contact saved in his phone as "Arnie - NSA."

Why is Eve Teschmacher being used as an agent to infiltrate Obsidian North? Unless something drastically changed in the rebooted reality, she should be in prison taking the blame for Lena's earlier attempts at world domination. It's unclear if she is working for Lex, Lena or Leviathan but it hardly matters as they should all be smart enough to remember that Eve worked for CatCo Worldwde Media in the same building for several years and stood a good chance of being recognized, even if she weren't a famous criminal at this point.

Why are Brainiac-5 and Dreamer sitting together at Jeremiah's funeral? Ignoring their own personal issues with being in close proximity to one another, neither of them knew Jeremiah and Brainiac-5 isn't the sort to go to a funeral purely to offer emotional support. Especially right now.

For that matter, why is there no other family or friends at the funeral apart from the regular cast? Surely Eliza had friends and work colleagues who would come to her husband's funeral?


Super Trivia

Jeremiah Danvers is said to have suffered a heart attack while working in a refugee camp in Peru. This is believed to be a subtle stab against actor Dean Cain, who played Jeremiah Danvers and acquired some degree of infamy on Twitter after he made several remarks about South American refugees that many found racist and said were unworthy of an actor who once played Superman. Jeremiah's death by cardiac arrest may also be a reference to Dean Cain's apparent lack of a properly functioning heart.

In the VR world, Hank Henshaw delivers a message to Supergirl using an ultra-high frequency. This is the same method used by Lex Luthor to contact Superman in Superman: The Movie and Henshaw's line mimics but desn't quite copy Lex's line from the film about how Supergirl is "the only thing with less than four legs than can hear this transmission.."

Another Superman movie reference comes later, when Alex encounters another Supergirl player in the game and is confused. The NPC Brainiac-5 explains this as being a possible side-effect of Kryptonite poisoning. In Superman III, Superman split into good and evil versions of himself after being exposed to a synthetic form of Kryptonite.

Kara is barely in this episode, partly due to Melissa Beonist spending most of the episode's production time shadowing the director in anticipation of her first time directing the show. It is also expected that her screen time is being limited in light of her recent pregnancy.

Steph Song, the actress who plays the second Supergirl Alex meets in Obsidian Platinum, played the role of Roulette in Smallville.


Technobabble

Obsidian Platinum is run entirely through wi-fi booster towers.

Obsidian Platinum maps outward from the users brain, making the NPCs resemble people from their memories.

NPCs have three stripes on their neck.

Dracokardosian are a species of shape-shifting dragons.

With the right warhead, an short range ballistic missile has the capacity to wipe out everything in a 20 mile radius.

Kelly theorizes that Alex had a mild psychotic break due to her being more susceptible to the Obsidian Platinum AI while she was mourning.


Dialogue Triumphs

Young Alex: (regarding Jeremiah) His life was a result of his choices. Not ours.


Dialogue Disasters

(A chime goes off on Kelly's computer.)
William: What is it? Did Lex do something?!

Honestly, every single line William has regarding how Lex MUST be responsible for something bad happening at Obsidian North, even though there is no evidence of that. If you do a shot every time William says Lex's name in this episode you'll be dead after the second commercial break.


Continuity

The opening exterior shot reveals that Kara still lives on Hope Street on Earth-Prime, as was revealed in 406.

Jeremiah Danvers is said to have died of cardiac arrest. He had been working in an alien refugee camp in the Peruvian Andes, not too far from where he originally met J'onn.

Alex refuses to go to Jeremiah's funeral, saying that he's been dead to her for years and he did nothing to make amends to her. She also says that Kara's arrival changed everything and he became devoted to keeping Kara safe to the point that it destroyed his relationship with Alex.

William visits Kelly in her office and asks for her help in investigating Lex Luthor.

According to William, Lex has rushed 32 satellite launches by the FAA and put these satellites in orbit over directly over a cities he visited as part of his Obsidian Platinum promotion tour. As far as Kelly knows, this has nothing to do with Obsidian Platinum, which runs entirely off of wireless signals.

Kelly tells William about Richard Bates and how the only problem Obsidian Platinum has faced since Luthor got involved with it was his hacking the system in 515.

Kelly says she is watching the system for signs of Luthor's interference, but so far she doesn't think he's doing anything.

Alex meets another player in Obsidian Platinum  named Bonnie who has taken on the role of Treasure Hunter Tilly.

Bonnie says her sister Jill is a huge Supergirl fan, who was just diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. She says she can't afford the flight to go see her.

Derek is a man whose wife just died who Bonnie thinks spends too much time in VR pretending to be a rock star.

Alex saves the concert crowd from a Dracokardosian - a dragon, like Spike from 509.

Derek seems confused when Alex makes a comment to him about how realistic the VR in Obsidian Platinum is

Derek is revealed to be one of the comatose patients in the ward watched over by Margot.

Kelly discovers that the hack Richard Bates exploited still hasn't been patched. The records show that the order was put in but the work funds hadn't been released yet.

Andrea says she will take care of the patch and that they don't need to issue a public warning.

Alex runs into Bonnie again at a dinner, where Alex is eating blueberry pancakes. These were revealed to be one of Alex's favorite dishes in 502.

Alex makes reference to going back to the real world and Bonnie is confused by what she means. She also doesn't understand when Alex asks her about Jill and insists her name is Tilly.

In Alex's dream world, J'onn is still the director of the DEO.

Margot is seen in the real world, leading a Leviathan team who pick up Bonnie from the trailer where she is in a comatose state.

Hank Henshaw appears in Alex's dream, having kidnapped Kara. He threatens to kill her and expose her secret identity unless Supergirl brings him a nuclear warhead for the missile he stole.

Kelly determines that Lex Luthor is now a member of the Board of Directors of Obsidian North.

Kelly gives William a list of almost 500 Obsidian Platinum users who have been playing the game for 48 hours straight or longer who nobody has called about.

William calls 100 of the people on the list and none of them are stuck in the game.

Kelly leaves to go check on Alex when she isn't answering her phone.

Another Supergirl player encounters Alex in the game. This time, it is Alex who is confused by her presence and the references to reality.

According to the other Supergirl player, Obsidian Platinum can't make alcoholic drinks cold enough without her using her her freezing breath.

When Alex asks about the second Supergirl, Brainiac-5 says it might be a side effect of Kryptonite poisoning.

Alex tries to leave the game and seems successful... until she gets a call from the NPC J'onn telling her that Psi is attacking the city and making everyone doubt that reality is real.

Kelly finds Alex trapped in Obsidian Platinum with her eyes glowing red instead of blue.

Alex is not responsive, even when injected with an Epi-Pen.

Kelly enters into Alex's dream. The game begins acting like she's a victim of Psi's attack and keeps throwing up random villain attacks to keep Alex distracted.

Kelly is able to shock Alex out of the game by adding a teenage version of Alex into the game who tells her that nothing they are seeing is real.

Alex tells Kelly about Bonnie and Derek and how they were stuck in the game too.

Lex Luthor is currently in Madrid, Spain.

There are so many pre-orders for Obsidian Platinum in Madrid that the phone lines were shut down.

William has an NSA contact who tells him that of the 402 names from Kelly's list he checked out, 337 were VR geeks with no connection to Lex Luthor. The rest are all pinging from the same IP address, which is traced to 5532 3rd Street in National City.

Andrea tells one Obsidian North technician to start work on a patch for the fail safe error code immediately. The technician is revealed to be Eve Teschmacher.

William goes to 5532 3rd Street and finds nothing. This is due to Margot using some kind of camouflage technology that makes the room with the trapped Obsidian Platinum users look empty. She stands five feet in front of William and he does not see her.

Bonnie is confirmed to be among the victims in the ward.

The only thing William finds is a paper bracelet belonging to a hospital patient.

Alex and Kelly drive to Midvale in time for Jeremiah's funeral.


Location

Midvale.


Untelevised Adventures

Jeremiah Danvers apparently spent the last three years working at a camp for alien refugees in South America.

We don't get to see Super Alex battle Psi in the dream world.


The Fridge Factor

The usually strong-willed Alex has her IQ lowered by about 50 points to render her susceptible to video game addiction.

William tells Kelly - the psychiatrist who specializes in handling PTSD patients - how she should handle her grief-stricken girlfriend. For he is Captain Mansplaining!


The Bottom Line

A painful bit of filler that serves no real purpose other then ensuring that we'll never have any reason to expect to see Dean Cain guest star on this show ever again. Alex is turned into a drunken jackass for the sake of a plot point and most of the cast is sidelined playing augmented reality versions of themselves for most of the episode so that we can watch William and Kelly - easily the two most annoying characters on the show - be big damn heroes by making phone calls. An immediate contender for the worst Supergirl episode ever.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 15 - Reality Bytes

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


Plot

A transphobic troll begins attacking trans women through a dating app (including Nia's roommate) and threatens to keep doing it unless Dreamer quits being a superhero. As Kara tries to stop Nia from going over the edge in dealing with the wannabe super-villain, J'onn, Alex and Kelly search for a missing man who may have been abducted and is being held hostage in a virtual world in Obsidian Platinum.


Influences

Various 1990s horror stories built around virtual reality. The title is taken from the 1994 drama Reality Bites.

Goofs

Despite fretting over whether to wear a blue or purple shirt on her date with William, Kara winds up wearing the purple shirt after Alex told her to wear the blue and that blue is her best color.

Yvette is written as the stupidest woman on the planet, not thinking anything is weird about some strange man knowing her virtual boyfriend's name when he approaches her in a bar or when he later approaches her in an alley.

In fact, the only person stupider than Yvette in this episode is the bigot himself, who doesn't really think through the logistical problems of calling out a superhero with actual powers and attacking people who claim to know her on-line. He seems honestly stunned with Dreamer finds him and is able to overpower him easily.

Ignoring the reasons outlined in the episode, it seems incredibly stupid for Obsidian Platinum to operate without rules or without some kind of virtual sysop inside the game to monitor for things like, say, a serial killer/rapist attempting to make his fantasies a reality and targeting other players.

It seems unlikely that there are only 200 anti-trans message boards and social media groups on the entire Internet or that the sum total of their postings could be fit onto a single portable flash drive. Even allowing that the DEO and Brainiac-5 may have some wonderfully huge portable drives.

Yvette's decision to delete all her social media seems to be a bad lesson for this fable. As written, it seems like the episode is saying that dating apps are evil; not bigots, trolls and stalkers who use dating apps as a means of locating potential victims.

The closing montage set to "Everybody Hurts" would be a bit more powerful had the episode ended with Alex and Kara learning of Jerimaih's death rather than most of the song being played over Margot wheeling away Richard Bates.


Performances

Nicole Maines gives a powerful performance in the early scenes and you really feel Nia's rage at the bigot trying to stop her from being a hero and her frustration with Kara's well-meaning but misplaced efforts at empathy and her trying to give a "there's nothing we can't overcome together" speech at the worst possible time to be a clueless but well-meaning ally.

At the same time, Melissa Benoist does a great job in the early scenes trying to convey earnest empathy while realizing that she's not in a place where she can offer moral judgement, as much as it kills her that there are some things she can't solve with a speech about hope and some villains who can't be redeemed.


Super Trivia

Reference is made to the nation of Quarac, which is ruled by a royal family on Earth-Prime. In the DC Comics universe, Quarac is a fictional nation in the Middle East.

J'onn travels to Opal City following the psychic trail attached to Trevor Crane. In the DC Comics universe, Opal City is the home town of the first superhero to use the name Starman, Ted Knight. It was the main setting of the 1994 Starman series.

Jennifer Bates is played by actress Anna Van Hooft, who appeared in a season 1 episode of Arrow as a woman named Jenn who was mistaken for Sara Lance in a photo Dinah Lance believed proved her daughter was alive. Jenn was said to be engaged to be married, suggesting that maybe Jenn is Jennifer eight years later.on Earth-Prime.


Technobabble

There is a fail-safe tied to the bio-metrics of the user of Obsidian Platinum's lenses, that is meant to manifest a button the user can push to end the simulation when they are feeling unduly stressed.

The Hand of the Soldier is apparently capable of generating an electrical shock strong enough for a Kryptonian on Earth to feel it, as Alex is apparently able to teasingly shock Kara with it.

The Martian DNA inside the Hand of the Soldier should code itself to Alex's bio-electric impulses, allowing her to morph it with a single thought once she allows it into her.

Obsidian Platinum connects to a person's biology rather than acting through a link to their brain. It causes everything they experience to feel real.

Advanced Obsidian Platinum users can customize the virtual world but it takes time for the additions to be cataloged by the games' manager.  As such, there are some places (like The Escape Palace) where the people running the game have no clue what is going on.

Kelly says the Escape Palace draws upon a user's worst fears, making everyone perceive if differently. In Alex's case, she sees it as a series of tanks like the one she nearly drowned in.

One DEO agent reports to Brainiac-5 that she found over 200 anti-trans social media groups and message boards on the Internet and fit them onto a single portable drive.

Richard Bates is somehow able to customize his rooms in Obsidian Platinum to block remote monitoring.

According to Kelly, Alex should not have been able to blast Richard out of Obsidian Platinum.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Regarding the Martian Hand of the Soldier weapon J'onn gave Alex.)
Alex: This thing is supposed to know what I'm thinking, but it's being very stubborn.
Kara: (grinning) Well, like soldier, like hand.
(Alex raises her wrist at Kara and makes a buzzing noise. Kara jumps back as if shocked as Alex laughs.)

Nia: He wants me to stop being a superhero. He's going after my community to bully me into it.
Kara: Listen to me, Nia, listen. We will find this guy
Nia: Yeah, we will. And when we do, I'll bury him.
Kara: (shocked) Nia! Look, I... I... (sighs) I know this is a personal attack, but you have to trust that when we find this guy the cops are going to put him behind bars.
Nia: (exasperated) Kara, I love you, but do not tell me what I can and can't do right now. There is no catching this guy and redeeming him. There is no "hope speech" that can make this better!
Kara: Nia -
Nia: (firmly) No. Look, my community is vulnerable. This happens more than you could possibly know. And there are guys, just like this jerk out there, who want to hurt us. They want us to hide and to be afraid to be who we are. They want us to disappear and it happens. Every. Day.
Kara: I know. And what this guy did was horrible-
Nia: He's not the first and he won't be the last. We haven't exactly been a priority for the cops. So, just trust me when I say that I am the one protecting this community. And now this bastard is going after my community trying to erase me? No. No, this guy is over!
Kara: (shaken) Look, I know that you're hurting right now. And I know I'll never fully understand. But between us and the cops, we will make sure justice is served. Nia? Just give us a chance?
Nia: Fine. A few hours. Then I'm doing this my way.

Kara: I know sometimes being the good guy sucks. Especially when you know how easy it would be to get rid of someone so vile and full of hate. But, hey not doing that? That is what makes us different from them.


Dialogue Disasters

(Kara and William write a story together and we get the clunkiest message delivery ever.)
Kara: (reading) "Over 24 trans people have been murdered in this country in the past year."
William: The true number's likely much higher. Many of these attacks are misreported because victims are misgendered in police reports.

Dreamer: You make me sick.
Bigot: No, you make me sick you twisted freak! You show up on the scene one day tricking dudes into thinking you're this hot new superhero! The girl next door! But heroes are supposed to be virtuous and honest! And here you are - lying!


Continuity

Two months earlier, a man named Richard Bates testing  a virtual ski vacation in Obsidian Platinum's beta became trapped inside the game when the End Simulation button failed to manifest.

Kelly Olsen was overseeing Bates' experience. She promised to report the error, before Bates was led away by Margot, the woman with Leviathan.

Supergirl and Dreamer fight a Dominator together, just before Kara's first date with William Dey.

Brainiac-5 is distant yet formal to Dreamer when the DEO shows up to secure the scene after the fight.

Kara hasn't had a date in two and a half years.

According to the news, Lex Luthor just had dinner with Crown Prince Raakaan el-Farah of Qurac and, per his advice, Obsidian Platinum will soon be available in that nation.

Alex is still having issues training with the Martian Hand of the Soldier weapon.

Nia's roommate Yvette has a profile on a dating app called Upswipz. This was the same dating app made by the tech company Ray Palmer briefly worked for in L301.

Yvette has been seeing a man she met on-line exclusively for three weeks. She's going to meet him in person for the first time at a club that night and she wants Nia to go with her.

Yvette does not know that Nia is Dreamer or that Nia's ex "Barney" is a DEO agent and an alien from the future.

Yvette describes herself on her Upswipz's profile as Dreamer's best friend.

Kara and William go to a pool hall on their date. Kara claims she's only played 8-Ball one time in her life, but manages a near perfect shot.

Nia has a flash at the bar of blood being on her hands.

Yvette is approached by a man who somehow knows about Angus and doesn't take the hint when she asks about her being spoken for just before she gets a message from Angus telling her to meet her outside. She still seems to have no idea what is going on when the same man approaches her and talks about Angus standing her up.

Nia has another vision in the bathroom of Yvette being attacked.

The bigot leaves a note with Yvette that is addressed to Dreamer, saying the world doesn't want a trans superhero and that unless she quits he'll keep attacking trans women.

The police put together a sketch of what the bigot looks like.

Nia agrees to wait a few hours to give Kara and the police a chance to find the bigot before she goes off on her own.

Al, who runs Al's Dive Bar, comes to J'onn and asks for his help in finding his brother, Trevor, who has been missing for a week.

Trevor lives in Al's basement and spends a lot of time on-line.

Trevor's given name is Trevor Crane.

Al called the police but the only lead they found was an invitation on Trevor's computer to go to a weekend escape experience in the Virtual Las Vegas inside Obsidian Platinum. The police think Trevor is a hotel room somewhere on a VR party binge.

Trevor  apparently just started using Obsidian Platinum and apparently had met some friends somewhere called The Escape Palace.

Alex determines that Trevor must have paid cash for his hotel room since there's no credit card records of him checking in somewhere.

Kara asks Brainiac-5 to use the DEO's facial-recognition software to identity the bigot that is looking for Dreamer.

Kelly sets Alex up with a set of Obsidian Platinum lenses.

According to Kelly, Obsidian Platinum sets up a number of potential scenarios based on your own thoughts and desires before you enter the game world proper. In Alex's case, it appears that three of her scenarios involve being Supergirl, working as a doctor or having a baby.

There are no rules inside the Obsidian Platinum world.

The virtual Vegas experience has a virtual Siegfried and Roy show.

NPCs in Obsidian Platinum can be identified by the three lines on their neck. The NPCs are AIs run by the

Al says Trevor has spent that last few months in VR instead of spending time with him.

Al gives J'onn a watch that he gave him as a gift to mark their first year on Earth together. Trevor wore it every day until he got a smart watch, hoping J'onn can use it to psychically track him.

J'onn finds the names of two of Trevor's friends avatars on Obsidian Platinum.

One of the Obsidian Platinum users identifies The Escape Palace as a creepy haunted house located in the hills just outside Virtual Vegas.

Alice finds two of Trevor's friends trapped inside a flooding magician's tank, similar to the one she was stuck inside in 219.

Trevor's friends claim they were stuck inside the room for days. They say they last saw Trevor escape from their room with a new player named Richard, who had started hanging out with them.

Richard was the one who suggested everyone try the Escape Palace experience.

J'onn travels to Opal City, to a house he feels is connected to Trevor somehow.

The house belongs to Jennifer Bates, Richard Bate's wife, who was having a virtual affair with Trevor Crane.

Nia calls the detective working Yvette's case, but he hasn't made any progress.

Nia creates a profile on Upswpiez to get the bigot's attention.

Richard Bates is revealed to be a computer engineer who began exploring the technical specifics of how Obsidian Platinum worked.

Brainiac-5 is searching everything on the Internet relating to Dreamer and finds Nia's dating profile.

Alex breaks into one room in the virtual world and is cut off from Kelly in the real world.

Kara and William work on the story of Yvette's attack together.

Brainiac-5 calls Kara and tells her that he thinks Nia is trying to use herself as bait to attract the bigot.

The bigot's ID on Upswipez is GoodTimes1995.

The room Trevor is trapped in causes his virtual avatar to blow up like he was standing on a land mine and be reformed in a painful fashion, over and over. He says Richard Bates keeps coming back to the room to watch him explode over and over.

Alex is able to force Richard Bates out of the virtual world by shooting him with an imaginary taser.

J'onn tracks down Richard Bates in the real world, in Room 10 of the Coastline Motel.

After Bates tries attacking J'onn, his eyes become red-rimmed and he seems to hallucinate the world changing around J'onn.

Alex talks Trevor down and gets him to retake control of his body.

Trevor is at the National City Grand, Room 315.

According to Kelly, Alex should not have been able to blast Richard out of Obsidian Platinum. Alex says they can figure it out later.

Nia ambushes the bigot, who seems stunned that Dreamer came looking for him.

The bigot's name is Gregory Bauer.

Nia confesses to Kara that she's hurting far worse than she let on because of Brainiac-5 dumping her and like she's lost control of her life and going after the bigot was something she could do.

Kelly and Alex agree that virutal cheating counts as cheating and that virtual torture is real attempted murder.

Kelly says she believes her work can help people but agrees with Alex that VR technology should be regulated and the people allowed to program it limited.

Trevor comes to meet Alex in person and thank her for saving him.

Yvette decides to delete all her social media. She says she's tired of putting herself out there because she should have known better than to trust that most people could accept a trans woman of color or that she could find a man who loved her for her.

Brainaic-5 gives the detective handling Yvettte's case a list of people connected to a group Gregory Bauer was part of that was planning attacks on trans women on-line and identified several users who had claimed credit for several attacks.

Alex is still having trouble getting the Hand of the Soldier to work in the real world.

Alex gets a phone-call from her mother telling her that Jeremiah Danvers has been found dead.

Alex goes to Kara's apartment to tell her the news.

Margot is seen wheeling Richard Bates out of the hospital and placing him in a room with other Obsidian Platinum users - some of whom are somehow floating in mid-air.


Location

Opal City


The Bottom Line

Were it not for some strong performances, this might instantly have been the worst episode of Supergirl ever filmed. As it stands, it definitely has one of the weaker scripts, and surprisingly this is more because of the clunky virtual reality storyline (which would have seemed silly and dated had it been an episode of VR.5) than the Dreamer-focused story about the problem of violence against trans women.

The script is just lazy in the middle parts, with William and Kara literally reading off the statistics about how many trans women have been murdered by bigots. This severely undercuts the good parts of the episode, such as where Nia takes Kara to task for trying to give her usual chirpy optimistic speech about how we can overcome these problems if we work together, neatly ignoring all the people who are actively working to discourage that kind of unity.

It's also bothersome that the lesson taken away from this episode is that you should just stay off social media and close yourself off from the world. Yet none of that is as painful as the tech jargon rattled off by people who don't understand it. The hearts of the writers may have been in the right place, but their heads were somewhere else entirely.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 14 - The Bodyguard

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


Plot

When an anti-technology activist threatens Andrea Rojas' life and the launch of Obsidian Platinum, Lex is all too eager to appoint Supergirl to act as Andrea's personal bodyguard, as he attempts to further endear himself to Gemma Cooper and Lena pushes forward with Project Non Nocere and the first human test subjects.


Influences

The 1992 film The Bodyguard, Skyrim (the opening VR sequence with the viking woman fighting a dragon)


Goofs

The "meet cute" aspects of this episode where William starts to win over Kara despite her earlier rejection ring false. It's presented as charming that he found out how she liked her lattees instead of creepy that he arranged to "just happen" to run into her and Nia with drinks on hand. It should be a red flag, especially given that Kara already turned him down flat once and a really "nice guy" wouldn't have pulled the "act like an asshole" and "talk down to coworkers" act he pulled in his first few appearances.

Why does Kara just now realize William's commitment to the truth and putting himself in harms way in the name of journalistic integrity? They discussed that point in earlier episodes.(The writers have to justify her sudden romantic interest somehow.)

How do Alex and J'onn know which farm on Route 89 to investigate after Brainiac-5 tells them there's nothing out there?


Performances

Willie Garson's surprise return as Steve Lomeli is a brief but solid performance that instantly conveys the horror of Lena's actions.


Artistry

The effects work for this episode is quite good, particularly the sequence in which J'onn saves an elevator full of people.


Super Trivia

The Chlorophyllian race introduced in this episode seems to be partly inspired by the Green Lantern villain Star Sapphire. The pink energy utilized by Chlorophyllians is similar to the power radiated by the Star Sapphire Corps in the comics, which is meant to be violet-tinged, but their energy is usually colored pink. The Star Sapphires also draw their power from love and the Chlorphyillian terrorist is inspired by her love of her dead husband, who has the unlikely name of Todd Sapphire.


Technobabble

The new Obsidian Platinum lenses have a 150 petaflop bio-link interface.

Postulating that the aliens behind Leviathan are a techno-organic species from the same solar system as Krypton, Brainiac-5 says that injecting the anti-Immortality code into their system would be impossible without weakening them first. This requires finding their version of Kryptonite or somehow gaining access to their home base.

Chlorophyllians are a peaceful alien race that absorb sunlight through their skin in order to accelerate the growth of their crops. They radiate a pink energy which is impossible to track, but can't discharge this energy in the form of electricity without mechanical assistance.

Brainiac-5 calculates there is a 93.2% certainty that no one will ever invite him to Thanksgiving dinner ever again because of his actions going behind the backs of his friends.

The gauntlets utilized by the Chrlorphyllian allow it to absorb any kind of energy, including the bio-energy of other aliens, and expel that energy from the body in the form of electricity.

The Obsidian Platinum cloud has a fail safe. If  power is drained from Obsidian North's generators, it draws power off of National City's grid to ensure the launch takes place. Unfortunately, since the city is run from a Luthor Power Core system that acquires power as quickly as it is lost, it could cause most of the transformers in the city to explode as well as a city-wide blackout.


Dialogue Triumphs

Lex: (To Lena) They think you're turning into me. Or at least Mother. (reassuringly) But you haven't. (smirking) Tragically.

Steve: It was Toby. I thought was going to hit me! When he asked me if I was okay... I felt... I felt something I'd never felt before. For...for the first time ever, I wanted to be the bully. Fear is the only emotion I've known for most of my life. But then you came along and I... finally felt hope. But now... all I feel is... a  hunger for revenge. For violence. It's trapped inside me. It's trying to claw its way out! I can't get rid of it. It's so much worse than anything that Toby ever did to me!

Steve: You really are the hero people say you are.
Lena: If this works, the world won't need heroes.


Dialogue Disasters

Lena: Before Crisis when I tried to use Myriad, she assumed that I was trying to mind-control people. (That's because you were!)


Continuity

One Obsidian Platinum scenario allows an elderly woman in a wheelchair to feel like she is young, a warrior, riding a horse and fighting a dragon.

The new Obsidian Platinum lenses are so realistic that people can touch, taste and smell things in VR.

Alex hasn't gone out in public without a gun in eight years and doesn't feel comfortable without a sidearm.

Kelly brings Alex Hot Pockets, macaroni and cheese and dumplings for lunch on her first day working at The Tower with J'onn.

William shows up with lattes for Kara and Nia. He made a point of finding out their favorite drink orders.

Nia likes her lattees sugar-free and vanilla flavored.

Kara likes her lattees double-caff, double-foam with caramel and mocha.

As the episode opens, Obsidian Platinum is due to go live at 9 PM PST. This is just a little over 11 hours from when Andrea enters the lobby at Obsidian North, making it just before 10 AM when the assassin tries to kill her.

The assassin tries to hurriedly accelerate then drop the elevator Andrea is in. As they do this, the elevator car is surrounded by pink lightning.

Supergirl saves Andrea from falling to her death.

An Anti-Obsidian manifesto claiming credit for Andrea's death arrives at CatCo two minutes after the attack, threatening more deaths if Obsidian Platinum's launch is not cancelled. Andrea refuses to do this, despite the danger to her people.

The Maladorian Dendroasp from 505 makes an appearance, with Lena now successfully getting the aggressive alien animal to play with a puppy.

Lena makes reference to the events of 507 and her using Myriad in her first attempt to launch Non Nocere.

Thus far, all of Lena's animal tests have worked perfectly, but she has yet to start human trials.

Lex sets up a test using volunteers from the privately-owned prison that LuthorCorp runs to do Lena's human trials, arguing that if she can make aggressive repeat offenders into docile, productive members of society, it would be a proof of concept Supergirl couldn't complain about.

Brainiac-5 is nearly done repurposing Toyman's Immortality Code from 512 into a weapon against Leviathan. However, he postulates it won't be useful unless they can weaken the Leviathan aliens first or find their base of operations.

Lex assigns Supergirl to act as Andrea Rojas personal bodyguard, despite Kara's objections, saying it will be far easier to have her close at hand when the assassins strikes at hand as its unlikely the DEO can catch them before the Obsidian Platinum launch that night.

J'onn currently has more cases than he cares to count - most involving missing people, runaway aliens and the odd wayward spouse.

Alex is having trouble adjusting to the idea of working independently without a direct boss or goal every day.

Kara asks Alex and J'onn to help her with tracking down the terrorist gunning for Andrea.

J'onn confirms what Brainiac-5 said about Chlorophyllian energy being impossible to track, but says they can't manifest the energy they absorb as electricity and are typically a peaceful people.

Lex confronts Gemma Cooper and offers her the DEO's protection in order to maintain her anonymity. She agrees, but warns him not to make promises he can't keep because "her people" don't offer second chances.

The inmates Lena is given to experiment on are a cross-section of violent repeat offenders to those who are afraid of their own shadow.

One of the test subjects is Steve Lomeli - the editor of the convict-published newsletter at Stryker's Island in 418, who helped Kara with her story after revealing he hacked Lex Luthor's secret server.

Steve is bullied by an inmate named Toby.

Kara meets William for the first time as Supergirl.

William says he isn't afraid of covering Andrea Rojas despite the threats on her life and says that its his responsibility as a journalist to put himself in harms way to give people information.

Dimitry is a thug who hangs around Al's Bar that Alex has strong-armed once or twice looking for information.

Dimitry says a contact of his who dealt in exotic alien weaponry recently dealt with a Chlorophyllian who lived on a farm on Route 89.

Alex calls Brainiac-5 and asks if he has information on a Chlorophyillian living off Route 89.  Brainy pulls up the record of a Todd Sapphire, but lies to Alex and says he couldn't find anything.

Brainiac-5 consults with one of his alternate selves from 510 through the Coluan hivemind to get a second opinion on his current actions. He sympathizes with his plight, but says the deception is necessary for the greater good.

Lena's test on the inmates seems to work perfectly, with Toby now being friendly towards Steve.

William and Supergirl discuss their reservations about the Obsidian Platinum system and how they both fear people could become disconnected from the real world because of it. William specifically refers to Kara and her game nights as making him remember what real connections with people were like after losing his best friend.

The assassin makes another attempt on Andrea's life, shooting lightning at her during an interview, before teleporting away.

Andrea still refuses to go into hiding or cancel the launch.

Andrea tells Supergirl that Obsidian is the life's work of her father and he sacrificed everything to make the company successful and she can't do anything less.

Steve is agitated by Toby's presence and tries to take a swing at him, but is unable to because of the Non Nocere. This leads Lena to discover an unexpected side-effect - while she successfully pacifies the normally hostile, it fills the normally fearful (like Steve) with rage they can't unleash, as his fight-or-flight response is left without an outlet for expression. He says the resulting feeling is far worse than anything Toby ever did to him.

Alex and J'onn find a barn full of hydroponics, a copy of Walden Pond and blueprints for the kind of technology the Chlorophyillian was apparently trying to buy along with weapons-grade components.

The terrorist finds Alex and J'onn in their lair and attacks, draining energy from J'onn while struggling with him and setting the barn on fire.

Alex calls Supergirl, who pulls Andrea out of an appearance at the Obsidian North store and takes her to the DEO before going to save Alex and J'onn.

Lex offers Lena his help in trying to fix the Non Nocere algorithm.

Kara finds a strongbox full of papers, including an Obsidian worker ID. With that, she, Alex and J'onn determine that Todd Saphire committed suicide after becoming addicted to Obsidian Platinum during beta-testing and being fired after stealing a pair of lenses.

Kara realizes the assassin is Todd's wife, Amy and that she blames Obsidian Platinum for his death, as he was homesick and using the technology to escape into a virtual simulation of the home planet they were forced to flee.

Andrea is able to shadow teleport for the first time in the post-Crisis reality after being locked in a cell at the DEO and somehow wishing herself to the Obsidian North offices.

Kara talks Amy down from her plan to destroy Obsidian North's office after pointing out that innocent people will die in the resulting power drain.

Andrea lies about how she got back to Obsidian North so quickly.

Andrea dismisses Supergirl's concerns about Obsidian Platinum being addictive, saying Todd's story was tragic but she believes she is doing more good than harm.

Andrea realizes the Acrata medallion is tied to her shadow travel power.

J'onn gives Alex a Martian weapon called "The Hand of the Soldier," which can shapeshift into any weapon the wilder can think of.

Lena corrects the algorithm with Lex's help, realizing she had accounted for violent tendencies but not the urge to fight injustice. Steve says he feels safe for the first time in his life.

William texts Kara to ask if she is okay after the attack.

Kara decides to accept William's invitation to go out, saying she was scared to say yes the week before.

Brainiac-5 confronts Lex over the failsafe on the Luthor Power Core and how he couldn't shut it down. Lex dismisses his concerns that 67% of the people in National City could have been harmed by the resulting fires.

Lex meets with Gemma Cooper again and argues that the resulting chaos has only built up the Obsidian Platinum launch and that he would be the ideal spokesperson to help promote it on a gloabl level. He asks to meet her friends in exchange for his help.


The Fridge Factor

Alex is made entirely useless so that she can angst over losing the job she quit when she's never shown any signs of lacking confidence fighting aliens with powers she doesn't have before.

Kara is suddenly going gooey over the same man who was a jerk to her when they first met because he agrees with her on VR technology being bad and journalism being good.

Andrea Rojas drive to promote her company is revealed entirely because she wants her daddy's approval.


The Bottom Line

Lackluster in nearly every department and oddly insulting given its release on International Women's Day, with Alex out of sorts until J'onn gives her a new "gun", Kara suddenly willing to give the jerk who is stalking her a second chance and Acrata set up as yet another villain whose motivations come down to daddy issues. It's odd how the only two people fighting the chief villains of the season now are Lex and Brainiac-5 and Lena's subplot has been completely separated from the rest of the action of the series. Throw in a forgettable villain and another reiteration of the one-sided moral (i.e. technology is bad!)  and this is one bland mess.