#where does kara tie into all of this? i refuse to believe she has zero relevance to the overarching plot david cage meet me in the pit

[frigidlyauthorial]

the fact that there are so many unanswered questions about the lore of dbh vexes and haunts me

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Gotta make a 5x08 post because if I don’t gather all of my thoughts in a single place, it’s absolutely gonna devolve into a series of ‘AND ANOTHER THING!’ posts. XD

Spoilers!

I really do think that they’ve made great strides in balancing all of the stuff that goes into a single episode of Supergirl. But! There are still pacing problems--this episode is pretty darned rushed and nowhere is that more apparent than Alex and Brainy just. Hopping into the Fortress and Kara shaking off hours of Kryptonite exposure like...’business as usual, lads!’

(And I mean...I get it, they had to wrap a lot of stuff up because Crisis but. It’s not like they didn’t know that the first chunk of the season would need to be handled by episode 8. So on the one hand, okay....but on the other hand, ehhhhhh?)

(Also SG did not tie its season in with Crisis the same way Flash and Arrow did, so it’s not as though anything was taking time away from their series regulars/season-long plot.)

Right, so. Kara speeds off to Lena’s secret lair and....

Here’s the part where I admit a couple of things: 1.) I have never liked Lena Luthor. Ever. At all. But, 2.) I’ve disagreed with a lot of the more... intense Lena hate this season. For instance, I actually think it makes sense that for seasons 2-4, Lena doesn’t show a lot of self-awareness, and refuses to change, because you can’t have Lena being like, ‘Whoops, I’m wrong, my bad, sorry,’ and then proceed with a ‘Dark Lena’ plot. So I was like, ‘okay, this season is payoff to something they’ve clearly been building for several seasons...and said payoff is about Lena learning a lesson, and being taken to task for her shady business.’

And perhaps that’s where we’re still headed. BUUUUUUUUUUT:

In the meantime, it’s getting all muddied.

For instance: we get really frustrating moments, like Lena shooting ion canons at Kara, but stopping short of killing her with Kryptonite ones, and Kara being like, ‘I won’t give up on you!’ because WOW, Lena didn’t kill her.

Much friendship. Such love.

(Admission number 3! I rolled my eyes at Lena every time words came out of her mouth because they were all terrible.)

Speaking of eye-rolling! The Malefic interrogation scene!

Lena kept that man AS HER PRISONER but because she didn’t resort to physical violence, and kept him from being physically violent via mind control, we’re meant to believe that she’s still basically Good.

NEVER MIND THE SHADY ETHICS OF CONSENT AND EQUALLY-SHADY EXPERIMENTATION AND, OH YES, THE MIND CONTROL.

‘Well Malefic was a terrorist.’ Except Lena didn’t kidnap him with the intent of saving J’onn, or Kara, or anyone that Malefic was attacking--she kidnapped him with the intent of using his brain for--and I cannot stress this enough--MiND CoNtROL!!!!!

And yes, yes, it’s very in character for Kara to believe in people and hope for the best and think she can save everyone, but at what point does the narrative say, enough is enough? She’s got everything from murder to mind control under her belt and Kara’s over here like, ‘She’s not physically hurting anyone, and she probably got a good reason for it!’

Kara, I love you, but. No.

(Not to mention all of the very uncomfortable stuff happening re: Kara blaming herself and thinking that SHE has to fix someone who has intended to cause and has actually caused her physical harm. Multiple times.) 

*takes a deep breath*

*because I’m gonna need air to yell in just a second here*

The hologram scene!

Which is a repeat of Kara apologizing for one past mistake and Lena treating it like it was a pattern, and Kara just. Taking it.

‘You just exposed me to the ugliness of humanity.’

SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP

Again I get that it’s extremely in-character for Lena to have zero self-awareness but this kind of stuff doesn’t do her any favors in the sympathy department, because we KNOW that Kara has bent over backwards to support and defend Lena, and Lena’s out here like, ‘You’re the WORST’!

I just wanna laugh in her face, which I don’t think is the response that the show wants.   

Up next, the first DEO balcony scene, AKA, my favorite part of the episode.

I’m gonna quote the whole thing, because it’s wonderful:

“Your choice to conceal your identity wasn’t born out of a place of maliciousness. It was born out of love and compassion. And you were just trying to protect your family. And you were trying to protect Lena from people who could use that information to hurt us.”

And then there’s the whole list of all the shady nonsense Lena has pulled and honestly, *chef’s kiss*

And see, here we are, thinking, GOOD, YES, GOOD, at last, a voice of REASON. Now, Kara will learn that while it’s okay to believe that people can change and have hope, she can recognize that it has to be them that wants to change. She can’t do it for them!

Buuuuut then the show is like, ‘well Alex wants to use lethal force and that’s BAD’. Which it is.

So if you’re trying to position Alex as the voice of reason and in the Right, you can’t turn around and say, ‘look at how unreasonable Alex is being right now! Look at how wrong she was!’

It’s incredibly frustrating that the episode lands on the note of: Alex was wrong to think that people can’t change, and Kara was right, so we just have to deal with Lena’s sh*t a bit longer’. Like, Alex lays out all of the very real, very valid reasons for Kara to MAYBE BE UPSET WITH LENA and see that Lena’s just as much in the wrong--if not MORE SO--and the episode doesn’t use that to teach KARA anything new...somehow this turns into ‘teach Alex to BELIEVE IN PEOPLE’S ABILITY TO CHANGE.’

Which would be a fine lesson at any other point but maybe not after repeated attempts to get Lena to surrender and stop her MIND CONTROL PLOT.

Speaking of repeated attempts to reach Lena: I appreciate that J’onn reminds Kara that she already talked to Lena (and tearfully apologized for the...third time? now?) and Lena was just as petty and melodramatic and UNWILLING TO ADMIT TO ANY KIND OF WRONGDOING OR SHOW ANY DESIRE TO CHANGE but again, all of this information is buried in another ‘Kara believes in Lena in spite of all evidence to the contrary and the narrative justifies her blind devotion’ plot.

WE’VE SEEN THIS BEFORE. Specifically, when Lena was like. Framed or whatever but NOW she is, in fact, just as shady as all the evidence suggests AND YET.

AND YET.

‘She’s just hurting, I can still fix this!’

*so many alarm bells ringing, all the red flags flying*

I made this a few weeks ago, and never posted it, because at the time, I didn’t feel like there was enough evidence to support my concerns but:

Dude as bad as season 2 got, they at least were like, ‘hey, Kara has abandonment issues, let’s unpack that a little’.

All of this? Is simply All About Lena. 

(I wanna believe that there’s a little bit of forward movement re: Kara, given that she knows Lena framed Hope/Eve at the end but it’s STILL right there next to, ‘we gotta hope for the best! And save Lena’s soul!’)

NO. YOU. DON’T. LENA HAS TO DO THAT HERSELF.

Like. How can you go through the entirety of season 2, as well as Kara telling Mon-El off in season 3, only to repeat Kara taking responsibility for other people’s crappy choices? HOW ARE WE REGRESSING LIKE THIS. >:C

As for other stuff in this episode: Rama Khan was...there.

I’m glad Mrs. Wheeler is in charge now; I still think the Leviathan stuff is kinda weak overall, but Rama Khan in particular felt very ‘meh.’

(...I think maybe I just don’t like his costume.)

(Also I know they said Mrs. Wheeler’s actual name in this episode but I can’t remember it.)

I liked all of the Andrea stuff! 

Like that was genuinely Sad, at the end, when she used the contacts to revisit memories of Russell.

Russell, who appears to be very dead, which I find. Disappointing. 

(Side note: Crisis better look stunning because ‘chained to a pile of dirt’ and ‘trapped under a single slab of concrete’ was about the same level of Earthbending FX we saw in the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.)

(So. Not great, Bob.) 

Poor Malefic has been sent to Mars, so. Guess we won’t be seeing him any more.

Ahhhh, but then, we have the CRISIS TIE-IN.

Which was pretty chill, actually. All things considered.

‘Good job on reconciling with your brother. Wanna save the multiverse?’

Also YAY, LEX IS BACK--A CLEAR-CUT VILLAIN WHO WE CAN ALL LOVE TO HATE WITHOUT A BUNCH OF PEOPLE JUSTIFYING HIS GARBAGE DECISIONS.

Okay I think I’m done yelling about this one! Can’t wait for the Crisis to come, and maybe erase this tedious arc from all of existence! 

Oh crap I just remembered that J’onn and Alex apparently need Lena’s help to save Earth-38...ugh.