written by Cara Russell
SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
Supergirl returns from Crisis with…a bottle episode? It’s not what you’d expect given the title, but a surprise and delight all around.
With all the Earths from the Arrowverse now combined into Earth-Prime, we get a handy rundown of the new status quo as Kara and Alex start their day. Lex Luthor now owns the DEO, and is Supergirl’s partner in heroism. Only a handful of people are aware that the Crisis happened (due to J’onn restoring their memories), and it’s weird for all involved.
Of course, no massive universe-altering crossover is without some loose plot threads. In this case, there’s now a whole team of Brainiac 5s and a wormhole in Al’s Bar that brought some of the multiverse’s citizens into the same meatspace, instead of merging them into new composites. Have I mentioned recently that Jesse Rath deserves all the awards? Playing four distinct versions of his own character against a fifth played by his extremely talented sister, Meaghan Rath (who also deserves all the awards) is a new amazing high for him, as well as the editing team for getting them all in the same frame.
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is still at it. He made a deal with the Monitor to preserve Lena’s original memories. Kara tries to use the opportunity to confess her identity to Lena again, but Lena’s retained memories of being hurt puts a wrench in that plan. Given a choice between partnering with either Lex or Kara, Lena’s manipulated by her newly freed mother Lillian into partnering with Lex. While it’s unfortunate we don’t get to let this particular plot thread drop, it’s nice to see that Lex is back to being the villain, as it might keep Lena from going full Luthor. And Lex won’t get a clean slate, either. William Day is no longer after Leviathan; he’s now investigating Lex and brings Kara into the fold.
Back to Wrath of the Raths! Nia interrupts one of the Brainys while he attempts to steal a bottle containing his original Earth, revealing his murder of Eyepatch Brainy for the latter’s plan to unbottle said planet, which would destroy Earth-Prime in the process. Highly Emotional Brainy heads straight back to Al’s Bar to enlist the Kryptonian witches from Season Three to open the bottle. Brainy-Prime, Supergirl and Dreamer crash the party and give us a great bar brawl that results in Brainy removing his emotional inhibitors.
I, for one, am just happy the production crew stopped pretending that his blue coloring is actually green, but making it into a plot point like this is some fine galaxy brainiac-ing.
They get through to Highly Emotional Brainy, with the witches turning on a dime from full evil to “hey let’s all wait in the bottle while our new friends find a new place to put our Earth.” The remaining Brainys choose to give up their corporeal forms and enter the shared Coluan consciousness, leaving their projectors with Brainiac-Prime. However, Why-Isn’t-She-Alex’s-Girlfriend Gayniac 5 leaves behind a dire warning: Brainy-Prime must join forces with Lex Luthor to defeat Leviathan and save Earth-Prime, since she opposed Lex on her Earth and it led to catastrophe.
Brainy does so at an extreme cost, because he’s told to also break his emotional ties with Nia to achieve this goal, and he takes it to heart before offering to be a double agent for Lex. His first task: to get Winn Schott’s evil doppelgänger from the future released from prison. I can’t wait, and I can’t believe it took a crisis to get this train back on track.
Supergirl airs Sunday nights at 9 Eastern/8 Central on the CW. Cara can be found on Twitter @virtualcara.