Supergirl: How Kara made Lena’s villainous turn inevitable

Lena Luthor is finally venturing into the family business in Supergirl season five. But DNA did not lead her to that tipping point. Kara (and society) did. WARNING: Spoilers

One episode into season five, Supergirl is already stirring up controversy, specifically regarding fan-favorite Lena Luthor’s new role on the series: villain. Is Lena’s vendetta against Kara justified or is she overreacting? Is Lena’s manipulation of Kara justified or should she just be upfront about her anger?

But the question I’m interested in is this: Was Lena’s villainous turn inevitable? Yes, and here’s why.

Lena does have a dark side, as was shown most prominently when she tried to kill Morgan Edge in cold blood back in season three. But everyone has a dark side. More telling is the reason why she was so angry with Edge in the first place.

He had tricked virtually everyone in National City, even her, into thinking she’d poisoned children. Despite all of her best efforts to prove that she was nothing like her family, it appeared that she had, in fact, become the worst Luthor of all. As I wrote back in 2017 when I predicted her eventual turn to the dark side, she was “devastated over losing the trust of strangers.”

So how does Kara factor into this? Well, as written in the same piece, “imagine the pain she’ll be in when she realizes she’s never even had the trust of her best friend [or more, depending on your interpretation]: the one person she’s counted on to believe in her even when she couldn’t believe in herself.”

Kara is not responsible for Lena’s choices nor is she responsible for Lena’s prior trust issues, which resulted from Lena being constantly let down and put down by Lex and their mother. However, Kara was well aware of that history of trauma and well aware of how Lena much depended on her trust and support.

The writing was on the wall that Lena learning Kara had deceived her would be the final straw, the final letdown, that would send her down a dark path. In Lena’s mind, if even Kara thinks the worst of her, then why not just give in? Why should she keep fighting so hard to prove herself to people who will only ever see her as a Luthor?

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Furthermore, Kara’s deception was not just a lie of omission. Lena is not an idiot. She could’ve put two and two together and almost did on multiple occasions. The constant obstacle preventing her from deducing the truth was Kara, who went out of her way, sometimes even with help from her other friends, to dupe Lena. Those scenes were often played for laughs, but they were actually rather cruel.

The hard truth is Kara didn’t just not tell Lena she was Supergirl. She actively gaslit Lena into believing she wasn’t.

Kara finally coming clean in the season five premiere didn’t absolve her in Lena’s eyes for two very important reasons. It doesn’t change what she did or how long she waited to confess. Kara telling Lena now, only shortly after Lex, doesn’t change the fact that Kara had years to tell Lena, long before Lex came along. As far as Lena is concerned: a) Kara had her chances; b) the moment she chose to gaslight Lena instead is the moment Kara destroyed their relationship irrevocably; and c) tricking Kara into believing she’s forgiven her is giving Kara a taste of her own medicine.

Of course, I’m still holding out hope, as I’m sure all fans are, for a reconciliation. But it’s going to take a lot more than a confession and an apology, however heartfelt, from Kara to make things right between them.