Supergirl season 5, episode 19 review: Immortal Kombat

In the impromptu finale of Supergirl season 5, the Super-friends are up against the gods of Leviathan. Who will win this epic battle?

This season of Supergirl ends with stakes higher than ever.

Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) needs all her friends by her side if she’s going to pull off a save like never before. The Super-friends have to work together to take down Leviathan and the evil Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer), but how can they fight an enemy that’s wielding the one weapon that can defeat Supergirl: Kryptonite?

For these Davids to defeat the Goliath, the Super-friends need more than just their fists. In the season finale, the team band together to use their powers, their intelligence and most importantly, their kindness to win the day.

I Believe in You

This season began with Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) deceiving Kara and the others into believing she was still their friend. All the while, Lena worked on her Non Nocere experiment in the hopes of relieving the world of deception. We’ve watched these two characters drift apart and break each other’s hearts. When Lena extended an olive branch to Kara in the previous episode, it wasn’t obvious whether they would be able to heal their relationship.

The writers of the finale smartly decide not to patch up their broken friendship all at once. Kara gets to unleash her fury at Lena which has been simmering since Lena outed herself as a villain. She tells Lena all the things viewers have probably thought of – that Kara’s dishonesty came from a place of love and protection, and that Lena’s actions were far worse because she actively betrayed Kara to hurt her.

Every time these characters have a heart-to-heart, Benoist and McGrath bring a raw realism to their performances. The combination of their acting and the dialogue that almost always reflects realistic pain makes these scenes unforgettable. And talk about actions speaking louder than words (or in Lena’s case, just as loud), what a moment of character development when Lena willingly came in between Andrea Rojas (Julie Gonzalo) and Supergirl, all the while persuading her old friend to stand down. Now that’s the Lena Luthor we all love!

Battling the Gods

Leviathan are literally gods, and the Super-friends are just people with powers. Some don’t even have those. But the team never lacks the conviction that they need to save Earth. On another show, their self-confidence would have been rewarded with success, but these characters understand their limitations and work around them to save the day. Granted, Supergirl’s speech at the end wasn’t the most rousing, we’ve heard much better. It did get the job done, though.

Using the Harry Potter move to give Lena time to create Kara’s suit was genius and only one part of how the friends work together like a well-oiled machine. Even those Super-friends who weren’t by their side, like Brainy (Jesse Rath) or Kelly Olsen (Azie Tesfai) played significant roles in ensuring the team’s success.

We haven’t seen J’onn J’onzz (David Harewood) and Nia Nal (Nicole Maines) partner up before, but their team-up looked effortless. Also, Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh) is now a masked vigilante too, with some superb skills to show off! That’s a dream for her, though we would still love to see Alex back as the director of the DEO and building the place up. We can hope that happens. She and M’gann M’orzz (Sharon Leal) were a seamless pair in this episode.

Defeating Leviathan

Lex got exactly what he wanted using his scheming and conniving ways – a seat at the Leviathan table. But the biggest surprise is that Leviathan is unable to see how duplicitous he is. Had these villains been given the appropriate screen time, we may have understood that their downfall came from blind faith or arrogance. That is not the takeaway from the finale, because they’re written as little more than puppets on Lex’s strings.

We all love a well-written villain, and it’s obvious the Supergirl creators are invested in their version of Lex. But reverence can be folly when writing. At the moment, it looks like Lex walked away from Crisis on Infinite Earths with the power of foresight. He’s not only 100 steps ahead of everyone, but he’s also able to judge people’s actions better than themselves. The episode would have been that much stronger had Lex, after raging at Brainy for apparently ruining his plans of killing Supergirl and her friends, taken the shrunken gods and turned to his only remaining ally, his mother. Lillian Luthor (Brenda Strong) would have come across as the smart genius that we know she is, instead of just being Lex’s pet scientist.

Has Leviathan been defeated, though? Brainy valiantly captured three of its members, though it looks like Gamemnae (Cara Buono) has transformed into her real self (a truly horrifying visage that looks to be an homage to a traumatizing scene in Superman III). We haven’t even met the higher power in charge of Leviathan. These arcs were probably intended to be wrapped up in the original finale, but we will have to wait for when the show returns.

Super Sentiments

• We need more Nia. Fullstop. She’s like the adorable, geeky friend that everyone either wants or wants to be. Every time Nia makes a pop culture reference, a new unicorn is born. She is just way too lovable a character not to get more screen time.
• The Harry Potter references in this episode were brilliant. It was hilarious how M’gann mistook the tragedy of Hedwig to be a real one. And then Alex even joked about their ears to calm Kara down. These characters are a delight.
• Who knows how long M’gann is expected to stay, but she is a breath of fresh air. She’s calm and composed, always with a level head irrespective of the situation. Both M’gann and J’onn are these worldly-wise godparents looking out for the rest of the team.
• Alex’s new look is spectacular, though what is up with all the blue suits on this show? Kara, Nia and Alex are all in blue. Not that we’re complaining, but is there a pattern we should be looking for?
• Eve Tessmacher (Andrea Brooks) is a good person and gets a good ending in this episode. She’s quite a resourceful character and one wonders if there’s a place for her to return.
• William Dey (Staz Nair) gets out unscathed. Nair’s only scene in this episode was phenomenal – he played Dey’s fear and relief perfectly. If the showrunners hadn’t tried to thrust the Kara/William romance on him, maybe William could have got the character development that we only saw in the past handful of episodes.
• Meaghan Rath returned as a Brainy doppelganger, which seemed a fitting way to give Brainy something to do. We can all hope that Nia gets to him in time to save him.

This season of Supergirl has come to an abrupt end due to the halt in production. Despite that, the final episode felt like the epic denouement this season deserved. We’re left with several cliff-hangers: What do Lex and his mother plan to do with the shrunken gods, and who is the real power behind Leviathan? Will Brainy survive?

We also walk away with several satisfying conclusions – Alex is a superhero despite feeling human; Nia realizes her love for Brainy again; J’onn and M’gann have found each other once more. But, the one thing fans will adore from this finale is that Lena and Kara have reformed their friendship.

We don’t know when Supergirl will return, but the show absolutely deserves to run for several more seasons. The importance of tuning in each week to see these powerful, passionate and compassionate women fight for and alongside each other has not faded since the show’s debut. Let better sense prevail and hope that Supergirl graces our screens once again.