Bringing back the pure logic AI version of Brainy was a great move. It keeps the secret of Brainy’s fate for a while, while serving as a stark reminder of how different our Brainy is from other Coluans or the other versions of himself in time and space, including the version of him we first met a few seasons ago.
Brainy and Nia made an excellent team to get the Dream totem back and get everyone to safety, making it even harder to consider breaking up. It seems unlikely that they actually will, but until we know for sure, it’s hard not to be “Debbie with a sad last name” about it. Brainy doesn’t hold up well, but as usual he does better when Nia knows what’s going on.
Kara and Alex disagree over power mufflers and the management of Esme’s powers as she tries to figure them out, but of course there’s more to it. Unsurprisingly, Alex wouldn’t put a damper on Esme after what she went through with the corrupt foster mom, but Kara has a point about Esme’s safety and her own experience as an alien that Alex just can’t replicate regardless of other marginalized identities she can have.
Kara generally adopts an assimilative stance, hiding her alien identity and encouraging socializing, but she’s right that security is still an issue for aliens. Alex tries to claim Kara’s and Esme’s otherworldly experiences through familial closeness, sounds like a lot of privileged people being called, but in particular reflects the way able parents of disabled children speak of them. Alex should be grateful to talk to aliens she knows and trust about these matters and to take their advice, even if she doesn’t end up following everything they say and shutting them down.
It’s worth noting that Alex was aggressively anti-alien and wanted Kara to hide herself, essentially until the start of the show. Her actions and those of their parents likely played a part in shaping how Kara sees her alien identity, as often happens with adoptees.
Overall, it’s an interesting conversation about privilege that has parallels to coming out as a member of the LGBTQ community and disability politics, but it feels like the writers left most of that money on the table and instead chose to make Kara realize she is wrong because she is not Esme’s parent. Alex offered a token apology for the disagreement but was still labeled as correct, and while she’s probably right about the mufflers, she’s wrong about some of the other ideas she has about claiming experiences that don’t belong to her, how she treated Kara and how she reacts to being called up.
With his death, the writers finally found a use for William Dey. It’s all very noble and journalistic. He also got to shoot the ultimate “I told you so” video for Andrea Rojas, so that’s it. If the video leaked her to ask Lena if she was a callous, narcissistic monster, what will it do to her to find out that she caused the chain of events that led to William’s death? William and Esme recreating Great British Bake-Off was beyond adorable, so it’s sad that this is coming to an end so soon.
Kara’s right about grabbing joy if you can – hopefully she’s not too hard on herself about Lex murdering William and kidnapping Esme while she relaxed for a minute. Everyone looked extremely good at the bachelorette party, especially Alex in her plunging jumpsuit, Nia in gold and Brainy in suspenders with perfectly tousled hair.
