Supergirl S05E08 Review: Leviathan Internal Politics

Supergirl, Season 5, Episode 8: The Wrath of Rama Khan

So with the next episode being an entry in the multiverse-spanning Crisis on Infinite Earths, this episode essentially serves as... what, a mid-season finale? For eight episodes? Yeah, it really didn't pan out all that well since both Lena and Leviathan have a pretty huge presence in the show and are definitely still in their 'build-up' stage, and unlike Flash's Bloodwork doesn't feel like their arc is wrapped up just yet. And it's interesting the approach that Supergirl takes with both Lena and Leviathan. As I sort of guessed last episode, Rama Khan's basically the first boss in Leviathan and this episode just sort of hypes him up with his doomsday plan and he gets defeated, and presumably they'll go into hiding while all the Crisis stuff goes on. What's interseting, though, is that we don't really get a proper resolution to the Lena Luthor stuff yet -- she still hates Supergirl's guts, and yet she's also slated to show up in the Crisis as a major character. Interesting!

There's a huge topic of debate in this episode with multiple villains and potential crises happening at the same time. Lena has co-opted Lex Luthor's supervillain base and is about to unleash her frankensteined mind-control superweapon onto the world, while Rama Khan has attacked Acrata and is channeling her powers to boost his own and plans to reactivate a dormant super-volcano. Throughout all this, our heroes have to decide whether they believe unleashing Malefic to combat Lena's mind control satellite is a worthy gamble. We get a surprisingly neat return to the head-vs-heart theme that Supergirl's early seasons are so fond of, with Alex really wanting to just use last season's Claymore satellite to blow up Lena Luthor and her supervillain base, and her really resisting (understandably) using Malefic and allowing him full rein of his superpowers. I feel like unlike one of the previous episodes this season where Alex whines about investigating Andrea because it'll make her girlfriend sad, this one does a great job at showing optimism-vs-pragmatism without making each other look bad. Sure, optimism wins in the end, but Alex distrusting Malefic is very understandable, and her wanting to protect the world in exchange for Lena's life, while cold, is also something you can kind of understand.

Because, frankly... Malefic's redemption went way too fast, literally within the span of three seconds in the previous episode, and suddenly he's this atoning ex-villain. That's pretty rushed writing. Andrea Rojas, likewise, isn't such a fully fleshed-out character. We barely realize the extent of her relationship with Leviathan, and she goes all angry at Rama Khan for ordering her lover's death, and her 'redemption' feels less of one since we barely know her at all, let alone knowing of her as a villain.

Lena and Kara, while they don't interact all that much with each other (thanks to Lena shutting Kara out), still carry the weight of the show. Rama Khan's neat but a one-note monster supervillain, while Lena's talks about how she's the hero, how she won't trust anyone, and, most of all, her insistence that she doesn't need friends but latches on to the robotic Hope/Eve as the only friend she has left... man, the poor girl really needs a hug. Hope views herself as a robot, a tool that must serve Lena to the best capacity and even kill herself if needed be, but Lena went out of her way to try and fix the problems with her superweapon launch in a way that doesn't harm Hope. Lena also goes all the way to hurriedly shut down Lex's base's automated Kryptonite cannons, because as much as she loathes Kara, she still doesn't want to kill anyone.

Of course, between general superheroing stuff, Alex finally decides to trust J'onn enough to shut down all the mental inhibitors in the DEO and allow Malefic to win the telepathic beam-battle with Lena's satellite. The super-friends manage to beat up Rama Khan (who's a neat villain-of-the-week, but nowhere as cool as he is built up to be) and break Andrea free from the weird little ritual mound she's stuck in. Lena manages to evade capture by having Hope claim to be Eve Tessmacher, the real supervillain who kidnapped Lena and has been doing all this as the true mastermind.

The episode ends with Rama Khan crawling back to the Leviathan poker basement only to be revealed that all of this is a manipulation by Gamemnae to make him look weak and for her to take over. Kara still wants to save Lena's soul... while J'onn, after sending Malefic off to Mars on his space-car and be a bridge between white and green martians, meets the Monitor. The Monitor tells J'onn that he is one of the heroes chosen for the Crisis, which is why he unleashed Ma'alefa'ak from the Phantom Zone Prison at the end of season four, all for a test and to make sure J'onn get rid of his own lingering doubts. Which... to be fair, it sort of ended up all well and good for J'onn. The Monitor also has revived Lex Luthor and has kept him in the vague dimension of nothingness and having him play chess with himself, apparently allowing Luthor to cheat death in order to participate in the Crisis. Interesting!

(Oh, and this episode also ends with that rather silly Nash-Wells-gets-eaten-by-a-sewer-wall final scene in the pre-Crisis episode of The Flash. Which is kind of not something that's particularly exciting for the crisis.)

Overall, a mixed bag for sure. Some great moments, and I've seen people describe this as probably being a good mid-season finale if it took place five or six episodes down the line where Ma'alefa'ak's redemption, Andrea's storyline and Rama Khan as a villain are all built up a bit better. It could've been a lot worse, though, and for now, it's a satisfying, if packed, eight episodes for Supergirl. Once I catch up with the rest of the CW shows we'll finally be delving into the Crisis!

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Briefly mentioned as a rival for Rama Khan's position is Tezumak, which in the comics is an Aztec deity and another member of Rama Khan's League of Ancients.
• While the circumstances are wildly different and not done to save his life, in the comics, a different Lex Luthor (Alexander Luthor Jr of Earth-3) was also segregated in a pocket dimension for years in events involving the Crisis on Infinite Earths.