Supergirl S05E18 Review: Things Fall Apart

Supergirl, Season 5, Episode 18: The Missing Link

"The Missing Link" is the penultimate episode in Supergirl's fifth season, and it remains to be seen whether the season will be able to wrap up its storylines neatly come the next episode. This one does its best to do a lot of set-up, and I'm genuinely curious how much of this was subjected to some rewrites or if they're just working off of scripts when they thought they had an extra episode or two to wrap the season's plotlines up. Regardless of whatever the case is, I've... not really cared all that much about Leviathan throughout the season, finding it really odd that they were sort of introduced early on, we had a showdown with big bad Rama Khan, and then due to the Crisis reset it's like we're starting back on square one. Unlike the other CW shows that went through the Crisis, it's one of the clunkiest ways to use the new universe birthed from the Crisis. Nevermind the fact that Leviathan itself never really settles down on what sort of threat it wants to be. An Illuminati-style organization pulling strings from the shadows? A cabal of super-powerful god like aliens? Something about taking over people through VR? All of them are sort of forced together and it doesn't quite gel particularly well, I feel, and it's perhaps best illustrated by how this episode combined both a search for glyphs that show up in every culture and stuff, a global conspiracy that shuts down research... and yet you get aliens with god complexes hanging out in a gentleman's club with Avatar: The Last Airbender powers doing huge fights while mocking humans as insects. Both are very entertaining villain concepts, but to have them jump back and forth like this is pretty jarring.

And in this penultimate episode... Supergirl and her super-friends (M'gann hangs around, too, but unlike Winn's guest star opportunities she really doesn't do anything really important beyond being another superhero body) try and hunt down Rama Khan. Okay, then. The civilian team of Kelly and William do their own investigation into Obsidian, basically tracking down Eve in a B-plot that the episode frankly just doesn't really spend a whole lot of time on. Eve kidnaps William as part of this B-plot, but so many things happened that this barely registered to me. Building off the previous episode, Lex Luthor's recent actions cause a whole lot of doubt in his allies, namely Lena and Brainy. Brainy confronts Lex in the limousine of evil, and while, again, Lex's methods do garner results, the fact that he stole a weapon from the Fortress of Solitude as 'tribute' to Leviathan (we don't see what this is) and unleashed the Sun-Eater was a bit too much for Brainy.

Leviathan has their own game plan, with Rama Khan attacking the super-friends in a Loki/Joker-ploy, being captured just to find his way into DEO custody. Despite Brainy thinking that he's in control when he's talking to Rama Khan in his alien language (although he really should think better than to just blurt out 'Luthor' in front of his allies, silly Querl), turns out that Rama Khan wanted to be captured, to steal all of the Kryptonite stored in the DEO. Also, in a surprising move, Rama Khan causes a massive earthquake to completely shatter the DEO building, and it didn't register to me until the end of the episode that they're probably abandoning the DEO set and organization altogether. It sort of happened so quickly in the episode!

And while it's probably the huge emotional lynchpin of the episode, the fact that we're sort of juggling the Leviathan and Lena storylines does mean that both stories feel like we're sort of lacking something. Lena's Project Non Nocere sort of falls apart and the showcase of this -- how everyone ended up going into primal rage when they get accidentally hurt in a way that triggers their natural instincts -- was pretty cool. Hell, Lex even got a pretty badass action sequence by some teleporter abuse, getting the prisoners to run around a corridor while he nonchalantly teleports here and there. I would've thought that Lex isn't above just like, pulling out a death-beam or something, but this was a lot cooler.

Ultimately, I'm not 100% sure why this particular setback is what ended up causing Lena to declare Non Nocere a complete no-go, and I suspect this would've been done better if we had been following Lena's story in a better pace throughout the season. Or, well, at least devoted the A-plot of the episode to this? It also feels pretty jarring after last episode was such a huge stamp on how Lena has started distrusting Supergirl once more. Of course, one of the best part of Supergirl has been its actors, and both Lena and Lex really end up carrying me through the story and make me believe, at least while I was watching the episode, that, yeah, this is totally Lena in despair, and the whole Non Nocere was totally a sincere attempt at Lex to basically let Lena try with all the resources available and fail spectacularly. The performances work, and it's not until the end of the episode when I sat down to write this that I really realize that this part of the episode could've been paced a lot better.

Speaking of pacing things a lot better... Lex's subsequent speech about controlling the human race instead of fixing it, which he delivers immediately after Lena's huge failure moment. I'm inclined to forgive this, though, since this seems to be a deliberate in-character choice from the writers because Lex has had a weak spot for his sister, as last episode showed us. Ultimately, this combination of Lex telling her how Non Nocere has been doomed from the start and his immediate sales pitch ends up alienating Lena Luthor completely. As Lena leaves to try and get Kara to help stop Lex... Lex fucking blows up the entire prison, which is a surprisingly casual high-body-count action for this show, as Lena and Kara's reconciliation ends up being the big cliffhanger moment for the episode.

Again, I feel like this could have been done a lot better if it was paced over two episodes, because we just so wildly from all sides of the spectrum for Lena. It works, because the performances of McGrath, Cryer and Benoist are pretty emotional, but just barely. If the episode didn't have the excuse of the sudden hiatus, I would probably be complaining a bit more. I don't know... part of it is certainly because the Lena/Kara bit has been strung along a huge portion of this season, and if these larger moments are given more time to breathe, perhaps it would've worked a bit better.

Lex, for his part, actually does manage to enter Leviathan's base, walking into a basement where there's a force-field that will kill any alien species not allowed by the 'gods' of Leviathan to enter, as Rama Khan is delighted to showcase his superiority to Lex. Brainy, meanwhile, truly ostracized from the Super Friends thanks to his attempted interrogation of Rama Khan, end up basically having to listen to Lex, who, while clearly handwaving his more crazy schemes as "Supergirl will save the day", is also clearly not too heartbroken if he should let Supergirl and the Super-Friends die in the process.

So there's a lot to unpack. Leviathan's got the Kryptonite and whatever weapon Lex handed them (or is it just the Kryptonite?). Lena and Kara's at the cusp of reconciliation. Lex is doing whatever his master plan is. Eve kidnapped William Dey. Andrea Rojas is about to unleash Obsidian VR goggles to the world. Brainy is caught between the greater good and his moral heart. Nia is having prophetic dreams about evil Brainy. We're also not sure how much of these that we'll wrap up next episode,  either.

Random Notes:

• The random military advisor, Pete Andrews (played by Sean Astin) appeared earlier in this season as one of Ma'alefa'ak's disguises. This time we see the real deal.