Supergirl recap: Kara and Lena try to Eve-n the score

Three separate stories this week track our favorites and our least favorites (hey, Bennie boy) as we race toward the season finale.

First to Alex, who experienced every human emotion tonight. The vicissitudes of aging. The shock of getting a call that a 17-year-old is about to give birth and chose her to be the adoptive mother. The frustration of not being able to reach Kara to talk it out. The terror about what kind of mother she’ll be. The heartbreak of learning that the birth mother changed her mind. The devastation of suffering an emotional wound that may never heal.

By her side for all of it is the kind, patient Kelly, who stands in for Kara, waits with Alex during the labor, assures her that she’ll be a wonderful mother, and comforts her when it falls to pieces. She shares her own heartbreak when her engagement to her sergeant had to remain a secret while they were serving abroad, and how she wasn’t able to mourn her publicly when she died on patrol.

“What’s a deep wound today will be a faded scar someday,” she says, assuring Alex that she will find another person someday who’ll make her smile.

On the human/alien front, Lockwood storms out of his wife’s funeral while George is giving the eulogy, too worked up to focus on anything but putting the full might of the DEO behind capturing the Brevakk who killed his wife and the one who commandeered the airwaves to call for an uprising against the government.

Brainy tries to stop him from invading Lena’s lab, but Lockwood shoots his way in and finds raw, undiluted vials of experimental Harun-El, which gave James his superpowers. Brainy warns him that James’ dosage was carefully calibrated, and what Lockwood’s holding could kill him. “You’re grieving,” Brainy says. “Your son needs you now.”

But Lockwood ignores this advice and grabs the case of Harun-El to join the DEO strike team moving on the building where the Brevakk is hiding. They arrest her, and he orders the other aliens sheltering there to be renditioned for enhanced interrogation for the crime of harboring a murderer.

Brainy is super not cool with any of this, and he’s joined by Dreamer and a mask-less Guardian (I mean, why bother, right?) Lockwood shouts at the DEO to arrest “the hero and the blood traitor.” But Brainy reminds the DEO that they swore an oath to defend the country and the constitution, both of which are being subverted by Lockwood’s orders.

When the agents stand down, a furious Lockwood injects himself with the Harun-El, and I must say, he adapts to it much better than James did, not that it’s a competition. His broken arm is immediately healed, and he and James start throwing trucks at each other, which is awesome.

Martian Manhunter swoops in next and tries to talk Lockwood down, warning that the last man who stood against him suffered a terrible fate of his own making. (Still miss your joie de vivre, Manchester!) At James’s suggestion, he tosses Lockwood into a tanker, which explodes. But that just shreds Lockwood’s shirt and makes him mad. Still, it gives the good guys time to free the detained aliens.

Lockwood cleans himself up and finds George sitting alone in the church, simmering with rage at his father, whom he blames for his mother’s death. “You did this for yourself,” he says. “I hate you.” Lockwood’s left sitting alone, gazing at his wife’s framed photo and cradling a glowing vial of Harun-El as his eyes flip black.

Finally, to Kara and Lena, who are off to Kaznia. Although Kara says it’ll be faster if she flies alone—commercial, she adds—Lena won’t hear of her not riding along on the pilot-less plane she designed herself. But when it’s hit with decidedly unnatural purple lightning (which is never explained, actually), Lena races to the cockpit to take control, shouting at Kara to strap in and put on her oxygen mask.

Nuh uh. Kara zips outside and lifts the plane’s nose away from danger, helping Lena with the manual landing and then racing back to her seat to pretend to have passed out. “God, I hate flying,” she says. I stan one amazing super-lady team!

They find the Kaznian base deserted, with Amertek-branded equipment that was used to torture aliens from the DEO’s desert facility, according to the paper files they find. (Remember, paper is un-hackable.) One of them is Copy, who cloned himself curing the carnival attack.

Then a noise startles them, and a door swings open to reveal Eve. But, like, a weird Eve. She’s bizarrely glad to see Kara and Lena, saying she loves them but she loves Lex more.

Lena orders their very own Eva Braun to talk, and when she does, she spaces out and greets Kara all over again. She claims someone inside the DEO helped them acquire the aliens but won’t say what they want with them. Then the good guys notice claw marks heading to a lab, where they find Harun-El and Kryptonite.

They also find plans indicating that Lex is helping the Kaznians invade America, which Lena compares to a child throwing rocks at a tank. Then Kara notices a sigil, familiar but different, and presses it to fire up Red Daughter’s training footage.

Lena quickly realizes that, just like the Harun-El split Sam and Reign, Supergirl must’ve come in contact with it, too. She’s horrified at the thought of this blank slate being tested, trained, and indoctrinated by Lex in a prison in one of the most repressive regimes in the world. She’s concerned about what kind of damage it could do.

‘She is not an it,” Kara says, insisting there has to be some part of Supergirl in her. Then these two amazing, capable women are taken by surprise when Eve, who’s been acting verrrrry strangely, turns out to have duplicated herself using the Copy powers they were just discussing. C’mon, they’re both smarter than that.

Anyway, Eve sets off a timer that gives them ten minutes until the building self-destructs, and Lena and Kara split up to find the exit, which allows Kara to find Red Daughter’s cell. It’s filled with pictures of Kara and Supergirl both, so now Kara knows that Lex knows!

She also finds a journal, her journal, with a photo of her and Alex. Then Lena calls for her, and she scrambles to keep her friend from discovering all the incriminating evidence on the walls.

She suggests climbing up and out through the air vents, then claims she forgot her tape recorder and runs back to eye-laser all the evidence. Does she not have super-speed? Why did she not do this when Lena approached? Let’s chalk it up to the shock of her discovery and move on.

With four minutes to detonation, they find a file indicating that President Baker’s chief of staff, Sarah Walker, is the mole working with Lex. Kara stays to gather evidence, while Lena chases Eve out the door.

On the plane, Lena—who is the coolest human being in the galaxy and if you don’t agree, you can meet me outside—reaches down to her boot and pulls the chunky heel off to reveal an extendable baton. Then she and Eve fight, with Lena trying to convince her that Lex only loves himself.

Inside, Kara fights off several copies of Eve, cutely quipping, “ Thank you, next,” before she’s hit with the next wave. And look, I’m just gonna say it, she had way more trouble with these copies than she should have. It’s one of those situations where she’s as strong as the plot needs her to be, and in this case, the plot needed her to be inside the building when it exploded so Lena would think she was dead.

That momentary distraction is what Eve needed to stab Lena with her weapon, but oh ho ho, Kara’s recorder was in her pocket, and it deflected the blade. She knocks Eve out, getting her own quip about a snake on a plane. But this was a copy Eve, and she disappears.

Regardless, she’s overjoyed to discover that Kara’s safe but still blames herself for putting her friend in a situation that could’ve killed her.

“It wouldn’t have,” Kara says. While Lena’s back is turned to fuss with champagne, Kara stands and takes off her glasses. IS IT HAPPENING? IS IT???

But no. Lena talks about how hard Eve’s betrayal was, having been lied to every day for a year. “I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from it,” Lena says. In fact, it’s only Kara’s friendship keeping her trust alive.

In the background, Kara slowly puts her glasses back on as all of us weep for the close call. “I’m always going to be here for you,” Kara promises.

Back in National City, Kara tells James all about Red Daughter, pointing out that it easily could’ve been her raised as a weapon. Also, she swears that as soon as Lex is behind bars, she’ll tell Lena the truth, even if she hates her. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Then she’s doing her duty as any American citizen should do when she discovers that a government official is working with a foreign entity determined to hurt the country: She reports it. She’s escorted into the Oval Office, where she notices Kryptonite sitting around as a Supergirl deterrent, and warns Baker that his chief of staff is complicit in working with Lex and the Kaznians.

He sends everyone out of the room, puts the file in a drawer, and confirms that she hasn’t told anyone about the information. Then he activates a button under his desk, and Kara finds a black bag slipped over her head.

Snaps of the cape

• Daaang, we knew the president was a no-goodnik, but I was thinking he was more a useful-fool kind of evil and not an active collaborator.

• Think the Children of Liberty will react well to Lockwood’s new superpowers? Or will he use his rhetorical gifts to spin it in his favor?

• Fun exchange between Dreamer, sporting a cool new braid hairstyle and a huge alien-powered hammer, and the newly fire-proof James: “Now, I’m gonna hit you with this, and we’re gonna see what happens.” “Not in the face.” That’s no doubt when he suggested introducing Lockwood to the tanker truck: Flames would slow him down but not kill him.