Brainy tries to help James with his newfound powers. Meanwhile, Kara does a story on Lex and AmerTek to clear Supergirl's name and Nia takes up defending National City in Supergirl's absence as Lockwood's men begin to imprison as many aliens as they can arrest.
Tropes in this episode:
- Alas, Poor Villain: Downplayed, as the character in question supported a villain without actually being one; Lydia Lockwood may have been a bigot who considered her husband's Nazi-esque policies to be "saving the country", but she certainly didn't deserve to be murdered. That she was killed solely as a consequence of Ben's actions, rather than through any fault of her own, doesn't help.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When George asks his friend Charlie why he never mentioned he was an alien, Charlie shoots back "Why do you think?" and runs off, letting George put two and two together.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: George asks his friend Charlie why he didn't tell him about being an alien. Even disregarding George's own racism or the extremely tense political climate, George's father is the face of the anti-alien movement and a living embodiment of the government's increasingly xenophobic policies; that Charlie kept being an alien a secret isn't as surprising as him being a friend of George's in the first place.
- Asshole Victim: Zigzagged. Lydia was a willing supporter to her husband's brutal, racist methods, but personally didn't do anything villainous and she is only killed in retaliation for her husband's policies.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Nia and Brainy, during the fight with Lockwood's men.
- Believing Their Own Lies: James, ashamed and traumatized by the real reason he missed his father's funeral, told people that he was locked in a diner restroom until the manager let him out, repeating this story so often that he started believing it himself, only accepting the truth in this episode.
- Big "NO!": Ben when he sees Lydia's corpse, impaled in the neck by a Hellgramite spike from the woman whose husband he arrested for no reason.
- Blatant Lies: Lockwood claims that he's arresting Dreamer for using an illegal broadcast (which is actually true; hacking into news feeds as they did is a crime) and for using said broadcast to "incite violence" (it was just an interview). When Kara points out that they're unarmed, Lockwood just replies "Then this'll be easy".
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Even in her civilian attire, Kara just can't help but stop crimes when she runs into them.
- Coincidental Broadcast: Subverted; while it seems like Dreamer's interview popped up on Lena's TV out of nowhere, it's revealed that the heroes hacked into broadcast feeds to spread the interview as far and wide as possible.
- Coming-Out Story: Nia comes out again as transgender while giving an interview to Kara, this time as Dreamer, to the entire world.
- Connect the Deaths: Kara forms a case wall with Super-Speed.
- Contrived Coincidence: Kara's co-worker Franklin has a sister, Edna, working at AmerTek, who helps Kara out in her investigation.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Lockwood and his men get their collective asses handed to them by Kara and her friends.
- Dehumanization: When a woman protests her husband's arrest, saying "He's a good man", Lockwood replies "If he were a man, he wouldn't be in this situation". He further tries to impress upon his son not to think of aliens as people, which falls apart when George runs into an alien he knows from school (he hadn't known he was an alien before), making him doubt this.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Kara's interview with Dreamer. They didn't think about how since they are now under martial law, Lockwood could come in guns blazing.
- The woman who killed Lydia out of retaliation for Ben arresting her husband probably just made things a lot harder for the aliens.
- Dirty Coward: Zigzagged; Lockwood spends most of the attempted raid on CatCo away from the main action, only drawing a gun when Dreamer and Brainy turn to leave, but in the face of a newly super-strong James who had just broken his wrist, Lockwood growls that he won't leave without Dreamer and needs to be all but thrown out.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Any number of parallels can be drawn between Lockwood's actions and persecution throughout history, with Nazi Germany being the most obvious.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Kara and Nia hack into the news feeds so the interview can't be turned off.
- Double-Meaning Title: While Dreamer is obviously Nia's codename, it's also a reference to her legal status as a "dreamer", an immigrant child born in the U.S.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Lena once again recognizes codewords from her and Lex's past and correctly deduces that he planned something in Kaznia.
- Even Evil Has Standards: George Lockwood is unhappy at the sight of aliens being rounded up and ripped away from their families, especially after he learns one of his closest friends, Charlie, is actually an alien and didn't tell him because of who his dad is.
- Eye Beams: James develops Heat Vision.
- Family of Choice: After J'onn returns the symbols and the staff to the T'ozz desert, an image of his father (possibly implied to be H'ronmeer himself) thanks him and tells him to get back to his family.
- Fantastic Racism: Lockwood, of course such as when a woman begs for her husband not to be taken.Woman: My husband is a good man!Lockwood: If he were a man, he wouldn't be in this situation.
- Subverted with George, who realizes how his father's hate of aliens cost him his mother's life.
- Get Out!: James to Lockwood after his raid on CatCo fails.
- Heel–Face Turn: After seeing the reality of his dad's policies and learning his friend is an alien, George decides he can't go along with them anymore and turns his back on them.
- Hollywood Darkness: Alex cuts the power to the CatCo building so Kara and Brainy can fight in the darkness without being identified, but the lighting is bright enough that Brainy at least should have been easily found out.
- Hollywood Law: As a Cabinet Secretary, Lockwood's house should have a security detail to prevent his family being attacked.
- Hope Bringer: Dreamer, especially after her interview with Kara; it clearly strikes a powerful note with a lot of people, not the least of whom are Lena, Edna, and George Lockwood.
- Internal Reveal: Lena confesses to Kara about working with Lex to cure him.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: James undergoes one in order to stabilize his powers.
- Kick the Dog: Lockwood arrests a man (an alien, and therefore not a man by his standards) for no readily apparent reason, then threatens his wife when she protests. This comes back to bite Lockwood; said wife later breaks into his home and murders Lockwood's wife as revenge for his cruelty.
- Kids Are Cruel: James' childhood bullies, Billy New and Brandon Palmer, went the extra mile of harassing him on the day of his father's funeral. Then they locked him in a coffin, causing him to miss the very same funeral, just for asking them to show some respect.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Lockwood raids an alien home, takes the husband, and threatens the woman into not making a scene by implying he could arrest her just as easily. Her response is to find his home and kill his wife.
- Love Epiphany: Visibly moved by Dreamer's speech, Brainy asks Lena "what does love feel like?", the implication being obvious.
- The Mole: One of Lockwood's men is one for Alex.
- Mundane Utility: Kara uses her Super-Speed to research faster.
- Oh, Crap!: Lockwood, when witnessing James' newly found powers, especially when the latter breaks his hand.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Lockwood arrested an innocent man for simply being an alien, so the persecuted man's wife goes on to murder Lockwood's wife as payback.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Threatened by James into backing off his attack on CatCo, Lockwood snarls "Not. Without. The alien." James follows up by pointing out that Dreamer is gone, so Lockwood and his men are now attacking journalists simply standing up for freedom of the press, finishing with "GET. OUT. NOW!".
- Pungeon Master: Dreamer incorporates all sorts of sleep/dream related remarks into her badass one-liners.
- Putting on the Reich: The Children of Liberty, including George, wear SS-style armbands. Even aside from that, the general appearance of the uniform evokes Nazi imagery.
- Repressed Memories: The source of James's panic attacks is a repressed memory of a couple of bullies trapping him in a coffin on the day of his father's funeral.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Alien Affairs rounding up aliens indiscriminately is taken straight out of ICE's heavy-handing treatment of immigrants, regardless of their status.
- Rousing Speech: Nia gives an awesome one on TV, showing everybody that aliens are just people, same as everybody else, and that she as a Half-Human Hybrid is living proof of both species being able to live together peacefully.
- Shame If Something Happened: When an alien woman objects to her husband being arrested on trumped up charges, Lockwood warns her not to make a scene; after all, her children just lost their father, and she wouldn't want them to lose their mother too, would she?
- Shout-Out:
- In her speech, Dreamer says that she's a Gryffindor with a dapple-grey stallion as a Patronus, a Miranda, and roots for House Stark.
- Lex used "Sebastian Melmoth," one of Oscar Wilde's pseudonyms, as an alias for his evil schemes.
- Smug Snake: Backed up by his power as a government official and his Children of Liberty goons, Lockwood is brimming with arrogance and self-righteousness. When his men fail to arrest Dreamer, he's reduced to snarling and roaring like a wounded animal, and on finding his wife's dead body (a consequence of his actions), he's left screaming and weeping.
- Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Nia can now manipulate her powers to form energy whips.
- Suddenly Shouting: After a fair bit of Tranquil Fury, James finishes his demand for Lockwood and his goons to leave by barking "GET. OUT. NOW!"
- Tempting Fate: Lockwood assumes that his goons would be more than a match for a single alien hero and two journalists. Since one of these journalists is actually Supergirl, who is quickly joined by Brainy and James, Lockwood and his men are outmatched, humiliated, and are forced to leave empty-handed.
- There's No Kill like Overkill: Dreamer broadcasts an interview calling for peaceful cooperation between humans and aliens. Lockwood responds to this attempt to "incite violence" with a heavily armed strike team to arrest a single fugitive, smugly remarking that against Dreamer and two unarmed journalists, the arrest would be easy.
- Took a Level in Badass: Nia has become extremely competent as a superhero.
- Villain Has a Point: His attack is based on nothing but Dreamer being an alien hero encouraging others to embrace who they are, but Lockwood's claim that the heroes used an illegal broadcast to air the interview is accurate.
- Villainous Breakdown: Ben has an epic one when his raid on CatCo blows up in his face.
- Wham Episode: Lena and Kara learn of Lex's connection to Kaznia, and Lydia Lockwood is killed by the wife of an alien Lockwood personally arrested at the beginning of the episode.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: When Brainy hears Nia's love confession on TV, he gets tearful and asks Lena this question.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Lena confesses to Kara that she worked with Lex, expressing her anger and shame at being manipulated and expecting Kara to hate her for being so "weak". Kara responds by embracing Lena and firmly telling her that she is anything but weak, and is a "brilliant, kind-hearted, beautiful soul". Lena, whose lack of self-esteem has been a major source of angst for her, is in tears. Before that, there is also Brainy giving her such a speech.
