Kara must adjust to a new world and the idea of Lex Luthor now running the DEO. Brainy also has to deal with his alternate selves from now-extinct universes.
Tropes
- Alternate Self: As a side effect of the multiverse collapsing and restructuring, people from multiple other Earths were sucked through wormholes onto Earth-Prime.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- It's not clear whether Lex really did have Russel Rogers killed (as William suspects) or if Leviathan is responsible (as they were pre-Crisis).
- Is Lex truly willing to mend fences with Lena after his death by her hands and wanting them both to have a fresh start on Earth-Prime? Or is he just using her as a pawn to fulfill his own goals like he did on Earth-38? Given his actions in Crisis, it seems to lean toward the latter, but it's left uncertain.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The two remaining Brainys use their Life Projectors in the end to give up their corporeal form and live amongst the Coluan knowledge aggregate, basically giving Prime-Brainy their powers and memories.
- Bar Brawl: Between Team Supergirl and the Evil Brainy and the Dark Kryptonian Witches.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: As of this episode, Lena has become everything she's ever tried not to be: she's untrustworthy, working with her evil family against the heroes, and she's cut herself off from every friend she's ever had.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The set-up going forward: Lex, Lena, and Leviathan are all pursuing their own goals, all opposed by the heroes, and the only alliance in the bunch (Lex and Lena) has both parties admitting that they'll betray the other as soon as possible.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The snivelling Brainy is actually the evil one.
- Break Her Heart to Save Her: On behalf of the female Brainy, Brainy breaks up with Nia at the end to concentrate on fighting Leviathan in alliance with Lex.
- Brutal Honesty: Brainy bluntly tells his doppelgangers that they can't return home as the multiverse is destroyed.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Lex admits, under a Truth Seeker's influence, that he'll betray Lena the instant their partnership inconveniences him. He also points out that Lena will use Non Nocere on him as soon as she gets the chance.
- Continuity Nod: Obviously, the Crisis is referenced.
- The Corrupter: Lillian and Lex both convince Lena that Kara will never see things her way and that trusting her will only lead to another betrayal, so allying with them is her only hope to see her plans through.
- Cosmic Retcon: William's motivation for joining Catco has changed. In this new reality, when Lex failed to buy a company from Russel Rogers, Russel was killed. So William took the job to get close to Lena, before Andrea took over.
- Distaff Counterpart: One of the alternate Brainys is a female version of him. She's played by Jesse Rath's actual sister, Meaghan Rath.
- Enemy Mine: At prompting from his female doppelgänger, Brainy is willing to work with Lex against Leviathan, even when Kara and Alex aren't. According to her, when she fought Lex in her world, it cost them the battle with Leviathan.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Lex does genuinely care about Lena, even though he admits to being ready to betray her at the drop of a hat.
- If it's true that the Paragons helped reshape the Multiverse, Lex could very well have left his mother in prison. Her being better off may come off as this, as well as the two of them working together to manipulate Lena.
- False Friend: Andrea knows Gamemnae, current leader of Leviathan, as Gemma Cooper, her old friend and college mentor. Gamemnae uses this closeness to try and further her own plans.
- Foreshadowing:
- One of the items in the bar's Lost and Found is a Cymbal-Banging Monkey, foreshadowing a character showing up in the next episode.
- Meaghan Rath's Brainy is introduced as the director of the DEO, a position that Lex promotes Earth-Prime Brainy to two episodes later.
- Forgot About His Powers: During the fight with Supergirl, Dreamer, and Brainy, the Kryptonian witches only use their magical powers, completely ignoring their Kryptonian abilities.
- Good Counterpart: The counterparts of Selena and her coven from one of the destroyed universes are, rather than worldkilling supervillains, relatively harmless comic relief characters who came to Al's bar as tourists and set up a side business telling fortunes. They temporarily side with the evil Brainy when he promises to restore them to their world, but are pretty easily convinced there's a better way.
- Heroic BSoD: Brainy briefly falls into this, when it seems like the evil Brainy is winning and he doesn't dare to remove his inhibitors.
- Hypocrite: For all her past claims that she's nothing like her family and that she hates being betrayed, Lena is now allied with her family, and admits that she'll betray them as soon as she can.
- Internal Reveal: Lex learns about the existence of Leviathan.
- Kids Are Cruel: The reason Brainy wears his personality inhibitors is because as a child, he had an entire world bottled by his mother just because he loved the snow. His horrified father later freed the world and, when Brainy threw a giant tantrum over this, placed the inhibitors on his son.
- Mythology Gag:
- The Anti-Life Equation is brought up, though here it appears to be a deadly virus rather than anti-free will thing.
- Faced with a doppelganger of himself, Brainy asks if his face is made out of clay. This is a nod to DC villain Clayface, who can change his appearance at will and whose existence was previously referenced by Bruce Wayne-99 in the second part of Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- When his inhibitors are removed, Brainy turns from blue with white hair to green with blond hair, matching his appearance in the comics.
- Brainiac shrinking and bottling cities (and even entire worlds), and allying with Lex Luthor, had been a recurring part of his character in most media.
- Finding a safe way to get the bottled Earth back is a reference to the city of Kandor, an important kryptonian city that Brainiac had captured and bottled in comics and cartoons, with Superman later trying to find ways to safely restore it to normal size.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Brainy does not get along well with his doppelgängers at first.
- Power Limiter: The personality inhibitors, which restrain Brainy from using his true potential.
- Psychological Projection: Lena projects her own lack of trustworthiness onto Kara, easily falling for Lillian's claims that Kara would violate her trust again.
- Redemption Rejection: Despite Kara's appeals to her to join her against Lex, Lena decides to join forces with her brother, and despite this being a new Earth and new history Lena still wants to brainwash the entire world into doing no harm.
- Rewatch Bonus:
- When Lena is looking through news reports from the new history, one headline states that Agent Liberty was stopped by Supergirl and Lex. This shows that the previous history established in the first four and a half seasons happened in broad strokes post-Crisis.
- Another headline says that the Luthor siblings rescued the DEO when it was strapped for cash, explaining why it's part of Luthor Corp.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Lex ensured that Lena would maintain her pre-Crisis memories.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Alex, unsure what to do since Lex is her boss, asks J'onn for counsel. J'onn tells her a story from years ago, where he had to break the rules to do the right thing, to encourage her.
- Shout-Out: Alex compares the DEO to a Hellmouth.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The Bar Brawl is set to N Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me".
- Talking the Monster to Death: How the evil Brainy is ultimately stopped. He then, alongside Selena and her sistren, decides to join his world in the bottle for as long as it can't be released.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: The Brainy who tries to warn the others gets killed instantly by the evil Brainy's virus.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The post-Crisis fates of former series regulars Cat Grant, Maggie Sawyer, Samantha Arias and Eve Teschmacher are not mentioned. As CatCo still exists, it is safe to assume Cat Grant existed on the new Earth (and confirmed in future episodes) and the next episode confirms James' life hasn't been altered. The 100th episode does confirm that Sam indeed became Reign at some point. It can be assumed since Lena never technically attempted Non Nocere, Hope never possessed Eve and took the fall for her.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Lex, obviously.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- One of the Brainys bottled his Earth in order to save it from the Crisis.
- The female Brainy convinces ours that teaming up with Lex is the only way to stop Leviathan, and along the way, Brainy breaks up with Nia and makes it clear that he intends to keep his friends in the dark about his alliance with Lex.
- Wham Shot:
- Selena and her sisters being back, or rather, their doppelgangers from a different, destroyed Earth.
- Brainy's skin and hair changing from blue to green and blond, a much more comics accurate color scheme for Brainiac.
- A photo revealing that the doppelganger from the future that could be useful for Lex and Brainy is the doppelganger of Winn Schott.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
- The female Brainy, and later Kara, encourage Brainy to remove the personality inhibitors, knowing him to be a good person underneath.
- Everybody at the end convinces the evil Brainy to not unbottle his Earth and wait for a safe way to get it back.
