Supergirl and Alex have to stop an assassin killing people with living tattoos. Malefic, meanwhile, targets Kelly in an effort to restore his lost powers.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Evil: William actively tries to keep Dr. Jarrod's death out of the news and is shown accepting a large amount of money for some unknown agenda.
- Animated Tattoo: The Aurafacian is living ink that manifests as spider tattoos on the host and can spread to others to kill them.
- Aura Vision: Thanks to a residual psychic link, Kelly is able to see Malefic's aura even when he's shape-shifted into another person.
- Awful Truth: J'onn erased Malefic from the Hive Mind, not wanting his father to suffer from the shame of his own son turning against the Green Martians.
- Bound and Gagged: Supergirl is restrained and muzzled by webbing by the assassin. She is unable to remove her gag and is reduced to using heat vision against the lethal spiders.
- Broken Pedestal: Subverted. J'onn initially thinks that his father erased his brother and is furious with him...only to then discover that he himself did the deed.
- The Bus Came Back: M'yrnn J'onzz, via flashbacks/dreams.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Caroline was a decorated soldier before coming into contact with the Aurafacian.
- Fate Worse than Death: As J'onn says, death isn't truly the end for Green Martians because of their Hive Mind; being erased from the collective as Malefic has been, on the other hand, is as good as being murdered.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: The flashbacks to what happened to Malefic show the Martians as human due to being channeled through Nia's mind (and handily saves a ton of makeup work).
- Freudian Excuse: Malefic was bullied, rejected, and isolated as a child because of his dangerous powers.
- He Knows Too Much: When Caroline is de-powered, a living cloud of smoke rushes in and stabs her in the chest to keep her from talking.
- Homoerotic Subtext:
- The scene of Kara floating outside Lena's window and watching her interspersed with scenes of Alex and Kelly kissing, can be seen as romantic. Having a romantic song play over the scenes only adds to this feeling.
- The next scene of Lena asking Kara whether she has crossed any boundaries and Kara responding there are no boundaries for friends such as her, comes across as two people professing love for one another.
- Idiot Ball: Not a whole day after being warned against the same shapeshifter who nearly killed Alex in the previous episode, Kelly accepts the sudden return of an old friend without question and overlooks him acting out of character. She doesn't even suspect that he may be Malefic until she literally looks inside his head.
- Lack of Empathy: Andrea doesn't give a damn about the murders of people beyond the clicks it gives Catco.
- Large Ham: My God, Carl Lumbly took it up to eleven in this one.
- Living Lie Detector: Kara notices that William knows more about Dr. Jarrod's murder by listening to his heartbeat. Given that she doesn't notice Lena's deception later on, that really shows how manipulative Lena is.
- Living Shadow: The entity that kills Caroline resembles nothing so much as a mass of smoke or darkness in a vaguely humanoid shape.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: The Aurafacian kills without any signs of violence, leaving only a tattoo inside the heart.
- Manipulative Bastard:
- Malefic assumes the form of Pete Andrews, an old army friend of Kelly's, to get access to the Obsidian tech he needs to restore his Mind Control powers.
- Lena exploits Kara's desire to make amends to get her to steal Lex's journals from a military base to further her plans.
- Mind Control:
- Malefic has the power to incept, allowing him to project his will onto others. As a consequence, however, he was cut off from the Martian Hive Mind, making him an outcast.
- Lena is developing technology to do the same and tricks Supergirl into stealing Lex's journals to further her research.
- My God, What Have I Done?: J'onn is horrified and disgusted by his own actions in erasing Malefic from the Martian Hive Mind, enough so that he swears Nia to secrecy and keeps what he did from their friends.
- No Social Skills: Brainy's finally result in Nia telling him that it is just too much (in particular, him having told her over a hundred poems). It ends with both of them in tears and Brainy walking out because he isn't wired to do a task to anything less than the best of his ability, though he recognizes that this is his problem, not hers.
- Oh, Crap!: Malefic, as Pete, subtly starts to worry when Kelly tells him that the Obsidian technology they're using will allow her to see his memories. He calms down when she explains that there's a buffer of a few minutes between the memories being scanned and decoded, which is just enough for him to regain his powers.
- Once More, with Clarity: After diving into J'onn's memories a second time, it is revealed that J'onn himself erased the memories of his brother, not M'yrnn.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Malefic attempts this on Kelly after his powers have been restored, but J'onn stops him just in time.
- Psychic Link: After trying to force her into committing suicide, there is one between Malefic and Kelly, allowing her to see through his shape-shifting, which is why the latter has to leave town to be kept safe.
- Put on a Bus: James takes Kelly out of town to keep her safe from Malefic.
- Redemption Rejection: Malefic spitefully rejects J'onn's offer of help in favor of continuing to seek revenge.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Lena manipulates Supergirl into stealing Lex's journals from the military under the pretense that it will help her cope with what he did. Supergirl snags one of his transmat watches while she's there, later giving it to James just in case he needs it. The whole concept is later discussed between Alex and Supergirl.
- Secret-Keeper: Nia swears not to tell anybody about J'onn's Awful Truth.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Malefic poses as one, Kelly's friend Pete who served in Afghanistan, so he can convince her to use the Obsidian tech on him.
- Shout-Out: Kara getting webbed to the wall is a shot-for-shot remake of a scene from The Amazing Spider-Man - although here, the attack gets cut short before the assailant can use the web in a Groin Attack.
- Skewed Priorities: Andrea dislikes stories about "boring people dying boring deaths"; as such, she rejects stories about an Uber driver who died by being hit by a car and, more egregiously, an accomplished and celebrated scientist being found dead in a nightclub restroom. She much prefers "personality quizzes" and insults her employees for even suggesting the scientist had an interesting life.
- Stealth Pun: Supergirl says that Caroline, with her spider-powers, is starting to "bug" her.
- Trapped in Villainy: Seems to be the case for William.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: There are two equally important plotlines in this episode. The first is about J'onn diving into his past, while the second is about apprehending Caroline O'Connor.
- Wetware Body: Hope has completely taken over Eve's body.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Malefic was rejected and bullied as a child for being unable to connect to the Martian collective consciousness. Making matters worse, he was locked away by his father and brother for his own safety, with the isolation driving him to join the White Martians in their crusade against his own people, and for his treachery, he was erased from the Hive Mind by J'onn. After realizing the full extent of Malefic's story, J'onn believes that his brother is rightfully angry and offers (in vain) to help him.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Nia tries to reassure J'onn that he was only trying to help his father by erasing Malefic from the Martian Hive Mind. J'onn is too upset by his actions for the message to sink in.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Malefic tries to kill Kelly once he no longer needs her.
