Kara and William look more into Andrea's past and her connection to a new villain. Lena continues her secret deal with Malefic.
Tropes:
- Artificial Limbs: Rip has two metal arms that come out of a backpack he wears, not unlike Doctor Octopus.
- Bait-and-Switch: William seemingly confronting Andrea, which is just him using the VR lenses.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Alex has to investigate Obsidian North while her girlfriend works for them and is doing a job she loves. Alex is upfront about the conflict, wanting to be sure Andrea is up to no good before accusing her directly.
- Deadpan Snarker: Malefic shows off a sarcastic side while imprisoned by Lena.Malefic: Approaching me while I am still conscious. How considerate.
- Enemy Mine: Subverted. Despite the Villain Team-Up teased at the end of the last episode, Malefic has no interest in working with Lena; she's holding him prisoner and her goals mean nothing to him. He only agrees to help when she seemingly agrees to help him get revenge on J'onn.
- Everyone Has Standards: Lena refuses to let Malefic kill J'onn.
- Evil Old Folks: The old woman who blackmailed Eve in the Season 4 finale comes back, this time blackmailing Andrea.
- Flashback: There is one showing William and his friend Russel, and later William witnessing his apparent murder.
- Giant Wall of Watery Doom: A tidal wave threatens the Pacific coast. Dreamer successfully dissipates it with her powers.
- He Knows Too Much: After Russell is captured, Leviathan taps Andrea to do something about him. How she'll manage that is left for the next episode.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Malefic agrees to help Lena isolate the frequency of his powers, only to have said power turned on him once she no longer needs his cooperation.
- I Lied: Lena promises to remove the mental block keeping Malefic from attacking J'onn if he helps her duplicate his powers. Once he fulfills his end of the bargain, she reveals she never intended to keep hers and uses her perfected mind control technology to keep him in line.
- It's Personal: The reason William is so obsessed with finding out the truth about the criminal conspiracy is his friend Russell being killed by Rip Roar. Then it turns out that Russell actually is Rip Roar, as he was brainwashed.
- Just Following Orders: Rip Roar has no idea who his superiors even are.
- Lack of Empathy: Supergirl calls out the Aurafacian for not caring about the people it killed. It just laughs.
- Large Ham: Jesse Rath really has a lot of fun when Brainy lets himself be taken over by the Aurafacian.
- Never Found the Body: William's friend Russell. Because he is actually Rip Roar.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Lena tries this on Malefic, pointing out that they've both been betrayed by people close to them. Malefic doesn't care.
- Oh, Crap!: Kelly's very reasonable response to turning off her Obsidian lenses and seeing a massive tidal wave.
- Proscenium Reveal: William rants to Andrea about everything he thinks she's done, only to remove his Obsidian contacts, revealing it was just a scenario he dreamed up to make himself feel better.
- Ray Gun: Rip steals Lex Luthor's Marathon Laser, which can fire a heat beam up to 26 miles away. He then modifies it with a fusion device that increases the beam intensity to 100 times hotter than the center of the sun.
- Red Herring: Andrea isn't the head of Leviathan, she too is seemingly Trapped in Villainy.
- Shout-Out:
- The trigger phrase to let the Aurafacian speak through Brainy is Pop quiz, hotshot.
- Brainy references the song "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight".
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Lena refuses to kill anyone in pursuit of her goal. She won't even allow lives to be endangered indirectly, manipulating Malefic into helping her instead of actually removing his block against killing J'onn.
- Trauma Button: Kelly breaks down after seeing Alex nearly get crushed by a crane, because her fiancee died while on-tour and it brings back uncomfortable memories.
- Unwanted Assistance: William tries to convince Kara not to get involved in his investigation at first. Later, however, he tells her that he is glad she helped him.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Leviathan considers wiping out billions of people with global flooding to be creating a better world, somehow.
- You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Lena tries to convince Malefic that he could use his powers to serve the greater good. Malefic doesn't care a fig about the greater good; he just wants revenge.
