Andrea seeks Lena's help to get to Russell at the DEO.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Andrea, previously known as Parker in Veronica Mars, says the title of that show's theme song "We Used to Be Friends."
- All for Nothing: Andrea's attempts to rescue Russell are rendered moot when the old male Leviathan agent kills him.
- Apologetic Attacker: Alex, when she has to take down a brainwashed Brainy.
- Arc Welding: Lena's plans, Andrea's agenda, and Leviathan's machinations come together in this episode.
- A Day in the Limelight: With the exception of the initial five minutes and the final 10 minutes, the rest of the episode focuses on flashbacks of Lena and Andrea.
- Bait the Dog: Lena seems to rekindle her friendship with Andrea....except that it was only a ploy to get the medallion and she even has no qualms threatening Russell's life to get it.
- Beneath the Mask: Under her exterior of a callous and composed businesswoman, Andrea is a mess of regrets and self-loathing, forced into villainy by Leviathan and clearly suffering from living under their thumb.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Jack Spheer, who briefly appeared and died in Season 2, returns via flashback.
- Also, while he doesn't appear directly, the show makes a reference to Maxwell Lord (or rather, Lord Industry).
- Deal with the Devil: Andrea took the medallion to help her father. In return, she was forced to become an assassin for Leviathan.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: Invoked by the Leviathan agent on whether Andrea never expected there would be a price to pay for her father's newfound success.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: How Russell dies after being shot in the back, with Andrea being unable to save him.
- Downer Ending: Andrea escapes with Russell, just for the latter to be killed.
- Evil Is Petty: When Lena makes it clear she won't help Lex in his mad quest against Superman, he fires her on the spot.
- Freudian Excuse:
- This episode further explains Lena's distrustful nature, as her supposed best friend once took the medallion from her she had been chasing her entire life, without explaining why.
- Also, from the moment Superman arrived, Lex was convinced this alien was going to be a huge threat and only he could "save" humanity.
- History Repeats: Andrea and Lena's friendship is a retroactive case; like Kara would do later, Andrea betrays and lies to Lena for what she feels are good reasons, causing their friendship to fall apart and leaving Lena with the belief that friendship is nothing but pain, and that she can only rely on herself.
- Hypocrite: Lena, who has railed against every betrayal she's suffered and claims to be out to prevent further harm, double-crosses Andrea without a second thought and threatens Russell's life to get what she wants (whether or not she was bluffing, it's still an incredibly low blow).
- I Did What I Had to Do: Andrea tries to justify her betraying Lena's trust with wanting to help her father and keeping Lena safe.
- Idiot Ball: Andrea is told to keep the medallion and never to show it to anyone, but because there needs to be a reason Lena loses her faith in Andrea, she's wearing it as a necklace in front of everyone so Lena will realize she stole it.
- Internal Reveal: Leviathan is revealed to both the DEO and Lena. Lena has the added bonus of being able to scour Eve's memories for whatever she knows.
- It's All About Me: Lena is starting to drift into this territory, threatening Russell's life to force Andrea to surrender the medallion, describing it as "what I deserve". She also feels fine about manipulating both Andrea and Kara (one of whom is desperate, the other still believing the two of them are friends) to get what she wants, feeling that they deserve it for betraying her trust.
- I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Leviathan initially opted to kill Russell for Andrea telling him too much, but was convinced that he can be a useful tool. However, after Andrea frees him and tries to escape with him, they gun him down.
- Kick the Dog: Lena has done a lot of morally debatable things in the past, but threatening to kill Russell to force Andrea to give her the medallion is a new low.
- Leonine Contract: Leviathan uses the fact that Andrea's father has suicidal tendencies to force her to do their bidding, since he's tied his own self-worth to the success of his business. All they have to do is let his business fail to get him to kill himself.
- MacGuffin: The medallion of the Acrata.
- Manipulative Bastard: Lena plays both Andrea and Supergirl in order to get what she wants.
- Moral Myopia: Lena feels fine betraying Andrea of her own free will after the latter betrayed her under duress.
- Neck Snap: Andrea does this to a governor in a flashback.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Seems to be a common ability with Leviathan agents.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: To force Andrea to give her the medallion, Lena uses her inception tech to force Russell to put a scalpel in his neck.
- Resignations Not Accepted: Andrea tries to leave with Russell, but they kill him and then explain that she still has powers in spite of giving up the medallion.
- The Reveal: Andrea Rojas is the shadow assassin. Mixed with Internal Reveal, as she tells Lena. Also, Russell was her boyfriend.
- Shout-Out: Titanic (1997) is the favorite movie of both Andrea and Lena. They frequently quote "You jump, I jump" as a symbol of their friendship.
- Series Continuity Error:
- Possibly also a retcon. Lena had previously been established as being 4 years old in 1997. This would make her 11 in 2004. She is obviously at least 15 in the flashback to 2004 in this episode.
- Also. Lena stated that she never had friends before Kara but this episode shows Andrea and Lena were very close friends in the past. It could be that Andrea's betrayal caused Lena to think that she and her were never really friends.
- The flashbacks in this episode are hard to reconcile with the shows timeline and contradict established canon. In addition to the above, it contains:
- Lena telling Kara, immediately after the events of 204, that she doesn't want to be friends and Kara pursuing the friendship. Season 2 showed that it was Lena actively pursuing friendship and by 205 was calling Kara her only friend in National City.
- The flashback to Lena deciding to move to National City is said to be 4 years ago. The TV news at the time is the events of the season 1 finale and this would be 3 years ago (May 2016).
- Spanner in the Works: J'onn comes close to foiling Lena and Andrea's plan because he can sense the use of the Malefic-derived inception tech at the DEO, getting Alex to investigate and eventually leading to Supergirl getting called.
- Start of Darkness:
- The flashbacks show how the moment Superman arrived, Lex was convinced he was a threat to the world and that only he could "save" humanity from a would-be alien conqueror.
- Andrea's attempts to help her father culminate in her forced to murder a governor and knowing there's no turning back.
- Also, Andrea's betrayal of Lena created the deep-set issues that Kara unwittingly contributed to and pushed Lena into pure villainy.
- That Man Is Dead: What Russell tries to convince Kara of. However, it is later very clear that Russell is still himself, he is just forced to do Leviathan's bidding.
- Theme Music Power-Up: When Supergirl utilizes super-speed to curbstomp a pair of mind-controlled DEO agents who were helping Andrea, the main title theme plays for a few seconds.
- Time-Shifted Actor: Both Lena and Andrea are shown in their teenage years.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Coping with betrayal and descending into villainy has done a number on Lena, who now has no qualms about threatening someone's life to force cooperation out of an ex-friend, as well as showing no remorse about having Eve body-jacked by Hope despite realizing that she likely did have no choice about betraying her.
- Trapped in Villainy: This episode confirms Andrea to be an unwilling pawn for Leviathan.
- We Used to Be Friends: This episode focuses on Lena's and Andrea's friendship, which got destroyed when Andrea took the medallion Lena had been chasing her whole life. She thought it was a purely selfish move, but Andrea did it to save her father and couldn't tell Lena, or else Leviathan would kill her.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Most of the episode is flashbacks to Andrea and Lena's lives, going from boarding school to the present day.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Andrea and Lena fake an attack on the latter so Supergirl will come to her aid, at which point Lena uses a signal jammer to block any attempt to call Supergirl while Andrea takes Russell from the DEO.
