While the Superfriends try to handle Nxyly, Kelly deals with the fallout of the Ormfell Apartments being destroyed, including the rise of a new villain, necessitating the debut of the new Guardian.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Medicine: Joey is suffering from difficulty breathing due to smoke and dust inhalation. Instead of having Orlando or Kelly carry him into the ER or at least putting him in a wheelchair, they instead have him walk normally, which would only make the situation worse.
- Big Damn Heroes: Kelly blocks the baton from one of Rankin's bodyguards, who was just about to batter Orlando.
- Bling of War: Brainy helps Kelly in recolouring the Guardian armor golden.
- The Bus Came Back: Diggle once again appears in another Arrowverse show.
- Continuity Nod:
- Diggle name drops both Oliver Queen and Jefferson Pierce during his pep talks with Kelly.
- Kara mentions her participation in the march against the Children of Liberty in Season 4.
- Like he did two episodes ago, Brainy encourages children to eat vegetables.
- Corrupt Politician:
- Councilwoman Rankin's first reaction to seeing the Ormfell collapse is to think how she can profit politically from it. She also threatens to cut down a hospital's funding if they don't give her the expensive treatment she wants. And when she gets 5th dimensional powers from the debris, she jumps on the opportunity to tear down the Heights (and later the whole city) and remake it how she sees fit.
- There's also the other councilwoman who is seen accepting a bribe from Rankin to vote her way.
- A Day in the Limelight: The episode mostly focuses on Kelly and her struggles.
- De-power: In the end, Rankin is depowered and arrested.
- Dreadlock Rasta: Kelly's new Guardian outfit includes several long dreads coming out of the helmet. Presumably, they are fake, since Kelly has nowhere near enough hair to produce them naturally.
- Foreshadowing: Brainy sees Diggle striding purposefully to the tower's elevator and asks whether he is returning to Metropolis. Diggle says yes and adds the cryptic remark, "Worlds await." Brainy does not appear particularly surprised to hear this.
- Forgot About His Powers: When Joey was first introduced, it was revealed he can't really control his EMP powers and they start going out of control when he's agitated or upset. Despite being on death's door in this episode, his powers don't manifest in the slightest.
- Jerkass Realization: The Superfriends have a minor one near the end when it dawns on them that they really haven't been listening to Kelly, much less supporting her or the Heights community with the issues they have to deal with.note
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Rankin finally crosses the line from snobbish, corrupt, selfish, power-crazed, racist Jerkass to outright terrorist supervillain when she declares her intent to destroy National City and rebuild it from the ground up according to her own vision.
- Lack of Empathy:
- Andrea refuses to report on the suffering of the people of the Heights, only focusing on traffic delays, since her viewership doesn't care about the Heights.
- Rankin once more proves herself to be a ruthless piece of work, who plans on remodelling the Heights without any regards for its citizens.
- Life Drain: Rankin's new power gives her the ability to do this, draining the energy from the others who were affected by the blast to power herself.
- Must Make Amends: Supergirl realizes her blind spot in regards to the social issues Kelly raised and vows to do better.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While it makes everybody healthy again, Rankin's de-powering also causes an energy spike which helps Nxyly locate the Courage Totem.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Guardian goes from the roof of the hospital to the street below in less than five seconds (it's possible Kara flew her down).
- Out of Focus:
- Andrea only has a single brief scene.
- Lena only has two, the first one returning to National City and the second one receiving the book that Florence mailed her.
- Police Brutality: Or rather, Bodyguard brutality, as one of Rankin's security detail starts assaulting Orlanda merely for speaking out against his boss.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Once more the series tackles real-life social and racial issues.
- Running Gag: Subverted. After several instances of being useless in the field this season, this time Sentinel halts a building collapse by firing some kind of stabilizing energy beam from her Hand of the Soldier.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Rankin demands an experimental — and expensive — treatment under threat of having the hospital's healthcare grant refused.
- Ship Tease: Lena gets two messages, an alert talking about Supergirl fighting the giant cat from last episode and a message from Kelly asking her to return. It's the first that causes Lena to immediately abandon her magic training and return to National City.
- The Social Darwinist: Rankin becomes this, denouncing those whose energy she is draining as weak, and later declaring that she will "sweep away the useless and the weak" and make the city "perfect".
- Title Drop: Kelly asks Kara to acknowledge her blind spots.
- Very Special Episode: About ignoring the problems of minority communities.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Kelly explodes on the Superfriends for being so focused on capturing Nxyly that they're ignoring the people of the Heights who are suffering.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Brainy gives Kelly a much needed pep talk.
