Nyxly has found the Humanity Totem, and manages to get it and activate it before Supergirl can reach them. Turns out the Totem makes everyone in the general area lose their compassion and go on a rampage. Meanwhile, William finally gets in with the Superfriends, but will him not being able to report on the inner workings cause him to come into conflict with Andrea?
Tropes:
- Been There, Shaped History: The Humanity Totem is made out of a tree Buddha once sat under.
- Blinded by Rage: What the possessed citizens feel when they are under the Totem's effects. All of their compassion is siphoned off, leaving nothing but rage and violence.
- Bloodless Carnage: Despite everyone spending all day going crazy and attacking each other, none of the citizens actually do any lasting damage. Nobody uses any knives, the only one who uses a gun only does so when Supergirl is nearby, and nobody has any broken bones or even wounds when everything goes back to normal.
- The Bus Came Back: Esme comes back after a few episodes.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Kelly and Alex, when fighting the infected citizens.
- Contagious Laughter: Due to her Psychic Link with Nyxly, Kara goes into a very creepy fit of laughter when she feels the Imp's gleeful emotions.
- Continuity Nod: Kara demands potstickers and won't take no for an answer.
- Dirty Coward: The Fords, who lock Esme out in order to force her to take on the infected citizens.
- Dramatic Irony: William tells Supergirl she'd make a good reporter, not knowing she's Kara.
- Emotion Bomb: Nyxly is overwhelmed by all the compassion and empathy of the people affected by the Totem. This is invoked when Kara has Lena deliberately amp up the effect so Nyxly will abandon to Totem to fix things.
- Happily Adopted: Esme is originally happily adopted, but when her foster parents find out about her flame breath and try to force her to attack the possessed citizens, they give her up. Alex and Kelly end up adopting her instead.
- Hidden Depths: Lena and Kara look surprised when Nia proposes to patch into the NCPD's CompStat technology. She then points out, slightly annoyed, that she is smart too.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Supergirl catches a mugger's bullet and throws it back at him, knocking him down.
- The Immune: Supergirl does not suffer the effects of the Totem, likely due to her connection to Nyxly, though it's never remarked upon. Strangely, none of the other Superfriends or William are affected either, even as the compound spreads. Even in the garden when Lena makes things worse, neither William nor Lena becomes filled with rage.
- Inept Mage: Lena doesn't quite have a grip on her abilities yet, unintentionally messing up Nia's brain.
- Internal Reveal: William learns about Nyxly, and Lena being able to do magic.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Nyxly wisely orders Mitch to get them out of there when Kara and her friends locate her.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- William asks where J'onn is getting the money to fund the tower, something the fandom has been asking ever since the start of the season.
- When William comments on how strange the situation is, Kara responds "Sounds like a normal Tuesday." This season aired on Tuesdays.
- Let Me Tell You a Story: As a parallel to Lena having troubles with figuring out her mother's spellbook, William tells her a story of him trying to recreate his father's pastries after he died. He then encourages her to put her own heart into it, not trying to imitate somebody.
- Magical Incantation: Two by Lena, "Invenire res amissa." and "Auge navitas pro omnibus homnibus."
- Mean Boss: Andrea, once more. First she deliberately pours coffee over William's notes, and at the end, when he stands up to her, she moves his desk next to the bathroom out of spite. Not to mention that her demand he reveal the location of the Tower is idiotic because doing so would instantly burn his bridges with the Superfriends and prevent him from getting any more scoops.
- My God, You Are Serious!: William, when he realizes that J'onn really will mindwipe him if he doesn't keep their secrets.
- Never My Fault: After letting go of the totem, Nyxly asks Mitch why he didn't stop her (which he tried to do).
- Retcon: Last season, Andrea said that all CatCo employees have a no compete clause should they quit, but that doesn't come up at all when William threatens to move over to the Daily Planet. Possibly a nod to the fact that said clause was an extreme case of Artistic License.
- Rule of Cool: Likely why J'onn sent the guy hijacking the woman's van through the window, destroying it, rather than simply unlocking it and throwing him out and preventing the woman from paying any repair costs.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: William eventually stands up to Andrea and tells her that he will never reveal where the Superfriends' new tower is, and that if she fires him or takes him off the story, he'll just move over to the Daily Planet.
- Shooting Supergirl: A mugger attempts this when she gets between him and his intended victim. Not only do the bullets (predictably) bounce straight off her, but she grabs one out of the air and throws it at his head, knocking him out.
- Television Geography: Nyxly travels to the Netherlands to retrieve the Hope totem and an establishing shot of a city is shown, identified by the caption as "The Hague, Netherlands". However, viewers familiar with the Netherlands may be able to recognize the Westertoren, a very famous church tower located in... Amsterdam!
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Lena towards Kara at first, when the latter proposes to repeat the spell to take more humanity from the already infected people in order to flood Nyxly with emotions.
- William also blows up towards the Superfriends for constantly denying him permission to run a story, as he believes the public deserves the truth. They eventually acknowledge and allow it.
