Series / Supergirl (2015)

aka: Supergirl

"My name is Kara Zor-El. I'm from Krypton. I'm a refugee on this planet. I was sent to Earth to protect my cousin. But my pod got knocked off-course, and by the time I got here, my cousin had already grown up and become... Superman. I hid who I really was until one day when an accident forced me to reveal myself to the world. To most people, I'm a reporter at CatCo Worldwide Media. But in secret, I work with my adoptive sister for the D.E.O. to protect this planet I call my home from anyone that means to cause it harm. I am Supergirl."

— Kara Danvers/Supergirl, Season Four — Opening Narration

Supergirl is a television series based on the DC Comics character of the same name. Premiering on October 26, 2015, it aired its inaugural season on CBS, before moving to sister network The CW from the second season onwards, where it was integrated in the Arrowverse.

The series focused on Kara Zor-El (Melissa Benoist), a Kryptonian who escaped from her dying planet as a teen, sent after her infant cousin Kal-El (Tyler Hoechlin) to take care of him. However, her ship was knocked off-course into The Phantom Zone, where Time Stands Still, and by the time she made it to Earth, Kal-El was already a famous superhero, operating under the moniker "Superman" and the civilian name Clark Kent. Kal-El sent Kara to live with the Danvers family, where she grew to adulthood alongside their daughter Alex (Chyler Leigh). Twelve years after coming to Earth, Kara decides to use her powers to become a hero like her cousin.

Other characters included Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart), the head of media conglomerate CatCo, whom Kara works for in her civilian guise; James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks), an art director for CatCo; Winn Schott (Jeremy Jordan), a programmer for CatCo and Kara's neighbor; and J'onn J'onzz (David Harewood), a benevolent Martian and director of the Department of Extra-Normal Operations, a secret government agency where Alex also works.

Main characters introduced in the following seasons include Mon-El (Chris Wood), a Daxamite prince who crash-lands on Earth and develops a romance with Kara; Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath), CEO of L-Corp and half-sister of Lex Luthor; Eve Teschmacher (Andrea Brooks), a loyal supporter of Lex Luthor who initially poses as a CatCo employee; Maggie Sawyer (Floriana Lima), an NCPD cop; Samantha Arias (Odette Annable) the new CFO of L-Corp who harbors the split personality of a hostile Kryptonian; Querl Dox (Jesse Rath), a Coluan and member of the Legion of Super-Heroes who eventually joins the D.E.O. as a strategist; Nia Nal (Nicole Maines), a CatCo reporter, psychic, and an ally to the Superfriends; Ben Lockwood (Sam Witwer), the leader of the anti-alien group called the Children of Liberty; Lauren Haley (April Parker Jones), a former officer tasked by the US government to oversee the D.E.O.; Kelly Olsen (Azie Tesfai), James' younger sister and a psychologist; Andrea Rojas (Julie Gonzalo), head of the tech company Obsidian North who takes over CatCo in the fifth season; William Dey (Staz Nair), a new reporter for CatCo who frequently butts heads with Kara; and Nyxlygsptlnz (Peta Sergeant), the exiled Princess of the Fifth Dimension and an ally of Kara in the Phantom Zone.

Originally conceived as separate from the Arrowverse, the two realities were confirmed as existing concurrently within a shared multiverse, and Grant Gustin guest-starred as The Flash on an episode of Supergirl. The first season was a ratings success, however the series moved to The CW for its second season, following budgetary issues pertaining to filming in Los Angeles; the series was filmed in Vancouver from then on. After the Channel Hop, the show's setting was designated as Earth-38, as a Mythology Gag about the year Superman was created. The series has been participating in the franchise's annual crossover event since 2016, first as a Red Skies Crossover (Invasion!) and then as a full-fledged Crisis Crossover from the third season onward (Crisis on Earth-X, Elseworlds, and Crisis on Infinite Earths). This Earth was destroyed then merged with Earth-1 and what the Arrowverse Wiki dubbed Earth-BL into an "Earth-Prime" in Crisis on Infinite Earths, meaning the series became a part of the Arrowverse proper.

In 2016, DC published a digital tie-in comicbook called Adventures of Supergirl, written by Sterling Gates, who had previously penned a successful a Supergirl run. The digital series was also published in printed form, and collected as a trade book edition.

In 2019, it was announced that a spin-off focusing on the lives of Superman and his wife, Lois Lane, was in the works. Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch returned as Superman and Lois, respectively. Titled Superman & Lois, it was picked to order on January 14, 2020. Though originally expected to air in October 2020, the spin-off's premiere was delayed to February 2021 because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, which delayed production of most shows from The CW. Supergirl itself saw its sixth season being postponed all the way to Spring 2021, thanks to a combination of the pandemic and Melissa Benoist's pregnancy.

On September 22, 2020, it was announced that the sixth season would be the series' last, making it the third live-action Arrowverse series to end. The series aired its Grand Finale on November 9, 2021.

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Supergirl contains examples of:

#-F

• 10-Minute Retirement:
  • Kara gets her ass kicked when fighting Vartox and is later told that her stay in the Phantom Zone released him and many other prisoners held there. This makes Kara think she doesn't deserve to be a hero. Alex then plays a message from Alura Zor-El to tell Kara to never let doubt stop her.
  • For part of "Human for a Day," Kara is afraid that she may be forced to retire due to her powers not coming back.
  • During Season 6, Kara decided to give up her job as a reporter for Catco, in order to concentrate on aiding the DEO in their fight against Lex Luthor and Nyxly. In the finale she returned to Catco, as its new editor-in-chief.
• Aborted Arc: Jeremiah, Alex (biological) and Kara's (adoptive) father, had been forced to join Cadmus, getting robotic enhancements and tried to take down the DEO before being stopped and going off the grid. Kara and Alex reassure each other that they'll find their dad one day and bring him back to their side. After that episode, Dean Cain became an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump for President, so the writers dropped the entire arc and more or less Unpersoned Jeremiah, until Season 5 when it's revealed he died from a heart attack in Peru.
  • In the first season finale, General Lane and Maxwell Lord are shown to have taken possession of Non's Omegahedron, with the suggestion that they have a plan for it. Thanks to the show moving network and being filmed in a different city after that, neither character is ever seen again.
• Action Girl: Kara as Supergirl, naturally, but her sister Alex is also a Badass Normal. Nia also turns into one upon discovering her powers and becoming Dreamer. She is taught how to fight, not only with them but by martial arts.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Chyler Leigh is once again the main character's not quite biological sibling named Alexandra. Except this time she's the older one, and she survives a plane crash. In "For Good," Alex tells Sam that, before joining the DEO, she was a doctor and had a job up in Seattle.
  • When Livewire is stalking Cat Grant, she mockingly calls her out "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!" Calista Flockhart previously played Kitty Walker on Brothers & Sisters.
  • Non is another inmate on Fort Rozz. His actor Chris Vance previously played James Whistler on Prison Break . Most of his former "inmates" are in an Alternate Universe, sadly. ^ExplanationHis former Prison Break co-stars Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell, Robert Knepper and Peter Stormare are all part of the prime Arrowverse
  • When Barry Allen is in Cat's office with Kara, Winn and Jimmy, Cat comments they all look like the cast of a CW drama.
  • In "Myriad" Cat asks Kara to tell Harrison Ford that she doesn't date older men, especially not when they're married, and later states that she has never seen Star Wars. In real life Cat's actress, Calista Flockhart, is actually married to Ford, who participated in the Star Wars films.
  • Supergirl geeks out over getting to go on Air Force One. The President, played by Lynda Carter, replies "If you think that's cool, you should see my other jet." In the same episode, Kara puts out fires on her suit by copying Carter's famous twirl into costume.
  • Carl Lumbly, who played the Martian Manhunter in Justice League, plays the father of J'onzz here.
  • Lena comments to Kara that CatCo isn't known for hard-hitting journalism. Her actress, Katie McGrath, worked for a fashion magazine before acting.
  • When he first appears, Mr. Mxyzptlk starts singing "A Whole New World." Peter Gadiot once played a Disney-universe genie.
  • The Season 2 finale aired a tie-in advertisement to Wonder Woman (2017) set to a cover of "These Boots (Are Made for Walkin')" in which Melissa Benoist (Kara), Chyler Leigh (Alex), Teri Hatcher (Rhea), and Lynda Carter (President Marsden) all show off their various boots. The ending has Kara sitting at the bar in Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman boots to which Rhea quips, "Nice boots." Kara replies that she borrowed them from a friend, and clanks together Wondie's signature bracelets which she's also wearing. Cut to a wink from Lynda Carter whose Star-Making Role was Wonder Woman.
  • Brooke Smith, whose first film role was the girl kidnapped by Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, is herself mockingly called that name during her guest appearance as Toyman's apprentice.
  • Brooke Smith's Grey's Anatomy character was nicknamed the Wicked Witch because of her antagonism towards Burke, here her character literally has flying monkeys to antagonize the main group.
  • In the season 3 high school flashback (2007) scenes, Alex hangs out with the quarterback a lot, and he is called Jake like in Not Another Teen Movie, where Chyler Leigh's character Janey eventually dates him.
  • High school Kara also name-drops Isaiah Washington, who was at that time starring in Grey's Anatomy alongside Chyler Leigh, which is made funnier by Alex then correcting her by sighing and saying "George" (George Washington and George O'Malley, a friend to both Leigh and Washington's characters on Grey's Anatomy).
• Adaptational Attractiveness:
  • Jimmy Olsen in this show is a Tall, Dark, and Handsome Hunk named James Olsen instead of his normally nerdy, dorky little brother portrayal.
  • Hellgramite in the comics is much more obviously insectoid, with bug eyes, green skin and antennae. Here, they can camouflage themselves better, revealing part of their true form when they open their real mouths.
  • Livewire appears more feminine here than her ghoulish comic counterpart or the original "Joker-like" look from Superman: The Animated Series.
  • Mr. Mxyzptlk has been historical depicted in the comics as a short, grey haired, balding imp. In Supergirl he's played by a relatively tall and handsome actor (oddly, he's still referred to as an imp in dialogue even though physically he doesn't resemble the description).
  • Argo City provides a locational version, as there are trees and parks running throughout the whole city, while most past versions of it feature a tightly packed urban setting with just a few greenhouses or futuristic machines making food out of nothing.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: Dreamer is a trans girl, whereas her comic book counterpart, Dream Girl, is a cisgender girl. Later subverted, as Winn Schott accidentally reveals that there is a Dream Girl in the 31st century, and Dreamer is her very distant ancestor.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Hank Henshaw, usually a Superman villain (the Cyborg Superman), is a good guy (which makes even more sense when we find out that he's really J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter). Eventually averted, as it was eventually revealed the real Henshaw is indeed the Cyborg Superman and works for Cadmus, and J'onn had only assumed his identity after believing him dead.
  • The Toyman's son in the comics is the supervillain Dollmaker. Winn is portrayed as a genuinely good person. Somewhat justified, as Dollmaker has appeared both in Arrow (as a serial murderer) and Gotham (as a Mad Doctor) as do a version of The Toyman and his son.
  • The entire planet of Daxam undergoes this. In the comics they're a race of Fantastic Racist Absolute Xenophobes so despicable that Sodom Yat, one of only two known decent modern Daxamites (the other being Mon-El), refused to save them from Sinestro. Here they're more like obnoxious frat boys than space Nazis, although the Queen of Daxam turns out to be much worse that Mon-El suspects.
• Adaptational Location Change: Supergirl operates out of National City, a new location that was created for the series. In the comics, her base of operations has been Depending on the Writer.
• Adaptational Modesty:
  • This version of the Supergirl costume is a lot closer to the costume in which she was introduced in the comics, eschewing some of the costume designs that are more form fitting, revealing, or both. One of Kara's early costume designs is a close approximation of some of that, and Kara vehemently opposes that design.
  • Livewire doesn't wear her Leotard of Power costume that has a Navel-Deep Neckline. Instead, she's Not Wearing Tights (shirt, leather jacket, jeans).
  • In the comics, Martian Manhunter usually wears Underwear of Power, a cape, and two red straps across his chest forming an X, and... that's it. Starfire is actually the second-most-naked DC hero. It's hard to imagine Hank fighting evil in his undies, so the live-action Martian Manhunter wears a full-body, lightly-armored costume with a red X design that brings to mind the comic version's red straps. (This may have been inspired by a variant costume from the 2006-7 Martian Manhunter comic, which had a black shirt under the straps.)
    • His Distaff Counterpart Miss Martian wears more than him in the comics (it's hard not to) but it's kind of Sailor Moon-ish and also shows cleavage and belly button. Here, she gets an outfit similar to Hank/J'onn's.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • In the comics, Jemm is a hero and a pacifist. In this show, he is a villain and a conqueror.
  • Vartox is a killer here, instead of the bombastic space king who has adventured with Superman and tried to woo Power Girl.
  • Red Tornado is still an android created by a scientist to fight the hero but, unlike the one from the comics, does not wind up becoming a good guy.
  • Siobhan Smythe is a heroic character in the comics and Kara's best friend. Her villainy in the show seems to come from being a Composite Character with Siobhan McDougal, the pre-Flashpoint Silver Banshee, who was evil from the get-go.
  • Jim Harper still works at Cadmus, but he's nothing like The Guardian, instead being a military man with Fantastic Racism who wants to dissect J'onn.
  • Dick/Rick Malverne is one of Kara's Love Interests in the comics. Here, he's an Evil Former Friend to both her and Alex.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • On Earth, Kara is going by Kara Danvers instead of Linda Lee, Linda Lee Danvers or any other civilian names she used in the comics. Presumably because the writers didn't think it would make sense for her to adopt a false first name when "Kara" is a perfectly normal name on Earth.
  • Cat Grant's son is named Carter Grant, rather than Adam Morgan; we later learn that she has another son named Adam Foster.
  • Eliza and Jeremiah Danvers, instead of Edna and Fred (pre-Crisis) or Sylvia and Fred (post-Crisis).
  • Toyman (Winslow Schott)'s son is usually named Anton Schott, rather than Winslow Schott Jr as Winn is.
  • Dick Malverne is renamed Rick. Ironically, he's given Adaptational Villainy on the show, so Dick would have been more appropriate.
  • Ma'alefa'ak's name is changed slightly to Malefic.
  • Instead of Lar Gand, Mon-El's given name is changed to actually being "Mon-El" - which was his alias in the comics, where he had amnesia and was adopted as a "little brother" by Superman - and his father, who is usually named Kel Gand, is now named Lar Gand, while his mother is named Rhea instead of Marisa (his brother Del doesn't appear to exist). No explanation is given for why his second name would be El when he has no relation to the Els of Krypton (not even a relationship with Superman in this version) and his father's second name is Gand.
• Adapted Out: The inaugural Crossover with The Flash confirms that Harrison Wells, Eobard Thawne, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, and S.T.A.R Labs as a whole all do not exist in this universe. While Cisco not existing certainly means that this universe doesn't have the superhero Vibe, the Supervillain Killer Frost can still appear via the Crystal Frost or/and Louise Lincoln versions^note Caitlin is the third person to don that identity in the comics following the two mentioned. As for other characters, it's confirmed that their superhero/villain identities do not exist, but whether or not they're just regular people here remains to be seen.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Mon-El is married to Imra Ardeen/Saturn Girl (with whom he has zero romantic subtext in the comics since she's generally busy being married to Lightning Lad) rather than his comic wife and teammate Tasmia Mallor/Shadow Lass. Before that, he also has a Will They or Won't They? with Kara herself, which never happens in the comics.
• Advertised Extra:
  • Women's wrestling websites gave a lot of press to Eve Torres appearing on the show. Her role as Maxima is only the first five minutes of "Myriad."
  • Floriana Lima is included on the series starting Season 2, but she's mainly a Satellite Love Interest all season; sure enough, Lima departed the series in Season 3, leading to an amicable breakup between Alex and Maggie.
• Aerith and Bob: A good deal of minor/recurring alien characters, especially ones created for the show, tend to have names that you'd expect for a human characters (i.e. Fiona, Franklin, Brian, Isabel, Marcus, etc.). While one can assume these are adopted names, but the show rarely does anything to suggest they answer to anything else.
• Affirmative Action Girl: As noted below, Kara's adopted sibling in the comic is male. The series changes it to a female, adding a third woman to the main cast.
• Age Lift:
  • Zig-Zagged with Kara. She usually arrives on Earth and begins her Supergirl career in her late teens. However, here she arrives at age thirteen, and doesn't start being Supergirl until she's twenty-four. So she comes to Earth younger than her comics counterpart, and starts her hero career older than in the comics.
  • Jimmy Olsen is now a veteran professional instead of a young beginner. He's already more than a decade into his career (as is Superman), and has matured.
  • Kara's foster family gave birth to a son at the end of the Peter David run of Supergirl. Here, they have a daughter who is older (biologically if not chronologically) than Kara.
  • Ms. Martian is usually depicted as a teenager (at least in appearance). Here, she appears as a grown adult whose actress is only a few years younger than J'onn's.
  • In the comics, Cat's son Adam Morgan is just a boy. Here, Adam Foster is in his mid-twenties, though the show compensated by making him a Decomposite Character (see below).
  • In the comics, Lar Gand is physically in his late teens to mid-twenties and thinks of Superman as a surrogate brother of sorts. Here, he is old enough to be Superman's father, though like Adam above, the show compensated by making him a Decomposite Character (again, see below).
• Alliterative Family:
  • Kara and her cousin Kal. They fight crime as Supergirl and Superman.
  • The name of Cat's mother is Katherine (So is Cat, but she goes with a different spelling) and her second son is Carter.
  • The entire Luthor family: Lena, Lillian, Lionel, and Lex.
  • Lucy Lane and her sister Lois.
• Alliterative Name: Inherits a couple from the comics, with appearances by Hank Henshaw, J'onn J'onzz, Lucy Lane, M'gann M'orzz, and the members of the Luthor family.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Lucy Lane,when she's first introduced, and Lena Luthor. Samantha Arias/Reign is also very reserved.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Winn Schott has a one-sided crush on Kara, who only sees him as a friend.
• All Guys Want Cheerleaders: Alex suggests that the Martian Manhunter reveal his true form to the world, pointing out how easily people accepted Supergirl. Jonn reminds her that he looks like a monster to humans whilst Kara, despite being an alien, has the form of a "pretty blonde cheerleader".
• Alternate Continuity: Zig-zagged. At launch in 2015, it was' this trope. However, this is an example of an Alternate Continuity becoming an Alternate Universe via Canon Welding (retroactively), as established via a Crossover with The Flash (2014). Until that point, it existed in its own bubble, outside the Arrowverse.
• Alternate Self: Apparently averted with the Arrowverse Earth-1 heroes. So far, this universe never shares any characters with any of the established Arrowverse multiverse. The closest they share are the Dominators, the Thanagarians, and Mariah Carey (see Celebrity Paradox below). However, Earth-2 Harrison Wells said on Crisis on Earth-X that there are 52 Karas.
• Alternate Universe: With the Canon Welding mentioned above, it's now in Earth-38 (named for the year that Superman was created).
• Always a Bigger Fish: A common theme throughout the series. No matter how powerful Krytonians are on Earth, there are always those with more power. When they are enemies it takes cunning and planning to take them down rather than brute power.
  • Reign demonstrates the issue quite clearly as a Krytonian and the only villain who has so totally beaten Kara in a fight.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The White Martians, who gleefully committed genocide against the Green Martians and have come to Earth to take out the last survivor. Except not only is Miss Martian a good White Martian as she usually is, but we've seen other White Martians sympathetic to her ideals.
• Ambiguously Bi: Kara. Her close relationship with Lena has been a topic of speculation since season 2, but the trope most applies to her interactions with Kate Kane in the Elseworld crossover. Kara openly admits to using her X-Ray vision to see through Kate's clothes and Kate very openly flirts with Kara throughout the episode.
• And Starring:
  • Season 1: David Harewood ("with"), Calista Flockhart ("and").
  • Seasons 2-3: Chris Wood("with"), David Harewood ("and").
• Anti-Climax: Reactron is noted as being one villain who Superman could never actually beat whenever they fought before. At the end of his debut episode, Kara defeats him by simply resisting his blasts, getting close enough and ripping out his power source...something it apparently never occurred for the more experienced Superman to do.
• Anvilicious: In-Universe, the news anchor in Manhunter who's talking about Hank revealing himself as Martian Manhunter really seems to be laying it on thick.
  Anchor: Who is this scary, powerful, and potentially dangerous monster?
• Apocalypse Wow: The story starts with Krypton exploding right after the House of El launches Kal and Kara into space.
• Appropriated Appellation: Cat dubs Kara Supergirl after her first big rescue.
• Arc Number: As with any DC show, the number "52" pops up a lot. Specifically, in "Blood Bonds", Maxwell Lord's room of mystery is room 52.
• Army of Thieves and Whores: General Astra forces Fort Rozz escapees to fight for her.
• Artifact Alias: After Hank Henshaw is revealed to be the Martian Manhunter using shapeshifting to pull a Dead Person Impersonation of the real Henshaw, more and more people begin calling him by his real name, J'onn J'onzz—but he still spends nearly all of his time using Henshaw's likeness. He claims that wearing a human face puts other humans at ease, but the only reason to keep using this particular face is because that's what people are used to seeing. The Doylist reason is, of course, so David Harewood can continue playing the character without heavy makeup and visual effects in most scenes.
• Artifact Title: Kara is way too old to be referred to as a "girl." She brings it up to her boss in the pilot, who responds by saying there's nothing wrong with "girl."
• Artistic License – Biology: In "Nevertheless, She Persisted", lead dust is released to the entire atmosphere of Earth, and the characters say it's permanent. Fortunately, all 7 billion humans are spared from the lasting and often fatal physical and psychological damage that is usually accompanied by inhaling lead dust.
• Artistic License – Chess: There's an absolute disaster of a match between Lena and Lana Luthor. They move illegally and sometimes simultaneously, reintegrate captured pieces and even swap colors.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • In "Childish Things" Kara sets off the sprinkler system at a toy convention and uses her freeze breath to freeze the water into a wall of ice help protect the convention goers from a bunch of bombs the Villain of the Week had planted. Setting aside the concept of freeze breath (Kryptonian superpowers), generally speaking, a sprinkler system really shouldn't be able to put out water in a large enough quantity in a matter of seconds to make freezing it into a solid wall of ice a viable plan.
  • In "Fight or Flight" Kara tears the door off a car to use as a shield against Reactron's energy blasts. If the energy blasts are strong enough to hurt her, they should punch through an ordinary car door like it was wet toilet paper.
  • Also in "Fight or Flight" Kara makes a glove out of melted lead. Superstrength or not, it wouldn't flex like fabric.
• Aside Glance: Two examples:
  • Andrea Rojas/Acrata, introduced in Season 5, occasionally glances at the audience when she's as Andrea Rojas, CEO of Cat Co/Obsidian Industries. But, to be fair, this is something Julie Gonzalo, her character's actress has a history of doing in other series/films.
  • Nia Nal/Dreamer occasionally will glance at the camera although hasn't broken the fourth wall yet.
• As You Know: Cleverly skirted around in the show. Whenever an alien species is brought up by a character (usually, J'onn), another will cut them off to let them know they're familiar with the species (usually Kara), thereby averted the trope and doing some expository dialog.
• Badass Boast: When interrogating James, Max Lord says "Human, alien, super...if you go up against me, you will lose."
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The Big Bad is only referred to as "the general" throughout the pilot, implying General Zod. It's actually Alura's Evil Twin sister Astra.
  • "In Human For a Day", Jemm threatens to reveal "Henshaw"'s true identity... as a coward.
  • For several episodes, we have seen "Hank"'s eyes glow red, and him displaying Super-Strength, hinting that he might be Cyborg Superman, like in the comics. He's the Martian Manhunter. Slightly subverted in that the real Hank shows up later, having been transformed into Cyborg Superman.
• Bald of Evil: Like his comic book counterpart, Lex Luthor is bald and evil.
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: As a Mythology Gag, the first costume Winn designs for Kara leaves her midriff bare, resembling her outfits in the early 2000s comics and cartoons. She refuses to go crimefighting in it, so she switches to her Minidress of Power.
  Kara: I wouldn't wear this to the beach!
• Beam-O-War: Kara does this with her heat vision all the time, especially against other Kryptonians. For some reason the heat beams seem capable of interfering with each other and applying physical pressure against one another.
• The Beautiful Elite: Aliens in general, be they Kryptonians like Kara, Clark and Sam, Daxamites like Mon-El, Rhea and Lar Gand, or humanoid like J'onn, M'gann (at least when posing as a green martian) and Lyra, are often incredibly good looking by human standards. Even those a bit more monstrous often can take the appearance of very attractive human beings, such as President Marsden.
• Beta Outfit: The pilot has Kara and Winn trying to make a proper outfit for Supergirl. Winn first makes her a skimpy hot pants outfit, which Kara immediately rejects. Then she goes for a Minidress of Power, and later finalizes it with the cape, boots, and Chest Insignia. Yet all those outfits still include the colors Superman uses.
• Betty and Veronica: Winn (Betty) and James (Veronica) for Kara (Archie). Later on, Kara and Imra are, respectively, the Betty and Veronica to Mon-El's Archie.
• Beneath Notice: Clark Kenting is referenced regarding how Clark avoids people making the connection. Kara has even less to hide her identity, but Olsen says that Kara can rest assured Cat would not make the connection. He was wrong.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Kara is a very sweet and bubbly person most of the time. But that doesn't mean she'll hesitate to punch anyone who threatens the people of Earth or her loved ones.
• Beware the Superman: J'onn says this was the motivation behind the creation of the Department of Extra-Normal Operations. He claims plenty of people distrust Superman, but aren't open about it.
• Big Bad:
  • Season 1: Non, Kara's uncle, is the Dragon Ascendant to her aunt Astra, taking over their plan to brainwash humanity after the latter's death halfway through.
  • Season 2: Lillian Luthor, Lena and the infamous Lex's mother, is the leader of the anti-alien terrorist organization Cadmus. By the finale she forms an Enemy Mine with Kara against Queen Rhea of Daxam, Mon-El's mother who initiates an invasion of Earth.
  • Season 3: Reign and the Worldkillers collectively serve as The Heavy for the Children of Juru, a Kryptonian cult that intend to terraform Earth. Selena is the leader of the witches, arriving on Earth in the final few episodes to resurrect Reign.
  • Lex Luthor is the main antagonist of the last three seasons, although each has a second villain he manipulates into a Big Bad Duumvirate:
    • Season 4: Agent Liberty / Ben Lockwood heads the anti-alien Children of Liberty, with Lex using him as a pawn to take over the government.
    • Season 5: Leviathan is an Ancient Conspiracy of Eco-Terrorist aliens who want to kill all humans. Their primary representative, Gamemnae, intends to get a majority of humanity addicted to Obsidian VR, so she can kill them all at once. Lex posthumously turns Lena against Kara, and after being resurrected by the Monitor steals Leviathan's power to become the next Anti-Monitor.
    • Season 6: Nyxlygsptlnz, a fifth-dimensional imp who intends to overthrow her father and falls in love with Lex.
• Big Eater: Kara loves food and regularly consumes tons of it. Not being human, her body doesn't react the same way to it, and she stays thin and fit.^note It's debatable if Kryptonians on Earth, absorbing all of its yellow sunlight, even need to eat. This comes in handy, when Barry, who needs to consume tons of food to maintain his Super-Speed, wants to find a nice takeout place. Kara is happy to help.
• Big Good: Superman is treated as this by the world at large, except by those who are afraid of him. Given that, by this time, he's established himself as a hero of great renown in a world where he's the only super hero (except possibly Batman) this is understandable as the feats attributed to him have him saving the world multiple times.
• Big Little Brother:
  • Kara is taller (5'8) than her adoptive sister Alex (5'6).
  • On the other hand, Superman, usually depicted as a Tall, Dark, and Handsome man standing over 6 feet, is taller than his older cousin Kara.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead:
  • The Danvers family. Eliza is blonde, Jeremiah is brunette, and Alex is redhead.
  • The DEO Power Trio. Kara is blonde, J'onn (in his human guise) is brunette, and Alex is redhead.
  • From Season 2 on, Kara (blonde), Lena (brunette) and Alex (redhead) regularly fill this role as the leading ladies of the series.
• Book Ends: Mon-El arrives on Earth at the beginning of season 2 in a Kryptonian ship fleeing his home planet after it had been rendered uninhabitable, and leaves Earth at the end of season 2 in a Kryptonian ship fleeing a planet that he had come to consider home after it had been rendered uninhabitable (to Daxamites).
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: In episode 2 Alex teaches Kara to fight in a room lined with low-intensity "Kryptonite emitters," just enough to be Brought Down to Normal. Kara mostly brushes this off, but after losing a fight with her aunt, she admits she needs more training. Later in the first season, Kara is kicking Alex's ass in the K-room.
• Brain Bleach: Kara's reaction to peeping in on Winn and Siobhan.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: How Lena rationalizes what she ends up doing to Eve Tessmacher in 5x02 with her nanites. She plans to do it to the whole of humanity, although she might give them the choice, which she definitely did not do for Eve: she simply took her desire to "be better" as consent.
• Bread and Circuses: It is mentioned by Kara that the reason why Daxam was considered a pleasure planet was that the citizens were kept fat and happy so that the aristocracy could get away with various injustices, slavery and racism being a few.
• Broad Strokes: It takes the essential premise of its comic-book adaptation, but as for what is and isn't canon, it takes this trope as "only the parts we like or that make sense" will be used.
• Bullying a Dragon: In the tie-in Sterling Gates' comic series, made-of-diamond villain Facet spends months trying to ruin Kara's life until Kara loses patience, takes her to the upper atmosphere and lets her go. Supergirl lampshades how dumb is to taunt someone who can fly:
  Supergirl: But here's the thing about messing with people who can fly when you can't... They choose how you land.
• Call-Back: In Season 1, Supergirl tells Winn that she visited Starhaven as a child and that it smelled like cinnamon. Late in Season 2, Winn remarks he studied Starhaven, learned to translate its writing, and that he heard it smelled like cinnamon.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: It seems to be a regular thing on the show through its first three episodes. Kara reveals her existence as Supergirl by rescuing a plane in regular street clothes. (Fortunately she gets her actual uniform later in the episode, but some can't help but think this is going to come back on her at some point). Immediately tells/shows Winn that she is Supergirl when she sees him at work the next day. Allows Cat Grant to video-record the interview she finally gives her as Supergirl, then gets annoyed at a set of tough questions from Cat and pouts about implying their sexism…by blurting away the fact that Superman is her cousin. Later, while she, James, and Winn are talking in their super office, James blurts out Clark's name in a sidebar conversation right in front of Winn—who overhears it and commences to silently marking about how Clark Kent is Superman. Predictably, Alex and J'onn at the DEO are getting tired of this.
  • When told of J'onn's secret, Kara asks why Alex and J'onn didn't tell her sooner, saying she can keep a secret. Alex and J'onn simultaneously say "no you can't."
  • Mon-El tells her she gives herself away when trying to tell a lie with a crinkle in her brow.
• Canon Discontinuity: Thanks to Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) and Superman & Lois, it seems as though large chunks of Seasons 1 and 3, specifically the parts involving General Sam Lane and Morgan Edge respectively, were erased, or at least significantly changed.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • General Astra.
  • In an interesting example, the setting—National City—itself is this.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • National City makes its DC Comics debut in Supergirl (Rebirth).
  • In a way, Astra, since she and Alura are made into a Composite Character in Supergirl (Rebirth). Specifically, Kara's mother is still named Alura Zor-El, but the character's background is virtually Astra's.
  • Eve Tessmacher originally appeared as Lex Luthor's Sexy Secretary in the Richard Donner Superman films.
  • The Music Meister, a villain who debuted in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, appears as the main antagonist of the crossover Musical Episode, "Duet".
• Casting Gag:
  • One of Faran Tahir's best known roles is as one of the first villains to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • As has become tradition for any film or TV show based on Superman characters, actors from former incarnations have roles, this time Dean Cain (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) and Helen Slater (Supergirl (1984) herself) as Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers, respectively. Producers Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg seem to like this type of casting, since they also cast the previous live-action Flash to play the father of the current one. Further, when they had to replace Laura Benanti as Alura Zor-El in Season 3, they cast Smallville Lois Lane Erica Durance. And Teri Hatcher, the Lois Lane to Dean Cain's Superman, was cast to play a villain.
  • In the episode "Midvale", Erica Durance played an FBI agent called "Noel Neill", after the actress who played Lois Lane in The Adventures of Superman.
  • Teri Hatcher as Queen Rhea appeared alongside Kevin Sorbo as King Lar Gand. Sorbo was very nearly cast as Superman in Lois & Clark before Cain got it.
  • Before Berlanti hired Calista Flockhart as Cat Grant, he had her as Kitty Walker in his previous show Brothers & Sisters.
  • Indigo is played by Laura Vandervoort, best known for playing an earlier incarnation of Supergirl (sans the name) in Smallville. Not only that, but Brainiac disguised himself as Kara there. Here, she's Brainiac 8.
  • Marley Rose and Ryder Lynn are once again playing love interests (plus, the actors were actually married by this point).
  • Carl Lumbly plays J'onn J'onzz's father. He voiced J'onn on Justice League and in Justice League: Doom.
  • Agent Liberty is played by Sam Witwer, who previously played Doomsday on Smallville, making this the second time that he's been opposed to a Kryptonian superhero.
  • Jon Cryer was cast as Lex Luthor for the fourth season. Cryer previously played Luthor's nephew Lenny in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
• Celebrity Paradox: It gets even more complicated when the show is introduced to The Multiverse, but more on that below.
  • Kara and Alex are fans of Homeland. David Harewood played David Estes, the Director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, on Homeland, but also plays both Hank Henshaw and the Martian Manhunter in this show. Melissa Benoist herself also appeared in the first two post-pilot episodes of Homeland. ^note Both Jamey Sheridan, who played the Vice President of the U.S.A, and Navid Negahban, who played the Big Bad of that show's first two seasons, respectively played Robert Queen and Al-Owal on Arrow, while Morena Baccarin, who played the wife of that show's Decoy Protagonist, voiced Gideon on The Flash (2014). Both Arrow and The Flash are officially set in an Alternate Universe, though if Homeland exists on that Earth or if they have counterparts here remains to be seen.
  • Cat says that she would not date Harrison Ford, because he is too old and already married. Guess who he's married to in real life? Before Ford himself was name-dropped, Star Wars has been mentioned several times throughout the series. ^note Mark Hamill, who played The Hero of the original trilogy, also plays James Jesse / The Trickster in three different Alternate Universes, while both Maise Richardson-Sellers (Amaya Jiwe / Vixen) and Greg Grunberg (Det. Tom Patterson) are in the Sequel Trilogy, with the latter being a Recurring Character. Whether or not they have counterparts here remains to be seen.
  • Cat mentions The X-Files in Episode 5. Italia Ricci's, aka Siobhan Smythe, Real Life husband Robbie Amell is part of the show's Sequel Series. ^note Amell also play two versions of Ronnie Raymond in two different Alternate Universe in The Flash (2014), though whether or not he has a counterpart here remains to be seen.
  • Netflix was mentioned a lot during Season 1. Malina Weissman, Kara's younger Time-Shifted Actor, was one of the leads in A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017), while Tawny Cypress, who plays Sen. Miranda Crane, is a recurring cast member of House of Cards (US). Both shows are produced by Netflix.
  • Winn name-drops Doctor Who during the first battle with Indigo. David Harewood (J'onn J'onzz and Hank Henshaw) guest-starred there while Dichen Lachman (Veronica Sinclair / Roulette) guest-starred on Torchwood: Miracle Day. ^note John Barrowman (Malcolm Merlyn), Alex Kingston (Dinah Drake Lance), Colin Salmon (Walter Steele), Arthur Darvill (Rip Hunter), and Russell Tovey (Ray Terrill / The Ray) were cast members whether or not they have counterparts here remains to be seen.
  • Maggie mentions Quantico in her debut during Season 2. Henry Czerny's, aka Winslow Schott, Sr., plays a Recurring Character on that show. ^note Rick Cosnett, who played a Recurring Character on its first season, also plays Eddie Thawne on The Flash (2014). Whether or not the show also exists on Earth-1 or if he has a counterpart here remains to be seen.
  • Kara mentions that she's a big fan of *NSYNC when she was younger. Jenna Dewan-Tatum, who played Lucy Lane, was a backup dancer of the group (and eventually its most famous member) before she became an actress.
  • The X-Men Film Series was vaguely mentioned in Season 2. Glenn Morshower, who plays Gen. Sam Lane, played a minor character in X-Men: First Class ^note The film series also has Kelly Hu (China White), Roger Cross (Lucas Hilton), Rila Fukushima (Tatsu Yamashiro), Nolan Funk (Cooper Seldon), Vinnie Jones (Daniel Brickwell), Michael Ironside (Lewis Snart), Daniel Cudmore (Jackhammer of the Demolition Team), Mei Melancon (Masako Yamashiro), and Morena Baccarin (Gideon I) in its cast, with Hu, Fukushima, Jones, Cudmore and Baccarin playing major characters in at least one of the films, while David Hayter (King Shark) wrote the screenplay of the inaugural film. However, all these actors only appeared on the Earth-1 shows, with the film franchise yet to be referred there, and/or their respective counterparts yet to appear here, if they have one at all.
  • Winn mentions 24 in Season 2. Glenn Morshower, who plays Gen. Sam Lane, played a prominent Recurring Character in that show, while Faran Tahir, who plays The Commander, played the Starter Villain of its fourth season ^note Several of the Earth-1 Arrowverse actors have appeared there. Both Roger Cross (Lucas Hilton) and Jeff Nordling (Frank Bertinellii) played major supporting characters. Tobin Bell (Savitar) and Paul Blackthorne (Quentin Lance) respectively played the Big Bad of its second and third seasons. Tony Todd (Zoom's masked voice) played the Disc-One Final Boss of its seventh season, with Hakeem Kae-Kazim (Eshu) playing his Dragon. Megalyn Echikunwoke (Mari McCabe/Vixen II), Kathleen Gati (Raisa), David Anders (Cyrus Vanch), Navid Negahban (Al-Owal), and Carly Pope (Susan Williams) all played prominent Recurring Characters, while Kevin Alejandro (Sebastian Blood) and J.R. Ramirez (Ted Grant/Wildcat) played minor ones. Both Colin Salmon (Walter Steele) and Teddy Sears (Hunter Zolomon/Zoom) were on two different Sequel Series, with the latter being a main character on his series. However, the 24 series is yet to be name dropped or referred to in Earth-1.
  • Kara is a big fan of Game of Thrones, yet her long lost best friend from Krypton is played by Esmé Bianco, who played the show's resident Ms. Fanservice character in the first three seasons^note Rila Fukushima (Tatsu Yamashiro) and Dean S. Jagger (Mr. Collins) have also guested there, though it remains to be seen if they have Earth-38 counterparts.
  • There are also interesting cases. Some shows and movies that have actors from the Earth-1 shows are mentioned here, such as Wicked ^note Colin Donnell (Tommy Merlyn) was a cast member during the 2009 season, while Liam McIntyre's (Mark Mardon) wife was one of the two leads in the Australian version. Additionally, one of the play's pioneer actress is Idina Menzel, who was shot to fame in her work in RENT along with Jesse L. Martin (Joe West). There's also the fact that Menzel was on Glee along with several alumni of the show who are now in the Arrowverse such as Kara's actress, but that's too much., Titanic (1997) ^note Victor Garber (Martin Stein), plus the actor who played Leonardo DiCaprio's Sidekick guest-starred on Arrow Season 1., Orphan Black ^note Dylan Bruce (Adam Donner) is part of the show's main cast during its first two-and-a-half seasons, while Elyse Levesque (Guinevere) plays a major antagonist in its Finale Season., Oz ^note Kirk Acevedo (Ricardo Diaz) is part of the show's main cast, while Mark Margolis (Felix Faust) and Peter Francis James (Aldus Boardman) both play Recurring Characters., Stargate ^note Teryl Rothery (Jean Loring), Robert Knepper (William Tockman), Morena Baccarin (Gideon I), Rachel Luttrell (Rosie of the Demolition team), Haig Sutherland (Griffin Grey), J.R. Bourne (Jeremy Tell), Jewel Staite (Dr. Bryce), Gary Chalk (Gen. Walker), Elyse Levesque (Guinevere), Lexa Doig (Talia Al-Ghul), and Tobin Bell (Savitar), and A Nightmare on Elm Street ^note Katie Cassidy (Dinah Laurel Lance) and Clancy Brown (Wade Eilling).. It remains to be seen if they have counterparts on this Earth, though all except Orphan Black, Oz and Stargate also exist there.
  • There are also the reverse, where shows mentioned there having actors from this Earth but is yet to be acknowledged here, namely; The Twilight Saga^note which has Peter Facinelli (Maxwelll Lord) as a main character, the Law & Order shows^note which has Laura Benanti (Alura Zor-El and Astra) as a Recurring Character, and Melissa Benoist, Mehcad Brooks (Jimmy Olsen), and Jeremy Jordan (Winn Schott) as guest stars, all in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Charles Halford (Jemm) played a Small Role, Big Impact villain on the same show, but him having a (different and unrelated) character on Earth-1 complements that, The Walking Dead (2010) ^note which has Briana Venskus (Agent Vasquez) as a minor Recurring Character starting its seventh season and Justice Leak (Hellgrammite) as a Mook in its fifth . Brenda Strong (Lillian Luthor) also plays a Recurring Character in its Spin-Off, Fear the Walking Dead, while Emma Caulfield (Cameron Chase) is also set to appear in the Spin-Off, the Jurassic Park film series ^note Katie McGrath (Lena Luthor) had a memorable supporting role in Jurassic World, the James Bond film series ^note Teri Hatcher (Queen Rhea of Daxam) plays a Bond Girl on Tomorrow Never Dies, Spaceballs^note Brenda Strong (Lillian Luthor) was part of the film, Twin Peaks^note Brenda Strong (Lillian Luthor) played a multi-episode antagonist in its second season, iZombie ^note Rahuli Kohli (Jack Spheer) is a main cast member of the show, the Transformers Film Series ^note Glenn Morshower (Sam Lane) plays a prominent supporting character in the film series, while Odette Annable (Reign) is part of the inaugural film playing a minor character, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe ^note Faran Tahir played the franchise's Starter Villain in Iron Man, Dichen Lachman (Veronica Sinclair) played the Big Bad of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2, Glenn Morshower guest-starred on Season 2 twice, and Briana Venskus (Agent Vasquez) plays a Recurring Character on the latter show during its fourth season..
  • Mariah Carey exists on both this universe and Earth-1, though whether or not this universe has a Leonard Snart (played by Wentworth Miller who was Mariah's Love Interest in two of her music videos) remains to be seen.
  • Played With in the season 2 episode "Crossfire," where Mon-El claims that he thought having sex in the workplace was normal because of Grey's Anatomy. Chyler Leigh, who plays Alex, was a series regular for several seasons on Grey's^note The Flash mainstays Candice Patton and Danielle Panabaker have also guested there, with the former appearing as a patient of Leigh's character in the show's sixth season. Its Spin-Off Private Practice also has Stephen Amell, who plays the titular Arrow, as a Recurring Character, and Alex Kingston, who plays Dinah Drake Lance, as an Arc Villain.. However, Mon-El never actually name-drops the show, referring to it instead as a "TV show about doctors," so it's possible he could have been referring to an In-Universe equivalent.
    • Gets more complicated in season 3 when Alex basically describes her past as... being Lexie Grey. She was a doctor in Seattle who nearly died in a plane crash, but wanted more action. For the record, Lexie Grey ''did' die in a plane crash.
• Character Tic: In her civilian identity, Kara has a habit of knitting her forehead and cutting her eyes to the side when she's confused about something. And constantly adjusting her glasses.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: We lose some people when production moves from Los Angeles to Vancouver. Two major characters from season 1, Lucy Lane and Maxwell Lord, vanish without trace or explanation before the start of season 2. Averted with Cat Grant, whose departure is addressed on screen, with the actress returning for a farewell episode. Made even more blatant with Lucy as she'd become the head of the DEO as the first season reached its finale, but was nowhere to be found as season 2 began.
• Clark Kenting:
  • Kara wears glasses, keeps her hair in a ponytail or braided when out of costume. She also attempts to have a more formal attitude while in costume, but seems to be naturally cute and can't help herself.
  • This is discussed when she and James discuss Supergirl having an interview with Cat. Kara worries Cat will recognize her, but James assures Kara that Cat doesn't really see Kara as someone worth a lot of attention yet. James then says this is partly how Clark gets people not to notice that he looks like Superman. His human persona doesn't come across as standing out. The other part is, people just can't believe a superhero would be standing next to them in everyday life.
  • Cat seems more or less immune to this.
    • She eventually figures out Supergirl's identity due to Kara's behavior, only going back to believing they're not the same person when she sees "Supergirl" and Kara in the same room together (Supergirl in this case being J'onn J'onzz shapeshifted to impersonate her).
    • By the end of the 2nd season she reveals to the audience she was not actually fooled but has let Kara believe she was given the lengths everyone went to.
    • Cat also pretty quickly figures out that Barry Allen is the Flash, although that's mostly due to his behavior, timing, and insistence on calling the new speedster "the Flash". (She also hints at knowing Kara's identity, talking about how she couldn't be fooled by the impossible hiding before her eyes as the mundane like that.)
    • Guardian's secret identity lasts about 15 seconds when Cat sees him. She mentions that not covering your eyes when they are one of your best features makes it easy to figure out who you really are.
  • Kara tries to get Mon-El to preemptively do this just on the off-chance that he wants to be a superhero later. He is spectacularly bad at it.
• Cliffhanger:
  • The first season ends like this. Our heroes have saved the world and are celebrating, when suddenly a huge ball of fire appears and lands in the middle of the city. Kara and J'onn investigate: turns out the meteorite is actually another Kryptonian escape pod, carrying a Daxamite named Mon-El.
  • Season 2 likewise ends with Supergirl, Mon-El, Superman, The DEO, Miss Martian and other White Martian revolutionaries repelling a Daxamite invasion, however at the cost of Earth being uninhabitable for all Daximites, including Mon-El leading him and Kara being forced to say goodbye, Kara tearfully admitting she loves him. As his pod sets off, however, Mon-El is sucked into a vortex, possibly the Phantom Zone and then it flashes back to the destruction of Krypton as it is learned that a third child was sent to earth as well.
• Coconut Superpowers: Martian shapeshifting, mainly. Comic Martian Manhunter can turn into things like giant snakes or T-Rexes, shifting many times per battle. At an instant's notice he takes whatever form needed at the second to give him the upper hand. In the show, he uses it strictly to go between human disguise and hero mode, using only his Flying Brick powers in battle. We also see little of the Martians' true forms. The Martian Manhunter chooses to always look like Hank Henshaw even though all of the DEO now knows who he is, and he and Miss Martian will stay in human form even when it's just the two of them alone. Most egregiously, in a scene on Mars where the only non-Martian present is Kara, everyone decides to take on human forms, ostensibly as a courtesy to Kara. (You'd think, having never seen humans before, they'd all look like Hank, Megan Morse, or Kara. Instead, naturally they all look like their actors, everyone having come up with unique human forms from scratch.) However, J'onn's dad does spend several episodes in Martian form before finally taking on the form of his actor (specifically, Carl Lumbly, aka Justice League's Martian Manhunter.)
  • To be fair, the Martians appearing in human form is explained by J'onn's dad as a Martian custom: they take the shape of their guests. Since Kara is there and is the only non-Martian, she qualifies as a guest.
• Comfort Food:
  • Kara and Alex rely on pastries and pizza to get them through tough times.
  • J'onn has a hankering for Rolo chocolates. Alex gives him some (as well as some cookies) to make things easier for him when he's imprisoned by the DEO when his real identity is exposed.
• Coming-Out Story: The show has two LGBT+ characters, so both have this occur.
  • First is Alex Danvers, main character Supergirl/Kara Danvers adopted sister, who realizes she's a lesbian.
    • In the episode "Changing", Alex comes out to Kara. It's made a little difficult as Alex hasn't really accepted her sexuality herself at this point, but Kara, although taken by surprise, is fully supportive.
    • In the episode "Medusa", Alex prepares to come out to their mother on Thanksgiving, and it's largely Played for Laughs. Firstly, Alex and James argue as he wants to reveal to the group that he's National City's newest hero, the Guardian, and Alex doesn't want him overshadowing her announcement. Later, when Alex is about to come out to her mother, a small hole in the space-time continuum appears over the dinner table. Finally, Alex gets the opportunity... only for her mother to have already worked it out, and she's happy for her daughter.
  • Nia comes out a couple times to her new acquaintances/friends in Season 4 (she was already out to her family, and they accepted her).
    • In "Fallout" Nia tells James she is transgender, while explaining why she'd stood up for Brainy since it had reminded her of transphobia. James is cool about it.
    • In "Blood Memory" she tells Kara, and also relates her transition in the past. Her family was very accepting, though not everybody in her town was okay about it. Kara thanks Nia for sharing her story, and is wholly accepting of her identity too.
    • In "American Dreamer" she comes out again while giving an interview to Kara, this time as Dreamer, to the entire world.
  • In "Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up" Kelly reveals to Alex she is lesbian like her. While in the military, she got secretly engaged to her sergeant (because of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" they couldn't be out), who then died on patrol.
• Composite Character:
  • The Starter Villain in the first episode is named Vartox after a relatively obscure superhero who was a homage to Sean Connery in Zardoz. He also uses an axe like the Lumberjack, an extremely obscure villain who appeared in only one issue of Wonder Woman. Early reports said the villain would be the Lumberjack.
  • "Hank Henshaw" is actually the Martian Manhunter, who adopted Henshaw's identity in a broadly similar fashion to comicbook J'onn taking that of Detective John Jones. Hank Henshaw in comics is the real name of the cyborg Superman. He is also an african-american in charge of the D.E.O, a position typically filled by the Director Bones.
  • Siobhan Smythe takes two elements from the Silver Banshee. She shares the name of the New 52 version, who is Kara's friend, but she is confirmed to eventually become her enemy here, making her more similar to Siobhan MacDougal, the Silver Banshee of the original comics.
  • James Olsen takes on the mantle of Guardian in Season 2. In the comics, Guardian is Jim Harper (who already appeared in the first season, although there have been two African-American Legacy Character versions — Mal Duncan and Jake Jordan. Both have similarities to James — Duncan was originally a non-costumed supporting character, and Jordan worked for a newspaper). (In addition, James's costume is metallic-finish armour, rather the comics' gold and blue bodysuit, which, coupled with his being a bald African-American, suggests another of Superman's friends.)
• Computer Equals Monitor: Played straight when Jeremiah shoots the D.E.O. computer after copying all the files with a device attached... to the monitor.
• Conducting the Carnage: Lex Luthor does this to the background tune of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525: I. Allegro as he leaves the mansion he was placed under house arrest in, killing a handful of federal agents with the mansion's security systems and another group of agents with landmines hidden in the ground as he playfully conducts the explosions.
• Consolation Backfire: When Alex brings the holoprojector with Alura's message to Kara on it, Alura tells Kara that while she's going to get things wrong, she'll always end up doing the right thing. So the message itself is uplifting, but this is the first time in twelve years that Kara's seen or heard her mother. She ends up in tears as the message shuts off and for a moment she's just a little girl who wants her mom.
• Cool Car: J'onn J'onzz's vintage Chevy convertible, which shapeshifts into a Martian spaceship.
• Create Your Own Villain: Cat Grant does this TWICE, along with Kara:
  • First, she encouraged Leslie Willis's behavior, until she started to bash Supergirl on the radio. Then, she suddenly turned on her and sent her to do weather reports in a chopper. During a bad storm, she almost died in an accident until Supergirl tried to save her, only for the two of them to be hit by lighting. Leslie was in a coma, but woke up with electrical powers, becoming Livewire and going after Cat.
  • Later, Cat hired Siobahn Smythe in an attempt to spite Kara for dumping her son. However, Siobahn proves to be too ambitious and tries to sell a story about Supergirl to the competition. Supergirl, under the influence of Red K, outs this to Cat, who fires and blacklists her. After a failed attempt at revenge, Siobahn suddenly acquires the power to shatter things with her scream. Becoming Silver Banshee, she teams up with Livewire to get payback on Kara and Cat.
• Crossover:
  • Barry Allen guest-stars in season one, with Grant Gustin reprising his role from the The Flash TV series.
  • Seasons two and three feature a four-part crossover among all four Arrowverse shows (Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow).
• Dark Action Girl: Every female antagonist, though Astra is more of a Lady of War.
• Darker and Edgier: Season 2 starts doing away with the campy tone of Season 1 with the "xenophobic" arc and more brutal villains.
• Decomposite Character:
  • Cat Grant's son in the comics, Adam Morgan, was split into half-brothers Carter Grant and Adam Foster. The former gets the canonical age while the latter gets the first name.
  • In the comics, Jim Harper is Guardian. Here, the mantle is instead taken by James starting Season 2.
  • In the comics, Lar Gand is Mon-El's real name. In the show, they're respectively father and son.
  • In the comics,^note at least before their kinship was first retconned Lex and Lena Luthor have the same mother. In the show, they have the same father, but different mothers.
• Deconstruction:
  • James Olsen's role as Superman's constant sidekick gets this treatment. It turns out that constantly putting Superman first - and calling on Superman whenever a situation got sticky - really damaged his personal life.
  • A major theme in the show is the clash between Kara's idealism and the DEO's pragmatism, with plenty of What the Hell, Hero? moments on both sides. Like her cousin, Kara vows never to kill, whereas the DEO is a government agency and it's literally their job to decide when lethal force is necessary, in addition to making morally questionable decisions in the name of the greater good. They see Kara as naive, while she thinks their claim of doing "what needs to be done" is an excuse for taking the easy way out. The show is basically what happens when someone like Superman works with an organization like SHIELD.
• Decoy Backstory:
  • When Mon-El first arrived on Earth, he told everyone that he was the bodyguard to the prince of Daxam, who let him take his ride off the doomed planet. It later turned out the story was mostly true, except Mon-El was the prince.
  • When she first appears, M'gann M'orzz claims that she's a Green Martian refugee who escaped from a White Martian prison camp. It's later revealed that she's a White Martian who fled after developing sympathy for the Greens.
• Defends Against Their Own Kind: Kara has had to defend National City against multiple Kryptonians, including a brainwashed Superman at one point.
• Deus Exit Machina: Subverted. In "Myriad", Superman is initially off-world when Non activates the eponymous plan, but once he does return he falls under its effect as well, leaving only Kara and a few others free of its influence.
• Deuteragonist:
  • In season 1 the role is fulfilled by Alex as she learns how to support Kara in her superhero endeavors, while balancing her responsibilities as a member of the DEO as well as digging into the true reasons behind her father's disappearance while Hank/J'onn takes the tritagonist role dealing with finding the courage to come forward as the last son of Mars, and honoring his promise to Jeremiah Danvers to look out for his daughters.
  • Season 2 sees Mon-El of Daxam and his journey from indifferent playboy to selfless superhero as well as his romance with Kara and relationship with the seasons Big Bad, i.e. his mother, take this role, with Alex and her realization and coming to terms with her sexuality and relationship with Maggie and her continued search for her father taking and sharing the tritagonist position with Lena Luthor, the younger sister of Lex, attempt to salvage her family's reputation and her developing friendship with both Kara and Supergirl and her struggle against the prejudice of her last name, no way helped in part by her mother Lillian's action as the head of Cadmus, a terrorist organization with anti-alien views.
  • Season 3 seems to be building up to Samantha aka Reign, a single mother and the third survivor of Krypton coming into her powers, and in an interesting yet not unheard of twist also serving as the season's Big Bad.
• Defector from Decadence: M'gann is a White Martian, who was horrified at the genocide her people were committing against the Green Martians. She tried to help some Greens flee the camps and then ran away to Earth. She eventually goes back to Mars to try to find more like-minded Whites.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When the horrifyingly-powerful Indigo has Winn by the throat (through a computer screen), she's gloating about how she's a god. Winn has none of it.

No. You're just a glorified Windows Vista!

• Disappeared Dad:
  • Ruby Arias' father is not involved with her life at all. The circumstances are unclear, however as her mother was a teenager when she had Ruby, he likely was as well and didn't want to be responsible.
  • Amadei Derros was unwilling absent in his daughter Elizabeth Hawkings' life for years, as her mother Natalie kept them apart. She became so bitter over them breaking up she'd not only kept the fact he had a daughter from him, but told Elizabeth they had a one night stand and he was a deadbeat dad. After Elizabeth learned of him and wrote him letters, she intercepted all his replies to make him seem uninterested. Elizabeth is enraged and disowns her on finding this out, before meeting Amadei.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The series makes no effort to make the portrayal of the White Martians as A Nazi by Any Other Name and J'onn J'onzz as a Holocaust survivor subtle.
  • The Fantastic Racism against aliens is a fairly blatant allegory to discrimination against immigrants. It's made even less subtle in Season 4, where Agent Liberty and his anti-alien fanatics are clearly stand-ins for xenophobic white supremacists, as they explicitly refer to aliens as dangerous criminals who are "stealing their jobs," and insist that humans will only be safe if the aliens "go back to where they came from." Nia, who's transgender, also compares their forcible outings of aliens in disguise with it happening to trans people, explaining why she stands up for Brainy as this happens.
• Doomed Hometown: Krypton, per the norm.
• Dope Slap: Alex delivers one to Winn when he confesses that James is the Guardian.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Despite being even stronger than Superman, once his identity is revealed J'onn J'onzz has a tendency have his telepathy rendered useless and to be incapacitated or inexplicably unavailable a lot because otherwise he would make any mystery impossible and he would be able to personally take out any given threat that Supergirl could go up against respectively, especially when said threat relies on Kryptonite to be effective.
• The Dreaded:
  • An alien convict in the second episode wants nothing to do with going after Supergirl because of the other person who has that shield on their chest.
  • No one, repeat, no one, wants to screw around with a White Martian.
  • This appears to apply to the Dominators as well.
• Drowning My Sorrows: The typical coping mechanism for Alex.
• Due to the Dead: There is an empty office in the CatCo tower, because the actuarial that it formerly belonged died of a heart attack in it. No one wants to empty it out or make use of it because of that, so Winn decides to secretly set up Supergirl's Mission Control there. (Which makes it, in a roundabout way, a Haunted Headquarters.)
• Dynamic Akimbo: Supergirl pulls this pose off once in a while.
• Easily Forgiven: Midway through Season 1, Alex is forced to kill Astra to save J'onn's life. Hank insists on taking the blame for it, so Kara doesn't know her sister killed her relative. Sure enough, Kara becomes angry at J'onn and their relationship collapses. Ultimately, Alex confesses because she doesn't want to see J'onn lose Kara as a friend and ally. After a moment of shock, Kara forgives them both.
• Eerie Arctic Research Station: The Thorul Arctic Research Station in season 2 is the current base of National City climate change scientist Rudy Jones, and the episode in which he becomes monster Parasite opens as a deliberate homage to The Thing (1982) — they discover a still warm wolf body from thousands of years ago in the ice, with the cold and remote conditions being the perfect survival spot for a prehistoric parasite.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When ordering the release of all the DEO's Prisoners while mind controlling them, the villain specifies to free all of them EXCEPT the White Martian, viewing them as too horrible to release. Given the Other Aliens he's ordering the release of not to mention himself, that is really saying something.
• Evil Plan: Astra and her followers are gunning for "Myriad" to happen, whatever that is.
• Evil Twin: Kara has three, Bizarro, Red Daughter and Overgirl. She also goes evil herself for a short while after being exposed to Red Kryptonite.
• Everyone Can See It: Winn's and then Mon-El's crush on Kara. The only one who doesn't see it until pointed out, of course, is Kara.
  • Discussed in Supergirl Lives. While no one but Kara knows who its for, anyone can see that Alex is pretty much glowing with post-coital happy. She's just come in from her first night with her Maggie, which was also her first time with a girl.
• Exact Words: An unintentional example in that Kara tells Winslow before revealing her secret that only three people "in her life" know what she's about to tell him, namely her alien origin (Alex, her mother, and Superman). She isn't aware at the time that her secret (origin + secret identity) is known by a lot more people (James, the DEO) or that her presence on Earth as a Kryptonian is known by yet another group (the escaped prisoners).
• Expy:
  • Cat Grant is based on Miranda Priestley. In fact, the casting call actually stated outright that the role needed a Miranda-type character.
  • The Maxwell Lord of this series seems to be much more clearly based on Lex Luthor from the comics than on Maxwell Lord from the comics. We even get an iconic scene of Superman confronting Lex outside his office window (Lex being smug in his untouchability and Superman not being able to do much at the moment) as seen in multiple adaptations reproduced here with Supergirl and Max.
    • We seem to be getting a "Lex Luthor wannabe of the season" setup. Season One has Max Lord, who turns out to be less evil than we thought (still willing to go pretty damn dark, but the worst he's suspected of always turns out to not be him, and he does help sometimes.) while in season two, Lillian Luthor, Lex's mom, turns out to be worse if anything. As for season three, enter Morgan Edge. We're left to wonder if he's a Lillian or a Lord, until he proves to be every bit as evil as Lex (but not as good at getting away with it.) Then comes season four, where the real deal shows up midway through and proves that none of the pretenders to the throne were anywhere in his league.
  • Within the overall Arrowverse if Barry and Oliver are Superman and Batman then Kara is Wonder Woman as noted by her ability to inspire the best to people. Bonus points for Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman from the 1970s TV series) is part of the show
• Eye Beams: Supergirl and Astra's heat vision beams are blue, though Superman's are usually depicted as red in other media.
• Eye-Dentity Giveaway: In the first half of Season 1, Hank Henshaw's eyes glowed red a few times, indicating he might not be entirely human. While early viewers believed Hank already had his comic book identity of the villainous Cyborg Superman, "Human for a Day" revealed this to be a Red Herring — Hank actually wasn't Hank at all, but J'onn J'onzz/Martian Manhunter in disguise. This is now considered a Late-Arrival Spoiler.
• The Faceless: In Season 1, no actor was cast to play Superman, so the show used this trope to hide that fact. Kal-El is shown as a baby on Krypton, but as an adult his face is obscured and people talk about him instead of him showing up in person to them. He gives Kara his baby blanket for her to use as a cape, but through James instead of handing it over himself. In "Myriad" it looks like we'll finally get to see him properly, but then he falls under Non's Mind Control and disappears, so his face remained unseen until season two, when Tyler Hoechlin was cast as Kal-El.
• Famed In-Story:
  • Not the main character, but her cousin certainly counts. Supergirl herself counts as the series progresses.
  • Kara recognizes James as a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer when she sees his picture of Big Blue.
• Fantastic Racism: Several characters are distrustful of aliens including General Lane and the real Hank Henshaw.
  • The US government and military seem to have this view as well (or at least a faction within them), practically to For the Evulz levels.
  • J'onn distrusts the idea of aliens being allowed to live openly because he's worried that humans just won't accept them. He says that "as an alien, and as someone who's worn the face of a black man for fifteen years."
  • Kara isn't immune to this herself. When Mon-El crashed to Earth, she at first wants to help, thinking he's Kryptonian. When she finds out he's from Daxaam, Krypton's long-time enemy planet, she immediately treats him as a hostile force. Their argument shows each planet has long blamed the other for starting their ancient war. Kara eventually realizes she's just as prejudiced as any human and has to accept Mon-El.
    • In the next episode, Mon-El admits she isn't entirely wrong about his planet's culture, and, in a later episode, he admits he forgot that his people owned slaves.
  • By Season 4, this is coming to a head, with substantial human prejudice against aliens manifesting in both attempts to legally remove them from the planet and vigilante gangs attacking them in night. Much of this turns out to be ultimately orchestrated by Lex Luthor, but there was certainly Fantastic Racism existing to be tapped.
• Filler: There have been a lot of episodes which were filler, notably:
  • "Mr. & Mrs. Mxyzptlk", Season 2 Episode 13: In general, an episode that's largely a Mythology Gag and fanservice-focused episode, and largely standalone from the main story arc.
  • "Midvale", Season 3 Episode 6: Largely a Whole-Plot Reference to Riverdale, but important in that it does fill in on character backstory.
  • "Not Kansas", Season 3 Episode 21: Set before the Season Finale of Season 3, it's focusing on a more mundane criminal who has acquired weapons made for DEO usage.
  • "Blood Memory", Season 4 Episode 11: Focusing on a Fantastic Drug and a Carnival Episode, it doesn't greatly tie into the major Story Arc and serves to flesh out Nia Nal/Dreamer's backstory. Although not a full-on Breather Episode, it falls into being filler by virtue of the setting and story.
  • "Confidence Women", Season 5 Episode 6, a Whole Episode Flashback which focuses on Andrea Rojas' backstory in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and where Kara Danvers/Supergirl is Out of Focus for much of the episode.
  • "Reality Bytes", Season 5 Episode 15 is partially a filler episode in that it's more focused on Nia Nal being a crusader against a Hate Sink who catfishes people, although it's still relevant to the larger Story Arc of Obsidian's virtual reality.
• Finger Poke of Doom: In "Bunker Hill", Kara takes care of one of Agent Liberty's goons by rushing up to him and flicking him in the forehead. He was a normal human so some serious restraint was called for.
• First Injury Reaction: Occurs multiple times when the nigh-invulnerable Kara gets depowered or realizes she's met her match.
  • "Red Faced" ends on the cliffhanger of Kara cutting herself on glass and bleeding, something that hasn't happened since she came to earth. She stares at her finger, uttering a quiet, shocked, "I'm bleeding". In the next episode, "Human for a Day", she discovers she temporarily burned out her powers from excessive use of heat vision.
• Five-Token Band: With majority of the Superfriends. Kara, Mon-El, and Brainy are immigrants, Alex is a lesbian, James and J'onn are Black, and Nia is transgender.
• Foreshadowing:
  • J'onn's red eyes are an obvious one, but the fact that he helps the Danvers girls several times when he really doesn't need to (and when he could easily pretend he never could have helped them in the first place hint at him being Good All Along.
  • Early on in the series, J'onn explains that people fear Superman not because of what he does, but because of what he might do were he inclined to use his powers for evil. "Falling" gives us a chilling look at exactly what he was talking about when red Kryptonite strips Kara of her inhibitions and brings her negative thoughts to the surface. It's not pretty, to say the least.
  • Season 2 has had at least two references to Hamilton and an episode title "Star-Crossed", which would imply pretty heavily that his season will end in tragedy. Between his history in the comics and his being cast as Alexander Hamilton in his duel with Mxyzptlk as Aaron Burr, then the obvious implication is that Mon-El will either be killed or forced to be put away in the Phantom Zone to avoid dying, as they did in the comics. Sure enough, the Season 2 finale saw just that, though it was subverted with his return in Season 3.
• Flying Brick: Supergirl, as she's a Kryptonian with the same powers as Superman. J'onn as well, being a Martian.
• Fluffy the Terrible: "Who names a snake 'Fluffy'?"
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "How Does She Do It?", some of the news headlines on the screens in Cat's office show that they're living in a much less dysfunctional America than our own, where people in power are taking police demilitarization seriously and actually prosecuting banking misdeeds.
  • In Alex's academic probation letter, the zip code for National City is listed as 90012. This is the zip code for China Town in Los Angeles, Ca in our universe.
• Freudian Trio:
  • The DEO Power Trio.
    • Kara, the optimistic and compassionate Nice Girl with Chronic Hero Syndrome. (Id)
    • J'onn, the no-nonsense leader. (Superego)
    • Alex, less stern than J'onn and but less emotional than Kara. She's also the one connecting the two. (Ego)
  • The Danvers women in the present day
    • Kara, tries to be the family mediator. (Ego)
    • Alex, the most independent one. (Id)
    • Eliza, strict and Properly Paranoid parent. (Superego)
  • Kara's mother figures.
    • Alura, no-nonsense judge who values Honor Before Reason. (Superego)
    • Eliza, Properly Paranoid but Doting Parent. (Ego, bordering on Superego)
    • Cat, extroverted Stealth Mentor. (Id, bordering on Ego)
  • Cat Grant's protegees in Season 1.
    • Kara, laid back. (Ego)
    • Leslie, Hot-Blooded Shock Jock. (Id)
    • Siobhan, scheming and impeccable. (Superego)
  • Kara's surviving Kryptonian relatives.
    • Superman, a seasoned hero who wants Kara to be one in her own right, but will step in the moment he sees she couldn't handle the problem(s) alone. (Ego, bordering on Superego)
    • Astra, cares for Kara but will put her Evil Plans above all else. (Superego, bordering on Ego)
    • Non, does not care much about Kara and is defiant to his wife (and superior) and usually takes matters into his own hands. (Id)
• Friend of Masked Self: Kara uses that excuse with her sources.
• "Friends" Rent Control:
  • Kara's apartment looks fairly big, even though she was Cat Grant's assistant in Season 1, and a full time reporter since Season 2.
    • In an obvious nod to this trope, a line in Season Three has Kara asking Lena Luthor, who comes to visit her, what brings her to "the rent-controlled part of town."
  • Samantha's house in Season 3 is rather big for a single parent household, and she has no job (yet). May be justified; given that the job she does eventually get is as an executive of a Fortune 500 company, it can be assumed that any previous jobs she held were similarly high-paying.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: The "milder" version.
  Eliza: How could you do this, Alexandra?
  Kara: *whispers* She called her "Alexandra." This is gonna get ugly.
• Funny Background Event: Tanya, an informant on the Coville cult in season 3, is a linguist. When she gets kidnapped, the car has a plate reading "590 WUG" — the wug test is an important and well-known development in linguistics and language.

G-L

• Gaining the Will to Kill: At several points during Season 1, Kara is told by several characters - including her own sister, Alex, and later Maxwell Lord, that she may have to break her "no kill" vow some day. There are several episodes in which Kara realizes this as well. In the season finale, she finally has to kill someone, namely her Kryptonian nemesis, Non, in order to literally save everyone on the planet. Perhaps due to this factor, if she has any remorse at doing so, it is not seen.
• Gender Bender: A strange version in the Elseworlds crossover between three CW series. Deegan has rewritten reality so that he is Superman. However, Kara soon realizes that technically he is not actually Superman, but rather a male version of herself, based on the scans that the AMAZO robot took of her. This is because she is from Earth-38, and the Book of Destiny that Deegan used to rewrite reality only contains information on things from Earth-1. Kara mocks him for being too scared to just go all the way and become her. The three different series and episodes are:
  • The Flash (2014) "Elseworlds Part 1"
  • Arrow (2012) "Elseworlds Part 2"
  • Supergirl (2015) "Elseworlds Part 3"
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The first season consists of six main characters, divided into three for each gender (Kara, Alex and Cat are the females, James, Winn and J'onn are the males). Averted in Season 2 where the males outnumber the females 4-3^note Calista Flockhart is no longer a main cast member, but she's replaced by actress Floriana Lima (Maggie Sawyer) and Chris Wood (Mon-El). With Lima's departure, Katie McGrath slides in.
• Gender Flip:
  • The biological child of Kara's foster family (at the end of the Peter David run of Supergirl at least) is male. Here, she's female and was given an Age Lift to be her older sister.
  • Dr. Emil Hamilton is changed to Dr. Amelia Hamilton.
• Generation Xerox: When we meet Cat's mother, we see that they're almost exactly the same - only she doesn't have any of Cat's Pet the Dog moments.
• George Jetson Job Security: The coffee-store employees of the National City equivalent of CC Jitters seem to lose their jobs for a variety of reasons often relating to Villain of the Week, but are back within weeks. Also applies to DEO employee Agent Reiff (portrayed by Donna Benedicto) who seems to be working for the DEO, then re-hired, cyclically.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: When we first meet Lex Luthor, he's suffering from cancer, supposedly the result of kryptonite radiation poisoning, and the only thing that can potentially cure him is his estranged sister Lena's research into Harun-El, which she grudgingly agrees to let him help with. As it turns out, though, he actually gave himself cancer on purpose by walking into a radiation chamber in order to manipulate Lena into letting him work with her, as he needs access to her research for his own purposes.
• Glasses-and-Ponytail Coverup: It is frequently mentioned by those who know Kara/Supergirl's dual identity that her disguise is not good, especially with Cat mentioning that when you work with someone (that you know the morals of, at least) it's really easy to distinguish their features. However, Kara's boss after Cat, Snapper, calls her only by the nickname "Ponytail", which reinforces the idea that he reduces people to a predominant defining feature and won't look beyond the hair or glasses.
• The Ghost: Brainiac. His existence has been hinted at and his descendants have shown up, including Brainiac 2 (in a tie-in comic), Brainiac 5, and Brainiac 8 (AKA Indigo), with the latter even being an Arc Villain and Brainiac 5 becoming a main character starting in season 4, but the real deal is yet to make an appearance or be explicitly referenced.
• Gilligan Cut: Mon-El takes Winn to a bar, and Winn agrees to have one drink. Cut to a very drunk Winn downing his fifth or sixth.
• Good is Not Nice: The DEO may be looking out for Earth's security, but they make their first appearance by introducing Supergirl to kryptonite.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Project Cadmus is mentioned in "Manhunter", and it played a much larger role in season 2.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Shows up a lot. Only Kara and Cat seem immune.
  • It's implied that one of the main reasons Alex has encouraged Kara to hide her abilities for so long is through lingering childhood jealousy that she's almost, but not quite, managed to get over (not to mention that their parents treated her as the Unfavorite).
  • In the first half-season, Winn is jealous of James, for being the object of Kara's affections despite already having a girlfriend.
  • Maxwell Lord sees people relying on Supergirl and not him, or themselves.
  • James has a few instances of this when Barry Allen shows up.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Alex, before J'onn recruited her for the DEO.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: The Kryptonian High Council knew about the impending destruction of the planet for over a year before it happened, but they apparently did nothing about it. This inaction led to Astra becoming a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Hero Insurance: Kara ends up doing a lot of damage despite her efforts to help. Deconstructed as early as the second episode, where Kara has to learn to do more good than harm with her powers. Really steps up Season 4, when the damage caused by all of the previous three seaons' finales serve as Agent Liberty's Start of Darkness.
• Hero of Another Story:
  • Superman does exist in the show's universe and is already a well-known, seasoned superhero when Kara becomes Supergirl. She requests that he doesn't help so she can learn to be a hero herself. He does appear in the last two episodes, but is seen only from a distance in the former and we only see his unconscious feet in the latter. We see him in the flesh in Season 2.
  • Kara mentions masked heroes who are active in other cities during Episode 14, a subtle yet major Mythology Gag to the entire DC Universe.
  • The Flash doesn't exist on this Earth, but Barry Allen makes an appearance, when he accidentally travels to this Earth instead of another. Kara also doesn't recognize the names of other known DC Universe heroes/villains, such as Green Arrow, Black Canary, Firestorm, Atom, and Zoom. Of course, in this case, this "another story" is a separate TV show. The fact she doesn't know any of the names means either none of the other heroes she references in episode 14 are them, or they use different names.
  • In Season 2, a Vigilante Man who is a frenemy of Superman is frequently mentioned. The characters doesn't say this character's name, but it's pretty goddamn obvious who this character is.
• Hero with Bad Publicity:
  • Despite her best intentions, Supergirl has some... issues endearing herself to National City, since her work sometimes leads to collateral damage. Thankfully, she manages to fix this with the help of Winn and James.
  • In the episode "Red-Faced", since she constantly gets blamed for things that really aren't her fault. When she stops two idiotic road-raging drivers from crashing into a group of children, they blame her for damaging their cars (nevermind the kids they almost killed) and one of them takes a swing at her. When she twists the guy's wrist in a moment of anger, she gets all the bad press of using too much force rather than the good press for saving the kids. Then there's General Lane, who comes to National City with the military in tow to test the Red Tornado robot against Supergirl. She wins the fight, but he blames her for damaging it, and when it goes rogue and threatens to destroy the city, he blames her once again even though the whole thing was his idea. At least he gets called out somewhat.
  • Maxwell Lord seems to be deliberately invoking the trope in order to make people distrust and dislike Supergirl. When the two are alone, it becomes clear this isn't because Lord necessarily believes that Supergirl is untrustworthy or incompetent, but that he is doing this to make it harder for her to oppose him in the future.
  • Exposure to synthetic red kryptonite causes Kara to go on a rampage, leading to reams of bad publicity.
  • Guardian ends up seen as a murdering vigilante, after another costumed man starts killing the criminals he apprehends. He manages to clear his name by handing the vigilante over to the cops and saving his latest Asshole Victim.
• High-Altitude Interrogation: In a tie-in comic, Supergirl grabs villain Facet, takes her to the edge of the atmosphere and demands answers. When Facet fails to give them, Kara lets her drop (she was invulnerable so no real damage done).
• High-Powered Career Woman:
  • Where Calista Flockhart subverted the trope as Ally McBeal, she plays it straight as Cat Grant, head of Catco Worldwide Media in Season 1. She is a serious, whip smart Deadpan Snarker with very exacting standards, which Kara struggles to meet. She also tends to ignore or demean her employees, except for those who have earned her respect. However, Kara looks up to her as a role model, and Cat encourages Kara to be more confident (in her way), unwittingly mentoring Supergirl in the process. She also justifies that she has had to be this way to make it in a male-dominated industry, referencing how she came up from the bottom under Perry White.
  • Lena Luthor took over LexCorp/LCorp as CEO after Lex went to jail, and later buys Catco to save it from going under. She retains much of the expected Luthor aloofness while also being driven to make a positive impact through science and tech. However, this drive sometimes manifests in negative ways, as she is prideful, Can't Take Criticism, and has a lot of unresolved trauma from being raised in the cutthroat Luthor family. She softens through her friendship with Kara, and later the rest of the main cast though she does a brief Anti-Villain turn during Season 5.
• Hollywood Law:
  • In "Blood Bonds" apparently, Maxwell Lord can just kick federal agents out of an active crime scene, because he says it's his building. Even Alex seems skeptical of this, though it is somewhat justified—Lord was the victim of the crime, and can choose not to cooperate, and the DEO's secretive nature means they can't counter his claim that it was industrial espionage without revealing itself.
  • In "Welcome To Earth" Played for Laughs. Kara thinks that almost letting the President get killed is "misdemeanor treason."
  • In "For Good" Edge is arrested shortly after confessing on tape. Thing is, there's no other evidence against him, so his lawyer will be able to easily get him off by claiming that the confession was forced. Based on his reactions, Edge knows he won't stay in jail for long.
  • "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice And The American Way?". The previous episode made it clear that the President's staff had found a loophole, that Lockwood couldn't be charged because the Patriot Act doesn't apply to aliens. This episode refers to it multiple times as a pardon instead. If you can't be charged, you don't need a pardon.
  • "Crime And Punishment":
    • Even under martial law, the military just can't go in and kill an entire prison of civilians hunting down one enemy — it'd be a war crime of the highest order. But then again President Baker has never cared about such niceties.
    • Blatantly discriminatory means in enforcing martial law Baker announces are unconstitutional as well, but again he likely isn't concerned.
  • "American Dreamer". As a Cabinet Secretary, Lockwood's house should have a security detail to prevent his family being attacked.
  • The fourth season repeatedly refers to the DEO as a military organization and Alex as a soldier, and a Marine Corps colonel gets put in charge. The Posse Comitatus Act strictly limits the ability of the Army and Air Force to carry out domestic policy on US soil. The Navy and Marines aren't specifically prohibited, but the Navy has always interpreted the act as if it did. It's highly doubtful anyone in charge of oversight would have permitted any military organization to carry out law enforcement duties in the US, nor would members of the military have agreed to participate. Except maybe the National Guard or Coast Guard.
  • "Event Horizon":
    • The non-compete agreement that's so important to the dramatic conflict from this episode is actually specifically unenforceable in the state of California. This fact is frequently cited as being one of the major "secrets" behind the success of Silicon Valley, making tech employees able to switch jobs and share ideas with ease. In real life Andrea also wouldn't be able to give all the reporters 3-year contracts with non-compete clauses without their knowledge or agreement. They would need to knowingly sign them, and something inserted later wouldn't be binding.
  • There's mention of a special election for US Senate. While the US House of Representatives, aka the "People's House," would have special elections to fill vacancies, Senate vacancies are filled by the governors of the several states appointing a replacement, who normally serves until the next regular election time.
  • "The Wrath Of Rama Khan". Or rather, law enforcement. Even if the FBI believes that Lena was acting under duress, you'd think they would at least want to bring her in for questioning. Instead, they let her go without further issue.
  • In "Reality Bytes" Nia and Kara act like it's a sure thing Greg will serve time for assaulting Yvette. However, without more evidence (which the police might uncover, like video tape from security cameras nearby) it would still be just her word. Sadly, transphobia exists in the courts too and just the testimony of the victim is not guaranteed for a conviction.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Oh Winn. Dude really needs better taste in women.
• Human Alien: Kryptonians, of course, are superficially identical to humans. The DEO also monitors other aliens who generally range from this to Rubber-Forehead Alien. By the fourth season, disguise tech has been developed to help aliens fit in.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: James sees Kara as this, to Cat Grant. Kara believes that Cat is plenty competent herself, though.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming:
  • Cat seems to have decided that nobody is allowed to publish anything nasty about Supergirl except for her. It's hard to tell how much this is because she actually respects Supergirl, and how much is because she intends to exploit Supergirl for the benefit of her media empire (and compete with the Daily Planet and their relationship with Superman).
    • It turns out to be more of the former, since Cat encourages Supergirl to soldier on and win back the public's faith in her after Supergirl (affected by Red-K at the time) literally tries to find out if "Cats" really do land on their feet.
  • She also belittles and abuses Kara all the time, but refuses to allow anyone else to do so.
• Hypocritical Humor: Cat tells Rhea and the president that as they are all women they have no need to make mutual shows of force or "measure anything" and can discuss things amicably, and then immediately after starts comparing her title of "Queen Of All Media" to Rhea's own Queen of the Daxamites title, then claims to be the stronger queen by virtue of not needing to wear a tiara to show it.
• Idiot Ball: Everyone was holding it in "Homecoming", where Mon-El is initially the only one of the cast to be at all suspicious of Jeremiah's extremely convenient rescue from Cadmus. He eventually convinces Winn and Kara...only for Alex to immediately turn on Kara and accuse her of only going along with Mon-El's accusations because they're dating.
• invoked I Knew It!: Kara's reaction in "Medusa", after Barry and Cisco come through from Earth 1, as Cisco's portal has appeared briefly only to wink away twice before. She has recognized the similarity between it and the portal that opened when she threw Barry at superspeed during their last meeting.
• Immune to Bullets: Kara and Clark, of course. Clark even complains once, when a bank robber empties his clip into Clark's chest and then tries to punch him, that it doesn't make sense to try to punch someone who can't be hurt by bullets. Surprisingly, Mon-El is not, despite his Super-Strength, although that appears to have more to do with bullets being made of lead than with them moving fast. Apparently, lead poisoning is a Weaksauce Weakness for Daxamites.
• Informed Ability: Alex says that Kara is immune to zits, and once a fragment of metal is removed from the axe wound she gets from Vartox, it heals in seconds, but she somehow has a single scar on her otherwise-flawless face, just above the beginning of her left eyebrow. It's pretty noticeable in the close-up shots. In-universe, it's possible Kara had it as a child before she came to Earth, but it wasn't visible on 13-year old Kara because she had bangs.^note Out of universe, it is the result of an accident Benoist had during her first semester in college, when a cab backed into her.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite having an entirely fictional (and seemingly fairly liberal) President, the US is still apparently in the middle of several political controversies that in the real world are related to the Presidency of Donald Trump.
• Internal Reveal:
  • The episode "The Darkest Place" has quite a few. Kara discovers that the head of Cadmus is Lillian Luthor, Lex and Lena's mother, Alex discovers James is Guardian, and J'onn discovers M'gann is a White Martian.
  • "Blood Memory" has several as well.
    • Nia tells Kara she's transgender, something that the audience already learned.
    • Nia reveals her dream powers to the rest of her family, though her sister doesn't take it well to say the least.
    • Kara reveals she is Supergirl to Nia so Nia won't feel alone.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • All of Kara's love interests are humans. Justified since it was believed that her cousin, Kal-El, was the only other surviving Kryptonian. Even with the reveal that there are other survivors working for Astra, they're all evil, so not exactly topping the list for eligible love interests. Plus one of them is her uncle.
  • Per the norm, Clark and Lois are an item in this universe, so they also count.
  • Non, a now-dead Kryptonian (and Kara's Evil Uncle-in-law), and Indigo, a Coluan, were previously a couple.
  • Also a romance between Kara and Mon-El (a Daxamite), although they appear to be from related species (there may have been previous examples of this trope between Krypton and Daxam due to the planets' proximity).
  • Wynn starts dating a girl from Starhaven. After their first one-night stand, she's surprised that he called her again, figuring that he's one of those humans, who likes to sleep with alien girls but not actually date them. Wynn points out that he doesn't have a problem dating aliens. He just doesn't want to rush into relationships, having been burned in the past.
  • Nia gets involved with Brainy in Season 4, though their romance turns out to be really more on-again/off-again. She is half-Human, half-Naltorian, he's Coluan.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • She could be a bit more diplomatic about it, but quite a few of Cat's opinions regarding how her company reports the news, and what they should be giving priority to, are actually journalistically sound.
  • When Kara submits a highly opinionated article about a new "alien detection device" her boss, Snapper Carr, tells her to rewrite it because he asked to write a news story, not an opinion piece.
  • Time and again Kara disagrees with General Lane, Lillian Luthor, Maxwell Lord and others who see aliens as a threat to humanity. Yet time and time again they are proven correct with aliens shown to be incredibly dangerous to Earth's population.
  • Kara is appalled by the DEO hoarding Kryptonite to give them a weapon they can use against Kryptonians yet both she and Clark have been mind controlled and Astra and her forces have tried to take over the world.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Alex Danvers (posing as a Secret Service agent) first meets Maggie Sawyer, National City Police Department detective, at the scene of an attempted Presidential assassination. They promptly have a Homoerotic Subtext-laden argument over who's in charge.
• Kryptonite Factor: The DEO reveal early on they have access to actual Kryptonite based tech, and that general knowledge of it as a Kryptonian weakness is limited. They use it to subdue Supergirl, and J'onn uses a Kryptonite knife against Astra. Kara can also be hurt by other alien materials. Apparently, Superman and J'onn had a falling out due to the fact that DEO has been stockpiling kryptonite for use against evil Kryptonians. They finally reconcile, after J'onn hands the stockpile over to Superman. Apparently, L-Corp has some synthetic Kryptonite, but it's very unstable and has a tendency to blow up.
• Kryptonite-Proof Suit: All of the Phantom Zone Kryptonians wear a device that neutralizes the effects of Kryptonite on them at some point or another. Fortunately for the heroes the device is very easily destroyed and fortunately for dramatic tension the devices aren't used by Supergirl or Superman. Kryptonite shields get added to Superman and/or Supergirl's costumes on rare occasions (usually when forewarned they'll be fighting a version of Metallo), but they tend to break easily. In Season 4, Kara gets a literal Kryptonite-proof suit, designed by Lena Luthor specifically to leech the atmospheric Krytonite out of Kara's system and protect her until the atmosphere can be cleansed.
• Last Episode, New Character:
  • Played With regarding Mon-El. He landed on Earth during the Season 1 finale and after Kara opens his pod, the scene (and season) ends. He isn't properly seen until the following season's premiere and his proper introduction doesn't happen until the third episode.
  • The Season 2 finale finally shows General Zod via hallucination and it also marked the debut of Reign.
• Last of His Kind: J'onn appeared to be the last Green Martian, after his race had been exterminated by the White Martians. He later meets M'gann, a female Green Martian, who was a White Martian pretending to be Green. She later helped him find his father, making them the two last surviving Greens. Subverted with Mon-El. He appears to be the last Daxamite after his planet was bombarded with debris from the exploding Krypton (Daxam and Krypton were in the same system). Later an entire army shows up.
• Leeroy Jenkins: At times, Kara gets into bad situations because she rarely comes up with a plan before heading off somewhere. In The Flash crossover, Barry insists on a plan, when going after Livewire, but Kara tells him they'll wing it. Barry still makes sure to circle the building before entering it. Later, Kara admits she should've listened to him, as they had to bail, when the Livewire/Silver Banshee team-up proved too strong for them. Ironically, this used to be Barry's hat, until Oliver explained to him the need to plan ahead.
• Leitmotif: The music for the heroic moments uses a four to six note motif.
• Lighter and Softer: The show is produced by the same team behind Arrow and The Flash, is notably less serious than either one of those shows, with the prospect of superheroics being treated in a very fun and free-spirited fashion, without as much major emotional baggage that the other two shows have had to deal with. In much the same way, it's also less serious than the last live-action iteration of the Superman mythos, Man of Steel.
  • The Freeze-Frame Bonus mentioned below gives us an In-Universe justification for the tone, as well - while hardly utopian, the reality Supergirl occurs in appears to be a good one.
  • That said, it's lighter and softer with teeth, as the DEO - especially Kara's sister - often use deadly force to bring down villains (a heartbreaking example when Alex is forced to kill Astra) and a couple of episodes have addressed whether Kara is capable of doing the same if necessary.
• Lightning Lash: Livewire uses her Shock and Awe powers to create whips made of electricity during her second fight against Supergirl in the episode "Livewire".
• Likes Older Women: Technically, any male character who pines for Kara who wasn't born before 1966 are this since the only reason she looks that young is because she was stuck in the Phantom Zone for quite some time. The only exception is Mon-El, who is actually older than Kara by more or less fifteen years but was stuck in the Phantom Zone much longer than her.
• Lipstick Lesbian:
  • Maggie's a tough cop who falls in the "chapstick" category (she has long hair, but also more masculine clothing and a somewhat tomboyish manner, but not enough for "butch" either). She had an alien ex-girlfriend who learned English by tongue contact.
  • Alex realizes she's lesbian (due to her attraction for Maggie) and falls into the "chapstick" category. She's got short hair, largely masculine clothing and a law enforcement job, while otherwise being feminine.
  • Kelly Olsen is quite feminine, and it turns out she's a lesbian as well.
• Love Cannot Overcome: The ultimate conclusion of Maggie and Alex's relationship. They've got love, no question, but love isn't enough when each of you want completely different futures for your family.

M-R

• Made of Indestructium: After Kara goes through multiple capes in the pilot, Superman has James deliver the swaddle blanket he was wrapped in when he was delivered from Krypton to her so she can use that instead. Like everything from Krypton, it's invulnerable to anything from Earth.
• Male Gaze: The scene where Kara fine-tunes her costume shows her wearing the more revealing costumes from the comics. Ultimately, her costume is actually less revealing than some of the day-to-day outfits Kara wears to work.
• The Masquerade: This is actually used as the reason why Kara is discouraged from being Supergirl. The DEO is waging a secret fight against the alien prisoners who escaped from the Phantom Zone. With Kara out in the open, they are worried the prisoners would start something of a Lensman Arms Race that would increase civilian casualties.
• May–December Romance: Technically in account of certain characters being stuck in the Phantom Zone which resulted in their aging being stalled.
  • Kara is chronologically more or less two decades older than both James and Adam. The inverse happens with Mon-El, who is more or less fifteen years older than her but was stuck in the Phantom Zone far longer. Speaking of which...
  • Mon-El, who was linked to both Eve and Kara. Chronologically, he is more or less three decades older than Eve and more or less fifteen years older than Kara.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Any human character who ends up in a relationship with Kara is subject to this, as Kryptonians age much slower than humans (possibly not at all) under a yellow sun. Clark and Lois are stated to be in a relationship, so this would apply to them as well.
• The Men in Black: The Department of Extra-Normal Operations, where Alex and Henshaw work. Supergirl helps them against such extra-normal threats.
• Meta Twist: Unlike the trend in Greg Berlanti's other DC shows (Arrow, Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow), an entire season goes by without any major good guys dying or betraying the team.
• Mid-Season Twist: In the seventh episode, "Human for a Day," "Hank Henshaw"—after multiple episodes demonstrating suspicious behavior, with both Alex and Kara concluding he must be up to no good—is revealed to be the benevolent J'onn J'onzz, and is sincerely looking out for the girls' best interests.
• Miranda Rights: Subverted. When Alex arrests Maxwell Lord, he suggests she read him his rights. She replies that she's part of an extralegal organization, so he doesn't have any rights.
• Mistaken for Gay:
  • Winn thinks Kara is trying to tell him she's gay when she reveals her secret identity. (This takes on an Ironic Echo in season 2.)
  • Leslie "Livewire" Willis accuses her of having a "Sapphic vibe", although that's more just a slur than an actual mistake.
  • When Astra sees a framed photograph of Alex and Kara in Kara's apartment, she tells Alex that "I knew there was more to you and my niece." Alex has to explain that Kara is her adoptive sister. Considering that Alex is revealed to be lesbian in season 2, Astra was partially Right for the Wrong Reasons.
• Mugging the Monster: In "Luthors", two prison guards Leeroy Jenkins Metallo, made more egregious by them knowing how powerful he is.
• The Multiverse: The Arrowverse is confirmed to exist in an Alternate Universe, with Barry Allen even crossing-over (and this series' Supergirl being glimpsed briefly in an episode of The Flash). So far, locations shared by both universes are Central City, Opal City, Star City, Kasnia, Corto Maltese, and Gotham (and all the other Real Life countries). For the planets, of course Earth, the Dominions and Thanagar. It's unclear if these Thanagarans plan on invading Earth in the future like their Earth 1 counterparts. If so, the existence of other aliens on Earth might prevent that. So far, there is no Alternate Self of any Earth-1 or The Flash (1990) character to appear here, and Earth-1's Team Flash are confirmed non-existent here. Still, a number of celebrities are shared by the two earths.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Kara uses her heat vision to reheat the coffee she bought for Cat.
  • At Thanksgiving dinner, Eliza asks Kara to use it on the turkey as her oven wasn't quite hot enough to finish cooking the bird. The subsequent conversation reveals that the Danvers had Kara do that sort of thing all the time when she was staying with them.
• Musical Episode: Happens in Season 2 as a crossover with The Flash (2014), thanks to the Music Meister.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: M'Gann isn't like the other White Martians and has fled Mars after the Green Martian genocide and her attempt to save some of them. On Earth, she pretends to be a Green Martian. She's fond of J'onn but doesn't want him discovering her secret, which of course he inevitably does.
• Mythology Gag: Has its own page.
• Those Wacky Nazis: the DC gang have to battle interdimensional Nazi versions of themselves, including "Overgirl", a Nazi version of Kara whose pod landed in Nazi conquered America and who wears the infamous double-lightning sun rune symbol instead of the traditional S on her chest (but no Swastikas on her outfit as the producers didn't want her to become a pin-up for the far right).
• Never My Fault: Sam Lane, in spades. He blames Supergirl and the DEO when the former damages the Red Tornado and it activates programming that sends it out of control. Sam Lane, or Dr. Morrow under his command, created Red Tornado. What, did they think it would never, ever get damaged? It was created specifically for combat!
• Never Trust a Trailer: Some of the promos for episodes were (obviously deliberately) playing with fans' emotions. When what seemed like it would happen did not, sometimes it was met with relief, sometimes it was met with disappointment.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Siobahn discovered her powers, Winn wanted to help. So, he took her to the DEO base. Unfortunately,that was where Livewire was being held. Siobahn heard her rants about Cat and Supergirl, and after a while, decided to have a partner in her revenge spree. She didn't need to look far.
• No Endor Holocaust: Season 2 ends with an alien invasion in which multiple waves of ground soldiers and dozens of ships lay waste to the city, leaving Catco headquarters nearly destroyed. The day after the invasion, the building is repaired and everyone is back to work.
  • CatCo may have recovered quickly, but Season 4 reveals a lot of other locations (such as the Lockwood family home) were not so lucky. The damage caused by three major alien attacks in as many years has led to an upswing in Fantastic Racism among humans.
  • It could be explained by Supergirl using her powers to help rebuild the city, Jimmy Olsen mentioning to Morgan Edge that she did just that between seasons 1 and 2.
• Noble Bigot with a Badge: "Henshaw" distrusts aliens in general, regardless of their intentions. However, he will work with Supergirl to bring in dangerous alien criminals. He's actually a shapeshifting alien with a similar background to Kara's who took Henshaw's place so he could reform the DEO from the inside; the real Henshaw was genuinely hostile toward innocent aliens, and the impostor Henshaw uses this as part of a subterfuge.
• Non-Indicative Name: Cadmus.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: James becomes one, after Wynn makes him a suit, calling himself Guardian. After finding out about him (but still not knowing that it's James due to Wynn lead-lining the suit), Kara is skeptical about non-powered heroes, claiming her cousin had to deal with someone like that. Another costumed vigilante appears later, who actually kills criminals the Guardian merely captures. It turns out he's an ex-soldier, whose wife was murdered, and the killer ending up going free on a technicality. He starts hunting down other criminals, who have gotten off on technicalities.
• Not His Sled: "Hank"'s eyes glow red in some episodes, and he displaying Super-Strength, hinting that he might be Cyborg Superman, like in the comics. He's actually the Martian Manhunter. In season two, the real Hank Henshaw appears, having been turned into Cyborg Superman by Cadmus.
  • Non first showed up in Superman II as General Zod's mute henchman, right? So, after being The Dragon and stepping up to Big Bad of season one, he has his big final battle with Supergirl, where naturally she ends up severely damaging Non's... eyes.
• Not Quite Dead: Quite a few times. If a character is only mentioned to have died, chances are they are anything but dead. This was proven by Jeremiah Danvers, the real Hank Henshaw, Alura Zor-El, M'rynn J'onzz, and the Daughters of Juru.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Katie McGrath's Irish brogue creeps into her speech in certain scenes as Lena Luthor.
• Older Than They Look: Kara is biologically 13 when she lands on Earth, but is older in real time since her ship took a detour in the Phantom Zone for twenty-four years. Hence her baby cousin who was launched into space at the same time is already an adult when she arrives.
• One-Night-Stand Pregnancy: Natalie Hawkins told her daughter Elizabeth she was conceived this way, with her father being a deadbeat who didn't want to be involved. However, it turns out this is a lie-they had a long-term relationship and he didn't even know about her. Natalie felt so bitter about it she never told him they had a child, and lied to Elizabeth.
• Only Known By His Nickname:
  • Inverted with Jimm yOlsen. In this series, he prefers to go by his real name James rather than his more famous nickname. He says only his mom and "the big guy" get a pass for it.
  • Nobody ever calls Winn by his full name (Winslow Schott). This may be because his father is an infamous mass murderer (they've got the same name).
  • The only person on the show who calls Alex by her full first name (Alexandra) is her mother, and that's when she's in trouble. Alex really does not like being called "Alexandra."
• Open Secret: By the end of Season 1 it almost appears there are fewer people who don't know that Kara is Supergirl.
  • When the series begins, the DEO is a top-secret organization based out of a bunker in the desert. Come season 2, its activities have become more publicly known and its base is relocated to an office tower in the middle of the city.
  • A tavern for aliens is introduced as a recurring social location in season 2. Although Supergirl wears her Kara Danvers identity there, and J'onn likewise continues to mask his true self, there is otherwise little effort made to hide any secret identities.
• Out of Order: Episode 4 was delayed a week due to the terrorists attacks in Paris. Episode 5 aired in its place, resulting in a bit of Continuity Lockout as the storyline was thrown out of kilter. ^note Since it aired later in other countries, the episodes were shown in the original order (so if you watched episodes 1-4, you watched US episodes 1-3 and 5). Which is not confusing for anyone at all.
• Personal Hate Before Common Goals: In season 5, Lex Luthor's hatred of Supergirl keeps getting in the way of his and Brainiac's efforts to infiltrate and destroy Leviathan by needlessly antagonizing Supergirl and making her suspicious of Luthor's true intentions.
• Planar Shockwave: Krypton's destruction generates one, responsible for knocking Kara's ship off course and into the Phantom Zone. Season 2 reveal it also rendered the surface of its neighboring planet, Daxam, uninhabitable.
• Planetary Core Manipulation: "Hostile Takeover" reveals that Krypton's destruction was due to over-mining its core.
• Poisoned Drink Drop: Lena Luthor is poisoned by cyanide in her coffee. After drinking it and heading outside, she drops the coffee and starts to foam at the mouth.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Vartox says that on his planet women bow before men. He also says that fighting Superman would be an honor, while Supergirl is just exercise.
• Posthumous Character: Jeremiah Danvers died sometime before the start of the series working for the DEO. He sacrificed himself to save J'onn J'onzz from the original Hank Henshaw and more zealous members of the DEO. However, it is later revealed that Jeremiah isn't dead after all and is instead involved somehow with the top-secret Project Cadmus.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Several supporting characters are originally Superman's and adapted to the setting.
  • Jimmy Olsen and Catherine Grant are part of the staff of the Daily Planet. Here, James and Cat both used to be at the Daily Planet before moving elsewhere, and James still has a history with Superman.
  • Winslow Schott is the real name of the supervillain Toyman. The series later establishes that Winn is Toyman's son.
  • Hank Henshaw is the real name of the supervillain Cyborg Superman. The "Henshaw" running the DEO is actually J'onn J'onnz. The real Henshaw died years ago but was resurrected with cybernetics.
• Protagonist Title: Go figure.
• Race Lift: James Olsen is played by African-American actor Mehcad Brooks.
  • The series continues the tradition started in Smallville of making J'onn J'onnz African-American in his human form. This extends to the character whose identity he's assumed, Hank Henshaw, who was white in the comics.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: J'onn, after a while. Lucy, when she takes over the DEO. Finally, the President of the US, seeing as how she pardons J'onn and reappoints him as head of the DEO.
• Red Herring: "Hank Henshaw" is occasionally seen with glowing red eyes, is stronger than he looks, and can defuse a complicated electronic bomb just by sticking his hand in it. All hints to him being a cyborg, like his comics counterpart, right? Not so much, when it's revealed that it's not Henshaw at all, but the Martian Manhunter. Subverted later, when the real Henshaw shows up as Cyborg Superman.
• Redshirt Army: Despite the agency being formed specifically to combat alien threats every DEO agent except Alex, J'onn, and Supergirl herself are utterly useless against any given alien threat and do nothing except die in droves. This is made particularly blatant during the Daxamite invasion where despite the Daxamites being just as if not more vulnerable to lead bullets as humans the DEO are rarely seen actually so much as trying to counter the invasion and when they do they don't even get a shot off before getting killed.
• Reed Richards Is Useless:
  • Many episodes revolve around some fantastic alien (usually Kryptonian) technology or other falling into the wrong hands. After securing the device, the DEO invariably either destroys it or stores it away. Never does anyone bring up the fact that they are in possession of multiple "unlimited energy sources" which could likely power whole countries.
  • There are quite a few aliens living on Earth, almost all of whom, presumably, used faster-than-light travel to get here. There is no indication that this miraculous technology has impacted human society in any way.
• Relative Error: After Supergirl surfaces for first time, people wonders whether she's somehow linked to Superman. Kara visibly cringes when she listens to Cat suggesting they may be lovers.
• Required Secondary Powers: Kara noticeably can't manipulate heavy items without causing damage from her grip strength, and she has to take inertia and gravity into account. Her first rescue helping a plane make a soft landing, and a 90 degree roll, she had minor punctures into the fuselage. When she tries to pull an oil tanker away from the dock by the nose, she ends up tearing the front. Later she gets an ambulance out of a traffic jam, but makes sure to lift it in a way that won't risk further injuring the patient inside.
• Ret-Canon: Elements from the show is incorporated in the Supergirl (Rebirth) comics, specifically the inclusion of National City, the names used by Kara's adoptive parents being that of their show versions, and her biological mother Alura being a Composite Character with Astra (there, Alura is a high-ranking Kryptonian military officer like her twin rather than a judge).
• Revenge by Proxy: The former inmates of Fort Rozz would like nothing better than to kill Supergirl in order to get revenge on Alura, their judge and jailer. Lillian also has a grudge against Supergirl as proxy for Superman, who threw her son Lex in jail.
• Ripped from the Headlines
  • "Hostile Takeover" features a corporate hack on CatCo and putting Cat in trouble with the media and the board of directors, taken from the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack the previous year and the ongoing problems that lead to co-chair Amy Pascal stepping down.
  • "Solitude" involves Indigo hacking into a cheating website, not unlike the Ashley Madison case.
  • Much of the second season was a reaction against Donald Trump, from the alien amnesty at the beginning to the "Resist" speech at the end.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Most of the villains are traditionally Superman's enemies. An odd exception is Reactron, who is a Supergirl villain in the comics, but here is described as a recurring foe of Superman's who targets Supergirl to get at her cousin.
• Rubber-Forehead Alien:
  • Many of the criminals released from Fort Rozz appear to be of this type. Vartox, for example, looks human but for the ridges running across his bald head, which he covers with a trucker cap in his guise as a tanker truck driver.
  • Exaggerated in the second season, where a major location is a National City dive bar which is a meeting place for a wide variety of rubber forehead aliens. They are prominent throughout the season as the Big Bad is an organization who seeks to rid Earth of all alien life.
• Running Gag: Cat Grant consistently mispronouncing her employees' names. So far she's been unable or unwilling to get the names of Kara and Winn right.

S-Y

• Sarcastic Confession: When Kara is asked by a waitress how she stays so thin despite eating so many sticky buns, she responds, "I'm an alien."
• Satellite Character: Demos, for Winn. He serves as Winn's frenemy throughout seasons 2 and 3, but dies in order for the writers to write Winn off of the show.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • The Danvers family know of Kara's alien origin and powers. Later, Alex, Winn, James, and the DEO know who Supergirl is. Superman has known of both all along, since he brought her to live with the Danvers family. Cat Grant figures it out in "Hostile Takeover".
  • Becomes a mutuality between Kara, her team, and the circles of other heroes of what would eventually become Earth-Prime.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: James Olsen is revealed to be this because Superman asked him to keep an eye on his cousin in National City. The DEO was likewise aware of who she was, and specifically recruited/accepted Alex because of their relationship.
• Sequel Hook: Max Lord seems to have gotten his hands on yet another piece of alien technology the Omegahedron, given to him by General Lane. This went nowhere due to Peter Facinelli not returning for Season 2.
• Sex at Work: When Mon-El starts working at CatCo during Season 2, Kara catches him having sex with Miss Teschmacher in a closet.
• Ship Sinking: A number of scenes in Season 1 are devoted to establishing a relationship between Alex Danvers and Maxwell Lord. Two torpedoes in Season 2 sink this ship: Lord falling victim to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, and Alex coming out as gay and entering a romance with Maggie. Relatedly, the first 5 episodes of Season 3 serve as this for Sanvers. It's absolutely heartbreaking to watch.
• Shooting Superman:
  • Naturally. The second episode of season two has a truly ridiculous case where two ordinary criminals open fire on Supergirl and Superman. When this does nothing, one of them tries to punch Superman, which goes as well as you'd expect.
    Superman: See, now, if the bullets don't work, right...why the punching? Never understood that.
  • Averted with Mon-El. While he is nearly as strong and fast as Kara and has her level of endurance, Daxamites are extremely allergic to lead, which kinda makes him a poor superhero in a world where guns are the most common weapons. In fact, if a bullet is not removed immediately, he has a good chance of dying from lead poisoning within minutes (making him way more vulnerable to bullets than mere humans). One would think that DEO would build him a bulletproof suit or something.
• Shout-Out:
  • The DEO uses the same call signs as those established for the similar organization UNIT in Doctor Who, "Greyhound" and "Trap One."
  • The title and plot of episode 13 "For the Girl Who Has Everything", is a shout out to the Justice League episode "For the Man Who Has Everything" wherein Superman gets a Black Mercy attached to him by Mongul and has a similar fantasy to Kara's of living on Krypton.
  • A scene in episode 16, where Kara x-ray visions through a copy room door and accidentally sees a couple having sex is a Shout-Out to a scene from episode 11 of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman where Clark does the same. His reaction to it though, is much different than Kara's.
  • Lynda Carter, who played the title character in Wonder Woman, plays President Olivia Marsdin in "Welcome to Earth". In the episode, Supergirl puts out a fire by spinning around very fast, similar to how Carter changed into Wonder Woman on the series. Marsdin also mentions her "other jet"^note Wonder Woman's invisible plane to Supergirl.
  • The two alien thugs picking on a wimpy guy in a Wretched Hive in "Mr. and Mrs. Mxyzptlk". At least one of them didn't brag he had the death sentence on twelve planets.
    • In the same episode, Mxyzptlk uses his magic to threaten a trio of robbers with their own guns, referencing a similar move by Magneto in the first X-Men film. Lampshaded, in that Mxy mentions he "saw it in a movie once".
  • In the episode Supergirl (2015) S4E15 "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Luthor (played by Jon Cryer) escapes the police trying to arrest him outside his sister's mansion. While escaping, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik plays in the background. This is the same piece that Luthor was whistling to himself in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace while waiting for Lenny to break him out of prison. Triple points due to the fact that Lenny was also played by Jon Cryer
  • In the 7th episode of the final season, a water-based monster threatens Lena in a suspiciously similar way to the eponimous Alien in Alien³
• Sibling Rivalry: Alex reveals she was always jealous of Kara coming to stay with the Danvers as Alex was no longer the star of the family. She was thus happy when Kara hid her abilities, with Kara accusing Alex of undermining her attempts to become a hero just to feel better about herself. Despite that, the two do still share a bond, if now strained. Noticeably when Alex enters Obsidian's artificial reality simulation it reveals her fantasy is to be Supergirl herself.
  • Implied between Lucy and Lois. Lucy even bonds with Cat when she criticises her sister.
• Sight Gag: Whenever Kara and Clark text each other, his texts always come back much much faster than any human could possibly type them in. Which is, of course, the point.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: People who by default assume Supergirl and other refugee aliens are by default malicious are portrayed as antagonists who go out of their way to express their cynicism, and usually act as if their cynical notions are by default right.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: Cat's attitude towards Lois Lane is one of extreme competitiveness and utter disdain, with hardly an episode where Cat doesn't have something nasty to say about Lois. It remains to be seen whether it's reciprocated.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: The old conflict between Kryptonians (Snobs) and Daxamites (Slobs). When Mon-El shows up, he and Kara argue about their respective people; Kara claims that Daxamites are all hard-partying, violent slackers, while Mon-El responds that all Kryptonians are arrogant, self-righteous elitists. Both of them eventually admit to being unfairly prejudiced.
  Mon-El: A girl from Krypton and a boy from Daxam. Who would've thought?
  Kara: Why? Because you come from a planet of partiers?
  Mon-El: No, because you come from a planet of snobs.
• Smart People Play Chess: In "Luthors", we see a young Lex playing chess against his mother before his younger sister is introduced. By the end of the episode, we see Lena playing chess against Lex and winning, implying she might actually be smarter than all the other Luthors.
• Speculative Fiction LGBT:
  • When Alex comes out to her and Kara's friends in season 2 (an example in itself), Mon-El is the only one not to have a reaction. He makes sure to note that on his admittedly hedonistic home planet of Daxam, sexuality is a complete non-issue and "the more the merrier!" She becomes a superhero.
  • Later, Nia Nal (Dreamer) comes out to multiple people about being a trans woman, and this is equally accepted. It's even explicitly tied to Nia's power, which is a Gender-Restricted Ability, validating her as a woman.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Mon-El. Practically every episode of the first half of season 2 is either about him, or involves him heavily in some way. Some feel that he did so by reducing Kara's character and prominence in the story, as well as by sidelining characters previously prominent in Kara's life, such as Alex, J'onn, and James. However, this seems to be downplayed in the second half; he is Out of Focus in both Ace Reporter and Alex, with only a couple of scenes in each.
• Stacked Characters Poster: One◊ poster shows the major characters piled up in a stack with Kara showing largest on top.
• Stacy's Mom: The series features a bevvy of beautiful older women, including Teri Hatcher, Brenda Strong, Helen Slater and Lynda("GODDAM!")Carter.
• Starcrossed Lovers: Kara and Mon-El, a daughter of the House of El on Krypton and the Prince of Daxam.
• Starter Villain: Vartox, a Politically Incorrect Villain who spouts misogyny.
• Statuesque Stunner:
  • Kara stands 5'8 (taller in boots or heels) and a number of people (Winn and James most notably) find her attractive.
  • On paper, Leslie Willis. She is good-looking and is half an inch taller than Kara to boot, but her Jerkass behavior puts her more on Tall, Dark, and Snarky territory.
  • Kara's mother Alura also stands 5'8 and her daughter's Season 2 Love Interest outright says that he thinks she's hot. Alura's twin sister is more Tall, Dark, and Snarky.
  • The two tallest women in the show so far are Lilian Luthor (5'11 1/2) and President Olivia Marsdin (5'9 1/2). Considering that both women are old enough to be the mothers of most of the other women mentioned, that is saying something.
  • Sam/Reign, especially in the later form.
• Stereo Fibbing: Barry is everyone's cousin! Honest!
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham:
  • Or National City, in this case. Kara doesn't want people (and especially villains) thinking that Superman will come running to bail her out every time she gets into trouble so Clark ends up promising not to intervene in National City's affairs. The practical side is that Kara states that supervillains will view National City as an easy target if she's seen as a pushover. Averted as of Season 2, with Supes and Kara not only teaming up for the entire premiere episode, but him also deciding to stick around for a while.
  • Superman's absence is taken to ridiculous lengths at times where Kara and her allies could clearly use the help and a world-threatening menace (i.e. one that could just as easily wipe out Metropolis) is in place, such as Season 3's World Killer/Blight arc.
  • Despite J'onn being a regular on the show, he very rarely participates in any of the conflicts. Since as a Green Martian J'onn is powerful enough to defeat Supergirl (and has), as well as possessing mind reading and altering powers, most plots require him to either be incapacitated, unavailable somehow, or simply not take part in any given fight for no apparent reason even if Kara is clearly losing, because otherwise Kara would probably have little to do.
  • As of Season 2, Supergirl has the ability to contact and summon The Flash and others superheroes from the other earth. While the rationale for this trope makes it reasonable for her not to call them in on mundane incidents, fighting the same sort of world-threatening events described for Superman would also provide justification for Kara to call someone in from another Earth - especially given she's helped them out a few times already.
• Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: A later season introduces Dreamer (billed as the first trans superhero in a major TV series), played by trans actress Nicole Maines. In her backstory, it's revealed that she felt able to come out and transition after her oneiromantic powers manifested, as they only appear in women of her species.
• Super Power Lottery: In the tie-in novel Age of Atlantis (set in season 2), a Mad Scientist gives dozens of citizens powers based on their wishes and thoughts at the time he activated the device. Among the many who get new abilities, a TV weathergirl starts controlling the weather, someone who works with animals at the zoo can talk to them, and an Outlaw Couple of petty crooks get the ability to levitate heavy (and valuable) objects and create a swarm of bees that can even sting Kryptonians and provide handy distractions.
• Super-Senses: Supergirl has them like her cousin. Used mundanely to detect when her boss is arriving before anyone else does.
• Super-Speed: Supergirl, naturally, as well as her more famous cousin. Any other Kryptonian on Earth. Barry from Earth-1 and, by extension, any other speedster in The Multiverse (Reverse-Flash, Zoom/Black Flash, Jay Garrick, Velocity, the Rival, Kid Flash, Jesse Quick, and Savitar). Mon-El has speed as well, being a Daxamite.
• Super-Strength: Many aliens are much stronger than humans, for some unexplained reason.
• Supporting Leader: Both Cat Grant and J'onn J'onzz are the highest authority figures of the institutions that Kara works for/with.
• Synthetic Plague: Kara is shocked to discover that her father created one to kill any non-Kryptonian. Project Cadmus modifies it to exclude humans as well.
• Take That!: Supergirl is repeatedly criticized for the collateral damage she causes while saving people, which may be a Take That directed towards critics of Man of Steel. (Though thus far none of the damage she inflicts is depicted as involving fatalities.)
  • The use of Martian Manhunter may be a Take That! against David S. Goyer with regards to his comments on the character.
  • In "Exodus" (an episode about bad guys kidnapping literal aliens and forcibly deporting them), Snapper Carr goes on a rant about the importance of verified and independent sources.
  Snapper Carr: One misattributed quote and you've got a fascist in the White House.
  • Cat, who has taken a job as the president's press secretary, declaring that of course the president believes in climate change, as would anyone with a greater intellectual capacity than an eight year old, which is clearly aimed at the Trump administration.
• Take Our Word for It: For all the praise it gets, the audience doesn't get a ton of exposure to Kara's famed skill with prose.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: James Olsen (6'4), Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman (6'), and Jeremiah Danvers (5'11 1/2). There also the 6'2 Barry Allen who Crossover.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Due to "Henshaw"'s apparent xenophobia, he and Kara do not particularly like each other. However, they will work together to stop alien criminals. This changes completely when "Henshaw" is revealed to the the Martian Manhunter. However, there is still some tension between the two when Kara thinks J'onn killed her aunt, Astra, when in fact he lied to prevent Alex from becoming a pariah. Once Kara finds the truth, all is forgiven.
  • Neither J'onn nor, later, Lucy Lane, particularly approve of non-DEO types, particularly Winn and James, hanging about their supposedly secret base. By season 2, J'onn doesn't seem to care anymore.
  • Superman and Martian Manhunter aren't particularly fans of each other, due to the fact that the latter, in typical Batman-fashion, willingly keeps kryptonite on hand to use against Kryptonian threats. They reconcile, after J'onn decides to hand over the entire stockpile to him.
• Their First Time: we never see Kara have any intimate romantic partners before Mon-El in season 2 and it is strongly suggested he is her first actual lover. Depending on the vagaries of Kryptonian physiology he may be the only man on Earth to be able to physically take her virginity (Clark Kent/Superman aside).
• Theme Music Power-Up: Not least when Kara goes into action to save the plane.
• The Stations of the Canon: Despite being an Alternate Continuity, it seems to follow the plot beats of Supergirl's Origin Story in some way, via very Broad Strokes, but things diverge quickly over the first few episodes of Season 1.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: As with her cousin, Supergirl adheres to this policy as much as possible, to the extent that a story arc in Season 1 touched on Alex and others preparing Kara for the eventuality of her having to use deadly force against an enemy. For her part, Kara appears to treat this as a personal guideline and is rarely heard criticizing her sister or others (such as Oliver Queen and Sara Lance in Arrowverse crossover storylines) for killing, though she will strongly object if a planned killing is discussed (as occurs in season 3 regarding Pestilence.
• The Three Faces of Eve: Meta-example. The three actress who played Supergirl and their characters;
  • Helen Slater: Plays Kara's adopted mother. The first live-action Supergirl. her tenure as the character also highlighted the character's sensibleness (The Wife).
  • Laura Vandervoort: Plays the villainess Indigo, who is prone to flirting with the Big Bad. Her tenure as Supergirl highlighted the character's sexuality (The Seductress).
  • Melissa Benoist: Plays the current Supergirl, who is mostly rosy-eyed (The Child).
• Three-Point Landing: Kara does one briefly when she demonstrates her flight to Winn.
• Too Dumb to Live: Kenny in the episode "Midvale." He uses his telescope to spy on people in Midvale and then when he gets dirt on them e-mails them that he's aware of what they've been doing without even bothering to hide his identity. He's all but begging someone to murder him and big surprise, the Sheriff does.
• Town Girls: Out of the three female mains in season 1, we have short-haired pantsuit wearing DEO agent Alex (butch), glamorous fashionable newspaper editor Cat (femme) and cute superhero Kara (neither).
• Trailers Always Lie: The promos for the Season 2 opener prominently had Winn asking Superman how he shaved. This line was never in the episode.
• Trainstopping:
  • After guiding a plane to a safe water landing in the pilot episode, Supergirl gets to stop her first train in the fourth episode, "How Does She Do It?" After failing to convince a suicide bomber in a mag-lev train's lead car not to activate his bomb, Supergirl decouples the rest of the train and slows it to a stop, allowing the car to carry the bomb to a safe distance.
  • In the second season's "Homecoming," in order to escape, the villains detonate several charges on a train bridge, which just so happens to have a train incoming. Supergirl welds one of the rails back into place with Heat Vision and holds up the other herself as the train passes over.
• Tranquillizer Dart: In the pilot episode, Supergirl is tranquilized midflight and stops to stare at the dart, then is tranquilized again and falls to the ground.
• Trapped in Another World:
  • Justified by the survivng Krytonians as their home planet is now gone.
  • The escaped prisoners of Fort Rozz are this by default. Reasons being their planet also gone like Krypton, don't have the means to get back home, or their own people don't want them home since most of them are criminals.
  • J'onn J'onnz is a refugee on Earth after his home planet is conquered by the race who wiped out his.
  • Barry Allen finds himself stuck in this part of The Multiverse while experimenting with the Reverse-Flash's tachyon device. At the end of the episode, however, he uses the same trick he used to send Eobard Thawne into the future by having Kara throw him into a breach.
• Twofer Token Minority:
  • Maggie is lesbian, and also revealed to be Mexican-American.
  • Nia is a half-alien trans woman.
  • Kelly is Black, and later reveals she's lesbian.
• Ultimate Job Security: Despite having done questionable things ethically in the name of journalism (and Snapper Carr, her boss calling her out on it, and Andrea Rojas, her new boss, questioning her behavior sometimes and why she's never done a sit-down interview with Supergirl, Kara Danvers had this for most of the show's run. However, the other trope does seem to apply, but to minor characters.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • In the pilot, Kara saves a plane from crashing. A reporter harps on the damage done to a bridge in the process, even though no one was hurt and the plane probably would have crashed into a building or something without her help.
  • Played for Drama in Season 4 where Ben Lockwood and the Children of Liberty successfully fan alien xenophobia throughout National City — Supergirl included. It all cultivates in "Bunker Hill", where Supergirl brings Lockwood to justice, and the city turns against her for prosecuting a human for his political beliefs instead of hailing her a hero for bringing a domestic terrorist to justice.
• Unreliable Narrator: J'onnz tells Kara that when her ship broke free of the Phantom Zone, it somehow pulled Fort Rozz out along with it. However, the flashback seen by the audience clearly shows that the fortress's thrusters activated on their own and followed her out. Whether the discrepancy was intentional on his part remains to be seen. "Solitude" clears up the issue. Indigo/Brainiac 8 revealed she had activated Kara's ship and used it as a guide to navigate Fort Rozz out of the Phantom Zone.
• The Unreveal: We never do learn what Cat called Lois Lane in "Hostile Takeover" (several hundred times), but apparently she's called her a lot worse... to her face.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Kara heavily relies on her superpowers to win any fight. So when a guy nearly as strong fights her for the first time, she loses badly. After another Curb-Stomp Battle at the hands of her Aunt Astra in episode 2, she asks Alex to continue their hand-to-hand combat training until she's just as good as Alex is. Later episodes show continued improvement in hand-to-hand combat, and when she fights the escaped prisoner in "Livewire" she's begun incorporating her powers other than pure strength. By "Hostile Takeover" she can go toe-to-toe with Alex while powered down. In Season 3, despite having gained more experience in combat, she voluntarily takes on additional training to learn how to use additional resources than her fists and powers, i.e. the properties of her cape.
• Up, Up and Away!: Kara assumes this position the whole time, usually both hands extended and curled into fists.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Daxamites may get super powers on Earth, just like Kryptonians, but an "allergy" to lead means they're extremely vulnerable to the most common weapons on Earth. Even getting shot in a non-vital area can kill them, if the bullet is not removed quickly.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kara's biological father created a Synthetic Plague that targets any non-Kryptonian. Given that Krypton has been involved in wars with other races and has been invaded several times (including by the Dominators), it kinda makes sense, especially since they weren't superpowered on their home planet.
• Wham Episode: "The Darkest Place". The original Hank Henshaw is Not Quite Dead and Cyborg Superman, Jeremiah Danvers is Not Quite Dead and helps Kara escape Cadmus, and the Project Director finally reveals her name: Lillian Luthor. To a lesser degree in the same episode, J'onn finds out M'Gann's true race and finds out he's turning into a White Martian himself.
• Wham Shot: A Dominator, one of more feared alien species, bows and scrapes deferentially to Mon-El, indicating he's not who he claims to be.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Season 1 ends with a Sequel Hook of General Lane giving Maxwell Lord the Omegahedron. In Season 2, none of them are anywhere to be seen.
  • In Season 1, Kara encounters an imperfect duplicate of herself called Bizarro who was created by Maxwell Lord but is degenerating due to her flawed structure and Kryptonite exposure. At the end of the episode, she is put into a coma with the understanding that the DEO will wake her up when they are able to heal her. As of Season 4, no mention has been made of whether she's still there or not.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: James calls out Kara for locking up Maxwell Lord in a DEO prison without due process. However, he doesn't seem to mind the fact that the DEO does the same to several alien prisoners regularly.
• When She Smiles: Cat is usually snarking or smirking at other characters. But after Supergirl tells her that she's an inspiration, Cat smiles sincerely at her.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: In classic DC fashion, the location of National City in the US is never specified. However, the sunny climate, the proximity to a desert, its seaport and the fact that it's within a few hours' drive of Ojai and 500 miles from an unspecified spot in the Nevada desert would all indicate that National City is a stand in for Los Angeles.^note Not to mention the establishing scenery shots showing the Los Angeles skyline. Or, at least, somewhere on the California coast between San Jose and San Diego.^note There is in fact a National City, California, just north of the Mexican border near San Diego, but it is nothing at all like the city shown in the series. It gets even more complicated in season 2 when the production moves from Los Angeles to Vancouver, B.C. Braniac-5's mention of shopping at Piggly-Wiggly in "Of Two Minds" limits National City's location to within 17 states.^note Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, or Wisconsin
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Kara tries to convince Mon-El that he needs to do something good with his powers (which aren't as impressive as hers but are still better than normal), but he doesn't understand why he needs to do that.
• Withholding the Big Good: Superman is referenced a great deal, but for all practical purposes does not appear for the entire first season. He IMs Kara a few times, but his one brief appearance (not even showing his face, and he's "onscreen" for all of five seconds) is in an episode about Kara wanting to establish herself as her own hero and her own person, not an adjunct to Superman, as just his cousin and part of his legacy. Part of the show's female empowerment message to be sure, but also a message for anyone who's felt overwhelmed by someone else's shadow. It's also part of the show forging an identity for Supergirl herself beyond "Superman's Distaff Counterpart", which is largely all she's been in comics for decades. Basically, withholding Superman is about letting Supergirl become her own Big Good, and an equal one to Superman, on her own terms, in her own way, and in her own time. Superman shows up again for the first season finale, where he immediately succumbs to the Big Bad's mind control, being Worfed to keep the story focus on Kara.
• Whole Episode Flashback: In "Midvale", Kara and Alex take a vacation back to their hometown. Instead of a Breather Episode or Busman's Holiday, most of the episode takes place a decade earlier and involves Kara and Alex solving the murder of a classmate.
• Would Hit a Girl: Given, since The Hero is female. There are a number of female villains, though.
• Wretched Hive: Well, a dive bar, anyway. Basically a refuge for aliens hiding on Earth. Not all of them are law-abiding, though.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: The pilot fudges the dates a bit. Krypton is said to have exploded twenty-four years ago. But Kara spends those twenty-four years in space before landing on Earth, then she becomes Supergirl twelve years later. So Krypton should have exploded thirty-six years ago.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: During the Arrowverse crossover, Rory refused to call Kara "Supergirl", instead insisting on calling her "Skirt". When he's rendered helpless by the Dominators, he says, "Supergirl, do something!..." Which doesn't matter, seeing as she's just as helpless.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Krypton exploding makes it impossible for Kara to return to her home planet. Season 2 introduces Daxam as a neighboring planet in the same solar system as Krypton. As a result of the latter's explosion, Daxam is an irradiated wasteland.
• You Know the One: The trailer and pilot go out of their way to avoid calling Superman "Superman", except once in the full version of the opening voiceover. "Kal-El" is said a few times and "the Man of Steel" once. The characters mostly say "your/my cousin", "the big guy", "he/him", etc. Thankfully, they've dropped that by the second episode. He's still referred to more than a few times as Kara's cousin, usually when referring to him as a person instead of as a public figure. But it's partially justified: no one outside of his family knows the name "Kal-El", and she can't refer to him as "Clark" for obvious reasons.

Season Subpages

• Season One
• Season Two
• Season Three
• Season Four

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"Earth doesn't just have one hero... now it has me. Now it has Supergirl."

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