Supergirl Season 5 Review

Major Spoilers are included in this season review. Please read with caution.

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, season five was shortened. However, the storytelling problems with this season existed long before the non-fictional pandemic. The problems even existed before the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event. Let’s start with the few positives I enjoyed first, before diving into the numerous negatives I experienced finishing the season on Netflix.

The heart of Supergirl’s season 5 was the close friendship between Kara Danvers / Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) and Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath). The season premiere did a solid job on showing us—the audience—what the stakes were regarding these two. Kara was preparing to finally tell Lena she was Supergirl in the season 5 premiere, but she had no idea Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) had already exposed her secret to Lena—using his dying words—in the season 4 finale.

Lena was humiliated and heartbroken as a result, especially since she murdered her own brother in cold blood. This sent Lena down a dark path toward villainy, where she secretly vowed to make Kara suffer the way she did. Ironically, Lena started mimicking Kara’s “betrayal” behavior by lying to Kara and keeping secrets from her—like how Lena already knowing Kara was Supergirl. Nonetheless, Kara’s confession in the season premiere was still purely emotional. The fight for Lena’s soul drove most of the season.

While I did enjoy the character tension between Kara and Lena once it blew up at the mid-season finale, I didn’t like the plot involving the main antagonist. With Lex out of the picture for the time being, Leviathan became the main antagonist of season 5. They were a shadow organization that manipulated the Earth for centuries through natural disasters. They were also poorly developed and written. Luckily, Lex Luthor kind-of fixed the villain problem when he returned to the series Post-Crisis.

In the first half of the season, Leviathan was used to deliver a theme about how technology had been bad for the world, but with the current ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the need for technology to connect, the message was quickly made obsolete. My other problem was how Leviathan continued to be a threat in the second half. Unlike The Flash’s season 6, Supergirl didn’t break into two story arcs despite having two villains in Lex Luthor and Leviathan. Basically, Leviathan overstayed their welcome on Supergirl during the second half of the season.

The other main characters were also handled not the best this season.

Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh)—Kara’s adoptive older sister—was underused and shoehorned into a relationship with Kelly Olsen (Azie Tesfai) during this season. My main issue with Alex and Kelly was how the writers tried to force us into liking them as a romantic couple without building a solid foundation for their romance. They had the chemistry, but the writers didn’t put in much work to develop their romance naturally.

Kelly Olsen’s individual character story also wasn’t very strong regarding her new tech job at Obsidian Tech, where Leviathan was secretly working through Andrea Rojas (Julie Gonzalo), Catco’s new owner—Kara’s new boss—and Lena’s childhood friend.

Andrea Rojas had potential during the first half of the season with her connection to Lena Luthor and how their friendship was broken similar to Kara and Lena’s. However, once the second half unfolded, she was tossed around to fit whatever the Leviathan plot needed her to go. It was really disappointing.

Nia Nal (Nicole Maines) and Brainiac 5 (Jesse Rath)’s well-developed romance carried over from season 4, but it was swiftly dismantled when Brainiac 5 decided to work with Lex Luthor in the second half of the season for the sake of the future. While Rath’s performance as Brainy was consistently amusing, I felt like Brainy didn’t have to go that far in helping Lex Luthor and Leviathan. He skewered too far in the darkness.

Nia Nal was also really underused during the entire season. She had so much potential as the first transgender superhero that it was disappointing that the writers didn’t do enough with her character aside from the transgender-centric episode. Hopefully, season 6 will fix these character issues. Either fix or move Nia to DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

J’onn J’onzz (David Harewood) had a decent character story this season. The first half introduced J’onn’s long-lost Martian brother Malefic, who was furious with J’onn for trapping him in the Phantom Zone and erasing his memory from the collective Martian race’s memories. For the first half of the season, J’onn had to deal with the reawakened guilt he was forced to remember in order to make amends with his brother. This was essential to J’onn’s major role in Crisis On Infinite Earths. The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) was the one who released Malefic from the Phantom Zone as a test for the upcoming Crisis. In the second half though, J’onn was just kind-of around. What a shame really.

Overall, Supergirl season 5 was all over the place with a theme of “bad technology” that aged very quickly over the course of this pandemic. The unplanned “finale” actually fit well as a last-minute season finale though, especially with Kara and Lena making amends and working through their issues finally. I’m not looking too forward for season 6, but I will be tuning in whenever it comes out. Melissa Benoist is currently pregnant, so Supergirl isn’t even slated to return in January 2021 with the rest of the Arrowverse at the moment.

Thanks for reading, everyone!