"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Relationship Spotlight: Brainiac-5 & Nia Nal (Supergirl)


Ah, Nia and Brainy, two great tastes that taste great together – in this case, two additions to Supergirl who’ve both brought a lot to the show on their own and who are quite delightful as a pair.  At the moment, they’re what I’m most curious about for season 5 (Brainy-Nia-related spoilers.)

First of all, Nia and Brainy have a wonderfully badass meet-cute.  They happen to be in the same pizza place when Brainy’s image inducer (which disguises him as a human) is hacked, briefly exposing his natural Coluan form.  The guys at the pizza place freak out to be in the presence of an alien, and Nia steps in to stop the altercation from turning violent and to lay some serious “shame on you” on the people trying to hurt Brainy.  Given that Brainy’s just experienced people that he’d been friendly with turning on him the instant they realized he wasn’t human, meeting a complete stranger who defends him knowing full well he’s an alien has to be a good feeling – I know Brainy likes to claim that, as an AI, feelings factor little into his reasoning, but we all know that’s not super true.

Since Brainy basically screams “I’m an alien AI from the future” with every fiber of his being, it’s probably good that Nia knows off the bat that he isn’t human (his friends’ attempt to “cover” for him in front of Nia during their early interactions are laughable.)  She isn’t as forthcoming about her own half human/half Naltorian heritage, but Brainy has knowledge she doesn’t and has already figured out that secret.  Being, again, from the future, Brainy knows all about Nia’s famous descendent, a hero who has the same powers that Nia is just starting to manifest.  As Nia gets evasive with Kara and co., not wanting anyone to know that she has prophetic dreams, Brainy recognizes the signs.  He brings Supergirl and Nia together, knowing that Nia needs help/training and that her dreams could in turn help team Supergirl.

This is what leads to Nia and Brainy being more than passing acquaintances who are always surprised, pleased, and kind of awkward whenever they run into each other.  With Brainy’s 31st-century knowledge, he’s well-positioned to help with Nia’s training, helping her learn how to take agency within her dreams, start to understand what she’s seeing, and use her powers in varied ways.  But even as it brings them closer together, this new dimension to their relationship can also cause friction between them.  Once Nia begins coming to terms with powers, she’s eager to learn as much as she can as fast as she can.  Brainy, though, is wary of doing anything to mess with the timeline, and so he uses what he knows from the 31st century without telling her about it, trying to control what she knows and when.  Needless to say, this doesn’t go over well.  (I should point out that this doesn’t really feel like an instance of a man keeping secrets from a woman or trying to limit her power out of a paternalistic wish to “protect” her.  Rather, it all stems from Brainy’s concern about the timeline and his AI tendency to not really think about how humans might respond to his actions.)

From their first episode together, it’s clear that the show was at least dancing around a romantic connection between these two.  And boy, do they dance!  Again with Brainy and his whole “not understanding human nuances” thing, Nia spends a not-inconsiderable part of the season basically low-key flirting with a motherboard.  After their initial meeting, she tells him her name and coyly suggests he “find” her, wanting to create a little sense of mystery around herself and give him a puzzle to solve in chasing her.  Brainy, for his part, completes his task (figuring out who she is, where she lives, and an inadvertently-stalkery-sounding list of other factoids) and calls it good – after all, she told him to find her, not call her or otherwise meet up with her again.  A lot of their more romant-ish moments are like that, Nia implying and Brainy missing it, even as he very gradually starts recognizing that he has feelings for her.  When they do finally kiss for the first time, Brainy immediately decides that any relationship borne in the throes of upheaval (they kiss at an intense, chaotic moment in the middle of an adventure) is doomed to fail and ends things before they begin.

Yeah, I side-eyed that scene so hard.  Artificial/forced obstacles between couples are ceaselessly annoying, and as someone who likes Nia and Brainy’s awkward-but-endearing energy together, I wanted more than two minutes of them as a thing before they were arbitrarily pulled apart.  Come on, Brainy – silly AI!  Luckily, though, the season four finale rights the ship on these two in a big way.  Seeing Nia in danger cuts through Brainy’s cold/calculating “aligned” mind and brings back our favorite techno-organic with a declaration of love?  Okay, yeah, I’ll forgive a lot of past mistakes for something like that.

When we next see Brainy and Nia, they’re casually together, and I can’t wait to see what they’re going to be like in season 5.  I know they’re both supporting characters, but I hope we get some good plots with their relationship.  Brainy dating is bound to be gold, I love that Nia being trans hasn’t factored into their interactions at all, and I can’t help but wonder whether Brainy’s more overtly-alien behavior in public will cause Nia (who was raised on Earth and easily “passes” for a full human) some harassment by association.  Whatever we get of these two, I’m ready to thoroughly enjoy it!

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