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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