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

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Relationship Spotlight: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor (Supergirl)


This leisurely Supergirl rewatch is just giving me a chance to write all the posts. This past season was a hard one for Kara and Lena, but going back over the old episodes again reminds me how much I like these two (some Kara-Lena-related spoilers.)

To put it mildly, Kara and Lena is an unlikely friendship (or more, depending on your ship preferences.) There’s of course the fact that Lena is the sister of Superman’s nemesis and basically the only Luthor who’s not virulently anti-alien, but it goes a lot deeper than that. After all, Lena doesn’t even know that Kara is Supergirl until quite a ways into their friendship, so it’s less of a factor on her side. But beyond that, Lena is guarded while Kara is open, Lena cynical and Kara optimistic, and Lena trades in ambiguity while Kara tends to view things as very clear-cut. Theirs is a surprising opposites-attract connection, one that works seemingly against the odds.

It’s Kara’s very openness and optimism that allow her to make inroads into Lena’s regard in the first place. Being a Luthor is an understandably-touchy subject for Lena, and she’s used to being judged for her family name rather than her personal actions. And other characters are quick to assume shady actions or nefarious motivations on her part, but Kara believes Lena when she says she’s trying to get out from under her family’s bad name and be a force for good, giving Lena the grace of good-faith trust in her. Kara fights for Lena when no one else will, and even though she sometimes succumbs to worrying over Lena’s murkier-seeming actions (often when everyone else is insisting to her that Lena can’t be trusted,) she’s able to gradually break through the distance Lena frequently puts between herself and other people.

And so, over time, the two become very genuine friends. Kara has Lena’s back when her mother or brother show up to cause trouble, and Lena is in turn supportive of Kara. Many an episode finds them catching lunch together while they discuss this or that problem, decompressing about personal struggles, or just chatting over boyband nostalgia. Again, not all of Lena’s views are as cut-and-dried as Kara’s, but she can sometimes encourage Kara to exercise more discretion than she’s inclined to, while Kara sometimes gets Lena to recognize when her own views are a little too mercenary.

The ongoing arc of their friendship is complicated by the separate relationship Lena has with Supergirl. They frequently cross paths with one another as Supergirl saves Lena from various threats and Lena assists the DEO with STEM solutions to various crises, and they develop a pretty decent working relationship. However, Lena doesn’t know that her superpowered ally Supergirl is the same person as her close friend Kara, and when a dustup over Kryptonite occurs in season 3, Supergirl and Lena’s relationship takes a hard hit. To Lena, Supergirl is just one more person who assumes the worst of her and treats her like a villain, while Kara is pained at how her two relationships with Lena are diverging so starkly. It’s hard for her to get together with Lena as Kara and listen to her friend complain about Supergirl, and it kills her that she still feels like she has to keep her identity a secret for Lena’s protection. (Side note: whether or not you agree with that idea – Kara doesn’t seem to have too much of an issue revealing her secret identity to plenty of other people – Melissa Benoist’s performance sells you on the fact that she absolutely believes it.)

Naturally, everything comes to a head at the end of season 4 when Lex, magnificent bastard that he is, reveals to Lena that Kara is Supergirl and then rubs her face in the facts that 1) Kara “didn’t trust her enough” to tell her and 2) Lena “wasn’t smart enough” to figure it out on her own. This causes all of Lena’s issues to bubble over, and she takes this secret as a deep betrayal. It kicks off the dark Kara-Lena times of season 5, when these two are unfortunately at odds with one another. I hate seeing how Lena continues to pretend to be Kara’s friend in the early episodes, plotting retribution while Kara is none the wiser. Lena’s hurt causes a lot of damage to Kara, to herself, and to others as well, and Kara beats herself up for her part in the whole thing.

The end of the season brings us around to a very tentative alliance between the two. I like that Kara doesn’t offer instant hugs and forgiveness (Lena goes down some dark paths this season,) but she recognizes that the situation at hand is bigger than their falling-out and they need to put aside their differences and work together. Their relationship isn’t where it once was, and I’m not sure what it will look like as they go forward, but we’ve at least gotten a glimmer of hope where they’re concerned.

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