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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