The season was superior to last season with more time for Kara Danvers and Supergirl with Kara doing some actual honest to God reporting. In the season finale, it's Kara Danvers reporter who does more damage to Lex Luthor's plan than anything Supergirl could do.
The season long hostility towards alien immigrants was a bit too anvilicious in its on the nose comparison to our real world issues of hostility towards immigrants. The comparison was apt and timely and needed but there were episodes where I just wanted to snap back at the TV, "Yes! We get it!"
The biggest asset to Supergirl Season 4 was Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor. Everyone underestimated Cryer when it was announced he was cast Lex Luthor but he shut all those naysayers down. At turns intense, sinister, manic, snarky, cold with logic, hot with rage and just plain crazy, all within seconds of each other and sometimes even simultaneously, I think Jon Cryer made for the best Lex Luthor I have ever seen on TV or film.
In the season finale, as he flies around in his power armor shooting off missiles and creating wholesale mayhem, while Frank Sinatra's "My Way" plays on the soundtrack, Lex is rapturously singing along. It is a quintessential moment of Jon Cryer's take on Lex Luthor.
Crucial to Lex's schemes is Red Daughter. A Supergirl duplicate formed at the end of season 3 who winds up in Kasnia (expy for Russia), Melissa Benoist speaks with a Russian accent and acts differently than she does as Supergirl. I saw some complaints online but mostly, I think Melissa did a great job bringing this distinctive form of Supergirl to life.
Actor Sam Wynter had a more thankless job of bringing Ben Lockwood to the TV screen, comics' erstwhile Agent of Liberty. Lockwood looks to be early on as the season's big bad. He even gets a spotlight episode detailing his evolution from a fairly progressive thinker on the subject of aliens to a hard line embittered man who has zero tolerance for aliens among us.
As the season progressed, Lockwood's obsessive quest for power and his pursuit to rid America of all that is not of this world dilutes any sympathy we may have had for Ben Lockwood.
In the end, for all of Ben Lockwood's climb up the ladder of power to rid America of aliens, he discovers he's just a pawn from the very beginning of Lex Luthor. Sorry. Still not feeling sorry for you.
Lockwood crosses the line into madness when he calls for the arrest of Dreamer after her broadcast plea for peace and understanding between humans and aliens. Peace and understanding? Lockwood sees that as a call to incite riot and a call to arms.
Answering a call to violence this season was Manchester Black. In the comics, Manchester Black was a pasty white British dude with telepathic and telekinetic powers. On TV, Manchester Black is a towering imposing black British dude with no discernible powers, just a raging mad on for the Children of Liberty for killing his alien girlfriend.
For some reason, Manchester Black became J'onn J'onzz's Skeletor. Something weird or bad goes down and J'onn's all, "Manchester Black is behind this!" As we later learned, sometimes the weird and bad stuff was down to Lex Luthor. Eventually, J'onn destroys his "arch nemesis" with the Martian Stick of Power. Still, have we heard the last of Manchester Black? Will we see this sometime in season 5?
J'onn goes to his pantry for Oreos. But there are no Oreos to be found.
J'onn clenches his fists as he eyes glow red.
"Manchester Black is behind this!"
Jump cut to Manchester Black kicking back with a package of Oreos and tall cool glass of milk.
"Yeah, mate! Catch me if you can!"
Or maybe not.
Supergirl made history by casting transgender actress Nicole Maines as Nia Nal who would later become Dreamer, the first transgender superhero on television. Nia's status as a transgender woman does come up but only once is it presented as a point of contention. Nia is the younger child of a refugee from the planet Naltor. The women of that planet have precognitive powers that are passed down to their daughters. The assumption is Maeve, Nia's olderr sister, is going to inherit those powers. Maeve has spent a lot of time researching dream interpretations. When Maeve discovers that Nia has inherited the powers to become Dreamer, she angrily lashes out, "You're not even a real woman."
In Supergirl's world, Nia has more problems being an alien than being transgender. To everyone's credit, no one makes a big deal about it when Nia tells anyone. Hell, even Ben Lockwood's only pissed off that Dreamer's an alien with her "peace and understanding" rhetoric.
I'm still not sure what exactly Dreamer can do. We established early that Nia as prophetic dreams and she has some cool waking precognitive abilities that make her pretty cool in fight. But then she starts zapping some kind of blue energy bolts from her fingers that do... something.
This was the season that saw us lose Winn Schott as resident tech genius after he left to join the Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st century. Legion member Brainiac 5 stays behind in the 21st to assist the DEO as it's resident tech genius. Jesse Rath was adorkable as Brainy when he first appeared in season 3 and remained so for most of season 4 even though Rath began adopting some kind of irritatingly distracting cadence to his speech patterns as the season progressed. It was as if Rath was devolving into a parody of Brainy's speech patterns.
Then came the next last episode of season 4 which saw Brainy being captured and tortured by Lockwood's men. Under duress, Brainy's mind begins to "reboot", recalibrating to a state like that of the original Brainiac, an evil ancestor of Brainy and a long time nemesis of Superman. Brainy has become Dark Brainy and no one seems to notice. He looks different, he acts different, he talks differently and his voice is at least two octaves lower. Dreamer doesn't notice, J'onn doesn't notice, Kara and Alex don't notice it. Really!
Seeing Dreamer in potentially life threatening distress re-re-boots Brainy back to his old adorkable self when he finally professes his love for Nia. But we know Dark Brainy is buried down there somewhere. This could be a threat for season 5.
So what is on tap for season 5.
We're not done with Eve Tessmacher. Lex Luthor's grand scheme is all kaput but it turns out that Lex's Girl Friday was a plant by a mysterious organization call Leviathan. Leviathan is currently causing problems over in the comic books so that's same damn fine corporate synergy at work there. Ever since being introduced way back in Season 2 Episode 1 as Cat Grant's new assistant, Eve Tessmacher has been on quite a journey, continuing on as assistant to James Olsen when he took over CatCo from Grant. Then revealing a heretofore unknown level of scientific skill, joining Lena Luthor as her lab assistant. Then her betrayal of Lena when find out Eve Tessmacher's been working for Lex Luthor all along.
Speaking of Lena, her last scene in the last episode of season 4 does not bode well for season 5. Lena has regarded Kara Danvers as her best friend. But Lena has not been in the loop on the info that Kara is also Supergirl. Kara has felt guilty about that but there never seemed to be a good time to tell her. So Lex Luthor tells her.
After Lena shoots Lex, he spends his last moments of life to twist a knife deep into his sister's gut. He shows her video proof that Kara Danvers is also Supergirl. And he adds, "Everyone around you know that. You were the only one in the room who didn't know. God, you're so stupid!"
Then Lex dies.
Lena's last scene is in her office, sipping a glass of whiskey. Laying flat on her desk is a picture frame with a photo of her, Kara and Lena. Then Lena slams her whiskey glass down on it, shattering the frame. Lena is not taking this well.
Lex would be pleased. If he wasn't dead.
And he may not be.
The Monitor shows up where Lena left Lex's dead body to rot. The Monitor waves his hand to conjur up some glow and... who knows?
The Crisis on Infinite Earths is coming.
Lex Luthor may be needed for that. Well, only the Monitor knows.
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