Listen, I love our girls together and posts about how drastic they’re being on behalf of each other are funny, but it’s also important to remember the other important aspects of their characters and lives.
So just a reminder—
1. Lena bought Catco for more reasons than just making Kara feel better or to be with Kara.
She’s an intelligent business woman and knows that the positive press she’s been getting is instrumental in her end game of making L-Corp a positive force, and it would actively turn to negative press with Edge at it’s helm. It’d be really really bad for her.
Lena buying Catco has been described in Supergirl press as her doing something big for Kara, but she would not have actually ended up buying Catco if there were not massive benefits for doing so.
In fact, in an alternate universe in which she didn’t know Kara but was still getting good press from Catco and still was concerned about what Edge would do with Catco (a.k.a. the same situation but without Kara), she’d still buy it.
Others have already spoken more thoroughly about this idea but it bears repeating.
2. Kara was not singlehandedly brought out of her depression by Lena, and she wasn’t regularly lashing out at everyone except Lena.
The only times that Kara was seen to react defensively were when she was confronted with how closed off she’s being—which is something that we’re lead to believe has only just been happening this episode since they’ve been giving her space. She hasn’t been walking around saying mean things to people out of nowhere, she’s just been keeping herself from feeling.
And Lena does not get any of that because Lena does not confront Kara. When she implies that there are other reasons that Kara is avoiding her, it’s about Lena’s role in it all rather than what it actually is for Kara—cutting herself off from everyone. So Kara just reassures her because she isn’t being prodded about what it actually is. It being Lena’s fault is nonsense, and it’s really easy to say that.
And when Kara says she quit her job, Lena doesn’t say “Um, what the hell?? Why????” she just gives her a reason to come back.
Which brings me to my next point.
Helping people is Kara’s main concern a lot of the time, and currently the only thing she is letting herself care about.
And Lena plays a big role in bringing Kara a little bit back to herself for this reason. But she’s the final push (other than Kara’s pushing of herself, which is important to remember, too) out of many little pushes that have helped Kara move forward.
James confronts her first and it forces Kara to say what she’s been thinking the whole time—Kara Danvers doesn’t help people. And he says things that she isn’t ready to accept now—that Kara Danvers does help people, as a reporter—but that will help her later when she has more reasons to believe it’s true.
Alex’s confrontation is rather messy and unsuccessful at getting through to Kara, until the end. Those final words, “Kara Danvers is my favorite person. She saved me more times than Supergirl ever could. So just think about that while you’re trying to get rid of her.” are exactly the counter argument for what Kara is thinking, and Kara is forced to sit with it.
When Kara talks to J’onn, she voices her deeper fear (as an argument for what Alex said), “I can’t help people if I’m broken.”
She thinks Kara Danvers is broken. And if she lets herself be her, she’d be failing Earth. Her mother. Her birth family. Her Earth family. Because she can’t help people that way, and that’s her purpose.
But J’onn gives Kara a specific example of how Kara Danvers has helped him. And—importantly—because of her grief.
And when Lena asks Kara to go back to Catco, she’s proving that Kara Danvers can still help people, right now. This is a concrete thing example of something only Kara Danvers can do for someone. (Which is one example of why Kara really needs Lena to only see her as Kara Danvers, for the time being.)
It’s Kara’s entire support system that works together to help Kara.
1. James forces Kara to voice the idea Kara has—that she has to only be Supergirl because Kara Danvers can’t help people— so they can argue against it.
2. Alex gives a general counter argument that Kara has to consider, does consider—Kara Danvers helps her more than Supergirl.
3. J’onn gives a specific example for how Kara Danvers has helped him in the past—Kara Danvers’ grief helped him deal with his own.
4. Lena offers a specific example for how Kara Danvers can help her in the present—Kara Danvers is the only person who can help Lena learn to run Catco.
All of these are vital to Kara’s progression, vital to getting her to want to “wake up.” There is no one person who gets through to her.
It’s everyone who cares about her helping her to move forward, together, and that’s kind of why it’s great.
So forgetting that would be a massive pity.
Posts prioritizing supercorp stuff over their other character content may make us laugh or feel good about their connection, but they are also often inaccurate to the full picture, and we should remember that.
It’s just as important for us, the fans, not to lose the individual within the romantic relationship as it is for the writers.
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Question of Smoke 