Supergirl Season 4, Episode 15 recap: A tale of two Luthors

Lex Luthor makes his DCTV debut in this week’s Supergirl bringing with him all the evil schemes and chaos you would expect from the iconic character.

Lena is no longer the only Luthor in town. John Cryer makes his first appearance as Lex Luthor in Supergirl and needless to say it is not exactly a happy family reunion.

Lex has been secretly furloughed from prison due to cancer he has developed thanks to all that time he spent messing with kryptonite. He knows of Lena’s experiments and he needs her help to find a cure. In fact it turns out Lex is the one who pulled strings to get Lena the resources of the DEO (unbeknownst to Colonel Haley).

The scenes between the two Luthor’s flow naturally and makes for one of the most interesting episodes of Supergirl this season so far. We are told stories of Lena’s birth mother and how kind she was to Lex, prompting Lex to tell Lena that even if the rest of their family is in darkness Lena will always go towards the light.

Lex also tells Lena something she’s probably been secretly dying to hear for years, that he’s proud of her and has always found her to be amazing. He claims that when he would criticize her he was just trying to get a defiant reaction out of her so that she would strive to be even better.

Lena of course doesn’t necessarily buy that and says it sounds like her brother trying to take credit for her accomplishments. She’s not wrong to be honest.

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No matter how sick Lex may be, Lena still refuses to test her drug on humans until she’s absolutely ready. That is, until she finds out that James has been shot and unless Lena can prepare her drug in time James may be permanently paralyzed or may not survive at all.

James getting shot was exactly the push Lena needed and she comes through with the serum just in the nick of time. However it’s not a happy ending because unsurprisingly Lex had planned the whole thing, everything from James getting shot to the power going out in the hospital. Every last detail. He knew his sister would need the push and he wanted the serum no matter what.

Once Lena realizes the truth she turns on Lex. She tells him she will never give him the serum and plans to let him rot. Unfortunately for her, someone had already given Lex the serum before she arrived. None other than her assistant, Eve Teschmacher (called this weeks ago!). Eve how could you?!

But it gets worse, Otis Graves is still somehow alive and working with Lex and Eve as well. They knock Lena out and leave her in the Luthor mansion with Eve as Lex and Otis make their escape in a rather over the top sequence that fit Lex’s character perfectly. As they make their getaway in their helicopter they run into Supergirl herself. This should be an interesting showdown next week.

With James being injured in the hospital all his friends gathered around him for support. This includes the newest cast member Azie Tesfai who is playing his sister Kelly Olsen (and who has recently been made a series regular for season 5).

Kelly is a psychologist with a military background who obviously cares about her brother a lot. She also seemed to click with Alex as they initially clash and then support each other through James’s ordeal. It appears the show could be developing something between these two, so we’ll have to wait and see where this goes.

It’s good that Kelly showed up to the hospital because not only did they need a next of kin to be present, but it also meant Alex wasn’t alone since Kara wasn’t there. And since Kara couldn’t tell Alex the truth about where she was going she had to tell her sister that she was going to CatCo.

This left Alex upset and confused, even more so after she called CatCo and was told that Kara hadn’t been there. This mind wipe storyline has been so hard to watch and we can only hope that by the end of the season Alex will have her memories back and the Danvers Sisters will be back to normal.

The reason Kara couldn’t be at the hospital with Alex was because she went with J’onn to hunt down Manchester Black. J’onn blamed Manchester for the attack on James and planned to put an end to this.

Manchester managed to find the staff of J’onn’s late father because every time J’onn tries to poke in his mind Manchester is now able to poke into J’onn’s mind too. He takes J’onn to the place of his father’s death and also haunts him with visions of Kara and Alex blaming J’onn for not fighting with them and protecting them.

Eventually J’onn is pushed too far and he kills Manchester Black. He is now no longer a man of peace and it will likely take him some time to find a new path. But there’s no doubt that Kara and Alex will be by his side to help him do it.

The death of Manchester Black means that J’onn now has Brainy’s Legion ring. Though he hasn’t returned it to him quite yet because it would be too hard to explain exactly how he got it.

Brainy has been struggling so much lately without his ring though that it’s doubtful he will mind how he got it. I imagine he’ll just be happy to have it back. On the upside, Brainy did share a kiss with Nia as she tried to calm him down during the chaos at the hospital.

Sadly Brainy gave her a speech about how they can’t be together (because Keanu Reeves says so, you can’t argue with that). But there’s likely something more to the story that he’s not telling her and show runner Jessica Queller did say that this was just the beginning of their will they-won’t they relationship.

Did you enjoy seeing Lex Luthor and his dynamic with Lena? Were you surprised at Eve’s betrayal? Let us know!

Supergirl airs Sundays at 8pm EST on the CW.