Supergirl season 6, episode 3: How are the Superfriends dealing with Kara’s absence?

Supergirl‘s titular heroine has been going through a tough time in The CW drama’s final season.  To be fair she’s always going through a tough time, but now even more so than usual.

After being so close to defeating Lex he ultimately got the last laugh, as not only has he somehow managed to avoid jail time he also sent Kara to the Phantom Zone. The same place she got stuck in on her way to Earth as a child, where she was forced to relive the trauma of the destruction of her planet.

Now back in the Phantom Zone, and without the protection of her pod, Kara is fighting to find a way back home. And she’s going to bring her father Zor-El and her new friend Nyxly, a quirky 5th Dimensional Imp played by new series regular Peta Sergeant, with her. So with Supergirl missing in action, how are her friends dealing with her continued absence?

The Superfriends deal with Kara’s loss

How are the Superfriends doing since Kara’s been gone? Well, to put it plainly, not well. The ones hit hardest are of course Alex and J’onn since they are Kara’s family.

Alex is not taking her sister’s absence well at all and finds herself losing all hope. She’s devastated that she couldn’t save Kara and doesn’t even want to get out of bed, and if it wasn’t for Kelly’s support she might not have. Kelly’s support meant so much to her that Alex asks Kelly to move in with her! After thanking Kelly with a beautiful bouquet for being her rock and support system. So sweet! They deserve their happy moment since we never got to see Alex tell Kelly about Kara being Supergirl.

Much like Alex, J’onn isn’t taking Kara’s loss well at all either. But instead of wallowing he is closing off his emotions and trying to march forward as a soldier. Unfortunately, his attempt to just be a soldier without emotions leads to a lack of communication with M’gann that ends up getting her hurt. He vows never to do that again and it seems he and Alex are finally starting to move forward.

Brainy spends half the episode trying to help take down Lex and the other half trying to deal with the phantoms but he eventually reaches his breaking point. Without his personality inhibitors, Brainy is feeling non-stop rage towards Lex and even passionately suggests to Lena that they should kill him (honestly it’s not a bad suggestion). It’s clear that while a lot of this rage stems from what came before, much of it also comes from how much Brainy misses Kara.

The person who seems to be handling Supergirl’s absence best is surprisingly Lena. Probably because her ongoing battle with Lex has kept her completely occupied. With Brainy’s help, she’s been making moves against her brother, like locking him out of L-Corp and draining his accounts, and donating the money to a children’s hospital. Lex, of course, is horrified.

After Lex blows up a wing in the children’s hospital just to get back at Lena she realizes she’s finally had enough. She leaves L-Corp for good, claiming that even though she hates Lex she loves herself more. I admit it, I cheered when that happened. And as long as his toxic behavior is in her life she’ll never be happy. Hopefully, now she will be, or at least she’ll have a chance.

This shows some tremendous growth on Lena’s part. She’s finally able to remove herself from this toxic and vicious game she and Lex have been playing for years, and removing herself is really the only way she can give herself a chance of being happy. She even managed to be the voice of reason and talk Brainy down from the idea of murdering Lex by reminding him that it turned her into the darkest version of herself.

We spent a whole season with that version of her and we don’t need a repeat, but it’s nice to get it reaffirmed again that Lena has learned her lesson and doesn’t want to go down that path anymore. This is the kind of character development I like to see. It was also nice to see them bring back the idea of putting your emotions in little boxes to avoid them, and to see them acknowledge that it isn’t healthy. In fact, it’s super unhealthy. Please don’t try that at home.

Ultimately even though they’re all hurting and miss Kara, they are handling Supergirl’s absence in different ways and each of the Superfriends is slowly finding a way to move forward. Judging by the preview for the next episode it may not be too much longer before the Superfriends finally get some contact from Kara. Here’s hoping Supergirl will return home soon!

Are you surprised at how the Superfriends have reacted so far? When do you think Supergirl will finally make it home? Let us know!

Supergirl airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.