Supergirl Season 6, Episode 4: Did Kara escape the Phantom Zone?

Supergirl’s final season isn’t taking it easy on Kara Danvers. We’re just a few episodes in and she’s already had a major confrontation with Lex Luthor, been trapped in the Phantom Zone, and had a surprise reunion with the father she thought was dead.

What more can The CW drama put our poor heroine through?! The answer is, probably a lot. And with phantoms taking over National City I don’t think things will be getting easier just yet.

Kara may be currently trapped in the Phantom Zone, but at least she has help in the form of her father and her new friend Nyxly. Or does she?

Kara makes a painful sacrifice on Supergirl Season 6, Episode 4

With Nyxly’s magic reactivated, she is helping Kara and her father portal hop through the Phantom Zone in an attempt to get to the exit. They are attacked by some phantoms along the way but eventually the trio make it to where they’re trying to go.

Unfortunately not only is the mirror that is meant to be their exit broken once they find it, Zor-El is also injured. He does however help Kara by realizing that her mother would have had a second mirror as a backup.

Kara and Nyxly locate the second mirror and Kara is able to activate it and she can see her home. She’s so close to escaping, she just needs to get her father and then they can go.

But of course, that’s when things go wrong because otherwise, it would just be too easy. Nyxly doesn’t want Kara to go back for Zor-El. It turns out Nyxly had disguised her appearance and she was the one who attacked Zor-El. She clearly still has some daddy issues from what her father did to her.

To make matters worse she wants to use Kara’s world as a go-between to get to her own world and she wants to have a little fun there before going back to the Fifth Dimension and making everyone suffer who didn’t support her. Yikes.

I was hoping Nyxly would actually be a good friend to Kara but in the back of my mind, I sensed she couldn’t be trusted and it seems I was right. We were rooting for you Nyxly! Supergirl, being the paragon that she is, still attempts to reason with Nyxly and even tries to save her life from a self-destruct that has been triggered but it’s too late.

However, per Deadline, Nyxly is meant to be a series regular so I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her yet. And I’m not mad about it, even if she turns out to be a villain she’s a fun one.

After Kara realized what Nyxly’s true agenda was she had no choice but to destroy the mirror that was her only way home, thus stranding herself perhaps forever in the Phantom Zone, in order to make sure Nyxly couldn’t access her world. It’s exactly what we would expect Kara to do, but it doesn’t make it less upsetting.

Making sacrifices is what heroes do, and Kara is one of the greatest heroes there is. She’s practically a saint. So it’s no surprise that she would sacrifice her own chance at going home to make sure her world is safe. But that’s where the Super Friends come in and why even the strongest heroes need allies and a good support system.

Lena works with the Super Friends

Back on Earth, Supergirl’s friends are working tirelessly to bring her home. Lena, now a newly full-fledged member of the Super Friends is working overtime to help them and Alex even entrusted her with Kara’s memory crystal in order for Lena to be able to use Kara’s life force to help track her in the Phantom Zone.

Watching Lena fully join the Super Friends has been a long time coming and is even more satisfying for the amount of time we’ve been made to wait. It was very cute to see Lena getting a tour of The Tower by Nia and being like a nervous school girl on her first day. Katie McGrath shines when she gets to show Lena’s vulnerabilities.

While Kara’s struggles carried half of this episode, it was Lena’s vulnerability that carried the other half. Overwhelmed by guilt at her role in getting Supergirl trapped in the Phantom Zone, Lena wants nothing more than to make it right by bringing Kara home. So when Alex tells her there’s a change of plans Lena does not take it well.

Alex has to make the difficult call that they need to use the tracking device not to track Kara but to track the phantom and find his lair so that they can release all the souls the phantom has taken. Lena wants to save Kara, she wants to atone for what she feels is her fault, but Alex knows that Supergirl would never want to be saved at the expense of thousands of other lives. No matter how badly she wants to save her sister, Alex knows she has to do the right thing.

It was nice to see Alex take on the big sister role for Lena, not only making the hard calls but also reassuring Lena that she is forgiven and that she belongs with the Super Friends. Katie McGrath played Lena’s hesitancy and her desperate need for forgiveness and acceptance to perfection and it was really nice to see her finally be told that she is good and that she belongs. With Lena officially part of the Super Friends now it will only be a matter of time until they find a way to save Kara.

One of the best things to come from Supergirl being trapped in the Phantom Zone is the way it has forced Alex into that leadership role that is now empty because of Kara’s absence. Alex has always been a natural leader, but Supergirl was always the lead. With her gone, Alex has now stepped up and is making the hard decisions but she is making them with Kara as her guide.

Each week that goes by I’m more convinced that this storyline is trying to prepare the characters for an ending where Supergirl might not be around. Perhaps Kara will move to Argo City or perhaps she’ll go to the future, in the end, to join Mon-El and Winn as many popular theories suggest. And the show is building up to a point where the characters will be okay with that. Where they’re learning to function with Kara’s guidance but without her having to be there. Plus National City will still have a team of fully capable heroes to defend it.

Do you think Alex made the right call? How do you think Supergirl will end its final season? Let us know!

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