“Supergirl” Episode 604 Recap: Faith, Trust, and Phantom Dust

Welcome to this humble recap of Supergirl episode 604, Lost Souls. This episode had some of my favorite scenes of the albeit short first half of the season so far, so let’s hop into our pods and hope we don’t get knocked off course, shall we?

Previously on Supergirl, a Phantom got loose on Earth and started spreading its Phantom-ness faster than syphilis in the Middle Ages, M’gann almost got Phantom’d, Kara got stuck in the Phantom Zone and found her father stranded there and also a fifth dimensional imp named Nyxly.

Speaking of the trapped trio, Kara, Nyxly and Father Zor-El use impy powers to portal to the anchor; the Phantom Chills are starting to get to Kara and dad is worried, but they’re almost home, Kara can feel it.

Back home, M’gann is recovering in the Tower’s med bay and seeing a den of icicles and soul particles and Phantoms, oh my. Alex and J’onn come back to report that there are an increasing number of Phantoms and they have to stop the spread before it becomes…a global pandemic. Genuinely furious they included that line but they made up for it later so I’ll let it slide I guess.

Nia walks in with Lena in tow, having just completed the full tour of the Tower I wish we also got, and everyone officially welcomes Lena to Team Superfriends. M’gann tells the newly assembled team about her visions and that she thinks she’s connected to the Phantoms in a way that could lead them to Kara, and Alex and Lena are equally thrilled about this. Also, Lena was so excited about her official first day on the team, and casually built a long-distance phantom trap backpack. Brainy thinks it’s just like Ghostbusters but Lena points out that this is real.

So Alex and Lena stay behind to monitor things while the Team goes out to stop more Phantoms. They get there in time to stop the original Phantom from getting away, but not before a woman is turned. They start to fight it but Nia gets distracted by another vision of Midvale High and the Prime Phantom shows up, bigger than ever for having feasted on so many souls. The Prime takes its newly sired Phantom and bamfs the heck outta there.

M’gann and J’onn chase the soul that left the woman’s body to try to find the Phantom Lair, but the closer M’gann gets to it, the more she runs out of steam, until finally she starts to fall out of the sky. Luckily J’onn catches her and brings her back to safety and the Superfriends decide they need to regroup.

In the Phantom Zone, Kara and her pops find the control room they were looking for, but the portal mirror is broken, because of course it is. Kara thinks Nyxly’s magic could fix it, but it doesn’t seem to work. Dad is ready to give up right then and there, but Kara thinks that’s the dumbest thing he’s ever said and he once said “you’ll be safe in this pod.” Kara points out all the unlikely wins they’ve already had; they found an ally, magic, each other. They can’t give up now!

Kara knows her mom and knows she would have had a backup just in case, so they go on a hunt for the emergency portal mirror.

The Superfriends are in a bit of a pickle. They have to find the Soul Chrysalis before the Roswell set needs it back it hardens and the Prime’s UberPhantom transformation is complete. M’gann wants to find Supergirl’s location first, but Brainy doesn’t think they have time. Alex says they’ll just have to do both at once.

Everyone looks a little panicky about that idea until Lena chimes in and agrees.

Also, Lena has an idea of how to do just that. So Alex reiterates the orders and the team scatters again. Alex thanks Lena for having her back. It’s nice to have her support, and to not be bossed around by J’onn.

Lena tells Alex all the sciencey mumbo jumbo she wants to do with the q-waves and the nanobots and she just needs some of Kara’s DNA. And Alex knows where they can find some.

Brainy and his emotional support donuts go to talk to Nia, who tells him that she saw Midvale again and can’t figure out what it means. He says she’ll figure it out, and she says that she’s just as worried about him. She asks him if the donut marathon he’s in the middle of has anything to do with his newfound excess of feelings and he says he’s fine he just really likes shoving sugar into his metaphorical wounds and is sure this will make him feel better. He’s a genius, just go with it. Prescription donuts. She smiles at him and says she’ll be here when he realizes the donuts are a stopgap not a cure.

In the Phantom Zone storage rooms, the three lost souls split up, and when Kara runs toward the sound of her dad in distress, she finds him injured and Nyxly being a bit dodgy about what exactly happened. Even more suspicious is that once again Nyxly’s magic doesn’t seem to be working to do exactly what she did once for Kara. Father says to leave him behind, and Nyxly maybe-too-quickly agrees, but Kara thought she lost him once, she’s not losing him that easily now. He begs her to at least go bring the mirror back and get the portal working, begs her in Kryptonian even, so she relents but promises to come back for him.

In the Tower, Alex brings Lena the Legacy Download crystal. She plays it for Lena, specifically the part where Kara talks about how last names and blood don’t make a family, that her friends are her family too. Lena missed Kara’s voice and looks on with wonder as Kara says, “In the end, we always come back together, stronger than ever.”

And honestly I don’t care if it’s cheesy, but I love a good found family speech. Gets me right in the feels.

Alex gives Lena the crystal to use for the locator they need to make, since Kara would have had to upload her digital DNA into it, but Lena points out that if she does that, the recording will be gone, and there’s no guarantee it will work.

Lena doesn’t want to be the reason Alex loses this actual piece of Kara. But Alex trusts her with her sister’s life, quite literally, and Lena can hardly believe her ears. That’s two whole people that she loves and respects who have said to her face that they trust her.

Lena tells Alex what her plans are and Alex smiles at her like “I’m not leaving you silly” and says she’s staying to help. Lena tells her to “suit up” and gives her some safety goggles and dear GODS they are adorable.

And this is all I’ve ever wanted for Lena! She’s a fully integrated, wholly trusted part of the team! She’s such a huge asset and she shares the biggest core value that is a requirement for Team Superfriends: She loves Kara Danvers. Even if in the canon of the show it’s just a best friend kind of love, it’s something she shares with all of them.

M’gann and Nia work together to use M’gann’s residual Phantom knowledge and Nia’s new ability to astral project and after another brief Midvale glitch, Nia sees the chrysalis and notices that they still have some time to find it before it hardens, but not very much. In fact, after she tells Brainy what she saw, he calculates they might have as little as an hour to destroy it.

M’gann wants to lead them there, but J’onn is afraid that’s too dangerous based on what happened last time, and Alex says they do have one more option…

Lena finishes the locator device and excitedly brings it to Alex, saying they can finally bring Kara home, but Alex has bad news; they need to reprogram the locator to find the chrysalis instead.

Lena says they can’t do that, this would erase the Legacy Download DNA she used, it might be their best chance at saving Kara. But Alex says if they don’t destroy the chrysalis now, thousands of people could die, and that’s not a sacrifice Kara would want to make. She knows it’s hard and she hates it as much as Lena does, but she knows this is the right choice.

Lena tries her best to remain calm, more sad and scared than mad, and begs Alex to reconsider. She has to bring Kara back. Lena then admits she blames herself for this; it was her brother who did it, it was her experiments that lead him to that point, it was her war with Supergirl that set all this in motion. This is her chance to make it right.

Alex speaks to her with a lovingly firm tone and says that nobody blames her for this. Not even Kara. The past is in the past and Lena doesn’t have to conceal not feel anymore. She can forgive herself.

Alex says she can’t change what happened, so all Lena can do now is do the next right thing. Alex uses her glove to take the locator from Lena and apologizes for doing it like this, but she doesn’t have time to argue it further. Lena doesn’t fight back, she just watches Alex go and tries to hold her broken heart together.

Kara is one step closer to getting home without the Superfriends’ help when she turns on the backup mirror.

But Nyxly stops her when she starts to head back for her dad. Nyxly’s own daddy issues blind her to the situation, says that Kara’s father banished her, just like Nyxly’s own dad did. Says her father has already had all the hope sucked from him, that he’s not worth saving. In her growing desperation, Nyxly admits that she’s the one who knocked Dad-El out and broke his ankle, that she was going to kill him but liked Kara too much.

In a last ditch effort to convince Kara not to leave, the imp says that if Kara goes, she will use the portal to go to Earth and wreak some havoc before heading back to the 5th dimension for her vengeance tour. Kara isn’t about to let that happen.

The Superfriends go down once more to the sewers to find the chrysalis and find an infestation of Phantoms. They tell Alex to go, go, go as one by one they get taken down. By the time they get to the chrysalis chamber, it’s just Alex and Nia.

Well, it’s Alex, Nia, and eleventy billion Phantoms. Nia makes Alex a dream tunnel and holds the Phantoms at bay as long as she can while Alex breaks the chrysalis.

And as soon as she cracks that sucker like a soft-boiled egg, all the souls are released and turn the sired Phantoms back into the people — or vampires, in Silas’s case — they once were.

Nia, Brainy and J’onn finish off the much-more-reasonably sized Prime Phantom and suck him into the proton pack with efficiency that would make Erin Gilbert proud. Alex looks a little sad about what she sacrificed to save these people who just scurried out of the building without so much as a ‘thanks,’ but knows she made the right choice.

Which would be all well and good if Kara’s plan had worked out better, but alas to stop Nyxly from imping around her Earth, Kara shatters the backup mirror, her last known escape option. In the struggle that led up to it, something started the self-destruct protocol, and she tries to get Nyxly to leave with her, but Nyxly refuses, and Kara isn’t strong enough or fast enough to get them both out, so instead she just runs.

And this whole moment is so Kara. She just got body checked clear across the room by this woman and her first thought when she realizes the place is going to blow is that “we” have to get out of here. Right down to the last second, she was trying to save the person who just betrayed her. Paragon of Hope, indeed.

Down in the Tower, Alex is looking sadly at the now-empty Legacy Download crystals on the Feelings Balcony when Lena brings her out some scotch. Lena says after some time to cool off, she knows Alex was right, and she’s sorry she pushed back. But Alex gets it, probably better than anyone else could.

Lena tells Alex that she should probably just quit the Superfriends. She was held to the fire and she melted, she’s not like the rest of the team. She says she’s not a hero. She watched Alex make the hardest decision and Lena’s not sure she could have done the same. Alex just smiles an understanding smile at Lena. Alex felt the same way Lena did, every single second until that chrysalis cracked. It’s only because she had years of training as a soldier that she was able to make such a tactical choice. Wanting to save Kara doesn’t make Lena less of a hero; quite the opposite, in fact.

Lena isn’t sure Alex gets it; she’s not like Alex, she doesn’t think like her, and she has recently learned her little boxes have all collapsed. But Alex says the fact that Lena doesn’t think like the rest of them is exactly why they need her. They are not a monolith, they are a team. They need all the best brains to succeed, and Lena is the smartest human in National City. Alex says it plainly so Lena can’t misinterpret it. “You belong here, Lena. You always have, and you always will.”

Knowing Lena would probably rather leap off the Feelings Balcony than have to respond to such a compliment given so directly, Alex eases her by joking that she’s also the only person she knows with a decent taste in scotch. They toast and smile and my heart SOARS. If Kelly wasn’t in the picture, I’d be screaming from the rooftop for AgentCorp to be canon. And honestly in the headcanon of my mind, this could be a very cute scene of Alex welcoming her sister’s girlfriend to the family. However, even in the plain and simple context of the show, this is a huge step in the right direction, and I look forward to Lena having more fun, happy, helpful scenes as part of the team.

Brainy finally admits to Nia that the donuts aren’t actually filling the sadness hole inside him where Kara used to be and Nia feels it too. Also she’s stressed about these intrusive Midvale visions and what they could possibly mean. But she’s glad that they have each other, because she loves him more than he loves donuts.

Alex and Lena rejoin the team and say that they want to use their new Prime Phantom pet and his bloodhound hunting instincts to find Kara in the Phantom Zone.

They just need more of Kara’s DNA. They know they can only get DNA from a Kryptonian when they’re weak so they think of times Kara maxed out her powers? Honestly I’m not sure why they can’t break into the loft and grab a toothbrush, but apparently the only solution is to GO BACK IN TIME?

Listen I’m all for time travel hijinx, especially if the Legends get a name drop, and I have been looking forward to this Midvale High episode since the last Midvale High episode, but I still don’t really follow the logic of going to this particular time and place of the power surge. If they can go back in time, why not go back to a month ago with some Krytponite and ask her for a vial of blood? Also, knowing how hard it is to get blood out of her, why not have some on hand?? Anyway, totems shmotems, this doesn’t actually matter, because I’m excited to go to Midvale.

And I hope it works because in the Phantom Zone, Kara watches the only hope she had of returning on her own literally blow up in her face…possibly taking her father from her again in the process.

Fingers crossed she can do what she does best and hold out hope. The Superfriends are almost there, Kara. Just hold on.

Overall I enjoyed this ep. Some great Alex and Lena stuff, some great Nia and Brainy stuff, and best of all? No Lex. All we need now is to get Kelly a desk in the Tower and Kara back on Earth and we’ll be hot to trot for the rest of the season.

Next week looks super fun, pun intended. See you then!