"The Quest for Peace" – Supergirl S04E22 Review

Season 4 of Supergirl ends, with a title nod to the 1987 Superman movie starring Jon Cryer as Lenny Luthor, Lex's nephew. And so the nephew becomes a man.

As for the episode itself, "The Quest for Peace" wraps everything up. Unlike last week's The Flash finale, which ends on several major cliffhangers. They establish a Big Bad of sorts for Season 5. A new threat arrives to take on J'onn. And there's a lead-in or two to the 2019 Crisis events, thanks to the presence of the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett).

The story? We get enough series of flashbacks but just to the last day. We find out Lex sent Red Daughter to get Eliza. He drained power from aliens to charge up his wrist cannons. And has a drink with Baker and made it clear Baker was under his thumb.

Then we're on with the episode proper. Lex dons his Lexosuit and defeats the Kaznian navy and air force as they somehow cross the Atlantic undetected and launch an attack on the U.S. This is all done to Frank Sinatra's "My Way", including Lex singing the song. I'd say that I miss Jon Cryer's Lex Luthor, but he doesn't seem to be gone quite yet. We'll get to that later.

President Baker then declares Lex a hero, pardons him, and makes him the new Secretary of Alien Affairs. This apparently ticks off Ben, who knows by now that he's just a pawn in Lex's game. He rallies some of his faceless thugs and supposedly gives them Harun-El superpowers.

After Brainiac-5 recovers the computer-wiped evidence that she has, Kara writes a story exposing Lex and distributes it nationwide. All the while Lex rants to Lena and Lillian--who he's invited to the White House to witness his triumph--about fake news and how gullible the public is. One story by Kara is enough to change the minds of pretty much everyone. Because it's a fantasy TV show.

J'onn and Dreamer have been hauled off to an Amertek plant to work on Lex's equipment, along with a lot of the other alien prisoners. The pylons that were mentioned a while back are up and negating their powers. They create a distraction with the help of alien bartender Al (Keith Dallas), shut down the pylons, and try to overload the core. Dreamer contacts Brainiac-5, and in a confusing sequence, he talks like he's not there even though it's Dreamer that isn't there. She manages to communicate where they are, and Team Supergirl (Supergirl, Alex, James, and Brainiac-5) go there.

Brainiac-5 joins J'onn and Dreamer. But B5 is in "Original Brainiac" mode and disdains their efforts to use their powers to overload the core. In a good scene, Jesse Rath plays B5 as recovering his pre-reboot personality and when he does, he encourages his friends to find the strength to go on. They overload the generator, which is powering a satellite Lex plans to use to destroy Argo City where Superman is hanging out with Lois.

Ben and his Children of Light goons show up, and Supergirl, Alex, and James fight them. The goons might as well not have superpowers for how easily Alex and James wipe the floor with them. Supergirl beats up Ben and then flies to confront Lex. James and Alex manage to extract the Harun-El from Ben, although James loses his powers and his right eye in the process.

Supergirl has Red Daughter's protective suit and goes head-to-head with Lex in his Lexosuit. He still wins, but Red Daughter was still alive after last week, and J'onn and Dreamer freed her. She takes a Kryptonite blast meant for Supergirl, gives her the strength to go on, and then dies. Supergirl heat-visions Lex's suit and he apparently lets himself fall to Earth rather than have a Kryptonian save him.

Lex teleports to his secret lab where Lena is waiting. He figures she doesn't have the balls to shoot him, and she shoots him. Lex doesn't die right away, and uses videos to show her Kara is Supergirl and that all of Lena's friends lie to her. Then he dies.

Baker is removed from office, and Haley is now the Presidential press secretary. She tells Supergirl the nation owes her their thanks, and they're reinstating the Alien Amnesty Act. James is rocking an eyepatch. Kara gives a "Go, Team Fourth Estate!" cheer.

Team Supergirl have game night, and Alex advises Kara not to tell Lena the truth about Kara's secret ID quite yet.

Later, Lena is drinking and breaks a photo of her and Kara. So cue her as a big bad for Season 5.

Alex and Kelly kiss and start dating. B5 declared his love for Nia earlier and they're an item.

A mysterious old woman finds Eve at a bus stop out of National City and tells her she still works for Leviathan and there's no escape. The woman says Leviathan is everywhere. So cue a secondary big bad for Season 5.

Ben is in prison and watches on the news as his son George preaches about improving human/alien relationships.

The Monitor arrives and has a chat with a mysterious hooded figure, who reveals himself as a Martian and J'onn's brother. According to the credits, he's Malefic, who is an evil Martian from the comic books. And voiced by Phil LaMarr, who does a lot of voice work for DC. He was Green Lantern on the animated Justice Leagues, and Ragdoll on The Flash. Among many others.

Then the Monitor teleports to Lex's lab and starts doing some energy mojo over Lex's body. So as I said, we probably haven't seen the end of Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor.

Overall, "Quest" dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's. It was a bit rushed in spots: Ben never does get a decent sendoff, and he seems more concerned with beating up Supergirl then the guy who set him up and whose plan led to Ben's wife being killed.

The Red Daughter angle seems equally uncooked. For the build-up she got at the Season 3 finale, all she really did was shove Supergirl out of the way because Supergirl doesn't know how to duck.

Jesse Rath continues doing great work as B5. Jon Cryer was probably the standout of Season 4. Even though he was only in three episodes, he managed to walk the thin line between parody (the Gene Hackman version in the Reeves movies), erratic psycho (he says several times that he doesn't want to hurt his family), Magnificent Bastard like John Glover as Lionel Luthor in Smallville, and evil jerk (revealing Kara's secret ID just to get revenge on Lena). I'd be glad to see him return as part of Crisis in 2019.

The season itself? The alien immigration not-so-sub subtext never really panned out for me. But I didn't expect it to. Whether that's my biases or just bad storytelling, take your pick. I'm not convinced TV writers doing superhero shows and attempting social allegory is a workable mix. It either seems like preaching to the choir, or unlikely to convince anyone to look at real-world issues differently.

Nicole Amber Maines made a decent addition to the cast. It's still not clear what Dreamer can do other than have precognitive dreams. She can astrally project and channel her dream energy into energy whips. And whatever else the plot calls upon in the future.

David Harewood as J'onn did good work. Although his "J'onn is a pacifist/no he isn't" subplot ended up pretty much back at the beginning. Like Red Daughter, the creative team seemed to have plans but then either lacked the time to do them or just couldn't work things out.

Ditto for Mehcad Brooks as James Olsen. He was outed as Guardian, retired, got superpowers, and then lost them along with his eye. His relationship with Lena is gone--or is it?--and he still doesn't seem to have much to do on the show. Maybe they're turning him into James Olsen, Agent of Supergirl? Or a black Deathstroke?

Besides the above, the strength of the show is still Melissa Benoist and her connections with her friends and family. As well as her dedication to truth and justice, which makes a pleasant change from the other CW heroes. Arrow is all "You must save this city", Black Lightning deals with racial and social issues and the ever-expanding government conspiracy, and Flash is too busy with Team Flash exploits and the problems he caused to reflect on the bigger impact of his being a hero in Central City.

Alex did get her memories back, although that seems like another plot point that was more padding for 22 episodes, rather than something permanent. She lost her memories, and then she got them back. Not a peep out of her about how Kara and J'onn wiped her memories and put her sanity at risk. Granted, Alex agreed to the plan back when she was in her "right" mind. But it's all just water under the bridge.

Overall, Season 4 had a lot of plots that went nowhere. The creative team seemed to have big ideas initially. Evil Supergirl Clone! Superpowered Jimmy! Agent Liberty as a major threat! But it seems they got Jon Cryer to do Lex, and then they did a 180. Lex created Evil Supergirl Clone! Lex uses the same Harun-El that created Superpowered Jimmy! Agent Liberty is just a pawn in Lex's scheme! Jon Cryer did above-decent work, but the whole season felt a little disjointed.

A good example is B5 "rebooting" last episode. That could have introduced a "lite" Brainiac and given the show a go-to villain other than Lex. Let's face it: Lex is overused. Quick quiz: how many Reeves/Superman movies featured Lex, and how many featured Brainiac? Yes, Brainiac was on last year's Krypton and may be back this year. But that show isn't exactly to making B5 Brainiac-like would have been interesting. But instead it's a here-today/gone-tomorrow plot complication that gets resolved in an episode's worth of screen time. And nothing really resolves it. B5 sees Dreamer doing something heroic, and gets his emotions back.

Not to mention Manchester Black and his Elite. They seemed like a big thing in the first half of the season. But after Manchester got J'onn to turn his back on his pacifist ways, Manchester seemingly died and the rest of the Elite just closed up shop. There were ideas there of fighting government oppression with social media-conscious terrorism that seem like they could have gone a few more ways and had more to say than the basic "immigration = good" allegory they used. But such was not to be.

And hey, I wanted more of The Hat. Heck, let's have a CW The Hat series.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?