Supergirl cast on that unlikely friendship quartet: 'It's a lot of girl power'
Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Monday’s episode of Supergirl. Read at your own risk!
As if seeing a Luthor and a Kryptonian as friends wasn’t odd enough, now Supergirl has thrown in a Worldkiller to boot!
The closing moments of Monday’s episode of Supergirl revealed that new character Samantha Arias (Odette Annable) — who is unaware that she is actually a bio-engineered weapon of Krypton — has taken over L Corp while Lena (Katie McGrath) gets the lay of the land at CatCo. Hence, the trio of Sam, Lena, and Kara (Melissa Benoist) form an unlikely friendship as the three most powerful women in National City.
“You’ve got this amazing dynamic of these three women who are starting to become close and realizing they can rely on each other to get through everything that they’re getting through and still manage to save National City,” McGrath tells EW. “We had a lovely scene yesterday where it was the three of us sitting on a sofa with wine chatting. It feels organic and it feels normal. We’re extremely lucky to have Odie, because she’s hilarious. I’m amazed we ever get any work done, but it feels very real. It feels like normal life that you’re fighting aliens, but you’re still human at the end of the day. ”
The move is part of the show’s effort to explore a different dynamic between hero and villain, while also reflecting what the world is (and should be) today. “What I love that we’ve done on the show so far is we just have these strong female relationships between strong women of all different walks of life,” Benoist says. “There’s no cattiness, there’s no bitchiness, they support each other, they love each other, they are there for each other to the ends of the Earth. I think this trio is the start of something really special, these three women that kind of run National City together. And Alex [Chyler Leigh] is involved in this trifecta of Lena, Sam, and Kara. It’s a lot of girl power this season.”
The dynamic between the quartet opens a different avenue for the show to explore female friendships in a way seldom seen on television, something particularly exciting for Leigh. “Last season, I think I had like one or two scenes with Katie the whole season, and she’s one of the coolest chicks on the planet,” Leigh says. “And Odette is someone who you want to squeeze into a little teeny tiny box, stick in your pocket, and keep her around. She’s just so funny and she’s so sweet and we just have such a great time together. The characters, and us in real life, we complement each other really well and you do have these strong female characters, but also, the four of us are strong women. We get to really have a lot of fun with it and really bounce off one another. You do get to see them in more casual settings, which I think is really cool because you don’t really see Alex within that space. So, selfishly, I think it’s really cool because it’s opening a wider door for these cool opportunities to interact and have fun and kick ass together in their own ways, but they have a lot to offer to one another. It’s funny, we had a scene a few episodes ago with the four of us together that we just laughed the whole time. It was so great.”
Supergirl previously hadn’t depicted much interaction between Lena and Alex, which should prove interesting since Alex has always been very protective of her sister Kara. “Not only is she not a fan of a Luthor, it’s that she’s scared for her sister that her sister is so trusting of this person that’s almost an unknown for her because she hasn’t had a lot to do with me,” McGrath says. However, Leigh contends that Alex would trust Kara’s better judgment when it comes to that friendship. “Alex is always going to side with her, no matter what,” Leigh says. “It hasn’t really come up at this point yet. We haven’t seen them have any kind of conversation about that as of yet, but I think it’s coming up though.”
Another question is how Kara will now be able to keep up appearances as both Supergirl and Kara considering Lena is now her boss. Kara was not so successful in handling that new turn of events during Monday’s hour. Will Kara struggle with whether to finally tell Lena the truth about her alter ego? “Of course,” Benoist says. “I think she probably battles that more often than we see because she’s her best friend and she’s told every other confidant in her life. She probably struggles with that on a daily basis. She probably knows deep down that it wouldn’t be the greatest thing to reveal to someone of that lineage.”
And the looming elephant in the room is when Kara will discover that she’s not the only Kryptonian in this quartet of powerful ladies. Unbeknownst to her, Sam is a weapon of Krypton called Reign. In the comics, Reign is among a group of Worldkillers who attempted to dominate Earth. So far, this version of Reign is very different. For one, she doesn’t even know her lineage and instead is a single mother struggling to stay afloat. Sam now suspects something amiss after she was able to remove a heavy tower that had fallen on her daughter in the premiere. Her budding friendship with Kara therefore will make the eventual reveal more heartbreaking. “Anytime another Kryptonian surfaces, or another pod is discovered in Mon-El’s case, it’s shocking to say the least,” Benoist says. “It always leaves Kara thunderstruck, but this one especially because she’s getting to know Sam in this way and because we don’t know what Sam’s future holds, so it’s going to be particularly devastating for Kara.”
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.