Like she said, it’s incredibly twisted, but there’s still some truth to it. Though we know that she knows the Legends are her family, especially Sara, it’s still gonna hit differently when you’re dealing w/ biological family. As a clone, Ava knows that she doesn’t have anyone truly like that, and so she’s left w/ the closest thing she can have to a blood family member in Bishop. I feel like this is the 1st time we’re really dealing w/ Ava’s family issues since season 3, and because it’s been quite a while since then, I had figured she had managed to put all of that behind her and embrace her life w/ Sara and the team. But this is a good indicator of how old wounds can resurface and make us realize that they were never actually fully healed. Perhaps it’s going to take this mission of confronting Bishop and fully taking him down once and for all to allow Ava to completely heal from this part of her previous trauma. Between Bishop’s return and all the wedding planning, this really is just an imperfect storm of emotions and confusion for Ava, but when she gets through it all, she’s gonna be stronger than ever and even more excited to start this next chapter of her life w/ Sara
While I’m definitely surprised to see that this happened so quickly, I think it’ll ultimately work in the grand scheme of the season. Having Jakeem take over as Thunderbolt’s “master” is the comic-accurate approach, so I’m excited to finally start getting to know him after only getting a few name-drops before this. But more than that, I think it’s gonna play a significant role in Mike’s arc this season. Like Thunderbolt said, he was already feeling alone before this, and now that feeling will probably be even stronger now that he screwed up like he did and couldn’t even hold onto this force that could’ve been his ticked into the JSA for very long at all. Of course his family is now more aware of this, but it’s also to see him once again getting lost in the cracks w/ them now knowing that both Shade and Eclipso are out there and need to be stopped. That’ll likely make for a perfect situation for Cindy to swoop in and fully take advantage of his loneliness and recruit him for the ISA. Of course Mike won’t just be immediately swayed toward the villains, but he could still be just unsure of himself enough to make the difference as far as Cindy’s concerned
First off, it’s just such a relief to see the show taking this direction w/ Kara’s character. There have been far too many instances where she’s gone through something traumatic only to just be sad for a bit before seemingly brushing it off and moving on. Especially last season w/ having to watch her world die a 2nd time and everything she went through w/ Lena, it just feels like she hasn’t been allowed the time to heal from all of that, and it’s important to see that even the strongest heroes aren’t always OK and need to focus on their mental health
So assuming that Kara will continue taking steps to address her trauma, I’d absolutely love to see her start doing therapy w/ Kelly. While it’s great that she still has her friends and family by her side, it’d still be even better to talk all this through w/ a trained professional. But since she’d really need to talk about all that she’s been through as both Supergirl and Kara, especially in the Phantom Zone, she’d need a therapist who knows her secret identity. Despite patient confidentiality, I still doubt she’d feel comfortable telling someone she doesn’t know right off the bat that she’s Supergirl, especially since I’m sure she still wants to keep that circle as small as possible. But now that Kelly knows, it makes her uniquely qualified to handle this particular issue. I know the 2 of them are gonna be teaming up in the next episode, but they’ve still barely spent any time together one-on-one, and Kara definitely needs to get to better know her future sister-in-law (I’m assuming). Having them do therapy together, even if the remaining episodes are only able to dedicate a limited amount of screentime to it, would still be a pretty effective way to both allow Kara to properly heal from her trauma and forge a bond between her and Kelly
Considering that we only have 12 episodes left in the series, I really don’t mind Zor-El only sticking around National City for just 1 episode. The focus should really be kept on the Super Friends, dedicating as much screentime as possible to giving them some meaningful character development to close out their arcs and continuing to develop these new, unique dynamics between some of them. It’s nice that Kara got to spend time w/ her father in a context outside of the suffering of the Phantom Zone, but I feel like if he stuck around, he’d be more of a distraction from the character work that needs to be done. The 1 thing I do dislike about his exit is that we almost certainly won’t get to see his reunion w/ Alura on Argo. Seeing them be reunited after so many years apart, especially if Kara was also there to witness it, would be 1 hell of an emotional scene. I doubt they were able to get Erica Durance to return for multiple episodes under the current circumstances, but maybe we can see both of them return for the finale to help the Super Friends w/ whatever huge battle’s in store
