Supergirl’s Ending Brings Kara Back To Earth, In More Than One Way
She’s ready to fight the good fight.
Supergirl proves that only the worst things happen when you indulge in weeks of nonstop partying on red-sun planets. First, you get attacked by space pirates after nobly trying to stop bounty hunters from stealing a sword from an upstart young girl. Then, you get shot with a poison dart by said space pirates. Worse, your dog gets shot by the same poison dart and can only be healed by retrieving the antidote from the aforementioned space pirate. And your quest to find and capture that space pirate — who happens to be the target of that vengeful young girl — takes you through seedy backwater planets, and exposes you to an interplanetary human trafficking ring that you now have to stop.
But Supergirl is more than just a chronicle of the universe’s worst hangover. It tracks an important arc for Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock), the brooding cousin of Superman (David Corenswet), whose angst is revealed to be the resulting trauma of being the other sole survivor of Krypton — and being grown up enough to remember it all. Throughout the course of Supergirl, we see the turmoiled Kara let down her walls as she chaperones young Ruthye (Eve Ridley) on a quest to avenge her murdered family. We see just why she’s so desperate to save her beloved dog, Krypto, and why she’s adamantly against Ruthye taking Krem’s life in the name of revenge. So, is justice served? Does the dog survive? Let’s dive into it.
Warning: Spoilers for Supergirl ahead!
Supergirl Ending Explained
Supergirl finally accepts the mantle of “Super.”
After Krypto is shot with a poisoned dart that gives him three days to live, Kara and Ruthye chase the Brigands across the galaxy to the planet Bilquis, which they learn the Brigands have turned into a hub for their intergalactic human trafficking ring. All the young girls on the planet have been kidnapped to turn into “Brides,” including the daughter of the couple that betrays Kara and Ruthye after giving them shelter — they hope to trade Kara and Ruthye in exchange for their daughter. But when the couple’s daughter is murdered by Krem after Kara prevented Ruthye from assassinating him, a guilt-ridden Kara decides to pursue Krem alone.
This backfires when Kara is taken to the planet where Krem and the Brigands have been hiding: a planet with both a yellow and green sun. The green sun instantly weakens and slowly poisons Kara, but she’s tended to by Ruthye, who secretly followed her. However, Ruthye is kidnapped when she tries to fetch Kara water and is tossed into a cell next to Lobo (Jason Momoa), who had been chasing a bounty on one of the other Brigands. Thanks to Ruthye’s cunning, the two of them make a prison break and face off against the Brigands — just in time for the yellow sun to rise and heal Kara. Kara and Lobo fight the Brigands, and Kara frees the Brides, while Ruthye finally comes face-to-face with Krem. But just as Ruthye prepares to make the fatal blow, Kara pleads with her that vengeance will not stop her pain. Kara knows this — all her anger and binge-drinking haven’t been able to heal the pain she’s felt over seeing her parents and loved ones slowly perish from radiation poisoning in Argo City, the final remnant of Krypton. Ruthye lets down her sword, but Kara takes it and murders Krem herself.
Ruthye breaks out.
That final action is one major change from the film’s source material, Tom King’s comic book arc “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.” In the comic, Kara doesn’t assassinate Krem until centuries later, after she’s imprisoned him in the Phantom Zone, and when Ruthye has become an old woman. But while director Craig Gillespie tells Inverse that the comic was an “amazing launching point,” he credits Ana Nogueira’s script for delving into the “complexities and really sort of the trauma of what [Kara] went through,” he says. This change, and the small changes that the script makes in adapting Woman of Tomorrow, explain “the resistance of why she's going on this journey,” Gillespie says.
And yes, the dog survives.
Does Supergirl Know About the Els’ Message For Superman?
Argo City is saved from Krypton’s destruction — temporarily.
One major canon change that Supergirl also has to deal with comes from Superman: the revelation that Kal-El’s parents, Jor-El and Lara, sent him to Earth not to become a shining beacon for humans to follow, but to become a conquering titan. Supergirl alludes to, and essentially confirms, this twist in the flashback, during the sequence showing the destruction of Krypton. Zor-El (David Krumholtz) and Alura In-Ze (Emily Beecham), Kara’s parents, are escaping the crumbling planet into Argo City, where Zor-El is erecting a powerful force field to protect the city and its inhabitants. As they look above at the force field coming down, they see a tiny space capsule shoot away. That must be Jor-El’s child, they say. “The conqueror of worlds,” Alura says dryly.
But interestingly, we see that Zor-El and Alura teach Kara very different values than what the Els would eventually teach Superman. As she grows into a bright young teenager, they teach her to be good and to protect the weak. As we see over the course of Supergirl, it takes her a while to finally embrace these teachings, but we see she’s finally ready to do so at the end of the film, when she returns to Earth to meet Superman. Her cousin is happy to see her, and says he could’ve used her for this last fight — and for all the future ones. And she gently tells him that she’ll be there for those future ones.
Supergirl was taught to protect the weak by her father — and the ending finally sees her embrace that teaching.
But there’s one lingering question: since Kara was off-world when Superman learned about his parents’ true intentions for him, does she know about the Els’ message? “No, I don't think so,” Alcock tells Inverse.
“I think that she's just ready to accept letting someone in,” she continues. “She's willing to kind of take on the responsibility that she's been given.”
And we’ll finally get to see Superman and Supergirl team up, in all their strength and potential for good, in Man of Tomorrow. Until then, it looks like Kara’s back on Earth for good.
