Supergirl‘s fifth season has focused a lot on the titular heroine’s friendship with Lena Luthor as well as how not only “Crisis on Infinite Earths” but technology has impacted National City and society at large. This week’s episode, however, shifts its focus a bit to a member of Kara Danvers’ inner circle and sees Nia Nal/Dreamer deal with a threat to the trans community that seeks to erase the superhero by forcing her to step aside and is willing to attack those she cares about to do so. It prompts Dreamer to step up as she never has before as well as reveals just how far-reaching events this season have been for everyone Kara cares about. Here’s what you need to know about this week’s episode, “Reality Bytes”.
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Warning: full spoilers for Supergirl‘s “Reality Bytes” below.
Episode opens two months ago in the North Pole with people enjoying a fantastical holiday. However, when a man (Mr. Bates) tries to end the simulation, he’s unable to do so. In the Obsidian lab, Kelly wakes him up manually and she discovers that their fail safe in the simulation fails. She assures him the glitch will be fixed before the Platinum launch. The Leviathan old lady comes to complete his exit interview.
Nia’s roommate Yvette, tired of her staying home moping about Brainy, decides to drag her out for the night to meet her own boyfriend, Angus. At the club, Nia has a weird premonition of blood on her hands. Yvette goes outside to meet Angus where she’s instead followed by a guy who approached her at the bar. Turns out he’s really “Angus” but Nia, having another bad premonition, rushes outside and finds Yvette injured and with an anti-trans message for Dreamer. Nia later tells Kara that she will handle him her own way because Kara cannot understand the extent of the violence the trans community faces on a daily basis. Nia gives Kara and the cops a few hours to handle things before she does it her way.
Al, the owner of the alien bar, seeks out Alex and J’onn for help finding his brother Trevor who went missing after going to Obsidian Platinum’s Virtual Las Vegas where he participated in something called the Escape Palace. While J’onn does real-world investigation, Alex goes virtual with Kelly’s assistance. Turns out that the Escape Palace, where Trevor allegedly went, is a new, user-created addition. It’s meant to tap into the player’s worst fears and be difficult to escape. She discovers that the people there are being tortured and the failsafe has been disabled. Alex breaks them out and they reveal that the new player in their group, Richard, brought them there. J’onn discovers that Richard’s wife has been having a VR affair with Trevor and that the Escape Palace is his way of getting revenge.
Alex locates Trevor but ends up having to fight with Richard. She defeats him and manages to knock him out of the simulation and is able to let Kelly and J’onn know about Trevor so that he can be successfully rescued in the real world.
After making an Up Swipes account to lure out Yvette’s attacker, Dreamer shows up to confront him. He tries to attack her, but she quickly bests him and is about to kill him when Supergirl talks her out of it, reminding her that she has her friends to help her fight for her community. Later, Nia breaks down on Kara and admits to being overwhelmed, by everything. Brainy gives the police a file full of information so that they can deal with the attacks of violence against the trans community.
Other things of interest from the episode:
• Alex is continuing to struggle with her new weapon. It works perfectly for her in the virtual world but not so much in the real world. Her trip into VR also reveals to her some virtual options including a world in which she is Supergirl and one in which she’s a mother.
• Despite having reported the glitch in Obsidian Platinum months ago, it clearly still exists, something that disturbs Kelly.
• Richard, having been left in some sort of catatonic state thanks to Obsidian Platinum, is sent off to some strange storage room where the old Leviathan lady has many, many others like him stored.
• Alex receives a phone call from her mother, Liza, at the end of the episode. They have finally located Jeremiah Danvers and he’s dead, much to Alex and Kara’s devastation.
