Technology Goes Bad in Supergirl’s “Stranger Beside Me” Synopsis

The CW has released the official synopsis for “Stranger Beside me,” the second episode of Supergirl‘s fifth season, which will premiere on October 13. In the episode, comments that the showrunners and stars have made to the effect that season five will analyze the impact that technology has on people’s lives is starting to come to fruition — and not in a good way. While things are getting weird for J’Onn, who has an uninvited guest, and bubbling up in the background for Lena and Kara, the series promises to explode out of the gate pretty fast this season — which makes sense, given that all the Arrowverse shows are going to be dealing with “Crisis on Infinite Earths” by midseason and likely beyond.

While the title of the episode feels like it centers on Lena and Kara thematically, Lena does not get a specific mention in the synopsis, so it may be a bit more of a surprise than that. You can check it out below.

TECHNOLOGY BECOMES THE NEW THREAT– Supergirl (Melissa Benoist), Alex (Chyler Leigh), and Brainiac (Jesse Rath) thwart an alien attack while William (Staz Nair) investigates Kara (Melissa Benoist). J’onn J’onzz (David Harewood) and Kelly (Azie Tesfai) use Obsidian tech to solve a problem. David McWhirter directed the episode, which was written by Dana Horgan & Katie Rose Rogers.

“What we’re looking at is how technology is impacting the way people engage and giving them an escape not to engage,” Rovner added. “It seems like nowadays, everyone is kind of on their phones or not really present, and so we wanted to speak to that and kind of how it might be hard to live in the ugliness of what’s going on, and how a character like Kara can try and help us overcome that. It speaks to a lot of the stuff the characters will be going through.”

Supergirl returns with its fifth season in October on The CW. Facing a new threat and featuring a new costume, Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) and her team of allies will square off with Leviathan — bringing Supergirl closer to synching up with the comics than almost any show in comics history, since Brian Michael Bendis is writing a Leviathan-centric event that finds a lot of its story core in what he has been doing with the Superman titles right now.

At the same time, the first half of the season will build toward the massive CW-wide “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover, which adapts the storyline in which Supergirl and The Flash died in the comics. It seems unlikely that will happen on the TV version, but that does beg the question of how they manage to outrun their destinies, and what the Arrowverse (especially Supergirl, which takes place on an alternate Earth) looks like following the events of the Crisis.

Supergirl premieres on October 6, 2019, on The CW. “Stranger Beside Me” will debut on October 13.