Supergirl Showrunners Address Kara’s Failed Courage Test in “The Gauntlet”

This week on Supergirl, Kara (Melissa Benoist) and Nyxly (Peta Sergeant) had to face a gauntlet in order to determine who would control the courage totem, the first of seven such totems required to complete the powerful all-stone, an object Nyxly is trying to obtain and Kara is trying to prevent Nyxly from obtaining. However, Kara faced the courage gauntlet twice and failed twice while Nyxly failed just once before passing and gaining control. But with Supergirl being one of the most courageous of people, how did she fail? According to series showrunners Jessica Queller and Rovner, fans will find out but Nyxly’s success already offers some major clues.

“Nyxly explains it in the episode that what the totem wants to see was their vulnerability, and that the courage kind of went in that direction,” Rovner told The Wrap. “And that is something that Supergirl will have to get to the root of on why she couldn’t pass it. The answer lies in that.”

For Kara, that may end up being a complicated task. Kara’s gauntlet took her back to the night she became Supergirl and saved Alex’s (Chyler Leigh) plane from crashing in the National City harbor. Kara assumed that carrying out the other rescues she’d ignored that night out of fear of exposure is what the gauntlet wanted her to face, but that wasn’t the right answer.However, for audiences, it’s not hard to guess that the real courage Kara needed to show was the vulnerability of people knowing her identity. Nyxly’s successful gauntlet came only when she was vulnerable and Kara has long been concerned about her identity becoming public for fear of what might happen to those she cares about so much so that Season 5 of the series literally centered around fracturing of Kara’s friendship with Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) over the secret.

However, even if that’s the vulnerability the courage gauntlet requires, it also won’t be the most challenging gauntlet the Super Friends face. Queller explained that the love totem and its gauntlet will be the most brutal to face for what it puts the characters through while Rovner spoke about how each episode’s theme matches up to the totems as well.

“They all have a particular burden on the characters,” Rovner explained. “One of the exciting things about this season is that in addition to trying to defeat our big bad, each episode is thematically tied to the totem that they’re going after. So that allows us to explore deeper character things as well so we’re excited that the storytelling gave us that ability.”

Supergirl airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.