Supergirl Recap With Spoilers: Lex Does It His Way in “Deus Lex Machina”

Supergirl returns tonight after an extended hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic with “Deus Lex Machina” a Lex Luthor-centric episode. The episode, which is the directorial debut of series star Melissa Benoist, explores how Lex (Jon Cryer) became the hero the people of Earth-Prime see him to be — something that comes with some interesting revelations about the supervillain’s ultimate goals and just how far he’s willing to go to reach them. Read on for our spoiler-filled recap of the episode!

Warning: spoilers for “Deus Lex Machina” below.

The episode opens 90 days after “Crisis on Infinite Earths” at the warehouse where the Obsidian “zombies” were being housed and the old Leviathan lady lies dead with Lex having killed her. All of the victims claim Lex saved them from the woman, who left video claiming to be a devotee of Amy Sapphire, the anti-tech terrorist.

After a brief “Crisis” montage, Lex “awakens” on Earth-Prime where he’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and has a host of other accolades. He goes to meet with Lillian to plot the destruction of Kryptonians since Supergirl recalls everything. She tells him to go make Lena his ally. Lena reveals to Lex that Eve was playing him for Leviathan the whole time on Earth-38. He acquires information about the Earth-Prime Eve and tracks her down where she’s been forced to be an assassin and spy for Leviathan and recruits her for his own aims.

One month post “Crisis,” Eve gets herself on the Obsidian Platinum project and reveals the glitch information to Lex but it turns out the glitch was Lex’s plan to reverse an immortality code and destroy Leviathan. The whole plan is to put Lex in a situation where he has to coverup the glitch and thus, win Leviathan’s trust and an invitation onto their ship. He’s also behind the attack on Obsidian by Amy Sapphire — which occurred two months post-“Crisis”.

As Eve falls even more and more in love and is increasingly loyal to Lex, he gives her a lethal poison and tells her that Jeremiah Danvers is the man who killed her father so that she can kill him.

Disgusted by Lex, Kara leaves an Obsidian event and Lena follows, offering her condolences over the loss of Jeremiah and giving Kara a book that helped her with her own grief and family issues. Lex observes this and is enraged that Lena went to Kara. He sees it as the first step to the two becoming friends again. It’s the thing that shifts his focus away from the task at hand back to his obsession with Kryptonians.

Having manipulated William to suspect Lex of the zombie Obsidian users, he also manipulates Brainy to get Supergirl to go to the Fortress for Myriad to use to find the missing users which he then uses to make Lena believe that Supergirl is interfering with her work on Non Nocere. Lena goes to the Fortress — and an invisible Morae tags along and releases a sun eater. M’gann shows up at the Tower to help, alerted by J’onn’s brother who sensed something was wrong.

They go after the sun eater, Supergirl, wearing a Lexosuit, helps and they are able to save the day. J’onn figures out where the missing people are, and we loop back to the beginning of the episode. Gemma confronts Lex and reveals her true face. Lex tells Gemma that they now need to keep Supergirl to protect Leviathan’s endgame. At home, Eve confesses her love for Lex, and he reveals his entire double cross of her. He then gloats to his mother and heads to the Fortress of Solitude.