Supergirl Season 6, Episode 13 recap: The Gauntlet

The following article contains SPOILERS for Supergirl Season 6, Episode 13.

As the Superfriends race against Nyxly to find the courage totem, Lena is still struggling with her ancestry in this latest episode of Supergirl Season 6

Check out our recap of last week’s episode here!

Lena returns to National City with her maternal answers and tags along with Kara to The Fortress in a way to move on from them. There they communicate with a Kryptonian witch named Vita and learn the rules of finding and handling totems. Also, they learn that since the courage totem is such a magical power source, it is possible that the totem progressed into an actual symbol of courage.

This means it could be anything in the earth’s history. After Nxyly is found at the Museum of Science and Technology, the Kara and company deduce the totem is the biblical slingshot used by David against Goliath. The Superfriends confront Nyxly at the museum and end up splitting the slingshot in half. As this occurs, Nyxly has a vision of what looks like to be her downfall with her brother and father.

Supergirl Season 6, Episode 13: The Gauntlet Begins

Back at The Tower, Vita possesses Brainy and informs the team about the repercussions of breaking the totem. Since she broke it, Kara has to engage in an emotional “gauntlet” where she must confront her past when she lacked true courage, and the same thing goes for Nyxly with her half.

Kara experiences visions of the night she became Supergirl and saved Alex by ensuring her sister’s plane didn’t crash, and Nyxly sees the moment her father caught her and her brother planning a coup but only punishing Nyxly. The rest of the folks who were around when the slingshot totem was split become enchanted as well with extenuating everyone’s courage.

Kara tries again to pass the gauntlet but fails once again, this means that everyone who is having their courage increased receives another boost of courage. This episode is focusing on a scientist named Dr. Beatrice Lahr who is trying to harness the power of lightning, but who recently had her funding pulled thanks to her former research partner pulling out because of how dangerous it is. Now that she has blind courage, however, Dr. Lahr literally fought her old partner for the technology that is too powerful and used it to cause a thunderstorm to test our her research.

Lena tries to get some answers from Vita, but the Kryptonian witch shares she knows about Lena’s magical abilities and ancestral roots. This makes the skeptical genius only more concerned about her witchcraft origins and if magic even exists. How Lena even doubts the belief in magic when she is friends with aliens from different planets is without a doubt confusing for me, but I know it will pay off with Lena the Witch and I am looking forward to that eventual evolution for her character.

Supergirl Season 6, Episode 13: Trying to Calm the Storm

When she gives her emotional gauntlet a second try, Nyxly does not try and kill her father or even her brother. However, the Imp princess admits her vulnerabilities to her male family members. She expresses her deep sadness about how she helped raise her baby brother and was more than just his sister, but she was his most loyal friend.

Nyxly admits she was destroyed by her brother’s betrayal and this leads the Imp princess to pass her emotional gauntlet. Because of this, however, Kara’s half of the courage totem begins to fly away and regain Nyxly’s half. The Superfriends trap the half they have in their possession to prevent it from getting in the hands of the dastardly Imp princess.

Down in the city square, Supergirl tries to stop the erratic storm caused by Dr. Lahr. Because she is basically trying alone, Kara is unsuccessful. This is mainly because the good doctor has an excess amount of courage on following through with her research and then J’onn and Alex are in no mindset to fully help.

Therefore, Kara tells Lena back at The Tower to release their half of the totem. Due to this, everyone’s minds are back to normal. With the stable mind of Dr. Lahr, the Superfriends put an end to the storm and save National City. After this, Kara and Nyxly share visions of each other’s emotional gauntlets which leads everyone to believe these two now have a connection with their emotions

Following the reduction of blind courage, everyone comes to terms with their actions while they were under the totem’s spell. In particular, Catco reporter William confides in Nia that he has made his decision to try and embed himself into the Superfriends to help his career. How this will go with seeing two of his co-workers as superheroes remains unseen but I do like seeing a non Superfriend get some strong storytelling.

Supergirl Season 6, Episode 13: Lena opens up to Kara

The episode ends with Lena finally confiding in Kara that her mother was a witch and also her doubts due to her life being dedicated to science. It looks as though the two are about to brainstorm ways Kara could have passed her emotional gauntlet when the last daughter of Krypton gets a sensation that Nyxly is feeling angry. This confirms their emotions are connected and it’s reminiscent of Harry Potter, Voldemort, and the Horcruxes.

I am sure this connection will lead to some secrets being shared between Kara and Nyxly and I also predict this empathetic relationship will be the main device in stopping Nyxly from causing any more chaos. However, only time will tell and we will have to wait until next week to find out.

Catch up on Supergirl Season 6 on CWTV.com and the next episode on The CW next Tuesday, October 5th, at 9 p.m. ET.