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Spoilers for the Supergirl Season 5 premiere, “Event Horizon,” past this point.
There are, arguably, more important things that happened on the Supergirl Season 5 premiere than what I’m about to talk about. A new villain was introduced, Kara (Melissa Benoist) finally told Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) that she is Supergirl in a heart-rending series of monologues, and in a plotline designed to give entertainment journalists serious anxiety, CatCo was turned into a clickbait content farm.
But the actual most important thing that happened in the episode was Supergirl getting a new costume — and most important of all, Kara’s reaction when the costume was revealed.
After fighting a new villain named Midnight, Supergirl finds her cape ripped to shreds. Brainy (Jesse Rath) flips out, much to everyone’s confusion, and swears he’ll make her a new one. Later on, it even turns out to be necessary: the holes in her cape are causing her flight patterns to be screwy, messing up a mission.
When Brainy finally delivers at the reception for Kara’s Pulitzer Prize ceremony, a thing that actually happened on the show and not a thing I am making up, he reveals that he didn’t just make a new cape, he redesigned her costume from the ground up. Not only that, he stuck it, The Flash style, in a ring. And when Midnight attacks again, it’s time for her new costume to come out of its container, leading to a suit-up sequence reminiscent of Iron Man’s extremis armor.
The suit slowly flows over her body and clothes, which has to be extremely uncomfortable, until she finally stands, fully revealed, in her brand new supersuit. Kara’s reaction?
“Pants!”
…and then she flies off to save the day.
It is, in a word, a completely perfect Melissa Benoist moment, on par with her lovely reaction when The Flash (Grant Gustin) brought her ice cream a few seasons back. It also points to the refreshing re-centering the show is getting, five seasons in… Last season was a bit of a self-serious slog, and as much as I appreciated tackling an immigration crisis storyline, it dragged down the central joy Benoist conveys in being Supergirl. With the new suit, and a new mission, it looks like that’s back on, one leg at a time.
Supergirl airs Sundays at 9/8c on The CW
