WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Season 5 of Supergirl.
After a season at odds, Lena and Kara finally made amends and restored their friendship in the Season 5 finale of Supergirl. However, their reconciliation showed just how silly their feud was in the first place.
Their fight was a result of Kara keeping her biggest secret -- the fact that she's Supergirl -- from Lena, her closest friend. Though Kara clearly kept this from Lena as an act of love and protection, Lena did not see it that way. While Lena is incredibly intelligent, she apparently lacked the emotional intelligence to comprehend why her friend did what she did, and spent the entire season trying to get revenge on Kara for her supposed transgression. Let's take a look at why this drawn-out argument felt so contrived.
While Lena is very bright, she's emotionally stunted and has major trust issues. She even informs Hope in the third episode of Season 5, "Blurred Lines," that she doesn't trust people. It makes sense -- after all, her brother is supervillain Lex Luthor. Her past is haunted by the betrayal of close friends and family members, and Lena's resulting mistrust of humanity is prevalent throughout Season 5.
Yet, while her past trauma is an understandable reason for having trust issues, it doesn't make sense for this specific argument between Kara and Lena. First of all, Kara was truthful with Lena in Season 5's premiere episode -- she told her that she is Supergirl and apologized for keeping her superhero alter-ego a secret. Tearfully, she divulged to Lena that she realized what she did was selfish. She said she had convinced herself she was doing the right thing by protecting her friend from the truth. Lena at first is shocked -- understandably so -- but then went on to act like she and Kara were good, when they definitely were not.
This episode ends with Lena revealing that she wants to get back at Kara, and make her now "frenemy" feel as awful as Kara made her feel. She then sets out to invent technology that "fixes" human flaws, and vows to use it to take revenge on all the people that hurt her. This whole storyline -- Lena's invention and her plot against Kara -- played out in the background of other more important storylines until Lena realized her mistakes.
This caused Lena to stop with the evil plots, and she and Kara finally made up. They have a conversation where both are honest, which is what should have happened at the very beginning of this season when Kara first came clean. If Lena had been honest about the fact that she was hurt and had given Kara the benefit of the doubt, it could have saved them both a whole lot of trouble -- and saved the audience from enduring a ridiculous storyline for an entire season.
The fight between Lena and Kara felt incredibly contrived because it was clearly manufactured for the show. It may have moved the plot along, but didn't feel organic to the characters. Maybe Season 6 will bring us a more emotionally mature Lena -- and less trivial drama.
Airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, Supergirl stars Melissa Benoist as Kara Danvers, David Harewood as Martian Manhunter and Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers.