History Recap / Supergirl2015S5E13ItsASuperLife

** In most of the potential reveals Lena still takes the truth about Kara badly although she eventually ends up coming around without turning against her. The only exception is if Kara had told her at the very beginning of their friendship as Lena is happy Kara trusts her when they barely know each other.

* FakeBetterAlternateTimeline: This episode has Kara, with the help of Mr. Mxyzptlk, go over various possible alternate timelines of her past related to her friendship with Lena Luthor, which by now has turned to Lena seeing her as the enemy after learning that she had been hiding her secret identity from her. In one such timeline, Kara tries revealing it to her when they first meet. At first, this one seems downright utopic, with the two of them working closely together and stopping several threats. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:Lena ends up kidnapped by this timeline's version of Agent Liberty, who blackmails Kara into revealing her identity to the public and proceeds to lead his organization in killing all of Kara's friends and loved ones]].

* GoodFeelsGood: Mxy tells Kara that it felt really good helping her.

** The second timeline seems to end perfectly, with Lena forgiving Kara and managing to suppress Reign. Then Reign retakes control of Sam's body, kills Lena, and goes out in a MutualKill with Mon-El.

* InSpiteOfANail: In the third timeline, despite all the changes, Pete Lockwood still dies (though this time, he takes his daughter-in-law and grandson with him), Ben still becomes Agent Liberty, still becomes a pawn of Lex Luthor's, and still murders people out his hatred for an alien.

* {{Irony}}: In the base timeline, Pete Lockwood was an anti-alien bigot who died during an alien attack. In the third altered timeline, he became a pro-Kryptonian zealot who killed himself in a vain attempt to meet Supergirl. Both timelines result in Ben Lockwood developing his own anti-alien ideals and becoming Agent Liberty to carry them out.

* NeverTrustATrailer: Or in this case early synopses that described the episode as showing the history of the show if Kara had told Lena her secret from the start. The episode actually shows what would have happened if Kara has told Lena at various points and we see 4 different futures from those points.

* NotSoSimilar: As Mon-El tells her, despite the fact that she also kept secrets from Lena, unlike Lillian or Lex, Kara kept Lena in the dark out of love, while the Luthors lied to her for their own gain.

* OutOfFocus: Kelly appears for less than a minute. Nia doesn't fare much better, and neither appear until the dystopian timeline.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Kara attempts to leave the last timeline immediately after entering it and finding the wreckage of her apartment. Unfortunately she's too late, Mxy's powers have already been drained.

** Supergirl says "[[Franchise/StarTrek Beam me up Mxy!]]" with the latter even being disappointed that she doesn't have her own catchphrase.
*** The episode also plays out very much the same way "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E14Tapestry Tapestry]]", an episode of Next Generation where Q gives Picard the chance to change something about his life and live out the consequences.

** Seemingly none of the other timelines involve Kara getting any help from the other Arrowverse heroes. Not even the one where an anti-Supergirl zealot targeted her loved ones or the one where National City became a full-on dystopia. It makes sense though. Mxy exists outside of continuity and therefore was unaffected by the Crisis. He is able to show Kara events of the original timeline prior to the creation of Earth-Prime. This also fits the narrative that neither Kara or Lena have any memories of the new history and only know what transpired pre-Crisis.

** Pay close attention to Lena's face during the final conversation with Kara. You can see a moment of sadness appear when Kara tells that she will be there for her but will treat her as a villain otherwise

* JustForPun: When Myxflix starts giving them [[TakeThat buffering trouble]], Mxy switches over to [[{{UsefulNotes/VCR}} BetaMyx]] tapes.

** When Myxflix starts [[TakeThat buffering endlessly]], Mxy switches to [[JustForPun Betamyx]] tapes, which are all titled in the vein of ''Series/{{Friends}}'' episodes' IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming. This counts double, since Team Supergirl often refer to themselves as WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}.

* ShipSinking: The ending of this episode seems to indicate a point of no return for Lena and Kara and any chance of the Supercorp ship ever happening (not that it was ever going to happen in the first place).

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: In the fourth timeline, Lena rewired Brainy to be her loyal enforcer.
* BroughtDownToNormal: In the final hypothetical timeline, Mxy loses his powers and has to find a source of 5th dimensional energy elsewhere, in the form of the Hat's bowler.
* TheBusCameBack: Chris Wood (Mon-El), Creator/OdetteAnnable (Sam/Reign) and Creator/SamWitwer (Ben Lockwood/Agent Liberty) all return. Also, Mr. Mxyzptlk, though he's portrayed by a different actor this time. Jeremy Jordan (Winn) appears at the DEO in the darkest timeline. Robert Baker cameos as Otis Graves and Chad Lowe also returns as Thomas Coville.

FakeBetterAlternateTimeline: This episode has Kara, with the help of Mr. Mxyzptlk, go over various possible alternate timelines of her past related to her friendship with Lena Luthor, which by now has turned to Lena seeing her as the enemy after learning that she had been hiding her secret identity from her. In one such timeline, Kara tries revealing it to her when they first meet. At first, this one seems downright utopic, with the two of them working closely together and stopping several threats. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:Lena ends up kidnapped by this timeline's version of Agent Liberty, who blackmails Kara into revealing her identity to the public and proceeds to lead his organization in killing all of Kara's friends and loved ones]].
* ForWantOfANail:
** No matter when Kara tells Lena her secret, the changes end up making things worse. In the first timeline, Kara dies; in the second, Lena, Mon-El, and Sam all die; in the third, all of Kara's loved ones are killed; and in the fourth, never meeting Kara leads to Lena becoming a fascist dictator.
** In most of the potential reveals Lena still takes the truth about Kara badly although she eventually ends up coming around without turning against her. The only exception is if Kara had told her at the very beginning of their friendship as Lena is happy Kara trusts her when they barely know each other.