Mxy returns and explains Nyxly's dark history to the Superfriends. Now, Kara and her team must prevent Nyxly from vanquishing him. Meanwhile, Lena visits her mother's birthplace in Newfoundland to dig into her past, but is shocked by the town's icy reception towards her.
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Elizabeth and her friends used their magic to try and scare one friend's abusive husband, but their magic went out of control and started an unnatural fire, which killed him.
- All for Nothing: The Superfriends spend the episode trying to protect Mxy from being absorbed by Nxyly, but they are powerless to stand against her and she absorbs him anyway.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: It's lampshaded that Lena, despite having met a lot of aliens with superpowers, vehemently does not believe in magic.
- Big Damn Heroes: Mxy saves Kara and her friends from the Kryptonite Dragon.
- Broken Pedestal: Lena's opinion of her mother is shattered after finding out who she really is. Florence helps her rebuild it.
- Burn the Witch!: The townspeople quickly realized that Margaret's husband died an unnatural death, which led to the exile of Lena's mom and her friends.
- The Bus Came Back: Lena comes back after being absent the last few episodes.
- Call-Back: Alex recalls the de-powering artifact that Mon-El had used in his fight with Mister Mxyzptlk.
- Continuity Nod:
- The totems embody the same values as the Paragons from the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover last year (Honor, Love, Courage, Destiny, Humanity, Hope and Truth), except with Dreams instead of Honor.
- Mxy brings out Lex's Phantom Zone generator as an option to get rid of Nxyly.
- Kara brings up the amulet Mon-El used against Mxy back in Season 2.
- Mxy uses one of Luthor Corp's machines to duplicate himself to act as bait.
- Contrived Coincidence:
- When the fifth-dimensional totems Nyxly is after were scattered, they were conveniently duplicated on every planet, so Earth will have a set and the characters won't have to go searching the universe.
- The one 5th-dimensional Imp Supergirl knows is also the sworn enemy of Nxyly.
- Lena learns she's the daughter of a witch just when Supergirl is facing off against a magical Big Bad whose chief weakness is other magic.
- Given that Dreamer will be helping look for the totems, it sure is convenient that one of them is related to Dreams.
- De-power: Mxy manages to attach the anti-magic cuff to Nxyly before being absorbed.
- Domestic Abuse: Margaret's husband Tommy was abusive to her, thus Elizabeth and Florence assisted her in getting payback.
- Dream Spying: Nia uses her Dreamer powers to see what Nxyly is up to, allowing Supergirl and the others to prepare.
- Easily Forgiven: Kara instantly forgives Nia for her mistake, since it was just that.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even 300 years ago, when Mxy was still on a less heroic path, he found Nxyly to be insane.
- Expendable Clone: Mxy creates a copy of himself to fool Nxyly. The clone is all too happy to sacrifice himself. Unfortunately, the clone was unstable and merges back into the main body after a few minutes.
- Fair-Weather Friend: What Nxyly accuses Mxy of, as he crawled back to her father once he saw that their coup would be fruitless.
- Have You Tried Rebooting?: What Mxy suggests they do with the amulet since he can't use his magical powers.
- Hologram Projection Imperfection: Nia tries to use Brainy's Image Inducer to fool Nxyly, but when she gets close, the imp's magic interferes and causes the hologram to fail.
- Hot Witch: Lena's mom, depicted in the flashback, would appear to be one, but that's because she's also played by Katie McGrath.
- Identical Daughter: Lena looks exactly like her mother, Elizabeth Walsh, just with a different hairstyle (Katie McGrath wore a wig to portray Elizabeth). Same with Peggy Bishop, who is portrayed Emmanuelle Vaugier like her mother, Margaret.
- I Didn't Mean to Kill Him: Lena's mom and her friends wanted to just scare Margaret's husband, who was abusing her, but they ended up killing him instead.
- Immediate Sequel: To the previous episode, "Still I Rise."
- Innocently Insensitive:
- Brainy tries to cheer Supergirl up by telling her that she didn't intend to bring Nxyly into their world. Nia, who is standing beside him and was the one who released her, shrinks back slightly.
- J'onn whispers to Alex about how useless Mxy is without his powers, not realizing the latter can overhear them.
- Internal Reveal:
- Kara tells the others about meeting Nyxly in the Phantom Zone.
- Nia confesses her role in Nyxly's arrival on Earth.
- It's All My Fault: Naturally, Nia still blames herself for Nxyly running amok.
- It's Personal: Nia considers Nxyly to be her problem, since she's the one who released her in the first place.
- Laser Sight: Supergirl uses her heat vision as a makeshift laser pointer to distract the giant magical cat.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Dreamer tries to warp the giant magic cat into the Dream Realm without thinking of the consequences. Luckily, Supergirl and Brainy are able to help so Dreamer isn't sucked in with it.
- Living MacGuffin: Mxy, since he is a descendant of Jyrryd and Nyxly needs his blood.
- Loophole Abuse: When Brainy says imps can't kill anyone, Nxyly points out she won't, the monster she's summoned from the Phantom Zone will.
- Metaphorically True: When Kara brings up that Nyxly told her that her brother is dead, Mxy says that she was probably speaking metaphorically, since he was dead to her after he betrayed her.
- My Greatest Failure: Mxy feels very bad for having abandoned Nyxly 300 years ago.
- Not Quite Dead: Applies to the amulet used against Mxy before, as instead of being destroyed, he hid it in a cave in Corto Maltese.
- Out of Focus: Andrea does not play much of a role in this episode, and her main appearances are relegated to making Info Dump calls to Lena.
- Poor Communication Kills: If Kara had told everyone about encountering Nyxly in the Phantom Zone sooner, Nia would have known better than to let her out of the dream realm.
- Powerful and Helpless: Mxy cannot use his magical powers, or Nyxly will find them immediately and suck him into her crystal ball. Unfortunately, aside from the occasional Info Dump, he's pretty useless otherwise.
- Power Limiter:
- Brainy spends much of the episode trying to modify meta-dampening cuffs to work against magic. Mxy attaches it at the end of the episode.
- When Nxyly traps the Superfriends, she disables all their various powers and tech.
- Psychic Strangle: Nxyly performs something similar to this on Supergirl to demonstrate just how powerful she truly is.
- Redemption Rejection: Kara tries to appeal to Nxyly's conscience, but to no avail.
- The Reveal:
- Lena's mom was a witch.
- Lena inherited her mother's magical powers.
- Running Gag: Alex tries and fails to stop a rampaging creature. Perhaps remembering the garbage monster from a few episodes ago, this time Alex morphs her "Hand of the Soldier" into a bazooka but the magical cat no-sells the blast. Other team members have to take it down. (In fairness, Supergirl's freeze-breath did nothing as well.)
- Sadistic Choice:
- Nxyly demands that Supergirl and the others hand over Mxy or she will wreak havoc over National City.
- After trapping the Superfriends, Nxyly gives Mxy the choice of surrendering to her or watching Supergirl and the others die to a dragon.
- Selective Obliviousness: Both Margaret and Florence point this out, in regards to Lena not wanting to believe in magic.
- Shout-Out:
- Sympathy for the Devil: Kara refuses to send Nxyly to the Phantom Zone, wanting to talk her down. After she rejects it, Kara loses her sympathy.
- Tracking Spell: Of a sort. Nxyly can track Mxy anywhere whenever he uses his magical powers.
- Uncertain Doom: Mxy ends the episode sucked into Nxyly’s crystal, with no indication whether this killed him, imprisoned him or simply banished him from reality.
- Villain Team-Up: Nxyly teams up with Mitch at the end of the episode in order to find the totems and break the anti-magic cuff.
- Wizard Duel: Nxyly and Mxy engage in a short one in the beginning.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Supergirl tries to appeal to Nyxly's better self, telling her that she doesn't have to be evil. Her speech falls on deaf ears.
- You Are Not Alone: Brainy spends most of the episode trying to get Nia to tell Supergirl about her and Nxyly, as Nia feels so guilty about releasing the Imp that she's trying to stop her by herself.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Nxyly towards Mitch, initially. But after she loses her powers, she reconsiders.
