On Supergirl season 5, episode 12, Toyman’s second attempt at a strike against National City commences, focusing his efforts on the DEO and the military grade technology they have within the building. Meanwhile, Andrea gets an ultimatum.

Supergirl season 5, episode 12 is a boring finish for a lackluster two-parter episode, bringing Winn back from the future to prevent his reputation and life with his family from being tarnished by a post-crisis doppelganger that appeared in National City, 2020.

While I wasn’t the biggest fan of these episodes, it did give the writers a chance to develop Brainy without his personality inhibitors, making him an integral part of the season’s overarching story with Lex Luthor, and for us to catch up with Winn and what life in the next century has held for him.

‘Supergirl’ season 5, episode 12 review

However, dragging this out for two episodes was a bit much, if you ask me. Supergirl season 5, episode 12 leaned toward the boring side, pushing out Winn and Toyman’s stories when they could have both been easily wrapped up in one episode with a different trajectory.

Trying to “redeem” Winn’s father was also incredibly ridiculous, and just highlights how men in the Arrow-verse are given infinite chances to be better, while women are not. The original Toyman, Winn’s father, was ruthless, psychotic, and abusive, preventing Winn from having a relationship with his mother with death threats and, essentially, trying to ruin Winn’s life before and after he had a chance to make one for himself, free from his father’s shadow.

We didn’t need to see Winn’s father come back and be “enlightened,” his story played out, and not every villain is going to “see the light,” nor do they need to. Both versions of the villain Toyman are insane, the end. Anyway…

If the season really only has 20 episodes, like it is assumed to, the writers need to step it up. We’ve barely seen anything from Leviathan, the season’s Big Bad, and the Lena and Lex story also feels like it’s just at the beginning. There isn’t time for filler nonsense like this.

Andrea and Leviathan

The only most interesting part of Supergirl season 5, episode 12 was everything to do with Andrea, Leviathan, and Lena. It’s clear that these two stories are converging, mixing Project Non Nocere with Leviathan’s evil plan for world domination with Obsidian North’s VR lenses, and I’m very interested to see how it all plays out.

With so few episodes left, I’m concerned about how this story is going to be written because the last thing we need is a botched, rushed ending to the season. There’s so much potential here, especially with all of the characters so involved (Andrea, Lena, Kelly, Lex, etc.)… please, don’t waste it. Give us more of this and Leviathan.

In my opinion, this story will likely give Lena a chance to redeem herself after what she did during the first half of the season, helping Supergirl to save the world from her creation and what nefarious beings plan to do with it. Perhaps this will show Lena that, despite her good intentions, she’s on the wrong path, and she’ll decide to cut Lex out of her life forever (we can only dream, right?).

Additionally, now that Lena and Andrea are working together, I’d love to see Andrea get some more time on-screen and this friendship explored further. We have no idea whether or not Andrea is evil or if she’ll try to put a stop to Leviathan with the Super Friends because she’s had like three minutes of story over the last 12 episodes. (Seeing as there’s a curse on whoever is running CatCo, like the curse on Harry Potter‘s Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrea was evil and didn’t last the season.)

The Kara and William of it all

If you read my review of the last episode, and my feature about how Supergirl has spectacularly failed Kara’s love life over the years, you already know how I feel about this story.

I’m not here for a relationship between Kara and William. This “development” came out of nowhere, in the series’ writing, despite the fans knowing it was headed this direction all season (because of the show’s history and the writers’ predictable choices).

I truly don’t understand what is so hard about writing Kara a decent, healthy love interest, where time is spent developing their feelings for one another, the person doesn’t treat Kara like garbage when they first meet, and they’re emotionally available? Standing too close together and working together once doesn’t automatically qualify you for relationship or dating status, especially when there’s been absolutely no hint of it throughout the previous nine episodes.

(And no, before y’all assume anything, I don’t ship Kara with Mon-El or Lena… I prefer Kara to be single, as it seems to be the only time the writers can write her well. If the writers ever wrote a good, healthy love story for Kara that was actually done with good writing and time devoted to it, maybe I’d change my mind. But that seems to be asking too much.)

Obviously, I’m happy that Kara decided not to move forward and go on a date with William, though it’s so clearly going to happen in the future. From the way the writers have Kara act with love interests, you’d think she had no self-respect, even though that’s clearly not the case, yet she continues to settle for men who don’t deserve her. Why?

If we can’t escape Kara and William becoming an item, at least take the time to properly develop his character (he’s British and a reporter, that’s about all we know, and his personality is being a dick half of the time and cheating at game night) and write stories that actually makes these two having feelings for one another make sense.

Or, preferably, just let Kara be single and figure out how to actually balance the many aspects of her life. She doesn’t need a love interest now or in the future, but she deserves to be happy with every aspect of her life. Let her focus on fixing her relationship with Lena this season, which has been her main concern. That’s what should be at the forefront of her mind right now, seeing as her best friend is hurting because of something she did.

‘Supergirl’ season 5, episode 12 final thoughts

All in all, I’m disappointed with Supergirl season 5, episode 12. So much more could have been done with Winn’s return from the future, and Toyman Winn was not an interesting enough villain to span two episodes. Leviathan is supposed to be the biggest threat that the Super Friends have faced, especially with their control of technology, yet we’ve seen little to nothing come from that story. This has to change.

Alex quitting the DEO (amen!) has finally arrived, and I’m excited for the Supergirl writers to actually have to explore her life outside of the organization and her relationships with everyone, and as a hero, when she doesn’t have a government entity backing her up. (I mean, assuming they put effort in, of course.)

We’ve seen so little of Kelly and Alex together this season — and Kelly and Nia in general — I’m hopeful that the writers will finally get back to focusing on what’s important and stop letting Lena’s bald brother and other men eat up over half of the episodes. This is a show about Supergirl, and for a show that prides itself on diversity and being a beacon of feminism, maybe we should, you know, actually see that?

With the 100th episode coming, this is a chance for the writers to reflect and take a look at what they’ve been doing, hopefully correcting the course for the future of the show. For now, let’s just appreciate that the next episode seems to be getting back to what the promise of the season was: A fight for Lena’s soul.

Supergirl airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW!