Rest easy, Nia Nal and Alex Danvers fans! Supergirl season 5, episode 15 gives these two powerful ladies the spotlight after basically an entire season that has pushed them to the sidelines. It’s about damn time, right?

Supergirl season 5, episode 15 attempts to tackle a big topic with Nia’s story: anti-trans sentiment and the realities of what the trans community faces on a daily basis. With Alex, they’re digging into the virtual reality side of things with Kelly and J’onn. Honestly, both of the stories on the episode, for one of the first times all season, are quite interesting and compelling.

We had a chance to watch Supergirl season 5, episode 15 early, and we’ve put together a few teases about what’s to come! As always, if those aren’t your thing, scroll down to read our spoiler-free review! You shouldn’t miss this one, it’s so important.

‘Supergirl’ season 5, episode 15 screener secrets

Nia’s struggle with her emotions

After her friend and roommate, Yvette, is lured into the street and attacked, Nia blames herself for what happened, and her emotions begin to get out of control. She quickly learns Yvette was attacked in order to get a message to Dreamer, which makes the entire situation even harder.

She’s angry — rightfully so — about what happened, and takes the responsibility and blame on her shoulders as Dreamer for not being able to protect her friend and her community from the transphobia that runs rampant in the world.

This leads to some tension with Kara about how to handle stopping this monster from attacking anyone else, as Nia’s ready to take matters into her own hands.

Alex’s adventures in Las Vegas

When a familiar face comes to Alex and J’onn for help finding his brother, Alex is led to the world of virtual reality on Supergirl season 5, episode 15 to discover what happened, while J’onn continues to search in the real world. Kelly’s help is invaluable to Alex, as she directs her in the virtual world from the outside, since Obsidian Platinum is something she’s worked so closely with Andrea on.

This story pushes the Leviathan story forward just slightly, but it’s very intriguing to see how it begins to set up the following episode (which is “Alex in Wonderland,” where Alex takes on her superhero identity in the virtual world).

There are a few teases of Alex’s greatest hopes, as Obsidian Platinum uses those to help you find your perfect reality… It’s really a shame we haven’t seen more of the virtual world before this because this is one of their most interesting sub-plots regarding the VR lenses.

Kara

Honestly, I’m really disappointed with what they’ve done to Kara on Supergirl season 5, episode 15, which has nothing to do with her (ever-so-brief) date with William.

She’s kind of “dumbed down” to fit a role in the episode regarding Nia’s story, which doesn’t really sit well with me because it doesn’t make sense for her character — a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist that genuinely cares about others and their stories — at all. (It’s especially bad because William is the one who informs her, which feels like it’s done solely for the sake of painting him out as the “good guy.”)

Despite this, there’s a very touching heart-to-heart (that is only dragged down a little from the above issue) between Nia and Kara that’s one of my favorites of the series.

‘Supergirl’ season 5, episode 15 spoiler-free review

As a cis man, it’s not my place to say whether Supergirl season 5, episode 15 tackled this anti-trans storyline well. That is for trans fans of the show to decide, and I’m very interested to hear all of their thoughts. Nicole Maines (Nia) did sit in on the writers’ room for at least part of this episode, helping the two writers guide the story in the right direction, which I think is very clear at times.

From an episode standpoint, this was an important story to tell. Maines gave an incredible and devastating performance while capturing Nia’s very overwhelming emotions, and Roxy Wood (Yvette) also gave a heartbreaking performance as the victim of this targeted hate crime. I do believe, if anything, Supergirl managed to get the emphasis on how important this story is to tell.

I do think this episode could have been written better, and that’s mainly about Kara’s role in the story, which felt very out-of-character as I described above. Kara, in some ways, was painted out to be the “savior” and took away what could have been Nia’s biggest moment on the show.

Alex’s story on the episode was very entertaining, and it’s nice to see some actual focus be put on Leviathan and the virtual world after the writers have been saying for so long that this was the focus on the season. Plus, it’s always nice to see Alex Danvers take charge, and freeing her from the DEO has actual given her a story about finding out who she is and what she wants to do with her life.

All in all, I’d say this was one of my top three episodes of Supergirl season 5. It was fun with Alex, heavy with Nia, and managed to balance out both (though I wonder if others will also agree that it felt like Alex’s story took up more time — even though Nia might have actually been on-screen more — so I’m not sure why it was promoted as a Nia-centric episode).

Supergirl season 5, episode 15 airs Sunday, March 15 at 9 p.m. ET! Don’t miss it!