Alex’s joy at being suddenly able to wield superpowers, fly, and beat the crap out of bad guys is tremendously fun to watch, as is her mini-quest to bring down Hank Henshaw, complete with over the top sidekick routines from J’onn and Brainy at DEO Headquarters.
While she revels in the adulation that seems to follow Supergirl wherever she goes, it’s clear that Alex’s primary drive to be a more overtly superpowered sort of superhero is about protecting the people she cares about (she says as much to Henshaw when she believes that Kara has been taken and threatened). Which, when viewed in light of her father’s death makes a ton of sense.
Sure, she said some nasty things to Kara about the ways Jeremiah always her. She even implies that their father’s obsession with protecting Kara made Alex feel as though she mattered less in their own family. Perhaps that barb does have some truth to it on some level. After all, Alex’s behavior in the simulation indicates that she does enjoy the adulation and recognition that come with being Supergirl. But she’s also there to save people, and to protect her family (See also: Her palpable relief when VR Kara is safe). But no matter how many super suits she tries on, she can’t save Jeremiah. Not just because he’s gone, but because she can’t change the choices he made. She can’t make him – either then or now – make better decisions or prioritize the family he claimed to care about. There’s no reality in which she can force him to stick around.
Alex’s struggle to figure out how she feels about her father will be part of her life’s work, and her reaction to his sudden and unexpected death will always be a significant piece of that. Sometimes, it’s easy to hold on to our anger to people close to us – even when they deserve it – because we assume that we’ll always have time. Time for them to realize how wrong they were. An opportunity for us to get closure in some way. Time for them to apologize. Or for us to let them know all the ways that they’ve hurt us.
And yet…sometimes that assumed shot at closure never comes. And figuring out how you feel about that can often feel more daunting than anything else – what do you do with that anger, with that sorrow, when you can no longer tell the person who inspired it? When you missed your chance to tell them how you feel? To make your peace with the person you cared about, who loved you, but let you down?