Milly Alcock’s Supergirl has now soared into theaters, but what exactly happens in the second film of the DCU? Kara Zor-El is trying to enjoy a solitary pub crawl with Krypto to mark her birthday when she is recruited by a young Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), who is seeking revenge for her parents’ deaths. The culprit is Brigand leader Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), and to raise the stakes even higher, he shoots Krypto with a poisoned dart, leaving Kara just a few days to secure the antidote. A task no match for Supergirl, but she’s on a red planet with no powers, drunk and without her RV-style ship, which has been hijacked by Krem. The two young women are forced to travel across a series of bleak planets to find Krypto’s cure and seek revenge.
Do Ruthye and Kara catch up with Krem? Should you leave some popcorn for a post-credits scene? And most importantly, does Krypto the Superdog die? Director Craig Gillespie would not hear the end of it if he did!
‘Supergirl’ Finally Catches Up With Krem of the Yellow Hills for an Epic Showdown
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
On the final leg of the journey to reach Krem, Kara lands on a planet orbiting two suns—one yellow, one green. While the yellow sun invigorates and boosts her powers, the kryptonite-esque green sun kills her slowly. Ruthye, who has secretly stowed away in a ship’s hold, manages to drag Kara out of the direct light and into a cave, though it doesn’t help. She has even brought Kara’s super suit in a backpack, hoping it might have some special effect—only to learn, according to Superman (David Corenswet) himself, that it’s just bright, so people know they are good.
When Ruthye heads to get some water from a nearby lake, she is captured by Brigands, taken back to their ship, and put in jail, but she isn’t the only one. Jason Momoa’s Lobo is also imprisoned and, despite his stature, is unable to escape due to the spiked cell bars being coated in the poison still coursing through Krypto’s veins. Krem tries to get Ruthye to give up Kara’s whereabouts, but she bravely refuses. It briefly appears that Ruthye has had a change of heart as she screams for a guard to release her, only to strangle him the moment he gets close, much to Lobo’s delight. Ruthye and Lobo are surprisingly more similar than their contrasting heights suggest. They both have a strong moral code, and when they set their minds to something, they see it through to the end. She then frees the bounty hunter and escapes through an air vent to retrieve her sword. In the same area as the ship’s armory is a cage filled with other scared young girls dressed in ragged white dresses, being held against their will and threatened with being the “brides” of the Brigands.
Meanwhile, the green sun begins to set, and the yellow one rises, bringing an end to Kara’s pain just in time. Simultaneously, Ruthye reaches the top of the ship and is confronted by Krem, who claims he heard her calling for him from the brig. He believes she is already his for the taking, but behind him, a colorful figure bursts into the sky, back-lit by yellow sunlight—Supergirl has returned to the fight, finally donning her iconic look. What ensues is one of Supergirl’s main successes — a truly explosive action sequence so full of carnage that your eyes dart around the screen trying not to miss any of the action. Krem and his Brigands must be engineering and chemistry geniuses as Kara is incapacitated again by yet another poison — this time darts infused with Kryptonite crystals. We see her blood vessels enveloped in the green toxin as she falls to her knees.
Thankfully, a certain bounty hunter with his own agenda arrives. Lobo slams Krem aside long enough for Kara to pull the poisoned arrows free. He retrieves his chained-up space-hog, takes the head off the brigand he was looking for, and unleashes enough grenades to set the entire ship alight. Ruthye has slid off the side of the ship, holding onto a chain securing a tank, and Krem is knocked onto the same chain before they fall off onto the black Icelandic sand beneath.
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The second half of the battle sees Kara whirl around at speed, taking out each Brigand and protecting Ruthye in the process. Krem is knocked away from the main action but remains alive, and Ruthye seizes the opportunity to walk over to him with her father’s sword, intent on finishing her mission, but she is stopped just in time. Kara gives her a final speech about revenge, explaining that killing Krem will not take the pain away. Instead, it will only leave her carrying the weight of her actions—and the lasting memory of Krem himself—forever, making it harder to move past the trauma she has endured. There’s nothing Kara knows better than the effects of trauma. She urges Ruthye to walk away before she makes a decision she cannot undo, drawing on her own experience of losing her parents and Krypton. As Ruthye hesitates, we understand that Kara is already speaking from the place she warns of. She didn’t have the option to walk away from her traumatic experience, so what’s just one more body on the list? She stabs Krem in the stomach, saying it is for what he did to her dog, then slits his throat, adding that it is for “what [he] did to that little girl.” Sadly, due to the movie’s PG-13 rating, there isn’t any satisfying blood!
After Krem’s death, we return to Ruthye’s planet, Holzherr, where Krypto is being monitored. Once the antidote is administered, he snaps back into life and immediately jumps up at Kara, licking her incessantly. Kara and Ruthye then return to her home, and the two—who only a few days before were strangers thrown together—now look sad to part. Kara, already anticipating regret, decides to invite Ruthye to continue the interrupted pub crawl and celebrate her birthday together. It is also revealed that Ruthye will be living with her aunt and hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps by learning the trade of weapon-forging.
Supergirl does not feature a traditional post-credits scene, but it does include a brief epilogue. Kara returns to Clark Kent’s apartment in Metropolis, where he arrives at the same time, walking in through the window as she enters through the door. He jokes that she could have helped him deal with “the last guy,” presumably Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), following the events of the DCU’s first film, Superman, released a year prior. As Krypto happily tears through a trash can, Clark asks what her next plans are and, to his surprise, she says she will be sticking around for a while—at home. A line that solidifies her growth.
For Kara, Krypto has been home. They meet at her mother’s (Emily Beecham) funeral in Argo when the city is being micro-dosed with kryptonite, and he bounds up to her as a positive distraction. Her father (David Krumholtz) then packs the pair off in a pod to Earth in pursuit of her cousin Kal-El as the city finally falls, and they have been through everything together since. Kara is not ready to let go of Krypto, lose another family member, or be truly alone in Supergirl— he’s the reason she has made it this far. After recovering from the kryptonite-like rays of the green sun, Kara finally realizes what Clark has been optimistically telling her all along: the importance of finding her people, herself, and truly connecting with a mission of her own, something inspired by Ruthye’s determination. Her father told her to use her powers to help those who cannot help themselves, and that is what she chooses to work on with Clark going forward. So if Supergirl directly follows Superman, does this mean the pair will be fighting side-by-side in DC’s Man of Tomorrow, releasing in July 2027?
Supergirl is now playing in theaters worldwide.