Fans of Supergirl's Danvers sisters are resting easier after learning that the recent retcon of Kara and Alex's story hasn't eliminated important parts of their history. Their concern began when the show announced the resurrection of Kenny Li in a two-part time-travel trip back to Midvale. Since Kenny’s death was a pivotal moment for Alex and Kara’s relationship, fans worried the retcon would invalidate that earlier arc for the characters. Thankfully, “Prom, Again!” clearly illustrated that if anything the Danvers Sisters' bond was stronger than ever with the timeline changes.
Season 3’s "Midvale" shows the birth of the fierce Danvers sisters bond while investigating Kenny’s murder, which is considered iconic by fans. Since then, that bond has been buffeted and bruised, even going through a reset with season 4's excellent mind-wipe storyline that showed Kara and Alex were capable of leading separate lives but are stronger when they work together. In a welcome turn of events, the time travel episode “Prom Again!” serves as a love letter to the Danvers Sisters, celebrating their place as the heart, and soul of the show.
With Kara trapped in the Phantom Zone, Supergirl takes a detour back in time to a previously unvisited chapter in young Alex and Kara’s lives. Instead of using Crisis on Infinite Earths as an excuse to insert assorted twists to alter Supergirl’s backstory, “Prom Again!” director and Supergirl co-lead Chyler Leigh made some subtle but significant choices in her work with visual callbacks to season 3's "Reign" and season 1's "For the Girl Who Has Everything." Viewers are taken back to unforgettable Danvers sisters' moments by showing how similar experiences early in Kara and Alex’s relationship instilled their dedication to each other. “Prom Again!” delves more deeply into how the sisters’ bond developed and how young Alex shouldered the enormous weight and responsibility of being her superpowered sibling’s protector.
One particularly noteworthy scene is young Alex racing across the gym and falling to her knees beside her wounded sister. Present-day Alex had previously told Brainy that that was the first time she'd seen Kara bleed or even realized that was possible. The scene recreates images from Supergirl's earlier "Reign" episode when adult Alex rushed to an unconscious Kara’s side, after witnessing her younger sister fall from the sky after a brutal battle with Reign. Replicating this agonizing moment in Alex and Kara’s youth retroactively strengthens the experience of watching prior episodes where the adult sisters found themselves in similar situations. The “Prom Again!” scene, exquisitely framed and lighted, featured another emotional callback with Olivia Nikkanen’s facial reactions being a near-identical echo of Chyler Leigh’s in the"Reign" sequence.
In "Prom Night," Kara shared with "Brenda" (Nia Nal undercover) that she didn't feel truly at home with her Earth family. The moment in “Prom Again!” that changes that feeling for young Kara recreates another iconic scene from Supergirl's past. When young Kara is being handcuffed outside the alien spaceship, Alex comes charging forward yelling at them, "don't touch my sister." As Kara witnesses Alex’s ferocious struggle to break free from the deputies restraining her, it’s clear that the two sisters share a deeper love than they have admitted out loud. This dramatic, satisfying moment between the sisters recreates the scene from Supergirl’s first season, in “For the Girl Who Had Everything,” where Alex fought the Kryptonian guards holding her back from reaching Kara. With these replications of iconic Danvers Sisters scenes, Leigh and Supergirl reassure fans that these beloved moments are still important parts of Supergirl’s history.
Under the superb direction of Chyler Leigh, “Prom Again!” affirms that Crisis didn’t rewrite the most important parts of the best sister relationship on television. As Supergirl reaches its conclusion, these time travel episodes have repositioned Alex and Kara Danvers’s bond as the axis on which the final episodes will rotate. They remain, as they have always been, the show’s true heart and foundation.