On this week’s episode of Supergirl, Reality Bytes, there are two storylines dealing with contemporary issues in the world—virtual reality (VR) and violence against the transgender community. 

Alex and Virtual Reality

This episode and this storyline begin two months ago in a VR setting at the North Pole. The user is unable to end the simulation and Kelly pulls him out because the end simulation failsafe also failed. In the present, Al from the alien bar asks J’onn and Alex for help finding his brother, Trevor. Trevor checked into a hotel in virtual Las Vegas a week ago and hasn’t been seen since. 

Alex decides to check out virtual Las Vegas. While virtual Las Vegas looks and feels a lot like real Las Vegas, there is one noticeable difference—there’s a haunted house on the hill, built by one of the players. Once Alex arrives, she notices the room is like the tank where she almost drowned. Kelly says that it was designed to make the user’s worst fears a reality. The men in the tanks have been in there for days and Kelly says if they don’t get out, they will suffer brain damage. Alex uses her martian weapon tech and sets them free. They confirm that they are friends of Trevor and they followed the new guy, Richard, through the wooden door. 

When Alex goes through the door she loses contact with Kelly. She finds Trevor who keeps exploding over and over again. When Richard shows up to watch Trevor suffer, Alex blasts him out of the VR. Trevor tells Alex what hotel he checked into so J’onn can rescue him in the real world. It turns out all of this drama is because Richards’s wife had a VR affair with Trevor. Kelly and Alex decide that virtual romance is cheating and virtual torture is real attempted murder. 

Nia and the Trans Community

It’s no secret that Nia is transgender. That was made clear from one of her early appearances on the show. Up until now, it hasn’t been a problem. Nia’s roommate Yvette, who is also transgender, insists that Nia come out with her instead of sitting at home crying over that “weird little man”. Nia reluctantly agrees. At the bar, Yvette is lured outside by a text from her boyfriend Angus, who isn’t actually Angus. This guy is a jerk who attacks Yvette and has a message for Dreamer: “the world doesn’t want a trans superhero”. 

Angry and humiliated, Nia wants to put a stop to the man who her, Yvette, and their community by extension. Kara urges Nia to let the police and Supergirl stop him and bring him to justice. Nia doesn’t like that idea saying that Kara has no idea what she has gone through. She’s right. As much as Kara’s heart is in the right place, maybe this isn’t Supergirl’s fight to fight. Unable to stay out of it, Kara asks Brainy for help in identifying the attacker and William writes a news article for CatCo about Yvette’s attack. William’s article highlights some factual statistics including how often violence in the trans community is misreported because victims are often misgendered on police reports. 

When the police tell Nia they still have no leads, she takes matters into her own hands. She creates a fake UpSwipes profile to lure her attacker out into the open. But Nia doesn’t show up for the date, Dreamer does. He pulls a knife on her and says all kinds of hateful things. Nia lassos him and is ready to kill him when Supergirl shows up with a hope speech. She tells Nia that her friends will always be there to protect her and her community. Nia lets the attacker go but not before threatening him not to hurt anyone once he’s out of prison. Later, Kara finds Nia crying on the balcony at CatCo. Kara apologizes for not understanding what Nia has lived through as a trans woman for not knowing she was hurting so badly.