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Warning: spoilers for DC Studios' Supergirl movie are ahead! 

If you're reading this, you've probably just finished watching Supergirl at the movie theatre, and I hope you enjoyed Craig Gillespie's film as much as I did! So let's unpack that shocking ending to the film, shall we? As noted above, we're obviously going to get into spoiler territory, so you've been warned. 

At the end of the climactic fight in Supergirl, Kara talks Ruthye out of killing Krem of the Yellow Hills, citing that taking his life to avenge her own family would leave too great a mark on her conscience for the rest of her (hopefully) long life. After being told this, Ruthye relents, setting down her family's sword that she would have used to kill Krem. Kara then gently tells Ruthye to walk away from him before she "changes [her] mind" about sparing his life. 

Once Ruthye is out of earshot, Kara takes Ruthye's sword and fatally stabs Krem three times - in the belly, chest, and neck, in revenge for killing Ruthye's family, poisoning her dog Krypto, and killing a family that Kara had worked to reunite previously in the film. It's a shocking moment that deviates from the original comic book series that the Supergirl film is adapting, Tom King and Bilquis Evely's Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. 

So why did Kara kill Krem? Don't members of the Super-Family adhere to a "no killing" superhero code? Well, not uniformly. Sure, Superman avoids killing as much as he can in comics, and that's certainly the case in last summer's Superman movie directed by James Gunn. In that film, Superman lamented how the Justice Gang killed an alien kaiju unleashed on Metropolis instead of finding a place for it in a "zoo" somewhere in space. 

And even though Supergirl and Superman are cousins, they're not the same person - a fact that the Supergirl film goes to great lengths to illustrate for us. Though Superman has seen real evil up close in the form of unashamed capitalist Lex Luthor in Metropolis, Kara spends the better part of her solo film hunting down horrible men who are, for all intents and purposes, trafficking young girls to be sold as "brides." A few minutes before Kara kills Krem, he nearly murders a defiant Ruthye with her family's sword. And based on his behavior in the film, he would have likely been giddy after going through with it. 

What I'm getting at here is that Supergirl is a dark film, and despite its cosmic narrative setting, it's a parable about being a young woman in a world where some men relish in instilling a sense of vulnerability and fear in you because of your gender. I don't think it's fair to hold the DCU's Supergirl to the same moral standard as its Superman. Kara doesn't move through the world the same way as Clark because she's a woman. And it's not so much that there is an intrinsic characteristic to being a woman that sets Kara up to have such a dark time, but rather that a specific cohort of men inflicts a unique form of oppression upon women and girls. To be clear, I'm not a proponent of capital punishment or anything, but I can empathize with why Kara chose to kill Krem in retribution for his crimes in the film. 

Kara chooses to live in these seedy parts of the universe because she's up for abiding by its Wild Wild West-like code of justice. There is no police force or observable justice system on any of the planets that Kara and Ruthye go to. Space pirates stop ordinary citizens on their space buses and accost them until they give up their valuables. It's clear that this part of space operates with a completely different sense of morality, given that no one in the bar that Ruthye walks into after her family is killed bats an eye when she informs them that Krem has just murdered everyone in her household. 

Superman and Supergirl gain the same powers when they are exposed to rays of a yellow sun, but they choose to use those powers in different ways. It will be interesting to see in next year's Man of Tomorrow film whether Kara will reveal to Clark that she killed Krem elsewhere in space - or if she even feels the need.

Supergirl is in theaters now. 

Whether you're looking for truth or justice ahead of DC Studios' Supergirl movie, we have everything you need to know. Here are:

• Supergirl ending explained: Who dies, what happens to Krem, and more from the comic the Milly Alcock movie is based on
• Our Supergirl movie guide
• Why DC Comics blacklisted the original Supergirl for 20 years, in comics, TV, and more
• Everything you need to know about Jason Momoa's Lobo
• How to watch all of Supergirl's movies, TV series, and cartoons