'Supergirl' Season 5 finale canceled by coronavirus? Series star says it's "stressful"

Supergirl can run faster than a speeding bullet and punch harder than a locomotive, but even she is not immune to the novel coronavirus. As the COVID-19 pandemic forces movie and TV productions to shut down to prevent further spread of the virus, Inverse caught up with one television star, Supergirl's Nicole Maines, who reveals just how far the show got into making its Season 5 finale before the situation went haywire.

Long story short? It's not looking good.

"We started on the season finale and we had a couple more scenes to do," Maines tells Inverse. "We have a couple scenes that are stragglers, so it’s waiting for production to pick back up and what Warner is going to say. Because, as of now, all the shows up here have halted production."

A number of major TV shows, including all the DC superhero shows on The CW, have paused shooting due to the pandemic.

"It's stressful," Maines says of the current crisis. "We don't know when we're gonna be back, we don't know what we're gonna do. We've had people in the crew who've had to move on."

“We've had people in the crew who've had to move on.”

In Supergirl, Maines stars as CatCo reporter Nia Nall who fights crime as the psychic costumed vigilante, Dreamer. While one of Dreamer's powers is the ability to predict events, a superpower that would be extremely useful for the cast and crew of the series right now.

"It's the not knowing what's going to happen," she says. So for now, the Supergirl crew is remotely "checking in on each other, that we're all okay."

Within the past week, The CW announced a shut down of all its ongoing TV shows, including The Flash, Batwoman, and the long-running fantasy series Supernatural, which is slated to end this season and may not get a series finale. The coronavirus pandemic has been an unexpected and significant disturbance in Hollywood, compelling even the biggest movies to delay their global theatrical releases. Disney indefinitely postponed the release of Mulan and Black Widow, two major marquee movies that had practically claimed the spring box office already.

For now, the cast and crew of shows like Supergirl are keeping to themselves, literally, as self-quarantine has been a primary method of fighting the pandemic. But Maines says the Supergirl team is looking out for one another, as heroes do.

"Keeping track where everyone is. Some people are here," she says, referring to Vancouver where The CW shows are produced, "some are in Los Angeles. It's just checking in because no one knows what's going to happen."

At least for fans of Supergirl, Maines did offer insight into Nia's story towards the end of Season 5 and the emotional fallout of the most recent episode, "Reality Bytes," a Dreamer-focused episode involving a criminal's serial assault against the transgender community.

"Now that she’s had her break down in front of Kara, she’s not bottling it up anymore," Maines says. "Now we’re starting to see a little more confidence in her. Especially in her future interactions with Brainiac, she’s not as nervous. She’s starting to heal, which is a good thing for her, but it’s really bad for her relationship with Brainiac. It’s really a question going into the end of the season."

Adds Maines about Nia's split with Brainiac, "She's beginning to move on."

It remains to be seen if Supergirl fans can ever see Nia's big changes in the season finale.

Supergirl airs Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern on The CW.