Hello space cats, how ya holding up? Going back and forth between protests and extreme escapism like a really stressed out ping pong ball? No? Just me? Cool, right, anyway. We have some important emotional developments in this episode, so let’s dive right in.
We open with Kara in the gaylien bar, feelin’ weird about the last conversation she had with Mon-El, trying to explain why she doesn’t think they’re a good match. She also tries to explain that she wants to focus on her career as a reporter, which is hard enough to balance with her Supergirl life, without throwing a boyfriend on top of it. But she fumbles her words and things get extra awkward and Mon-El mopes away so she’s left being bummed. Alex pops over to ask if her sister is okay, and Kara explains.
Kara decides she’s done talking about her embarrassing moment and says she’s excited to celebrate her 13th Earth Birthday, and starts to rattle off her plans for them to go learn how to line dance. Alex doesn’t look especially thrilled about the idea? But also she has some bad news: Maggie surprised her with some Barenaked Ladies tickets and they’re for tonight. To emphasize the point, Maggie runs over and tells Alex she just got them upgraded to VIP.
Kara’s eyes and face and entire body radiate sadness and disappointment, but her voice swears it’s fine as she sends her sister off with her girlfriend.
Outside the bar, M’gann is taking out the trash when she hears a noise. She turns to see a man and immediately confronts him; turns out it’s J’onn and he’s been trailing her in case the White Martians appear. As if on cue, one drops from the sky and attacks, but luckily Supergirl’s sadness doesn’t affect her powers and she swoops out to help them fight.
But the White Martian escapes.
Kara, J’onn and M’gann head to the DEO to try to track the White Martian and Kara sasses Winn about the Guardian stuff, saying she’s just worried about him and James. He hisses back at her, but they’re interrupted by J’onn and M’gann arguing over who should go out and fight the White Martians. Â
M’gann turns out to be correct in saying they’re after her, as is confirmed when one strolls into Dollywood looking for her; and calls her “wife.” She clearly has not missed him — and in fact seems to hate him quite a lot. He wants to bring her back but there’s no way in this hell or any other that she’ll go with him voluntarily.
Then this dude spouts some “pure race” bullshit like he’s a Death Eater or I dunno currently living in the White House. He gives her two hours to turn herself in or he’ll kill J’onn and “the Kryptonian” (which lol over my dead body) and as soon as he’s gone, M’gann is ready to run, but J’onn will have none of that. She’s on the team now, she’s not going anywhere.
At Alex’s apartment, Maggie is bouncing around all excited about the Barenaked Ladies concert…and…please tell me that choosing “Barenaked Ladies” was a joke because they’re lesbians? Like probably saying Tegan and Sara would be too underground? But Barenaked Ladies is a good pun? Because no one has unironically likes the Barenaked Ladies in like 15 years and I don’t love that the only things we know about Maggie Sawyer now are that she’s a detective, she’s a badass, she knows the way to a girl’s heart is through pizza and beer, and she likes the Barenaked Ladies, still, as an adult, with access to more music than the CDs her parents let her buy at Sam Goody. At least it’s a weird thing they have in common?
ANYWAY, Maggie’s excitement fizzles when she realizes something is bugging Alex. Alex tries to play it off, but Maggie says that she knows what Excited Alex Danvers looks like (*waggles eyebrows*) and that she can’t push down her feelings anymore.
So she sends Alex off to clear the air with her sister and will meet her at the concert venue later.
At the DEO, Alex apologizes to Kara, and Kara promises that she wants her to have fun with her girlfriend, but Alex still isn’t buying it. Before they can talk more, M’gann and J’onn walk in…and then another M’gann walks down the stairs. The White Martian is among them.
Chaos ensues and the DEO is put on lockdown, but suddenly there’s only one of each of them, so the White Martian could be anywhere, and anyone. Well, anyone left in the room, which is Kara, Alex, Winn, J’onn, M’gann, the infamous-for-some-reason Vasquez, and a man whose name according to IMDb is “Demos” but I don’t remember anyone saying that out loud so I’m going to go with Agent for now. Â
Anyway, our buddy Agent is apparently new, because he gets a little loosey goosey with his firearm until J’onn remembers a trick for revealing White Martians. And that trick is to hold your hand up to the flame.
M’gann shows them what it looks like, and for some reason they don’t seem concerned that it could still be her. And it’s not Vasquez or Agent or J’onn… but it IS Winn. Dun dun dun! He starts throwing things and being all fierce and it was pretty badass and also I was worried about Winn, proving truly he has come a long way since mid-season one when I wanted HIM to go to Mars.
Not!Winn runs around wreaking havoc, and codes the building to blow up in about fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, Supergirl can’t use her x-ray vision to help them, because kryptophobia lined the DEO walls with lead.
So instead they split up. Martians down one hallway, Danvers girls down the other. Alex does some cute tactical hand motions and Kara looks at her like she’s swatting a bee away. Alex uses this as an opening to talk about the fact that their communication has been a little bit off lately, and Kara admits that Alex bailing on her for Maggie hurt her feelings. Kara has spent the past thirteen years on Earth with Alex by her side, and she can feel that shifting, and it’s scary.
When she got into her pod that fateful day on Krypton, she didn’t know she was saying goodbye to her family, to her planet, forever. Plus, now Cat is gone, and Lena is nowhere to be found. Everyone she gets close to leaves. But Alex promises she will never abandon her little sister. Never.
In the other hallway, J’onn and M’gann bond over the fact that they were both dead-set on being alone forever until they found new family here in National City, but their heart to heart is interrupted when they find a dripping web holding Winn. But there’s another web holding another person. There are two White Martians here, and the other one has taken the form of…
ALEX
AHHH
She calls them dumb and man do I feel dumb. I got GOT! I watch a lot of TV. A lot. I usually see things coming from a mile away. I’ve known the “shocking” thing that happened on last night’s Jane the Virgin was going to happen since season one. I knew it was going to happen in that episode within the first fifteen minutes. But I guess I was distracted by Danvers Sisters’ Feelings Corner because I. got. Got.
They fight and Not!Alex is pretty bold and it’s pretty sexy; I’m not going to lie. Well, that is, until she’s extra mean to Kara, saying it was exhausting pretending to care about her feelings, and asks her if Kara is going to whine her to death.
Okay fine even that was a little sexy even though it hurt my soul at the same time. I was once in a musical and there was this one scene where a friend of mine had to scream at me, and even though I knew it wasn’t her, it still felt really rotten every time (and for her too, we’d always have to hug it out after the scene), so I can’t image having someone with your sister’s face tell you your feelings don’t matter.
Luckily Kara doesn’t have to deal with that much longer, because Not!Alex morphs into its natural White Martian shape and Kara properly kicks its ass while the real Winn stops the reactor from blowing the town to smithereens.
J’onn and M’gann team up and kill M’gann’s ex-mate, and Alex shows up in the nick of time to kill the White Martian who took her face.
The lockdown is over, everyone is safe. And Alex is late for her date.
Kara congratulates Winn on saving the day, and Winn excuses himself to go see if James needs help. Instead of scolding him this time, she just tells him to be careful, and looks sadly to the places where her best friend and her sister have disappeared; she’s all alone.
M’gann thanks J’onn for helping her defeat the White Martians, and tells him that she’s decided to go back to Mars to see if there are other White Martians like her that want to join the resistance. She wants to lead protests and rallies and teach White Martians how to call their senators. She presses her forehead against J’onn’s one last time and I reach out desperately to my TV and beg her not to go.
Across town, Kara is watching TV all alone, looking like a puppy whose owners have been gone too long, when there’s a knock on the door. And it’s Alex. With a cupcake.
She wishes her sister a Happy Earth Birthday and comes in to spend time with her. Maggie understood about the whole alien attack thing, perks of your girlfriend knowing aliens exist. And speaking of aliens, was Alex remembering correctly and did Kara have a heart to heart with the alien version of herself? Alex remembers the conversation, kind of in the same way one would remember a dream? But she remembers it nonetheless, and she reiterates the promise her doppelganger made, this time for real: She’s not going anywhere. She doesn’t have to choose between Maggie and Kara; there’s enough room in her heart for both her best girls.
Kara understands; she just wanted the day to be extra special because she was afraid she felt Alex slipping away. But not even Kara’s hurricane breath could blow Alex Danvers away from her for long.
Alex asks if maybe she was focusing so much on this Earth Birthday thing because she was trying to avoid other feelings she was having, maybe about Mon-El. Alex thinks that maybe Kara likes him more than she’s letting on, but Alex also thought she was straight until a few months ago, so maybe Alex doesn’t know what she’s talking about ALL the time.
But she took a “romantic risk” recently and she’s so deliriously happy right now, that she’s hoping maybe the same could happen for her sister.
But why? Is my question. Why can’t she just do what she said she wanted to do and focus on her career? And then in a few episodes if Mon-El is just being normal and not pining and is starting to naturally do nice things that aren’t motivated by his crush then she can fall for him on her own terms? WHY???
Anyway, to rub salt in the wound of Kara considering having this conversation with Mon-El, he comes strutting out of CatCo with that assistant from the copy room on his arm, off to a lunch date. So even the blob of mayonnaise she didn’t really want but was going to give a chance anyway is gone.
So hopefully this will lead to Kara finding her own self and choosing her own path, not because someone made puppy dog eyes at her, but because she sees their worth and sees her own worth and decides together their worth is greater. Even if it’s Mon-El, I could get over it (even though I’m still annoyed that he’s a generic white dude, he can be very funny and I’m a sucker for Amelia Bedelia stuff like “I brought stuffing”), but it has to be KARA’S choice and Kara’s choice alone.
Anyway, next week is the Valentine’s Day episode, and the name of the episode is “Luthors” and the preview was like 75% Lena, and it has been confirmed to have a Sanvers-centric storyline, so RIP all of us.
EDIT: I was going off old intel; Alex would definitely fire me from the DEO. The next episodes, “Luthors,” is on the 13th and is Lena-ful, the Valentine’s Day episode with the Sanvers storyline is the following week and is called, “Mr. & Mrs. Mxyzptlk.” Sorry! Still RIP all of us, just over a longer period of time than I thought.
