Kara is back from The Flash Musical Crossover portal, and sadly she has brought Mon-El back with her.
My bar for Mon-El at this point is literally on the ground, but he somehow managed to not dig his way under it this week. He still had too much screen time, and Kara’s storyline was still way too dependent on him, but Kara was starting to sound a little like her old self for the most part. Still needs work but hopefully it’s a step in the right direction.
The first somewhat redeeming thing Mon-El did in this episode was make Kara breakfast, which made her make her excited-about-food face, which is one of her best faces.
Kara can’t stick around long though, because there are aliens to fight, and she takes this one on alone because she can and she should. She even gets some of her Buffy-esque snark back, ending her take-down with a quippy, “Alien clean-up in aisle three!”
At the DEO, they find out that the alien was a bounty hunter, and there’s a price on Kara’s head.
J’onn and Alex wants Kara to hide, but Kara says she’s the Girl of Steel! She’s not going to hide. They get her to agree to lay low for 24 hours, though she is reluctant at best.
J’onn tells Mon-El to “keep an eye” on Kara to which I shouted, ET TU, SPACE DAD?!
Mon-El says he will, but first he meets up with his parents at the gaylien bar to ask them if they were the ones who put the bounty out on Kara. They say it wasn’t them, that they’re just waiting for Mon-El to come to his senses and leave Earth (which, same).
The Superfriends try to distract Kara with Game Night, but even though she has surely taken nights off before, the fact that she CAN’T go anywhere is driving her batty. Luckily she doesn’t have to sit still for long, because Mon-El comes back to the apartment and leads a bounty hunter straight to her. The bounty hunter takes over Mon-El’s loaf brain and controls his body, having him attack Kara.
WinnGuardian jumps in to help release Mon-El from the bounty hunter’s clutches, but not before Kara gets some admittedly satisfying hits in.
Back at the DEO, Alex is ready to wrench the bounty hunter to death for trying to hurt her baby sister.
But J’onn goes mind-to-mind with him instead. It doesn’t take long before the alien gives up the Daxamites as the ones who put out the hit.
Alex is ready to fly out to the spaceship herself to fight the king and queen, but J’onn tells her that President Wonder Woman specifically ordered them not to engage with the ship, lest they start a war.
Mon-El and Kara hide out in Kara’s apartment for a bit, and Mon-El suggests they run away together, like Romeo and Juliet. Kara finally says what should be said every time someone tries to romanticize that play: Romeo and Juliet die at the end. Aim higher. Also, Kara is Supergirl. And Supergirl doesn’t just run away when the going gets tough.
Instead, Kara wants to do the opposite and run TO the problem. She wants to talk to Mon-El’s mother, try to hash things out, explain why her son is better off on Earth. Mon-El says people don’t change.
*record scratch noise*
Mon-El — who has been BADGERING Kara this ENTIRE SEASON begging and pleading for her to give him a chance because she makes him better and he wants to be like her and he can be a hero too just give him a chance — has the AUDACITY to say people never change?!?!
And then Kara, who maybe has been body snatched, says that Mon-El changed because he’s not selfish anymore, even though he literally just asked her to run away with him and only him, leaving behind her sister and the rest of her family and friends who have loved her way longer than he has.
ANYWAY Kara and Sir Sourdough go see Mom-El in the Fortress of Solitude and even though she’s never anything but rude, Kara treats Mom-El with respect and kindness. Mama stands her ground and sasses Kara right up to the point where she whips out kryptonite daggers.
Mon-El watches his mother overpower Kara and steps in just in time, saying he’ll go back to his parents ship if they’ll leave Kara alone.
Kara flies back to the DEO, hurt, and even though J’onn and Alex and President Wonder Woman tell her it’s a bad idea, Kara begs them to let her save Mon-El, so they work together. Because Kara’s genuinely upset face would make even me want to save the stupid loaf.
Up on the ship, Mon-El tells his father that he wants to help rebuild Daxam to be better than it was, to impart justice and equality. And you know what? That would have been a great ending for Mon-El. It would prove he really changed, that Kara did make him a true hero, but also he’d be gone. And honestly that could still be his arc; I’d love that so very much.
But alas Mon-El’s parents don’t like his reasonable plan so they decide to put him in a cell for the four-year journey back to Daxam.
That is, until Supergirl shows up on the ship.
And with the flick of the Queen’s wrist, fighting ensues.
Supergirl fights the royal guards while Winn unlocks the bread box, but when the Queen stabs Supergirl with a kryptonite dagger she learns it’s just J’onn shaped like Supergirl.
Much to Alex’s dismay, Kara jumps through the gate and onto the ship, too, and fights the Queen herself for real, despite the kryptonite doing a number on her.
Eventually King Hercules says enough is enough and says if Mon-El wants to stay on Earth he can, and everyone goes on their merry way.
President Wonder Woman is mad, and, may IÂ remind you, an alien, so there’s definitely something shady afoot there.
Back at Kara’s apartment, Mon-El correctly calls Kara optimistic and brave, and says that even though she makes it look easy, doing the right thing isn’t always a walk in the park. He’s starting to understand what she sacrifices for other people, and he says he admires her. I still am not clear on what Kara’s getting out of this relationship, but she seems happy and he didn’t do anything TOO awful this episode so I’ll spare you all the ranting this week.
Besides, we’ve got some Sanvers stuff to dive into.
So right off the bat, the first time we see Maggie this episode, is the cutest gayest thing: Maggie dragged Alex to yoga. And Alex hated it, but loves being with Maggie, so they’re still being super cute about it. But Alex had to go and jinx it because as soon as she said that, Maggie’s ex-girlfriend Emily manifests to try to shake things up for the duo.
Things are awkward at best and Maggie and Emily say they should catch up and are ready to leave it as that non-committal promise you make to people you don’t actually ever want to see again, but Alex wants to show Maggie that she’s not a regular girlfriend, she’s a cool girlfriend, so she insists they all have dinner tonight.
But Alex and Maggie are left stranded at the restaurant, with Emily not even texting to bail. Maggie says she’s fine, but it’s clear she’s a little upset by this turn of events, and Alex feels bad for pushing the issue.
Maggie explains that they were together for five years, and when they broke up, Emily had said Maggie didn’t deserve to be happy. It hurt, and since they had dated for so long, Maggie couldn’t help but wonder if Emily, who knew her best, could be right.
And now suddenly Maggie’s speech to Alex about deserving to be happy packs a little more punch, eh?
Alex calls for the check to get her girlfriend out of there.
Later, in a move that is truly a rookie mistake, Alex shows up at Emily’s hotel and asks how she could dare leave Maggie out to dry like that, especially after saying those awful things to her. Emily stands by what she said to Maggie, which proves she’s at least part monster; I don’t care what someone did to you, you don’t tell them they don’t deserve happiness and then stand by it years later to their girlfriend’s face, it’s just bad form. I had a toxic garbage fire relationship with a girl when I was 24, and we both did things that were not great, and she said some things I’d like to think she’d take back if she could. You should at least be able to be like, “I was young and hurt.” Even if you’re not sorry.
But then Emily tells Alex that Maggie cheated on her. Running into Maggie again was too painful, throwing Alex’s empathy sensors into a tizzy.
Emily says she just wants to forget the whole thing. Alex doesn’t know what to say, so she apologizes and leaves.
And apparently I’ve become more jaded than I realized, because I thought for sure Alex was going to hold onto this information for a few tense episodes before finding some paranoid reason to accuse Maggie of. Or worse, break up with Maggie on the spot because she didn’t want to risk being cheated on.
But Alex Danvers surprised even me this night, my friends. She immediately confesses where she went to Maggie, and asks Maggie if she was ever going to tell her that she cheated on Emily. Maggie says it was a long time ago, and she already feels bad enough as it is.
Alex tells Maggie that it wasn’t the cheating that bothers her; they’ve all done dumb things. But why didn’t Maggie just tell her? Alex has been processing this like a good little lesbian and she realized something: Maggie has a pattern of keeping things to herself.
Alex says that maybe when her best friend and her parents, the people who were supposed to love her unconditionally, pushed her away when she came out, Maggie closed part of herself off and stopped trusting the people closest to her. Alex says that she’s not here to judge Maggie for things that happened in the past, she’s here to help her girlfriend heal.
Maggie is surprised Alex doesn’t think she’s a horrible person, but Alex is giving her permission to let go of this guilt she’s been holding onto for years. Because after all, if Maggie and Emily dated a few years ago for five years, and Maggie is no older than 30, they were so young when they dated. So one of them cheated, the other said awful things, but they’re both older and wiser now. It’s okay to let go.
Maggie can’t believe how lucky she is to find a girl like Alex, and Alex jokes that it’s nice to see Maggie isn’t as perfect as she seems. They hug and it’s cute and even though I still have a lingering sense of foreboding every time an episode goes by without a major issue, I feel grateful these precious girls have each other.
Later, Maggie and Emily talk it out one last time, while Alex waits nearby. It feels a little fluffy for a five-year relationship that ended in cheating and emotionally scarring words, but the past is in the past and Emily and Maggie part ways with a smile. Sometimes you just need closure.
Maggie thanks Alex for giving her said closure, and says that the last thing her and Emily talked about was how lucky Maggie was to have found Alex. And Maggie’s smile proves it.
Alex grabs Maggie by her jacket and pulls her in for a kiss, and suddenly I don’t even care if I’m being set up for heartbreak (and I really don’t think I am!), because seeing Alex Danvers just basking in unadulterated joy is truly a gift.
And just final thoughts on this, I love that we’re getting background on Maggie, and seeing inside Alex’s relationship. (Maggie likes yoga! And has a type! Alex hates yoga! And isn’t naturally jealous!) Their problems are solved quickly, but that’s what happens when you have an ensemble cast on a show with such a heavy focus on Fighting the Enemy/superheroes, etc. I was afraid this relationship would be pushed to the background, but every other week they delve a little deeper into it, and it’s being handled with such care and has so much emotional depth. And Maggie is getting more and more involved in the main plot, and I think soon we could see her even working WITH the DEO (instead of sort of in opposition to them like last week). For as terrible/confusing as the Mon-El/Kara relationship is, Maggie and Alex’s is beautiful and complex, and for that I am extremely grateful.
At the end of the episode, Queen Lois Lane decides her and her husband should split up because of artistic differences; he saw himself as alive, and she saw him dead. So she killed him. Apparently decency is an unacceptable quality in a Daxamite, so she decides she’ll continue her reign of terror on her own.
Unfortunately Supergirl is going on hiatus for a few weeks, but Lena Luthor will FINALLY be back when it returns.
