Supergirl, Season 2, Episode 16: Star-crossed
Different corner of the DC media-multiverse, I know, but Justice League trailer woop!
So, anyway. It's a very romance-centric storyline that plays up the campier feel of Supergirl up for what it's worth. The series as a whole didn't really have the best track record at delivering engaging romances, and that could simply be a problem with CW as a whole, but Supergirl and Mon-El's bonding was handled far more organically than Jimmy/Kara or Kara/Winn ever was. Still, the big revelation about Mon-El's true identity -- if you haven't figured out that he lied during his introduction and he's actually the prince and not the soldier -- is a shoe that's been waiting to drop. That honestly is the only real reason that so many people would respect and hunt down Mon-El.
So the Daxamite royalty, King Lar Gand (hee hee) and Queen Rhea show up in a huge-ass spaceship to retrieve their son. However, their quest is quickly cut short as Mon-El surrenders himself to them, and Kara finds out that, hey, Mon-El is actually the Prince of Daxam. What follows is a bit bizarre and unexpected, because instead of vilifying the Daxamite or focusing on their cultural dissonance, Mon-El's parents really didn't get to do much, if anything at all, in this episode. Sure, we get the brief scene with Queen Rhea trying to sweet-talk Kara into doing what's best for Mon-El, but that really didn't amount to much. It's refreshing in some way that we have some antagonists who are just basically racist but well-meaning parents instead of "you disobeyed us, now your adopted world will DIE!" That said, though, we didn't quite see enough of Lar Gand or Rhea to really know if they're actually just supporting Mon-El in spite of their blatant racism against Kryptonians, or if they're just buggering off to return with an army or something.
No, instead the episode focuses more on the betrayal that Mon-El caused to Kara, and it does lead to some pretty nice drama. How well the show handled it varies depending on the viewer, I think. I have a more neutral stance in all this, in that while the conflict felt a bit shoehorned and exaggerated, it was totally in Kara's personality to explode over something like that. Of course, the true story of how Mon-El escaped from Daxam is the reverse of what he told us before. Instead of being a mere royal guard being saved by a selfless, noble prince, he is that prince, who in his last moments in Daxam was fucking with some random woman he left behind, and the soldier had to shoot a Kryptonian dignitary in the head for Mon-El to steal the ship.
No, it doesn't undo Mon-El's character growth and how much he has adored and respected Kara's worldviews since the beginning of this season, but it is a betrayal to Kara in a very personal sense. Kara does have a point that being part of the culture and being part of the royal family that promoted and encouraged that culture are two very different things. And, yes, Mon-El has changed enough to pick his new adopted home instead of rebuilding Daxam. Yes, the speech between the two of them are corny as all hell. It did work in the context of the show, it just wasn't as entertaining as it could've been.
The B-plot was one that I didn't care that much when I watched it, but one I found that I really, really liked when I wrote this review. Winn is a very underused character in Supergirl despite casting a clearly talented actor in the role. The first season relegated him to being Mister Friendzone, and the second season made him a poor man's Felicity Smoak. Times like this where Winn is actually allowed to stretch his acting chops is actually pretty amazing. He's been dating and museum-fucking the Valerian, Lyra, for a couple of episodes now, and here the shoe drops. Lyra's actually an art thief, who makes a career by seducing tech guys and have them hack into a museum's security systems under the goal of having exotic sex... but she's invisible to recording equipment, so only the hapless men like Winn get captured by the policemen. In an attempt to exonerate himself, Winn enlists the help of other DEO agents, find out that Lyra is doing so because she's pressured by an alien art-smuggling syndicate because her brother's being threatened.
It's such a corny, comic-book-y plotline, yet it also manages to deliver Winn's earnest love and trust for Lyra, as well as his initial hurt feelings of betrayal, very well. Lyra's a very one-note character that hasn't been anything beyond Winn's exotic booty call, and it's nice to actually develop Winn somewhat. Winn's interactions with Maggie in particular was a highlight, and his wry one-liners about how aliens appreciate Picasso is hilarious. James shows up as the Guardian a couple of times to help beat up members of the alien art smuggler ring (which are only slightly more ridiculous than Iron Fist's immortal ninja drug dealers) but the change of focus on Winn instead of James makes a world of difference. I did find it hilarious that Guardian literally gets knocked out after two hits from Mandrax, who himself didn't even feel like a threat.
There's a very stark difference between how Winn and Kara handle their respective partners' lies to them, too. Winn sees how troubled Lyra is and is willing to give Lyra a second chance. Kara rebuffs everything from Mon-El and decides to basically dump him, with the added justification that it'll do more good for the Daxamite people. Then the episode ends with the very abrupt transition to the crossover with the Flash when Music Meister -- who's apparently some kind of fifth-dimensional trickster imp like Mxyzptlk in this incarnation? -- breaks free, knocks Kara out, dimension-travels to Earth-1 and traps Kara in this world where she's told to sing on stage? I totally forgot this musical crossover is going to happen, and after all the heartbreak in the Savitar plotline on that corner of the CW-DC universe, it's definitely one that needed a little bit of levity.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Mon-El's father is called Lar Gand. In the comics, the Daxamite superhero Valor (whom this Mon-El was based upon) adopted the name Mon-El when he landed on Earth because he was amnesiac, in an attempt to copy Superman's naming scheme ('Mon' from Monday, the day he landed, and 'El' from Kal-El), while subsequent stories would establish that his real name is Lar Gand.
- Rhea is played by Teri Hatcher, the actress who played Lois Lane in Clark & Lois. There is a character in the DC comics called Rhea based on the mythological Greek Titan, but that's definitely unrelated to this show's Queen Rhea.
- Kara dubs her team the "Super Friends", which, of course, is a reference to the Superfriends show.
- In a rare case of Marvel/DC crossover Easter Egg, Winn compares Lyra's strength to She-Hulk, a Marvel superheroine.
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