Supergirl S02E17 Review: Staple Gun

Supergirl, Season 2, Episode 17: Distant Sun

How much you enjoy this episode depends solely on how much you enjoy Mon-El as a character. Rather surprisingly for someone who mainly functinos a love interest, I don't really mind Mon-El, and his whole 'torn between love and duty to his asshole royal family' storyline is at least somewhat decent. It also helps that his actor has enough charisma to make his crappier lines sound likable instead of douchebaggy.

But at the same time, the storyline that he's gotten has honestly dragged on so much, and there's only so much you can do with Mon-El without adding anything new. There is a vocal minority in discussion forums or whatever who really would want nothing more than for Mon-El to just leave with his parents and be written out of the show. And the thing is, with Mon-El's parents (or one of them, at least) being really set up to be the main antagonists of the season, it's not looking very likely, so we're stuck with an episode that more or less repeats the 'do you trust me yes no?' relationship problems between Mon-El and Kara. Yes, they're in a much more healthier place than they were thanks to a musical crossover episode in Flash, but at the same time spending yet another episode focusing on their love life isn't something that's particularly engaging.

Queen Rhea basically turns from a slightly-bigoted and controlling mother-queen into a psychotic card-carrying villain, whose plan to get his son back is to send bounty hunters to murder his son's girlfriend. Which, even if it works, probably won't cause Mon-El to come running back to his parents. If they're going to use force, why not just send the Daxamite troops down to Earth to apprehend Mon-El forcibly? And Mon-El isn't stupid and calls his parents out on doing it almost immediately. And even when Mon-El has finally agreed to go along with his parents to stop Rhea from murdering Supergirl with a Kryptonite sai, Rhea just decides to lock Mon-El in a cell for four years because he's spouting all kinds of non-Daxamite views. It's kind of messy writing all around, just to shove it in our face that, yes, Rhea is evil.

The first half of the episode is a pretty humdrum episode with bounty hunters going after Supergirl, with a laser-eyed creep and this very creepy bald dude with a pulsating skull that mind-controls Mon-El for a moment (why not fucking mind-control Supergirl to choke herself to death, dumbass bald man?), but while those are somewhat cool, it's also just a bunch of action scenes that mean nothing with a bunch of throwaway villains. And while the bald mind-controlling alien was decent (Winn's staple gun moment was golden), the first laser-eyed alien had some obviously unfinished CGI that made the fight laughably bad, even by TV standards.

Also can I just say how hilarious it is for Guardian to show up, get his ass knocked out with a single punch, and then literally disappear for the entire episode? The show doesn't know what to do with Guardian at all, really, which is just fine. Turn James Olsen back into a journalist photographer.

Sure, the fight on the spaceship seems cool enough, with one of those rare outings of the Martian Manhunter beating the ever-loving crap out of the Daxamite bodyguards, but at the same time it kind of lacks depth. Swap out Mon-El's parents with the alien slavers or the Dominators, and you'll still have more or less the same plot -- the transition of Rhea from control freak helicopter parent into a generic villain is definitely not to the show's better. The climax is more or less going through the motions because the threat of Mon-El actually being taken to Daxam wasn't something I felt. At least Rhea is embracing her new role as a psychotic alien villain, though killing Lar Gand seemed pretty random and just childlishly 'mwa ha ha I'm evil'. Rhea isn't quite as annoying as Astra and Non just yet, but jeez.

Oh, and the dialogue between Mon-El, Rhea, Kara and Lar Gand are very, very clunky in this episode. The actors are charismatic enough to make the episode bearable to watch, but still, the drop in dialogue quality can definitely be felt.

And the B-plot of this episode was absolutely turd. Like, I have no qualms about Alex and Maggie being in a relationship. But having Alex and Maggie struggle with Maggie's ex returning to town is like the least interesting sub-plot ever, and it probably is less interesting than a lot of the weaker season one Cat Grant subplots. In addition to the whole subplot being unnecessary and distracting from the alien stuff (and the screentime could have been given to make Mon-El's story progress more organically, or focus more on Supergirl's moments of unable to help out) it also makes absolutely no sense. Why is Alex so randomly obsessed with forcing Maggie to get closure with her ex? Why is Alex so obsessed with confronting Maggie's ex at her hotel? It's just absolutely dumb. Give Alex and Maggie some screentime, sure, but not moronic ones like this.

Oh and there's a subplot about J'onn disobeying the president's orders and engaging the Daxamite ship, and we get a reminder that the president is a shapeshifting alien. I'm not sure if she's actually meant to be a White Martian or not, though, because the character model's slightly different, but that would definitely be a great subplot to pursue, not, y'know, freaking Maggie Sawyer's ex.


DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Some internal continuity notes. Winn mentions that he rebuilt the portal from "Supergirl Lives", and President Wonder Woman Marsdin and her secret identity as an alien was from "Welcome to Earth".
• The alien bounty hunter with a laser-shooting eyepatch is identified as an Amalak, and the telepath is from the Alcorian system. I don't think Alcoria exists in DC lore, but Amalak is the name of a space-pirate-style alien that menaced Superman and Supergirl in the comics... albeit Amalak is the name of the character instead of the race.