Supergirl S03E03 Review: To The Marsmobile!

Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 3: Far From The Tree

So I really, really loved the martian stuff on this episode. Supergirl and the Martian Manhunter ride the mars-mobile, an old-fashioned Chevy which shapeshifts (because of course it does) into a spaceship, allowing the two of them to travel to Mars and deal with the problems that the white martians are having in their rebellion. Meanwhile, on the B-plot, Alex and Maggie throw a bridal shower and have to deal with Maggie's homophobic dad.

The Maggie/Alex stuff is cool and well-acted. I don't really have much to complain about it since it's still some fun stuff, but I... also don't have anything to say about it. It doesn't grate the way that Supergirl's first season did when it tried to tell an acceptance/moral story... it's just not the type of story I'm overly invested in or am looking for when I boot up the superhero show. I do love that the show portrays Maggie's father not as a one-dimensional homophobic villain, but as a clearly conflicted one that brings up how he had to struggle with racism in his youth, and how he's trying to spare Maggie of having to deal with being discriminated against... but I honestly do think that the show's trying way too much to deal with LGBT and racism all at once which leaves the resulting storyline somewhat muddled. 

J'onn and Supergirl show up on Mars, though, and get to meet the Mars resistance... and that I can certainly get behind. Between the quick-fire introdump on Martian religion with H'ronmeer, the revelation that J'onn's father, the priest M'yrnn, is still alive and in possession of knowledge of an artifact that could be used by or against the resistance. And M'yrnn is just so tunnel-visioned in his racism towards the whites (who genocided his race) that he refuses to believe that J'onn is alive, especially since his son 'wouldn't have ran'. There is a neat bit of parallelism between J'onn and Maggie, who both are dealing with parents they haven't seen in a while, who also wouldn't accept them, which is... okay, I guess. Again, I'm not particularly big on the Alex subplot.

Oh, and M'yrnn J'onzz is played by Carl Lumbly, who voiced J'onn himself in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, which is just perfect.

So yeah. The Mars stuff is definitely my favourite parts of the episode, and is masterfully executed. Between the obvious pain in J'onn's eyes, or M'yrnn's obvious hurt and anger at the fact that the Whites would use his son's memory against him, to the dawning realization of the beautiful memory that J'onn shows M'yrnn in their old home... yeah. A lot of great material here. There is some weak justification that "martians like to take the form of our guests" to have M'gann, M'yrnn, J'onn and the other Resistance Dude (Tal'all?) be in human form for a good chunk of the episode, but shit, CGI martian makeup is expensive so I didn't particularly mind. 

I also loved how Supergirl is content to let J'onn and M'yrnn to mostly work out their differences until it's obvious that they needed her help, and her talking to M'yrnn about how she came from 'the dead world' and how he has a chance to let the white martians fix their world is well done. The conversations between J'onn and M'yrnn are definitely the highlight, though, and the revelation that M'yrnn follows J'onn and Kara to Earth is definitely a surprising but welcome one. 

Also, gotta love Kara going through the whole "I took a wrong turn at Alberqueque" deal. That was unabashedly hilarious, and the Martian-vs-Martian action scene that happened afterwards is just awesome. 

Overall, though, it's easily Supergirl at its best, juggling fun hijinks, action scenes, fantastical sci-fi set pieces with a strong emotional core. Both the J'onn and Maggie stories are certainly well-told even if both do probably need more room to breathe.

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• It's namedropped several times here, but M'yrnn makes several references to H'ronmeer, the martian collective-mind god. M'yrnn J'onzz isn't alive in the DC comics for the most part, and mostly exists in J'onn's flashback stories. 
• Till'all, in the comics, is a white martian refugee who crash-landed on Earth and thought that he was a green martian, one of a group that was taken care of by J'onn.