Home Featured TV Shows All TV Shows Movie Reviews Book Reviews Articles Frequently Asked Questions About Us

Supergirl: Distant Sun

"I just did what I knew you would have done. And it was terrifying."

Worst (possible future) mother-in-law ever.

Yes, there's "I'm going to make life miserable for you because I don't want you dating my son," and then there's pulling out Kryptonite blades and trying to stab you to death. Not to mention hiring alien bounty hunters, which was actually sort of fun, although what sort of evil telepath with a rolling, hairless skull could be defeated with a stapler? The best part of the bounty hunter thing was the fight between Kara and the possessed Mon-El.

I thought they'd go the more predictable route and that King Hercules would eventually put a stop to Queen Lois Lane's evil play and insist that Mon-El do what he wanted with his life, but no. The King even let the Queen put their son in a cell and sentence him to four years. With that sort of extreme, it wasn't a surprise when Rhea killed her husband in the end. That black crown thing Rhea wears makes her look like an evil queen crossed with Cruella De Vil, but are they going maybe a bit too evil? The Daxam family drama could have been a bit more subtle, maybe more personal. This is his mommy, isn't it?


From what our reviewer Sunbunny has said, I understand that much of Supergirl fandom hates Mon-El, but I'm not one of them. I thought this episode in particular was all about the traditional role-reversal that defines the Kara/Mon-El relationship. She's the superhero, she has the important world-saving job with the DEO, and he's working as a part-time bartender, doing the laundry, and making breakfast in bed for her like the best house husband ever. And then Mon-El was the damsel in distress, captured and exploited by his evil parents, and Kara had to find a way to rescue him; she even defied her boss and the president of the United States to do it.

Throughout this second season, Mon-El has looked up to Kara and admired her, and slowly changed in order to be worthy of her love. And now he has given up his parents, his planet, and essentially his entire identity as a prince of Daxam to be with her. If this were happening at the end of the season, I'd think we were on our way to happily ever after. But the reference to Romeo and Juliet (I thought it was funny that he hadn't read the end yet and she spoiled it for him) was a great big honking clue that their relationship is about to end tragically, and since the show is called Supergirl, I'm guessing that if someone dies, it'll be him.

Or would the Romeo and Juliet hint apply to another couple, instead? The romantic B plot was cute, but felt disconnected to the A plot and honestly, while I like Alex and Maggie, it did nothing for me. It was somewhat refreshing that the encounter with Emily made Alex realize that Maggie had trust issues, and that Alex didn't reject Maggie outright because she had cheated on Emily. In real life, not everyone who cheats on their previous girlfriend will cheat on their current girlfriend. But how subtle is the writing on this show? (Hint: not subtle at all.) It felt like they might be signaling an unhappy ending for Alex and Maggie too, simply because Maggie has way too much emotional baggage.

In fact, with only five more episodes this season, I'm confused about the villains, too. Are the Luthors and Cadmus the big bad? Is it Queen Rhea? We were just reminded that President Marsdin is an alien, although it made no sense for her to transform right after talking to the head of the DEO about important business; doesn't she have staff who would notice? Is she bad? What sort of alien is she? Honestly, I don't remember all the aliens we've seen so far, but she looked like a White Martian. Anyone?

Since I'm talking about things that possibly aren't working for me, I should mention that it's been awhile since Kara has lost her job, and I haven't missed CatCo a bit. Couldn't she just work at the DEO? And sadly, every time James or his superhero alter ego shows up, he feels out of place, as if the writers remembered at the last minute that they had to put them in there somehow. Isn't it time to write James out, too?

Bits:

-- If you watch Supergirl but not The Flash, you might be wondering how Kara and Mon-El could have broken up in "Star-Crossed" (episode 16) but are back together here in "Distant Sun" (episode 17). They reconciled in The Flash crossover "Duet."

-- Winn and J'onn went to the Mother Ship (pun intended) through the transporter/portal thingy, but apparently, that was really dangerous. It felt wrong somehow for them to risk their lives that way.

-- Honestly, if Mon-El could have made his parents change Daxam into a democracy, his sacrifice would have been worth it. Maybe he isn't going to die at the end of the season. Maybe his mother will, and he'll go back and free his people?

-- I loved that little Princess Leia hologram moment when Kara went, "Hey, that's me!" Kevin Smith directed this episode, and I hear he loves Star Wars references.

-- This episode featured the original TV Hercules, the original TV Wonder Woman, and one of the original TV Lois Lanes. I know it's corny, but I love stuff like this. It was one of the things I loved about Smallville.

-- I'm always the last to know these things, but Melissa Benoist is divorcing, and she and Chris Wood are a real life couple. This feels a little like Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev on The Vampire Diaries to me, and that didn't turn out well.

-- Supergirl returns Monday, April 24. Month-long hiatus.

Quotes:

Kara: "When did you learn how to poach?"
Mon-El: (picks up The Joy of Cooking)"I found the instructions. Turns out books have a lot more useful information than Youtube. Who knew?"

Kara: "Any word from your parents?"
Mon-El: "No, they're just up there hovering around in orbit. (pause) Is that what they mean by helicopter parenting?"

Alex: "How much is three hundred quartz crowns?"
Mon-El: "It's a lot. Like, enough to buy a planet."
Winn: "Whoah. Like, we're talking, like, a planet in a good neighborhood, or like a hipster, up and coming kinda vibe?"

Bounty hunter telepath: "You humans are too moral to do what's necessary to penetrate my mind."
Alex: "Winn, get me a wrench."

Winn: "I'm here to rescue you."
Mon-El: "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?"
Winn: (delighted) "You finally saw Star Wars!"

Three out of four possible female supervillains,

Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

6 comments:

  1. The President is a reptillian-like alien to poke fun at all the IRL conspiracy theories about the world leaders. :) Just like the guy on Supernatural who insisted to Castiel that the angels cought on surveillance tape were reptillians in disguise.

    I don;t know who's going to be written off the show, but I'm betting on James and CatCo dissapearing completely. I even expected the opening narration to change to "I used to be a reporter in CatCo", but they didn't go there yet.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James is being written out soon I think. I don't see him sticking around for five minute bits when the writers rememember him. Kara has clearly outgrown CatCo. Mon was sweet here, and oh Lois you killed Hecules..man that was rough.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The fact that Mon-El is a pretty good house husband isn't why the fandom hates him. It's the fact that he's been a ridiculously controlling individual over Kara. Kara dismisses it out of hand, probably as a sign of her independent nature, but it's hard not to notice that Mon-El has a tendency to hold Kara back or scold her whenever she goes out into National City to save someone as Supergirl.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I honestly still can't believe that the writers of this show thought it would be a great idea to have Kara dump her black boyfriend so she could date a white guy who owned slaves. You'd have to go to the Pepsi marketing department to find stupider decision making.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love that the gang was playing Settlers Of Catan at Kara's place instead of a board game from the 80's. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Teri Hatcher has sure aged well in comparison to Dean Cain. That's why they could make her a pampered monarch while Cain was a prisoner for a decade with Cadmus.

    ReplyDelete

We love comments! We moderate because of spam and trolls, but don't let that stop you! It’s never too late to comment on an old show, but please don’t spoil future episodes for newbies.