Last week, I asked for more Queen Rhea and King Lar Gand. This week, we got that, but it was definitely a case of “Be careful what you wish for.” On the bright side, Kara and Mon El are back to being a sweet, flirty couple, after their musical trip to The Flash. It’s Maggie and Alex’s turn to bring the angst. And we’re apparently going to pick up a dropped thread from the beginning of the season, since Secret Alien US President Lynda Carter is back to reveal her plans.
Kara wakes up to find Mon El making her breakfast in bed. He’s discovered cookbooks, and is applying them to his quest to romance her. His parents remain in orbit around Earth. In other words, they’re helicopter parents, TM Mon El.
The news reports show an attack in progress in National City. Kara makes a quick change and is off to the fight. Mon El will be a super partner and do laundry while she’s gone. Homemakers do important work too, okay? Kara easily beats the alien.
President Marsdin calls J’onn to tell him not to engage the Daxamite ship any further. Her office is gathering intel, and he’s not to engage, even in the face of a direct threat.
Maggie and Alex have been to a yoga class, and are enjoying flirty banter when they run into one of Maggie’s ex-girlfriends. It’s awkward for everyone. Alex thinks it’s because of her, so she encourages Maggie to set up a dinner date for the three of them that evening.
The alien who attacked National City this morning was looking for Kara. Someone has put a bounty out on her head. There’s a little Princess Leia hologram of Kara that plays the bounty message. The bounty is huge. Everyone argues over whether Kara has to go into hiding or keep fighting. Mon El wants her to play it safe.
Mon El: “Since you asked, I too think that you should hide, because I just lost you. I don’t feel like losing you again. Because that would not be Palatable.”
Winn: “Hey, that’s a very culinary way to put it.”
Mon El: “I cook now!”
Mon El is embracing being the homemaker in the family. He thought he was going to rule a planet, but he’s not, and he’s okay with that. Even so, he’s going to be the best d*mn homemaker in the entire country.
Kara is the Girl of Steel and nothing and no one stops her. SHE STANDS DOWN FOR NO ONE. Still on the power trip. She still has weaknesses. Not a good idea to forget that when people are trying to capture you. Several sets of big brown puppy dog eyes stare her down. She agrees to lay low for a while. That’s character development.
Mon El meets with his parents at the alien dive bar before taking up his Kara-sitting duties. They aren’t impressed with Earth’s ambience, but I’m thinking Daxam must have had a bit of a smelly, sticky, morning after feel to it, if all of the rumors are true. Someone tries to order a drink from Mon El, and he sends them to the bar. The following conversation is too good not to quote:
Lar Gand: You work here. As a servant.
Mon El: I’m a Mixologist. It is an artistic profession in the medium of preparing alcoholic beverages, and it is very honorable.
Rhea: I don’t believe anyone here does anything important.
Moving on, Mon El tells his parents that he knows they had to be the ones who put the bounty on Kara, based on the size of the reward alone. They both deny it, then Rhea goes into a story about how precious he’s always been to her. They continue to milk the connection, telling him how much they’re willing to go through for him, like searching the galaxy for years and then waiting for him to come to his senses and get over a girl who’s not worthy of him, while they orbit a God-forsaken planet.
No Mon El, they’re speaking hypothetically. Stop taking things so personally. You’re so paranoid.
They make their grand exit and go back to their ship, where they’ll wait forever if they have to. Because they selflessly love him that much. I totally believe them. Don’t you?
Maggie and Alex wait what feels like forever for Maggie’s ex to show up at the restaurant for dinner, but she’s a no-show. Maggie finally admits that she’s not surprised, because their breakup was terrible, and Emily said some terrible things to her at the time.
Mon El arrives at Kara’s to find James and Winn trying to keep her busy with board games. She has the news on and keeps trying to jump out of the window to go fight the crimes on her TV screen, which is hilarious and smacks of OCD, or hyperactivity, or being a toddler who needs a nap, or something. Winn and James are exhausted, and thrilled to hand her over to Mon El. He has super strength and is better equipped to keep her away from the window. Except, sh*t, there’s an evil telepathic bounty hunter with light up eyes outside who makes Mon El grab Kara and bust through the window with her! Even when Mon El tries to be good, he’s forced to be bad!
They fly to a neighboring rooftop and have a fist fight while trying to figure out what’s going on, and apologizing to each other over and over. It’s their best fight ever. Guardian intervenes to help out Kara, while Winn sneaks up behind the telepath and holds a stapler to his back like a gun. The telepath falls for it. If we learn anything in this episode, it’s don’t overestimate the loyalty of others, your own abilities, or your influence.
The telepath refuses to speak once he’s in his cell. J’onn lets his own telepathic Red Eyes of Doom loose, and the bounty hunter cracks. Queen Rhea put the bounty on Kara’s head, just like Mon El thought.
The team discusses the best way to approach the Daxamites and force them to remove the bounty. J’onn interrupts to remind them that the president has ordered them to stand down until further notice. Attacking the Daxamite royals could spark intergalactic war. J’onn needs to brief the president and find out what her orders are.
Later that night, Kara and Mon El talk at home. He’s reading Romeo and Juliet, and wants to run away together. When he was a kid, a Durlan emissary told him about a super secret, super safe planet with a yellow sun they could hide out on. Kara tells him he needs to finish the play.
Kara decides that she knows Mon El’s parents better than he does. She convinces him that they should try talking to his mother and explaining that he wants to stay on Earth because he’s happy here. Then Rhea will change her mind and everything will be fine and we’ll all live happily ever after. Right. He’s very skeptical of the plan, but agrees to try it.
That’s exactly how it goes. It’s a disaster. They meet in the Fortress of Solitude, or Krypton on Earth, as Rhea dubs it, which she immediately deems an insult. Can’t really blame her. Kara’s tone-deaf on the Daxam/Krypton issue. Mon El interrupts his girlfriend and mother bonding through racist insults in order to explain that they know that Rhea set the bounty, Kara makes him happy, and he intends to stay. Kara and Mon El continue to reiterate arguments that they’ve already made until Rhea pulls out a trident made of Kryptonite.
Kara can’t imagine where Rhea got it from. Rhea informs her of the obvious: Pieces of Krypton are all over Daxam. Rhea tries to kill Kara with the Kryptonite, and is winning, until Mon El intervenes and promises to go with his mother if she’ll stop and call off the bounty hunters. Back on the ship, Lar Gand is happy to see Mon El. It’s clear that he had no idea that Rhea placed a bounty on Kara.
Alex goes to talk to Maggie’s ex, Emily, to find out why she skipped out on dinner. Emily says that Maggie cheated on her. Alex is taken aback. Later she talks to Maggie, accusing her of being emotionally closed. Maggie hardly ever shares anything truly personal with Alex. Alex thinks that Maggie doesn’t trust anyone because her parents rejected her when she came out. But Alex won’t judge her. Actually, Alex always thought Maggie was perfect, so it’s a relief to find out that she has problems, too. Maggie is relieved to realize that she can trust Alex.
(Later, Maggie works things out with Emily.)
Alex has to rush to the DEO because Kara is returning from fighting Rhea. The make up department has done an excellent job making Melissa Benoist/Kara look gray and clammy. She’s weak, but insisting they have to rush to save Mon El right now. J’onn and Alex insist they have to follow military protocol. Kara says this is her boyfriend, not a government operation, and she’s the one who convinced him to talk to his mother. Holy sh*t, she admitted she made a mistake with Mon El. I’m so proud. She begs J’onn to help before the ship leaves and they can’t catch up to it.
Lar Gand tries to comfort Mon El. Mon El takes the opportunity to present his ideas for a new Daxam, where everyone is free and equal. His father laughs in his face. His mother walks into the room, slaps him, then has him thrown into a cell for the four year journey to Daxam.
Winn has fixed the Stargate portal from the Slavers Moon episode, which will allow them to open up their intergalactic travel opportunities immensely. For now, it enables them to jump to Rhea and Lar Gand’s ship. Supergirl goes first, hopping onto the bridge to fight with the queen and her retainers. She’s acting as a distraction while Winn jumps into the room where Mon El’s being held.
Winn: “I’m here to rescue you.”
Mon El: “Aren’t you a little short for a storm trouper?”
Winn: “You finally saw Star Wars.” [Said with an adoring but fanatical gleam in his eye.]
Mon El makes a great Princess Leia. Moment of silence for the loss of the real Princess Leia.
Rhea pulls out the kryptonite again, but it turns out that Supergirl is really J’onn. The real Supergirl jumps through the portal this time and joins the fight. So does Lar Gand. Winn gets Mon El out of the cell, and they watch on Winn’s pad as everyone Mon El’s ever loved tries to kill each other.
Winn and Mon El run to the bridge. Rhea and Kara are locked in a death grip. It’s an impossible choice for Mon El. Instead of intervening, he shoots a hole in the cabin window to depressurize the cabin, and knock everyone out of their fights. He’s not a bad strategist, when given a chance.
Lar Gand closes the metal shutters. Rhea tries to continue the fight, but Lar Gand stops it. He tells Mon El the he accepts Mon El’s choice.
Rhea: “Krypton has taken everything from me, and now you take my son.” [To Kara]
Mon El is moved that Kara came after him. He tells his parents that they won’t see each other again. (Again.)
Secret Alien President Marsdin contacts J’onn to reprimand him for rescuing Mon El. She’ll let him know what the consequences will be after she’s had time to consider them. After they hang up she reverts to her alien form. She could be a White Martian, but she doesn’t look quite like that to me. This article’s guess that she’s Durlan makes the most sense to me. Mon El named checked it tonight, and in the comic books Mon El is friends with Chameleon Boy, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes who is Durlan.
Kara and Mon El end the evening on the couch, under their favorite blanket. Kara apologizes for pushing Mon El to talk to his mother. He tells her that she was right, people can change. His father did change, a little. He tells her how amazing she is some more. I think she might say some nice things about him. They agree that they saved each other today. Kisses!
Rhea is mourning the loss of her son in her own special way. She remembers when she and her husband were always on the same page. He says that on Daxam they value happiness. He chose to allow Mon El to be happy. Rhea thinks family should always come first, but Lar Gand is no longer going to be part of her family after this betrayal. She stabs him in the chest and, as he lies on the floor dying, says she’s not done with Earth yet.
This is the Berlantiverse, so Rhea couldn’t stay a morally ambiguous woman who desperately wanted her son back. That would be too interesting and complex. She had to become straight up evil and try to kill everyone who gets in her way, including one of the people she loves most in the world. Does this make sense for the character’s stated motivations? No. Why would the writers care about that? She’s just another overemotional, out of control, powerful woman. Can’t give the girls too much power. It makes them crazy without a strong man to control them, don’t you know. Hercules has gotten old and can’t cut it any more.
Kara uses Mon El as an example of someone who’s changed, over and over in her arguments, but he hasn’t really changed. He’s just become more able to show his true self, which was there all along. Just because he wasn’t living it on the surface doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, just like she wasn’t always Supergirl, but the potential was always inside of her. Even his father was shown to be more understanding than his mother from the beginning. I don’t believe people change. Instead they just reveal different aspects of themselves.
The writers dig Maggie and Alex even further into their heteronormative gender stereotypes. Maggie is the “man” who’s out of touch with her emotions, while Alex continues to be the “girl” who will save Maggie from being closed off by loving her really hard.
Mon El continues to be the person he’s always been, but Kara is more open to allowing him to take care of her now, so in her mind he’s changed. It’s no coincidence that he described himself as a palace guard when he came to Earth. He is a caretaker and protector at heart, but there was no room to express that in his former life. His true nature has been so beaten down by his upbringing that he’s learned to give up rather than fight. Kara’s first reaction is always to impulsively jump into the fray, whereas he’s more measured. They could be a good team, and be good influences on each other, given the chance. Meaning, if Kara would respect him and his position enough to compromise sometimes. It’s easy to see how she could continue to become more certain that her way is always the right way, and he could keep giving in to keep her happy. Before you know it, they are another version of Rhea and Lar Gand. They wouldn’t be persecuting the same people as the Daxamites were, but there would be persecutions. Tonight’s episode showed them moving toward a more equal relationship, finally, with Kara learning to to listen to and respect Mon El.
The comparisons to Romeo and Juliet, and Kara telling Mon El multiple times to finish the play, are scary. We already have a death on his side, just like in the play. Who will die on her side? We’ve seen that he’s willing to sacrifice himself for her. Does Mon El finishing the play equate to Mon El dying?
What seems more likely is that he will end up returning to Daxam as King and reformer. Now that his father is dead (assuming he dies), and his mother has sworn revenge on Kara, it will come down to a fight to the death between Kara and Rhea. Kara won’t kill Rhea, but Rhea will make a mistake that leads to her own death. That will leave Daxam leaderless, and Mon El wouldn’t be the honorable man Kara has taught him to be if he didn’t go take care of his people. He’s already laid out his ideas for reform to his father, showing that he’s been thinking about it. Now that the portal is fixed, it won’t mean goodbye forever, just a long distance relationship or going back to being friends.
Alternatively, members of the ship’s crew who are loyal to the King could secretly save his life and help him overthrow Rhea, or help him get down to Earth to warn Mon El and Kara of Rhea’s plans. Then Lar Gand could stay king for the moment, having realized that Mon El was right about building a new, free Daxam. Mon El could promise to take the throne when his time comes, in exchange for staying on Earth right now. The series can end with Kara having trained her hero replacements on Earth, so that she and Mon El can go and rule Daxam.
Metawitches 
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