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Welcome back to Maid of Steel! This week we are discussing the events of Supergirl Season 2 Episode 16 “Star-Crossed” which originally aired on Monday Mach 19, 2017. The reveal of Mon-El’s true identity was only slightly overshadowed by Team Supergirl’s efforts to exonerate Winn from suspicion of grant theft art. Along with the return of Lyra, we also got to meet Queen Rhea (Teri Hatcher) and King Lar Gand (Kevin Sorbo).
Dinner with Daxamites
The inevitable has finally come to pass. The truth of Mon-El’s heritage came to the forefront of this episode in one of the most uncomfortable meet-the-family dinners I’ve ever witnessed (but, come on, Meet the Parents was literally the most awkward). It wasn’t just uncomfortable to watch the not-so-subtle jabs at the differences between the cultures of Daxam and Krypton, but also to watch Kara’s self-righteous smugness cap off a feeling of “I knew this was going to happen” while Mon-El’s parents seem to reinforce every stereotype she had previously accused them of.
If you are a regular listener to the show, you’ll know that even though I’m starting to read more comics… I’m not well versed. Everything I know about Daxam comes either from Kara or from my lovely co-host (which I can regurgitate on command, but have no means of defense).
Therefore, I rely totally on this show to tell me what I need to know about Daxamites. They may very well be as bad as Kara makes them out to be, and I’m OK with that, it makes Mon-El’s change even more awesome; but this neener-neener attitude Kara has toward the whole situation makes me want to believe there is more to the story than she’s every been willing to see.
Any sympathy I have for Kara being lied to by a person she’s been pouring her time and energy into was lost with the total lack of humility in her dialogue. Thus far, her relationship with Mon-El has been all about her… So yeah, I don’t blame Mon-El at all for lying if this is how she’s going to react. She claims he never gave her the opportunity to be OK with (by telling her the truth), well, let’s recap his trajectory: 1) lands on Earth, fresh with Princely idealisms (lying for survival), 2) in adjusting to a new paradigm on Earth, he learns a lot of hard lessons about what’s acceptable and unacceptable, 3) begins to care about Kara (including what she thinks about him), 4) falls in love with a girl who does not hide how desperately she hates the people of Daxam.
When she was most likely to accept him for who he was, Prince Mon-El was not the person who would willingly proffer that information. By the time this episode comes around and he’s capable of telling her the truth, she’s set an impossible expectation for his behavior which precludes him from bringing up, “Oh, funny story, so back on Daxam, you know? Yeah, I’m the Prince.”
The emotional immaturity is wearing on me. There’s this constant thread of X at the expense of Y, for which Kara’s only “suffering” is varying degrees of misunderstanding. Winn’s EQ showed up in this episode, though! Now there’s a guy who wants to get to the bottom of something.
Cougar’s Comic Corner
What happens when evil wins? That’s the question Superman, Batman, the Justice League and every being in the DCU have to face when Darkseid and his otherworldly legion of narcissistic followers actually win the war between light and dark. Featuring the deaths and resurrections of major DC characters, FINAL CRISIS is more than your average multi-part event-it’s a deconstruction of Super Hero comics and a challenging, thought-provoking take on the modern, four-color icons.
Collects DC Universe #0, Final Crisis # 1-7, Final Crisis: Superman Beyond # 1-2, Final Crisis: Submit, Batman 682-683 and material from Absolute Final Crisis.
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Links
- Episode 17: Distant Sun Promo
- Episode 17: Distant Sun (Sneak Peek)
- Runnin’ Home to You or audio only (from the Flash, because yeah)
Oh the musical, it was nice until the end that just killed it for me; the whole “let yourself be loved/true love kiss” thing worked for Barry/Iris but when it came to Mon/Kara it just feel flat to me because Kara’s been in love at least twice in S1 and the whole true love thing feels fast to say for them. I also HATED that it put them together after literally just breaking them up the day before, it’s also going to create confusion for fans who skipped the musical so it made no sense to reconnect them personally I felt in that episode. There were some good moments to the musical, I enjoyed Barry’s and Kara’s friendship and I thought Chris and Candice had good chemistry and some of the songs were good and Joe and Stein as Mille’s dads was great, but that ending regarding Kara just was a fail to me; it’s a good episode for WestAllen shippers but for this “Supergirl” fan it was just okay at best.
I’m really hoping they write the “crossovers” more as crossovers next season instead of it feeling like guest appearances. Also that they get Chyler Leigh involved because she has been absent from each one sadly; even David Harewood got to be a guest on “Flash” this week and in the teaser promo for the Dominators arc with “Arrow”, “Flash”, and “Legends Of Tomorrow”. They have the dimension jumper now just bring on a villain who jump worlds and have him show up on “Supergirl” and after Kara’s first run in with him Barry chases him onto Kara’s Earth and they fight him and then before they can defeat him he jumps and goes back to Barry’s Earth so Kara, along with Alex and Winn if they want him to really meet Cisco (I’d find it funny if they actually didn’t get along like Winn thinks) at the least, has to help him finish the fight there.
I have to disagree Mon was forced to lie to Kara, yes he was right in she wasn’t going to take it well but he knew that so how was keeping that secret going to make it better…he’d been better off being upfront with her than letting it come out like this – he saw how lying was bad with the James situation so I can’t support him lying in this case. I understand why he did it for a little bit but once he started falling for her he should have been honest. I get there are situations where a character may have to lie to protect someone or something but this isn’t one of those cases to me.
I’d personally argue while Mon has made some progress he hasn’t grown that much, yes he’s grown but not as much as I would hope; he’s extreme reaction to Mxy did not sit well with me (I get he’s dangerous but tell Kara instead of acting like a jerk) nor does his ignoring Kara’s wishes (again see Mxy and going behind her back with James in “We Can Be Heroes” instead of working with her). He says he wants to be a hero but honestly haven’t seen him do anything after Parasite that’s heroic on the level of others, to be fair I guess can count trying to stop Livewire but again that’s tainted by going around Kara instead of working together, so Mon often times still comes off to me as more wanting in Kara’s pants than he does having grown because he wants to be a better person himself if that makes sense. Again see him saying things were easier when he treated women like objects, it’s very one step forward two steps back with his handling in my opinion; I was just hoping Mon would be a hero/antihero because that’s what he wanted not just doing enough to get in Kara’s pants and then trying to make people call him something he isn’t – he’s as much a novice as James. I understand he’s still learning at times but given how much he’s seen with other characters in situations and how Kara has told him things before it feels like he’s choosing to ignore that knowledge and do what he wants then trying to use “I didn’t know better!” as an excuse and it’s just not working in situations.
Mon has potential but outside of his humor moments he hasn’t had me really cheering for him this season.
That would be an interesting scene to see what various cultures think about Krypton! That’s something I would like to see more on the show, discussion of other races because between J’onn and Kara they should have a good bank to make comments on and others about their races; if they’re going to have more off planet visitors then it’d be nice to hear things on them sometimes. It doesn’t have to be in every episode but a bit more than it has been could be neat.
For me Lena is the guest star MVP out of the group of Mon (great comedy skills but not the best handling; Chris’s acting is enjoyable but the character isn’t working for me most times), Maggie (love how she’s helping Alex grow and easily the best love interest on), Lena, and M’gann (potential but sadly rarely used) because she’s intriguing and an organic, solid feeling character. Although I FULLY understand cases being made for Lillian as the best guest character this season! As far as best plot of the season I have to go with Alex coming out, that has been one of the best done stories I’ve seen on TV and Chyler to me is the season MVP because of her performances.
Good point by Karen regarding this may be the best used Guardian episode! I personally don’t want James on the team because we need someone to help show the world outside the DEO exists, yes Lena is going to be in S3 so that gives us more L Corp and if Maggie is around that’ll give us the police side more potentially but we still need a place like CatCo so it would be great to see James working there and using CatCo to comment on some characters’ actions such as if he disagrees with something Lena does there could be an article on that and how do characters respond; he can’t come out and really name the DEO in things (or he could for more drama) but he could subtweet as they say to where Alex and J’onn know who he meant and how does that affect them. Again I feel Jimmy is better out of the Guardian suit than in it.
Points to Emilee for remembering Lyra is Voluarian! 🙂
Just an aside because the comic knowledge has me in awe a lot, I have to ask, Karen, what is your favorite comic book ever? Forget being DC specific, pick from all the publishers, what is your favorite comic you’ve read or one of your most absolute favorites if picking 1 is too hard? You can also say it’s DC specific if you want to name your favorite from there. Emilee, out of the ones you’ve read so far what has been your favorite?
I believe it’s in “World’s Finest” they say the NCPD is in part responsible now for metas because Barry created a lock up for them to hold people such as Livewire, that’s why she was in regular jail this season, and in “Welcome To Earth” I do believe Maggie says she’s with the NCPD Metahuman Division that’s why she’s always got the cases with powered individuals involved. The DEO is suppose to be now more for the really dangerous criminals that the NCPD couldn’t hold, they’re basically maximum security where as the NCPD is general population; the NCPD mainly again deals with people like Leslie and Siobhan because they’re humans and Jimmy made that big deal about how Max was treated in “Truth, Justice, And The American Way” I think it was so now the DEO is housing the aliens and super powerful metas mainly but the NCPD is housing some because of the containment process Barry showed them.
“Super Friend!” was a great number! Agree with Blackhawksfan about Mon/Kara; it has been nice to see Winn develop, I’m still not 100% sold on him as a part of the DEO, but I do love he’s grown past his crush on Kara and they can have a good relationship instead of being bitter and making snippy comments like others shows have done in similar plots with characters. Awe, I kind of wanted to hear Montifesque’s “Flash” review but I get why y’all skipped it; I like you gave their rating for it at least.
Points to Emilee again for saying Myx’s full name correctly!
Nice spoilers transition Karen!
A good podcast episode!
Some blog post comments…
“Runnin’ Home to You (from the Flash, because yeah)” – that was a great song! My only nitpick is I wish Candice had some lines in the song but overall I’d say that was arguably the best song of the episode.