Supergirl – Distant Sun

By: Michelle Lopez

Tough Decisions and Broken Hearts

After miraculously taking Mon-El (Chris Wood) back after her musical fever dream revelation on Earth-11, Kara (Melissa Benoist) is enjoying a relaxing morning at home with Mon-El. He understands how lucky he is that Kara decided to take him back so he’s decided to handle all the chores and cooking so Kara can focus on being her amazing self. Their blissful morning is interrupted when the all exposition news jumps in to alert Kara to an alien attack downtown. Kara rushes off, delivers one swift punch to the alien’s face and heads to the DEO for debrief.

Over at the DEO, J’onn (David Harewood) is video conferencing with the President Marsdin (Lynda Carter). She gives him direct order to not engage the Daxamite ship under any circumstance. She doesn’t want to deal with the mess of an intergalactic conflict.  J’onn understands, but also understands the tightrope the temporary peace with the Daxamites is balancing on.

It turns out the alien attack wasn’t just some random disgruntled alien, it was a bounty hunter with a fancy little alien gadget holding all the details of the bounty on Supergirl’s head worth enough money to buy a planet. J’onn recommends Kara lay low for a while to avoid the swath of bounty hunters bound to show up in National City. Kara’s not about hiding from a fight. Alex (Chyler Leigh) reminds her that Supergirl is about protecting the people of National City and taking on an army of bounty hunters sounds like a great way to get some civilians injured or killed. J’onn asks Kara for twenty-four hours to figure out what’s going on before she goes full on girl of steel on National City. Winn (Jeremy Jordan) sets the DEO databases to search for more bounty hunters likely to show up and begins tinkering with the alien device to see if they can use it in some way.

Mon-El has a hunch that his parents are behind the bounty so he calls them up and asks them to meet him at the alien bar. Rhea (Teri Hatcher) and Lar Gand (Kevin Sorbo) are not remotely impressed that their son works at and decided to host them at a dive bar. He point blank asks them if they put the bounty on Kara’s head as some ridiculous plot to get him to return to Daxam. They deny his accusation and plead with him once again to return to his family. Their heartbreak is understandable after they spent years scouring the universe for any sign of their son, but part of being a parent is understanding that your child isn’t going to be yours to possess forever. They’ll grow up and become their own person whom you may or may not approve of, but that’s life!

Winn and James (Mehcad Brooks) have stopped by Kara’s apartment for game night a/k/a make sure Kara stays in hiding. Kara’s going stir crazy as the news reports simple crimes she could deal with in the blink of an eye. Just as she’s about to fly out the window, Mon-El shows up with the news that he thinks his parents are behind the bounty. A bounty hunter outside Kara’s apartment uses some telepathic powers to take over Mon-El’s body and attack Kara. The two go flying out a closed window and onto a nearby rooftop where Mon-El apologizes as he continues to attack Kara. She dodges his attacks while avoiding attacking back. Watching the fight from Kara’s apartment Winn pulls out the alien gadget he’s setup to alert him whenever a bounty hunter is nearby. He grabs a stapler and goes out in search of the alien. Winn sneaks up behind the bounty hunter, holds the stapler to his back (as if it were useful in any way) and gets the alien to release Mon-El. Just as Mon-El gets control of his body again, Kara’s reached her limit on being attacked without defending herself and smacks Mon-El right in the face.

In the DEO lockup, Alex is prepared to torture answers out of the bounty hunter. She asks Winn to grab her a wrench and gets ready for some good old fashioned violence. J’onn steps in to telepathically penetrate his mind and learn that Mon-El’s parents are in fact behind the bounty. Everyone is ready to jump into battle with the Daxamites to get them to pull the bounty, but J’onn is duty bound to listen to the President and tells them to wait for her order before acting.

Back at home, Kara decides the best way to deal with Mon-El’s parents is to just talk with Rhea and get her to understand why Mon-El is staying. Mon-El would rather they run away to a planet where his parents will never find them, but Kara is Supergirl. And we all know Supergirl doesn’t run away from her problems – she tackles them head on. Kara insists that Rhea just wants Mon-El to be happy and making her realize that he is on Earth will put an end to the issue. So, Mon-El calls her up and they setup on a meeting.

At the Fortress of Solitude, Mon-El tells Rhea they know she’s the one who put the bounty on Kara and tries to get her to see he’s happy on Earth with Kara. He offers to still have a relationship with her if she lets this Kara grudge go. Rhea is outraged he thinks he can dictate what relationship they’ll have since she’s his mother and calls the shots. Kara tries to break through Rhea’s stony exterior and appeal to the kindness she assumes Rhea has. She fails and Rhea busts out some Kryptonite daggers and begins an all-out assault on Kara. It’s no where near a fair fight and before Rhea can kill Kara, her son Mon-El agrees to go with her if she leaves Kara alone.

On the ship, Lar Gand is happy to see that Mon-El changed his mind about staying on Earth. Mon-El doesn’t have patience to play nice, all he’s concerned about is getting rid of the bounty. When that’s taken care of, Mon-El takes what he’s learned from Kara and talks to his father about making changes on Daxam. It’s time for everyone to have a voice and there be justice for everyone. This goes against everything Rhea and Lar Gand stand for so Rhea tosses Mon-El in a cell to think about his silly opinions.

Kara wants to go rescue Mon-El, but J’onn reminds her that the President hasn’t given them the okay. Kara’s had enough of the bureaucratic red tape. She rallies the troops and they jump into action. Winn’s repaired the transport thingamajig from Slaver’s Moon and programmed it to jump to the Daxamite ship. Kara sends J’onn in disguise as Supergirl to distract Rhea while Winn teleports in so he can free Mon-El. Everything is going according to plan until J’onn gets seriously outnumbered. Of course, Kara jumps through the portal to go to his aid and Rhea jumps at the chance to kill her. Mon-El and Winn rush into the control room to help when Lar Gand puts an end to the farce. He gets that Mon-El’s found a family on Earth and there’s no point in trying to rip him away from it.

Mon-El is happy to be back home with Kara after thinking he’d never see her again. He admits that while giving himself up to save Kara was the right thing to do, it was a hell of a lot harder than Kara makes it look. She does the right thing no matter what and that’s what makes her a hero.

Back on the Daxamite ship Lar Gand mourns the loss of his son, but accepts that he’d have never been happy with them. Rhea feels betrayed that he would give up on their family so easily. She’s so upset that she kills him and decides that she’s not quite finished with Earth.

Closure

After a morning yoga session, Alex and Maggie (Floriana Lima) flirt their way home as they realize they’ve become that couple – all smiles and flirtatious bickering. Maggie’s broken from her Sanvers stupor when her ex, Emily (Hayley Sales), walks by. Maggie stops her to say hi and it’s about as awkward as you’d expect when you run into an ex you’ve got some bad history with while you’re with your girlfriend. Maggie and Emily agree that they should catch up while she’s in town with no intention of actually meeting up, but Alex has other ideas. She suggests Maggie invite Emily to dinner with them tonight since they don’t have plans and Alex is really trying for the Girlfriend of the Year award. Maggie isn’t overly pleased at the idea, but relents since she can’t say no to Alex.

At the restaurant, Sanvers has been stood up. Alex feels bad for pushing Maggie to invite Emily and now it’s become an awkward mess. Maggie isn’t upset with Alex as she appreciates that she wanted Maggie to get closure, but there’s a bit more to her story with Emily. When they broke up after five years, Emily told Maggie she didn’t deserve to be happy and Maggie took that to heart. Alex wants to wrap Maggie up in a cocoon of love and understanding, but that’s not what Maggie needs right now. Right now Maggie needs to get the hell out of the restaurant and recover from the memories of bad relationships past.

Alex isn’t one to leave things unresolved so naturally she lurks outside Emily’s hotel until she can stop her for a quick chat. Emily apologizes for not showing up for dinner, but she’s also haunted by the ghost of the bad end to her relationship with Maggie. Dinner was a bit too much for her to handle. Alex brings up the pain Emily inflicted on Maggie when they broke up, which stops Emily in her tracks. Everything she told Maggie was deserved since Maggie cheated on her. This news stops Alex in her tracks because she was missing a huge chunk of the story and now looks a bit silly. She apologizes to Emily who doesn’t hold it against her, but this conversation is clearly over so they part ways.

Maggie shouldn’t be surprised Alex went to see Emily, but she didn’t see it coming. She’s not used to having someone around who cares enough to stick up for her so she really wasn’t expecting Alex to find out about her cheating. Alex doesn’t care that Maggie cheated because everyone has stuff in their past they’d rather forget. She’s more concerned with the fact that Maggie had no intention of telling Alex the truth. It’s a pattern she’s recognized and finally figured out. Maggie doesn’t trust Alex enough to share her darkest truths because when she told her parents (the people who you are supposed to always have your back) that she’s gay they rejected her. Maggie’s learned that if she wants to keep the people she cares about most around she can’t share those dark truths. Alex wants Maggie to let her in, she wants to know all of Maggie and that includes the bad. Nobody wants to share the things they’re ashamed of, but when we lock those things in the deepest part of ourselves they fester and rot like an infection, distorting how you view yourself. All it takes is one person to remind you that you are not defined by your mistakes. Alex is Maggie’s person. After the pep talk Maggie decides to speak with Emily to finally get the closure they both desperately need.