Supergirl – The Martian Chronicles

By: Michelle Lopez

We open on Kara (Melissa Benoist) walking into the alien bar where Mon-El (Chris Wood) is tending it. Kara brings up the awkwardness between them after Mon-El confessed his feelings for her. Kara finally has a response for him and rejection since she has her career and Supergirl filling up her life. This is where she should have stopped talking, but Kara continues on to tell Mon-El that if she were to date someone it wouldn’t be someone like him. He quickly ends the conversation and walks away as Alex (Chyler Leigh) walks up. Alex is not surprised that Mon-El has feelings for Kara since he follows her around like a lost puppy. Kara’s ready to forget about the awkward and get excited for her Earth Birthday. She’s made herself and Alex a reservation for a line dancing class. Alex has other plans for Kara’s Earth Birthday that have nothing to do with Kara. Maggie (Floriana Lima) surprised Alex with tickets to a Barenaked Ladies concert and Alex is still riding the new relationship high where she wants to spend every waking and non-waking moment with Maggie, even at the expense of her other relationships. Maggie runs up to add insult to injury by excitedly rambling about scoring VIP upgrades to their tickets, which Kara tries to act excited about yet her face says otherwise. Alex runs off with Maggie, ignoring that Kara’s clearly not ok. Kara asks M’gann (Sharon Leal) for a stronger drink like the one Mon-El is having, but it turns out he’s switched to club soda. Apparently, he’s switched to Kara’s drink in his pining.

M’gann walks into the alley behind the alien bar and notices J’onn (David Harewood) disguised as a homeless man. She knows he’s been trailing her in a variety of different identities since he released her and she’s has had enough of it. J’onn just wants to protect her from the White Martians. Before M’gann can put him in his place for trying to be a hero she doesn’t need, a White Martian drops from the sky and attacks them. The fight doesn’t go well for M’gann, transformed into a Green Martian, and J’onn. Thankfully, Supergirl pops out of the bar and heat visions the Martian sending him fleeing.

At the DEO, Winn (Jeremy Jordan) scans the city for the White Martian while Kara tries to convince him that he and James (Mehcad Brooks) are needlessly putting themselves in danger with their Guardian shenanigans. The message doesn’t land. M’gann explains that the White Martians are on Earth purely to hunt her and return her to Mars to pay for her war crimes. She doesn’t need to put any of them needlessly in danger so she heads back to work.

At the alien bar, M’gann is back to tending it when Armek (Terrell Tilford), her ex-husband, walks in. He wants to bring her back to Mars so she can pay for her war crimes and so he can get revenge for her trying to kill him, but she refuses so he threatens to hurt her friends. M’gann packs a bag and prepares to flee National City when J’onn shows up to convince her to stay. She doesn’t need to run to save her friends because the beauty of friends is that they always have your back. He takes her back to the DEO for them all to regroup and plan.

At Alex’s apartment, Maggie and Alex fangirl over the Barenaked Ladies, but Maggie notices Alex’s heart isn’t it. She calls her out and Alex tries downplaying how she hurt Kara’s feelings. Maggie isn’t going to stand by and watch Alex torture herself by pushing her feelings down anymore. She tells her to go deal with the Kara situation and meet her at the concert.

At the DEO, Alex asks Kara if they’re ok because she feels guilty for blowing off Kara’s Earth Birthday. Kara assures her it’s not a big deal because she made the line dancing plans in the morning. Alex knows Kara was mad at her earlier, but Kara plays it off as an immature moment and promises that she has no issue with Alex ditching her for Maggie. Alex feels better, Kara feels worse. They check in with Winn to see if they’ve found the White Martian, but no luck so far. M’gann walks into the control room with J’onn to get briefed on the hunt. Kara notices another M’gann walking down the stairs into the control room, which confuses everyone. The M’gann that walked in with J’onn turns out to Armek in disguise. A fight breaks out between Armek and J’onn, which momentarily knocks out the power allowing Armek to take a new identify as either Kara, J’onn, Winn, M’gann, Alex, Agent Vasquez (Briana Venskus) or Agent Demos (Curtis Lum).

The group tries to figure out a method to ID the imposter. Winn suggests they ask personal questions, but White Martians are psychically linked to the person they’re disguised as so that won’t work. A very panicked and suspicious Demos freaks out when he thinks Vasquez is looking at him sinisterly. This results in a standoff with nobody willing to put down their guns. J’onn tries to scan the group to identify the White Martian, but there’s psychic interference. He then recalls a trick the Green Martians used during the war to ensure White Martians didn’t infiltrate their hideouts. The Martians would hold their hand up to a flame and it would force their true skin to show, white or green. J’onn struggles to bring himself to take the test because of the bad memories it brings up, but M’gann coaches him through. M’gann, J’onn, Vasquez and Demos all take and pass the tests but when it’s Winn’s turn he resists and shows himself to be the Armek. He escapes further into the DEO and sets the reactor that powers the building to overload. They decide to search the building to find the real Winn and stabilize the reactor. They split off into three teams Alex/Kara, J’onn/M’gann, Vasquez/Demos and head out.

While searching, Alex brings up how her and Kara have been bad at communicating lately. Kara admits she was mad and hurt about Alex blowing off Earth Birthday. Alex apologizes because she knows she shouldn’t have bailed on Kara for her girlfriend, but she doesn’t want to feel bad about wanting to spend time with Maggie. Alex needs to work on finding a balance between her girlfriend and the other important people in her life. When Kara left Krypton she didn’t realize she would never see her parents again, Alex blowing off her birthday reminded her of the abandonment she felt with regards to her parents and it scared her. Alex promises that she’ll never abandon her sister and they continue their search.

J’onn and M’gann search while M’gann feels guilty about putting everyone in danger. J’onn tells her to cut it out because she’s important and turning herself in is not an option. He feels a bond to her that he never thought he’d feel again which is why he reacted so poorly when he found out she was a White Martian. They discover Winn unconscious in some sort of web on the ceiling of a corridor as well as Alex in a another. They call Kara to warn her that she’s with a second White Martian.

White Martian Alex attacks Kara and an epic battle (with some great cinematography) ensues. Unable to use her heat vision because of the reactor, Kara and White Martian Alex fight it out the old fashioned way. J’onn roughly wakes up Winn because they need him to kick into high gear and get the reactor situation under control. Since all the codes were changed by White Martian Winn he needs to go to the physical reactor to fix it. J’onn and Winn head out while M’gann stays with Alex as she recovers.

In the reactor room, Kara and the White Martian continue their fight. Winn and J’onn show up, but are attacked by Armek. J’onn handles him while Winn rushes to the control room to stabilize the reactor. J’onn doesn’t fare well against Armek until M’gann joins the fight in the skin of a Green Martian. Kara knocks out her Martian while J’onn gets trapped by his. M’gann saves the day by killing her former mate with a stab to the back of the neck. Kara’s knocked out Martian wakes up and makes to attack J’onn and M’gann, but Alex shows up and saves them with the nifty new gun she picked up on Slavers Moon last week. Winn stabilizes the reactor.

With the threat handled and a Barenaked Ladies reference by Winn, Alex realizes Maggie is probably wondering where she is so she rushes off to call her. Still looks disappointed at the thought of Alex missing her Earth Birthday, Kara wanders over to Winn to see what he’s doing tonight. Winn’s planning on out with James to Guardian things up leaving Kara to spend her birthday alone.

Kara is alone watching a movie when she’s interrupted by a knock on the door. Alex has shown up with their traditional cupcake to celebrate. Kara asks if Maggie was mad about missing the concert, but lucky for Alex she’s dating a lady who knows all about the inconvenience of miscellaneous alien attacks. Alex asks Kara if she had a conversation with White Martian Alex because Alex has the memory of a heavy conversation about abandonment issues. It turns out the White Martian psychic link works both ways. Alex wants Kara to know that she’s always there for her no matter what. Dating Maggie doesn’t mean she’s going to forget about Kara despite the concert faux pas earlier. Kara doubled down on her birthday because she was afraid Alex was slipping away, but Alex has another idea. Sometimes when we can’t process our emotions on one topic we throw ourselves into another full throttle. Alex suggests that Kara’s focus on her birthday was based on her confusion about her feelings toward Mon-El. Kara is scared of exploring anything with Mon-El because she’s gotten burned in the past and doesn’t want that to happen again, but Alex isn’t going to let her sister hide from life experiences due to fear. She’s just learned how great life can be when you step outside your comfort zone and embrace your feelings so she encourages Kara to consider Mon-El.

J’onn thanks M’gann for saving her and she admits that she feels the same bond J’onn feels. Despite that bond she has to go back to Mars to start a resistance against the xenophobic power hungry asshats who’ve dictated the direction of the White Martians for far too long. J’onn and his friends taught her how to be a hero and she has to go do this. As M’gann prepares to beam up to Armek’s ship, she and J’onn have some sort of Martian psychic connection goodbye moment and then she’s gone.

At Catco, Kara is surprised to run into Mon-El. She was planning on calling him later to presumably discuss feelings and such, but he appears to have moved on. He’s at Catco to pick up Eve (Andrea Brooks) for a lunch date. Kara plays it off as no big deal and they part ways.