Supergirl - 'Welcome to Earth'

All the world is waiting for her...

With Superman off to Metropolis, we get to meet another previously mentioned character this week, the President of the United States of America.

The President is touring DEO black sites as part of the launch for her Alien Amnesty Act, a statute entering law to allow non-humans to become full US citizens. Kara is pumped, especially as she gets to meet the Pres, but J'onn is all dour and 'humans and aliens don't mix'(1). In civilian life, Kara is assigned to interview Lena Luthor, sister of the world's most famous anti-alien, as part of a dick-measuring contest between James and Snapper Carr over how to 'do news'.

Oh, and that guy from the Kryptonian pod has busted out of containment and gone missing somewhere in national city.

Hi, I'm Maggie; I'll be your replacement sexual tension.

Someone attacks the President with heat vision and Johnny Pod is at the top of the suspect list. Alex finds her investigation hampered by an over-informed cop named Maggie Sawyer, but it's forced to eat a certain amount of crow when Sawyer takes her to an alien speakeasy to speak to a CI in the community. She isn't an alien, but as a small town gay Latina considers herself an ally. They get a lead that Johnny Pod is trying to phone home and Wynn picks up a signal being beamed to planet Daxam(2). Kara - who is itching for a fight after Lena reveals a prototype alien detector designed to allow the average American to tell if his or her neighbour isn't human and Carr orders her to rewrite her article to be objective instead of slamming the invention as a tool of hate - immediately considers the case closed. Daxim is a world of monarchal warmongers, so clearly this guy is guilty. She flies to the transmission source and beats him down, and also remembers that prejudice is cool and apologises to Lena.

Are we going with Miss Martian still?

Then the President is attacked again, by a (literally) fiery red-head, dubbed 'Scorcher', who is fought off, but kidnaps Maggie. Alex roughs up Maggie's CI to get a lead on Scorcher, having seen her at the bar, and she and Kara affect a rescue, with Maggie stepping in at the last minute to cold-cock the villain, after Kara starves her of oxygen with a super-speed wind funnel to dampen her abilities. The President signs the bill, thanks the DEO and as she leaves momentarily shows a wibbly alien face. Kara releases the Daximite, Mon-El(3), and apologises for being a douche. J'onn, meanwhile, is moved to try to connect with the alien community in the dive bar, where he runs into a bartender who turns out to be M'gann M'orzz, last daughter of Mars.

There's a lot fo good stuff in this episode, but I really wanted to be able to believe that the President was stealth-Wonder Woman, and in the week when the potential first female president was beaten by the face of white, male, privileged bigotry I was deeply disappointed that she turned out to be a secret alien. I really, really hope her agenda for pushing forward a platform of hope and tolerance isn't sinister, because we don't need that right now. It was heartening at least to see Kara confronting her prejudices, and I hope we'll see J'onn's glass-half-full-of-white-Martians attitude proved wrong (within the confines of the series still needing to have an alien a week for Supergirl to justifiably punch in the face.)

(1) He's probably still bitter about failing to get off with the alien-hating senator from last year. 

(2) I'm particularly impressed that he can distinguish between two possible transmission targets in the same solar system.
(3) So... is he also of the House of El? Like... He's one of the Daxim Els or something?