Supergirl - 'Mr and Mrs Mxyzptlk'

"You know where you can shove this Vera Wang..."

We open as we closed last week (lot of that about this week,) with the sudden and shocking appearance of Mr Mxyzptlk, declaring his love for Kara, before proceeding to banish Mon-el to the DEO in his boxers and magic Kara into a Vera Wang wedding dress.

Naturally, Kara is all 'I don't think so' and Mxyzptlk is all 'well we'll see,' while Mon-el is regrettably 'the lady is spoken for, pal,' about the whole thing. It's a good thing James is sitting out the episode or the whole thing could get very testosterone heavy. J'onn and Mon-el explain that Kara has attracted the attention of a Fifth-Dimensional Imp, a being of colossal power deemed too whacky for Daxam, and soon Mxyzptlk is wooing Kara by trying to fight bad guys with her, shooting at bank robbers and summoning Parasite from beyond so that he can fight alongside her as a Superman knock-off.

Mon-el lets slip that the imp will be banished if he says his name backwards, and gets increasingly creepy-possessive, admitting to Winn when asked for romantic advice that "things were easier on Daxam where I objectified women and didn't care about anyone." He swipes a Fifth-Dimensional artefact to pick a fight with 'Mixy' (as Kara dubs him for convenience,) which ends up as a quasi-recreation of the Hamilton-Burr duel.

Someone's going to get sued.

Mon-el briefly gains the advantage when the artefact cuts Mxyzptlk off from the Fifth Dimension, but the imp steals it and regains the upper hand, threatening to shoot Mon-el with his one vulnerability, lead, before Kara swoops in and agrees to the wedding; if it can happen on Kryptonian soil in the Fortress of Solitude. There she sets the self-destruct, as Mixy has revealed that he can no more stop her killing herself than he can make her love him, marry him, or drink orange juice. He begs her for the cancellation code, which she eventually gives him, prompting him to punch it in in her 'moon language', only for the code to be revealed as Kyltpztxm. Bye-bye Mxyzptlk(1), and sadly hello Kara/Mon-el, despite the douchebaggery.

Elsewhere, it's Valentine's Day. J'onn sends a letter to M'gann (explaining to Kara that on Mars, writing is the sincerest form of communication, which is part of what gives her the idea for defeating Mixy(2),) while Alex hits a rough patch with Maggie over the latter's hatred of the 'manufactured holiday' (because, it turns out, she was outed to her parents after sending a Valentine to a female friend and, as a result, got thrown out of her home.) I'm not sure how I feel about the resolution of this plot, where Maggie agrees to accept Valentine's into her heart for love's sake, since on the one hand healing is awesome, but on the other, I don't think anyone should have Valentines thrust upon them(3). Winn hits the alien bar for a pity party of one, but gets rescued from a couple of bullying alien jocks by a butt-kicking alien lass named Lyra, turns out to know one piece of literature from her homeworld which was her favourite growing up and makes an instant connection. It's all a little sudden, but there's a nice moment where she admits she thought she would just be 'an experience' to him – sleep with an alien, tick that off the bucket list – and he assures her that, while it's early days, he sees in her a good relationship that might just go the distance.

Granted, it's a deviation from the classic costume.

So, there you have it; a slightly delayed Valentine spectacular for the Girl of Steel. I'm still not sold on Mon-el as a love interest, or on the need for Kara to have a love interest, but at least he's becoming a vaguely self-aware dudebro instead of a complete douche. Alex's subplot is… touching, but troublesome because of its reliance on the Valentine hook, while Winn's is quite lovely. Lonely, letter-writing J'onn is the saddest thing, and I presume that James is off drinking himself into an early grave or something. I would not be surprised to see him go the way of Cat Grant.

The appearance of Mr Mxyzptlk – and props to Melissa Benoist, who was rapping that out like it was nothing by the end of the episode – firmly cements Supergirl's place in the same Silver Age end of the Arrowverse as The Flash, who this week is crossing the multiverse to fight giant, telepathic apes in an alternate Earth, while Oliver Queen goes to Russia. I for one celebrate this step. There's enough fear and negativity in the world, and I welcome every wild, wilful step towards the superheroes of the past and a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel in which 'no-nonsense' solutions don't hold water.

(1) If there were any doubts as to the show's political leanings, I think Mxyzptlk's angry denunciation of Kara as a 'nasty woman' puts those to bed.

(2) This is a good week for Kara 'Facepuncher' Zor-el in the plan stakes, weaving together the various things that people have told her to trick the trickster. I'm very impressed.

(3) And it totally is a manufactured holiday.