Supergirl - 'Distant Sun'

And all of this could have been avoided if Mon-el had only sprung for a decent
restaurant.

Despite all the song and dance in last week's The Flash crossover, Kara still seems to have the worst kind of trouble: Guy trouble.

Our heroine is chillin' at home with her honey, who is becoming pretty domesticated in his way, when an alien attack turns out to be bait for an attempt on her life. A message found on the attacker reveals that someone has put a price on Kara's head and Mon-el is pretty sure that he knows who: His parents. They deny it, but after a psychic assassin tries to puppeteer Mon-el into killing Kara, J'onn brain wrestles the truth out of him. Kara suggests that they make an appeal to his mother, Rhea, but she tries to stab Kara with Kryptonite sai and, of course, Mon-el agrees to go with his parents if they will spare Kara's life. They go back to the ship and Mommy dearest cancels the hit, which Mon-el's dad is clearly shocked to hear about.

"The power of the mind is absolute."

Kara determines to rescue Mon-el, whether he's asked her to or not, but this means going against a presidential order not to pick a fight with a sovereign power with a space navy. They use the transmat arch from the Slaver's Moon episode to get to the ship, where Kara smacks around Daxamite guards until Rhea steps in and her Kryptonite blades bounce off the Martian Manhunter. Meanwhile Kara rescues Mon-el from a cell where he has been confined to contemplate the virtue of traditional values. As the battle escalates, Mon-el appeals once more to his parents and his dad lets him go. After they depart, Rhea kills her husband for his betrayal, which is… Well, honestly it was so obvious I was half-expecting him to kill her as the only possible twist, but that didn't happen.

In the B-plot, Maggie runs into her ex and, as a result of trying to be the cool girlfriend, Alex learns that Maggie cheated on the ex. She confronts Maggie, not to be judgey, but to tell her that she doesn't have to present an ideal of herself. She can take the bad bits of Maggie's past, if Maggie can learn to trust someone close to her again after the hurt of her coming out.

Oh, and remember how the President is an alien? Well, we get a reminder of that. I guess that's going to come up when Rhea goes to war.

So, another week of front and centre romance and I'm itching for Rhea to start bombarding. It's not that I'm anti-romance, I just don't like the way Kara's relationship has taken over her life. I want to see her getting out there as Kara Danvers, ace blogger and citizen journalist, rather than wallowing at home and exulting in the snuggling opportunities that unemployment represents. As for the Daxamite plotline, it's… okay. Terri Hatcher is playing Rhea a little too much hatchet-faced bitch for my money; with her constant protestations that Krypton took everything from her, a rawer performance would carry more power. Much like Lillian Luthor, Rhea is kind of wrong, but for the right reasons, and that needs to be shown more than told.