written by Dayna Abel, Jason Froikin and Cara Russell

NOTE: This episode is Part One of a four-part crossover with The Flash, Arrow and Legends Of Tomorrow. We’ll be reviewing all four this week!

SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT

I feel as though a couple of Supergirl’s subplots were sacrificed to make room for the crossover prep this week. Lena Luthor decisively rejects her adoptive mother’s scheme to kill all alien life on Earth, placing Lena firmly on the side of good (yay!), if only out of spite (less yay?). More compelling was J’onn’s transformation into a White Martian, which was handwaved away by Actual Best Mom Ever Eliza Danvers’ xenobiology expertise saving the day with a reverse-engineered antivirus which had literally nothing to do with J’onn’s problem…? Comic book science. Whaddya gonna do?

Actual Best Mom Ever Eliza Danvers is not only a genius scientist, but she saves the day in personal crises as well. She knows what’s up with Alex because she’s not unobservant and Alex hasn’t exactly been subtle about how she feels about Maggie. Eliza tells Alex that if she thinks Eliza wanted her to lead a 100% normal life, then she hasn’t been paying attention because, you know. They adopted an alien and whatnot. Compared to the rest of their lives, Alex being a lesbian is actually a few degrees above the Danvers’ usual level of normalcy.

This leads into the best final ten minutes of an episode ever oh my god you guys. Maggie shows up at Alex’s door, telling her that she almost died (she was shot while defending L-Corp, boring part, moving on) and it freaked her out and yanked her priorities right back in line. Said priority was to smooch the living hell out of Alex, carpe the fuck out of that diem and date Alex already. Speaking of showing up at someone’s door – well, living room – Barry and Cisco arrive on this Earth via breach and Kara is instantly thrilled to see her Earth-1 best friend back. They hug the crap out of each other, a saline solution of some sort begins leaking from my eyes, and Barry asks Kara for her help over on his show. I am here for this you guys.

-Dayna

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Finally, a Super-family franchise that shatters the stereotype about the entire Luthor family being inherently evil. It never really made any sense to me that someone with all of the money and resources in the world would be willing to throw all of it away for a vendetta. To me it seems far more likely someone like that would be way too selfish – instead, insisting that someone else do something about aliens living on Earth. So it’s far more believable, in my opinion, that Lena Luthor might not be “pro-alien”, but doesn’t want to spend valuable resources on fighting them, either.

Speaking of fights, it’s interesting to note that Kara was brought up in a society where war is something distant and foreign. Even Superman knows more about war than she does, because she spent most of her time on Earth hiding out as a peaceful civilian while he was involved in world events. Of course she’s disappointed in and embarrassed by the more drastic actions taken on Krypton during its war with Daxam. Superman might be disappointed too, but he wouldn’t be nearly as surprised.

And finally, I’m a little concerned for Alex’s sanity. It seems like Maggie is just as confused as she is, and it’s making for a gigantic ball of confusion between the two. I guess it’s nice that they’re learning together; I just hope they don’t drive each other crazy in the meantime.

-Jason

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This week, we continue the tradition of awkward holiday dinners, complete with the bickering and rips in the space-time continuum. Also a complete lack of turkey stuffing, which I feel is a more heinous crime than anything else that could have happened in this episode. I honestly adore Mon-El’s continued attempts to adjust to life on Earth and his ability to just roll with the missteps, but everyone around him knows well enough that “stuffing” has more than one meaning, and one probably doesn’t exist on Daxam, where there are no turkeys. Seriously guys, quit setting this guy up so you can blame him for a fail. It’s bordering on cruel.

Meanwhile elsewhere, Cyborg Superman has broken into the Fortress of Solitude to steal a biogenic weapon (“Medusa”) which kills all non-Kryptonian aliens. He uses it at the alien dive bar, killing its patrons and severely sickening Mon-El. After an attempted theft from L-Corp, Lena Luthor offers an alliance with her mother to provide components for a much larger weapon that will wipe out all aliens on Earth – a plan which is thwarted when Lena proves to have used this access to sabotage the weapon and turn Lillian in to the police.

Several other plotlines are tied up neatly, with Alex coming out and being accepted warmly by Eliza, who also uses Medusa to cure Mon-El and stop J’onn’s White Martian transformation. Maggie and Alex have another heart-to-heart, where Maggie’s near-death experience prompts her to throw caution to the wind and kiss the girls she wants to kiss. It leaves some air left for future episodes to devote to things like the folks who are chasing Mon-El, or the Guardian secret, though I admit I’ll be content if they get that over with in a footnote as well. It definitely leaves a much clearer field for the four-episode crossover we’re heading into.

-Cara

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TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW ON THE FLASH

Supergirl airs Monday nights at 8 Eastern/7 Central on the CW. Dayna can be reached on Twitter @queenanthai, Jason at @Mangacool, and Cara at @virtualcara.

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