CW-verse Supergirl: "Welcome to Earth"

I miss Superman already, but this episode kept me from missing him TOO much because there was quite a bit going on.  Introducing Lynda Carter as President, showing Mon-El's first time as more than just a coma prop, bringing in Detective Maggie Sawyer (who should totally be in Metropolis right now but nevermind that), and a last minute appearance by M'gann M'orzz, AKA Miss Martian--kept the episode so busy that you almost forget that the villain's plot is kinda half-baked.


Basically, the episode is about President Marsdin's desire to create an Alien Amnesty Act, giving Aliens the right to come out and admit who they are without fear of reprisal, only there's an alien who keeps attempting to kill her from the moment she lands in National City.  Ultimately we learn the alien is just afraid that the new law will only lead to aliens being forced to register, which I'll admit gave me some brief, Civil War PTSD-ish flashbacks, so she's been using her fire powers to take out the President in the hopes that somehow...it would just go away?  That much, much worse legislation wouldn't immediately pop up?  I dunno--the villains almost always take a backseat in CW shows, and this series appears to be no exception.

But there was more than enough "good" going on for this episode for it not to matter.  To start, the story between Mon-El and Supergirl took up the majority of my interest this episode, as Kara learned that usually things are never as black and white as they seem.  Learning Mon-El is actually from Daxam, Kara explains to J'onn and her sister Alex that in Kryptonian history the Daxamites were a race of warmongering people who went to war with Krypton because they disliked Krypton's democratic principles.  The show could've left it at that, only a conversation with Mon-El later reveals that most likely Krypton was far less on the side of "good" in their war with Daxam and simply "revised" history later to make themselves look better.   This is a story that could really only have worked with Supergirl, as her years spent on Krypton make it easier for her to be torn over learning her planet wasn't always as perfect and pristine as she thought. 

What's fascinating to me though is that we've yet to see Mon-El in costume.  This wouldn't really be noteworthy except we've seen freaking Jimmy Olsen wearing a "Guardian" suit!  They're clearly thinking ahead, so this suggests to me there's a strong chance Mon-El won't suit up at all until the second half of the season.  If they're planning on introducing the Legion of Super-Heroes though this kinda lines up.  Like Kryptonians have a weakness for Kryptonite, Daxamites possess a weakness to a certain element too--though theirs is far more ubiquitous: lead.  Since Earth is RIDDLED with this element, it's only a matter of time before this has an adverse effect on Mon-El.  In the comics, this caused Mon-El to be sent to the Phantom Zone until a cure could be discovered, only to be pulled free by the Legion a thousand years later and given one synthesized by Brainiac 5.   If Mon-El's story follows this pattern on the show, then I could see him not suiting up until he's sent to the future--be that at the mid-season finale or the end of the season in the Spring.

As far as Miss Martian's appearance, that just made me bummed that we can't get a proper Teen Titans or Young Justice series.  But there's plenty of potential for her and a future friendship with J'onn--particularly when he learns that M'gann is actually a White Martian.

The only major disappointment this episode was the discovery that President Marsdin was an alien herself.  I was hoping her desire to allow Aliens to have amnesty on Earth was born out of a genuine desire to see America grow into the accepting place they claim to be--kind of like Maggie Sawyer, a woman who identified with aliens because of her ethnic and LGBT background.  Though watching Maggie relate her backstory to Alex ran the risk of being a bit heavy-handed, it both made her motives more understandable as well as made her a likable character.  In the President's case, it just felt like an unnecessary addition that made her motives more self-serving than anything else.  An unfortunate addition, but it didn't really drag down an otherwise great episode.