The Martian Chronicles – As she feared, the White Marians have come to make M’gann pay for her “war crimes” and it will take all of the DEO’s strength to keep her safe. In the awkward aftermath of Mon-El’s confessed feelings Kara feels increasingly alone as Alex spends more time with Maggie.
Once the main events at the DEO get going it develops into a nice little claustrophobic and paranoid story with the White Martian impersonating a mystery someone. Writers Gabriel Llanas & Anna Musky-Goldwyn use this to make some clear some clear and very welcome nods to a couple Sci-Fi classics. The table scenes of mass inner suspicion and testing has shades of The Thing (or The Faculty for 90s teens). Yet it’s the Aliens references that really hit the mark. Not only does the White Martian’s hostage gooey mesh resemble captive hosts in the nest but we get an imminently exploding reactor and even as tough female team member named Vasquez. Even with the less than ideal CG of the White Martian characters (budgets…. money is the real evil) the climactic fights make for a good spectacle with dramatic stakes courtesy of the reactor and a comedic edge from Winn’s attempts to defuse it amidst an alien Royal Rumble. Yet for all the emphasis this episode and many prior have placed on developing the J’onn/M’gann relationship it’s quite a letdown to see the Miss Green effectively written off in the conclusion. Yes, she’s off on a noble cause and could easily return but the timing still feels off. Hopefully this was just forced move due to Sharon Leal’s schedule.
Around the main story is more a mixture to tidying up last week’s developments. The best (and briefest) is the resolution of Kara’s animosity towards Winn over his Guardian night shifts. It uses the episode’s events to show Kara seeing Winn as capable and more comfortable with that he can handle himself; job done, move on. Then by contrast the Kara/Mon-El romantic affair is showing dangerous signs of becoming an Olicity style acquired taste (Mara?) that may come to alienate some fans. The comedic aspects of their scenes work great and thankfully they’ve kept Mon-El’s bartending day job going. The trouble is that too much else of it feels like a directionless mope. We get that the show is exploring Kara’s emotional state but the episode doesn’t manage to do this in entertaining or engaging manner. The subject matter also felt rather mute against the action stakes. When all characters (and thousands of nearby civilians) are mere minutes away from experiencing some slight turbulence and then exploding, it’s difficult to care if someone’s upset over a missed birthday. In fact the best thing by to come out of it all was Mon-El’s rebounding back on to Eve Tessmacher. Andrea Brooks is great comedic asset to show (their caught on the copier moment was its biggest ever laugh) and having her more involved in a story this way should produce some fun results.
Overall The Martian Chronicles feels an even and inconsistent episode but its strengths do provide great spectacle and superhero vs. monsters action. It’s a science fiction heavy episode with some geeky charms to it but certainly isn’t up to the generally high standard Supergirl’s sophomore season has produced. However if next week’s, “Luthors” drills down into that diabolically dysfunctional family things should be back on track again.