Star Crossed – When an unknown spaceship above National City turns out to be Mon-El’s Daxamite family, Kara finally learns that he has been lying about being the prince of Daxam. When Lyra uses Winn for a crime he’s devastated but is there more to her agenda than meets the eye?
Starting on a down note, the only one really, concerning this episode’s billing as the beginning of a two part crossover with this week’s Flash episode. Technically that’s all true but it’s basically the same thing they did with the Invasion crossover. Merely the last moments of the episode setup Supergirl going onto The Flash and that’s it. Anyone expecting otherwise will be disappointed. It is a tantalising setup though, with Darren Criss’s (Glee’s Blake) Music Master making his big entrance before departing for Earth 1 and leaving Kara in a musical cliff-hanger. It sets up Kara and other Supergirl characters travelling to Earth 1 in pursuit of Music Master or to get their help saving Kara. Winn idly jokes that he and Cisco seem like they would be best friends if they ever met. Hopefully that means we’ll see these two awesome geeks collaborating.
As to the episode itself it essentially boiled down to an examination of lying in relationships using the two pairings of Kara & Mon-El along with Lyra & Winn. That could make for a rather meager episode but thankfully rather than serving as standalone character examinations the theme is worked the existing alien/superhero/sci-fi action for great results. Starting with Kara in her surprising case of meet the royal parents; as suspected last episode the King and Queen of Daxam are played by Kevin “ 90s Hercules & Andromeda” Sorbo and Terri “90s Louis Lane” Hatcher. They both look amazing in their getups and Hatcher in particular is fantastic as she addresses Kara a mixture protocol politeness and edged racial distain. While it comes down to Mon-El apologizing, trying to justify his deceit to Kara and Mon-El’s argument is presented well; especially in being ashamed of his former ultra privileged & entitled and how much making a new life has meant to him. Couple that with notions royal duty, planetary re-colonizing and some good early Supergirl Vs spaceship action for a solid and entertaining effort.
Then we have Winn and Lyra. Now they have looked like a ticking time bomb of happiness for several episodes. A twist or tragedy also looked like it was coming but fair play to writers Katie Rose Rogers & Jess Kardos for making the outcome more surprising. Not only did this provide good emotional material for Winn and Lyra but it successfully occupied the rest of the core cast without feeling like that was the intention. The fighting against Mandrax and his gang gave Alex and Guardian some great action scenes, especially Guardian who we haven’t seen properly utilized for many episodes. There’s a lot of good humour too. Of course Winn is on comedic form (“She fem-fatal’ed me!”) but Guardian’s unexpected, “….that usually works” moment is the show’s funniest for some time. I hope this isn’t the last we see of Mandrax either. While not a comics character, his physical power and matter of factly superiority complex make him a very enjoyable adversary, “You humans all think you can be heroes.... it’s so annoying”. The overall story also functioned as mirror to Kara & Mon-El’s story with Lyra’s lies being justified by a greater purpose to lead into the idea of Kara forgiving Mon-El.
While the climax may veer a little predictably into the kind of romantic drama the some fans detest about CW’s DC shows it’s delivered very strongly with a lot of emotion on the table. Despite everything Mon-El still comes out of it looking the stronger for his defiance towards his parents. It’s a fair bet that won’t be the last we see of them (what’s the betting they’ll be back with an army in the season finale?) but Star Crossed is a clear crossroads episode for the season. On paper this episode is little more than a daytime soap opera story. In practice it’s an excellent character driven genre story which really shows how far the show has come this season. For now though, Supergirl will be back in a Flash.