Kyle’s Thoughts

“Star-Crossed” is uneven. It suffers from leaning too heavily on romance, something I don’t care for in CW shows, and it doesn’t qualify as a Supergirl episode. Kara is nothing more than jaded lover.

That sounds too negative. This week’s Supergirl had some good developments and let’s start with some of those. I like how Winn’s whirlwind romance bit him in the butt. Supergirl is a CW show so while I questioned how quickly Winn fell in love with Lyra, I wrote it off as standard CW storytelling. To have Lyra backstab Winn was a nice touch. It caught me off guard. Of course, she was a “good girl turned bad” and genuinely cared for Winn. Once her brother was rescued, she committed herself to Winn. Her betrayal was little more than small speedbump. Still, it was different.

Most of this week’s Supergirl’s action involved Winn-Lyra. Guardian and the DEO chipped in with saving Lyra’s brother and capturing an intergalactic art smuggler. It’s a silly story but I could’ve been more invested if Guardian wasn’t a part of the action. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t like Jimmy Olsen as a hero. Sure, it happened from time to time in the comics, but I’d rather see Jimmy as Kara’s friend. I consider this half of the story as mostly a win. The DEO has been sitting around their headquarters, letting Kara do all the work. It was nice seeing them take charge.

Kara’s half of the story didn’t work at all for me, even though he had plenty of geek cred. Kara finds out that her beau Mon-El isn’t just from Daxam, he’s the daxamite prince. His parents, Queen Rhea (Lois and Clark’s Teri Hatcher) and King Lar Gand (Hercules’ Kevin Sorbo) want him to return to Daxam. Make Daxam great again. Yes. They coined Trump’s campaign slogan. Daxam is known for its cruel treatment of the lower 95 percent. That couldn’t possibly be construed as political. Topical political issues aside, Kara’s story didn’t work because of manufactured tension.

Kara was okay with Mon-El being a regular Joe from Daxam. As soon as she found out he was part of the upper 5%, she dumped him. Supergirl has been playing footsie with Mon-Kara for most of the season, and when Kara learns the truth, their relationship is done. Okay. I get that Kara feels betrayed. But ever since his third or fourth episode, Mon-El hasn’t been defending Daxam. I should’ve seen this coming. Kara made a comment earlier this year to the effect of “at least you’re not Daxam royalty, they’re jerks.” Well, he is, and Kara goes back to hating Mon-El. I’m okay with Kara wanting space for half the episode but even after she has time to think things over, she doesn’t forgive Mon-El, despite his actions showing he wants to change. I’m sure Kara will forgive Mon-El, but this was manipulative.

“Star-Crossed” had some good aspects but the Mon-Kara story felt like filler, or at least fluffing a storyline to pad an episode or two. Hopefully, things will get ironed out in the next episode and Supergirl will get back on track.

Thanks for reading.