Supergirl’s 14th episode (“Homecoming”) managed to be both emotionally grueling and predictable (plot-wise). In this episode, I related most to…Mon-El. Okay, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d type, but here we are. Yes, he and Kara had a cute morning after (complete with flowers he puts in the lampshade!). But this is followed by him ignoring her wants/needs and shouting to the entire DEO they’re dating. Less good, dude. Significantly less good.
Honestly, Mon-El spends most of the episode doing his best Cassandra, if Cassandra were also the canary in a coal mine. He’s skeptical of Jeremiah’s timely arrival: “It’s more than luck.” And “They were waving their red hands in the air, literally, like they didn’t care.” It goes over like a lead balloon encased in a metric ton of NOPE. While Mon-El’s heart was in the right place, going after Jeremiah (Dean Cain) in the middle of the Welcome Home dinner party (margariiiiiiitas!) was not smooth. And while Kara doesn’t need anyone to protect her, I admired his ability to take a stand, when no one else believed him.
Granted, that was not great for his relationship. He and Kara have a fight, and she kicks him out: “I am not baseball, and until you can learn that what I say counts, this isn’t going to work.” In that respect, Kara had a point. Listening is key to any relationship, as is not bowling over the other person’s needs. But from blissful morning after to that? Well, I had a slight case of emotional whiplash myself.
I will say, though, that my favorite part of the dinner party was Eliza 100% not being here for Jeremiah, after 15 years had passed: “I don’t know you anymore, and you don’t know me. … I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, but this is gonna have to be something new.” She’s not closed to (an obviously never happening) reconciliation, but it was on point not to simply have her fall back into his arms. It was a real and believable hold up moment.
Which, okay, let’s talk about Jeremiah. Part cyborg, part wayward parent. He’s hashed out a deal with Momma Luthor, but is that enough to redeem any of his actions? (Nooooooope.) After he is magically rescued from CADMUS, he lobbies hard to get back to the DEO. Winn finds him poking his nose around where he shouldn’t (watching him at Mon-El’s request—honestly, I’m enjoying the budding friendship between these two). That is the catalyst to open Kara’s eyes and start being smart, instead of blindly trusting: “We owe it to ourselves to look at every angle, even if it makes us uncomfortable.”
But man. Alex. She tears into Kara in the way that only those close to us can: mercilessly and with precision. First, Alex attacks Kara as a person, claiming she’s parroting Mon-EL, then she lashes out as if Kara has betrayed her family. It is a gorgeously rendered scene, and it broke my heart in multiple ways. We’ve all, at one time or another, been Alex—blindly clinging to the idea of a person, the belief we need to hold about them. It was raw and real. But the fall is always hard from such a lofty height.
Chyler Leigh again cracked my heart in half when she finally confronted Jeremiah. Alex’s grief was palpable and gutting. Again, when Maggie comforted her at the close of the episode, because no one does unbound sorrow like Leigh. There’s never a false note, and while I’d like Alex to not have a reason to cry for a bit, this was a powerful episode.
Mon-El (taking a cue from Winn! I mean, who would’ve thought Winn would be given dating advice? NO ONE.) shows up for Kara, who is hurting after Jeremiah’s betrayal. And she arguably lost her Earth Dad in the worst way: with him still living and breathing, but not being the same man who raised her. It is a special kind of pain. And Mon-El just…sits with her, holds her, and asks what she needs. The forehead kiss was a nice touch.
Obviously, this isn’t the last we’ve seen of CADMUS. They’ve got the alien registry. Which…not great. But it’s Kara who offers wise words, when Mon-El asks what they’re going to do: “We get up.”
To echo Mon-El’s response: Yeah, we do. When things go from bad to worse, we don’t run. We don’t cower. We pick ourselves up off the floor and fight for the right things. Pain can only sideline us for a finite amount of time. Then it’s back up and back in the game.
I think that is, perhaps, a wise lesson.
Now, where’s my cape?
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