Verdict: Supergirl shows off how far it’s come in another great episode that explores fascinating issues of immigration and prejudice from both sides of the aisle.

Review

Supergirl has always been a show about migrants in many ways – Kara’s back-story of coming to Earth and hiding her identity in order to assimilate before finally deciding to reveal her true self to society is a classic metaphor for immigrant experiences, and the story of J’onn J’onzz is equally tethered to migrant experiences through its exploration of J’onn as the lone refugee fleeing from a war in his home. Yet those issues have mostly served to speed along other conflicts, and thus have stayed sub-textual throughout the show’s time – clearly issues the show was preoccupied with, but not ones that it would ever directly tackle, perhaps because issues of migration are so controversial that they require a real sensitivity to explore.

It speaks, then, to how far Supergirl has come in finding and refining its own voice that Welcome to Earth tackles these issues head-on and manages to provide an intelligent, compelling commentary on them that keeps Supergirl’s trademark heart-on-its-sleeve approach but never falls into didacticism. These are weighty themes, but they’re given their dues because Supergirl offers such a wide variety of perspectives through which it can explore all the myriad nuances of the debate. In every plotline here dealing with those issues, we get two very legitimate contrasting points of view that serve to highlight the innate difficulty of ever providing a definitive answer that everyone can agree on – no one here is quite right in their opinion, with even our favourite characters having to face up to the flaws and prejudices implicit in their own arguments. In essence, this could be said to be an episode that’s as much about compromise that it is about belief – about learning to open up your views a little to nuances and contradictions, even if it disrupts the narrative one has on the issue.

Kara’s own journey is probably the most substantial take on Welcome to Earth’s central themes, and it’s as incisive and multi-faceted an exploration of the central character as we’ve ever had. What’s really interesting about Kara’s journey is that it takes arguably the most admirable aspect of her character, her unabashed passion to help people, and delves head-on into the complications that such a simple worldview can throw up. The choice to shake up Kara’s professional life by making her a reporter pays dividends here because it allows Supergirl to explore just how Kara can’t approach these two sides of her life in the same way. When she’s Supergirl in the workplace, a passionate advocate for alien rights, it backfires horribly not because of any injustice done to her, but because she fundamentally misunderstands the different practices needed for objective journalism. It’s an example of how Welcome to Earth offers up real, wide-ranging challenges to Kara’s psyche that help contribute to the idea that she needs to develop as Kara Danvers, citizen of Earth. In this regard, Welcome to Earth particularly points out just how her focus on Supergirl has left her life lopsided, dominated by the skillset and approach needed for superheroics to a damaging extent.

Wrapped around that central story of Kara learning to compartmentalise the two sides of herself is another plotline that more directly deals with immigrant experiences through the means of introducing Mon-El, a resident of sister planet Daxam. It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mon-El turns out to be a friendly ally simply looking to contact his home planet, but Supergirl uses that twist to open up a much more interesting story where, for once, Kara is the bad guy. It’s fascinating to see the typically all-loving hero reduced to what Mon-El correctly calls out as elitist sneering and prejudice that doesn’t take any of his individuality into an account, and her close-minded attitudes force you to re-evaluate all of her empathetic pronouncements of before, poking holes in Kara’s supposedly perfectly benevolent stance.

Melissa Benoist is as loveable as ever in this episode as she sells Kara’s childlike enthusiasm at meeting the President, but her most interesting work comes in shading this uglier side of Kara with her convincingly condescending, righteous tone in her scenes with Chris Wood’s engagingly snarky Mon-El. It’s because of Benoist that the fascinating concept works in execution, papering over the slightly simplistic nature of the script’s handling of Kara’s prejudices to really sell that this is an aspect of her personality that’s been there all along instead of retroactively tacked on to make a point here. Kara’s dual plotlines work, simply, because they allow Kara to be utterly wrong, and for her usual approaches to come up short, bringing out the innate flaws of the character instead of just exploring her virtues. It’s a dated maxim that good-hearted heroes are boring, and the development here shows that off – Kara may still be the altruistic hero we’ve all grown to love, but her depiction here reveals a whole host of contradictions, prejudices and foibles on top of the heroism that make for a really well-rounded and compelling character arc.

We may be three episodes deep into the season now, but Supergirl wasn’t done with introductions here, bringing a new face in the form of pro-alien cop Maggie Sawyer to the table. I’m not familiar with Sawyer’s comics incarnation, so I can’t speak to the supposed dissimilarities in her portrayal here, but as a new character taken on her own terms, she proved to be a great addition for two particular reasons. On a plot level, her introduction allows Welcome to Earth to broaden out its exploration of immigration and prejudice by providing a more human angle that highlights the classic sci-fi metaphor at the heart of this episode of aliens as outcasts. Her speech about growing up in Nebraska as a gay Latina woman was a smart, succinct way to encapsulate that idea – Supergirl has always been a show that’s championed the outsider, and Maggie’s status as someone who society has pushed to the edges to occupy the same area as literal aliens makes her an instantly likeable figure who we can root for from the off. And on another level, the attraction evident between her and Alex throughout the episode has a lot of promise for something really original for the show if it’s handled with enough sensitivity, allowing Supergirl to up the inclusiveness and variety of perspectives that are so key to its core themes. We don’t know for sure that Alex is the character who will be exploring their sexuality mentioned by the creators a couple of months back, but it would seem like a logical development based on the chemistry between the two characters here, which already seems convincing enough to launch a major plot from. Aside from speculation, though, Maggie fits like a glove into this show’s universe instantly, and her outsider status and attraction with Alex provide a lot of intriguing promise for future stories.

One of the most fun things about Welcome to Earth that was highlighted time and time again in the marketing is the appearance of Lynda Carter, the former Wonder Woman, as the US President, and despite the relatively sparse screen-time she’s given, the POTUS makes an instant impression here. Carter’s performance has just the right amount of classy gravitas to it to make her grand speeches and flashy rhetoric convincing, but there’s a warmth and genuineness to her performance that feels right for the kind of leader that a universe like this would have. One of Supergirl’s defining traits is its optimistic faith in humanity, so it’s completely fitting that the President is a good-hearted and personable advocate for alien rights and unity, embodying the kind of sincere values that have been innate in this show’s philosophy from the off. I’m intrigued by the reveal that she’s in fact a shape-shifting alien of some kind because it throws all of her words into a drastically new light when re-considered, but on another level it’s a less potent twist than it could have been, going to the same ‘alien in disguise’ well that Welcome to Earth already makes good use of with Scorcher and Miss Martian. Nonetheless, Carter’s much-hyped addition lived up to the expectations, and, on a less substantial level, it’s just kind of awesome that an actress who was at the forefront of translating DC’s characters to television is honoured in the way that she is here.

One aspect of Welcome to Earth that doesn’t quite come together as well, unfortunately, is the eventual villain, Scorcher. By necessity to maintain the suspense that it’s Mon-El behind the attacks on the President, Scorcher isn’t revealed until about ten minutes are left in the episode, but this lack of screen-time leads to a predictable lack of development for a character who’s the final piece of the episode’s jigsaw in many ways. The motivation that Scorcher sketches out, of the Alien Amnesty Act as a fascist ploy to bring aliens out into the light, is conceptually interesting but forced in execution, reduced to a small soundbite that feels painfully familiar when it’s given no depth beyond that basic premise. It’s only a small mark on an otherwise rock-solid episode, but Welcome to Earth is so skilful in studying the nuances of its themes elsewhere that it’s a shame that the villain’s not given enough time to become truly sympathetic and understandable, blunting the final point that the episode makes a little.

One final storyline that plays out on the fringes of Welcome to Earth, but is no less interesting for its relative obscurity, is the emergence of the Martian Manhunter’s first real solo storyline. The shot of J’onn entering the alien bar in his human form and then shifting to his Martian self was a fantastic, concise way to sum up the plunge that he’s taking in embracing the identity that he’s always been encouraged, even when it’s publicly revealed, to hide beyond a more ‘comfortable’ exterior. And it certainly led to something interesting, with J’onn meeting none other than a fellow Martian behind the bar in the episode’s cliffhanger. There’s so much potential for a storyline exploring the two survivors of the atrocity that J’onn described on Mars last season, both on a thematic level with its clear contemporary real-world parallels and on a character level by delving into the Martian side of J’onn that’s been relatively untapped as he’s spent most of his screen-time locked in the DEO. It is a really exciting development to leave the episode on, illustrating this show’s growing confidence now it’s on the CW in delving into the more heightened, riskier aspects of the DC canon.

Season two of Supergirl is now three for three, with Welcome to Earth ably shouldering the losses of Cat Grant and Superman with a narrative that’s thoughtful in its depiction of alien rights issues through a variety of perspectives yet still just as joyfully exciting as ever. Supergirl has an absolutely stacked deck of cards now for the season ahead with a whole host of characters who all offer their own potential for fascinating stories to come, and Welcome to Earth shows that it’s starting to take great advantage of everything that Supergirl now has at its disposal. The season is still young, but this new version of Supergirl is showing real staying power already.

Odds & Ends

• Hey, this episode did an okay job of James’ slightly inexplicable promotion to CatCo CEO! His conflict with and eventual victory over Snapper is a satisfying little story, and there’s a notably different energy to the CatCo scenes with him in charge that helps heighten the feeling of total change.
• Winn’s also a lot of fun in his new role as the comic relief at the DEO who’s always just a couple of steps behind everyone else. I hope the show finds something for him to do that allows for genuine development, but he’s working really well for the time being.
• Kara and Lena seem well on the way to becoming friends, a nice development that would be more heart-warming if it wasn’t destined to end in horrible betrayal.
• “That is a legit quote! People are going to quote her!”
• “You should see my other jet!” Heh.
• Next week: Alien fight club!