‘Supergirl’ season 2, episode 11 review: Romance abounds in ‘The Martian Chronicles’
Given the amount of love that was in the air on Monday night’s new episode of “Supergirl,” you would almost assume that “The Martian Chronicles” was the Valentine’s Day episode. In actuality, it was more of an episode that allowed everyone to be okay with whatever emotions they were feeling — although in one case, there may have been some regret in not acting on them sooner.
Case #1 – J’onn J’onzz and M’gann. After going through the central crisis of this episode in which J’onn realized just how much he cared about his fellow Martian, he was devastated to learn that she was going to be leaving back to her home planet of Mars. He did understand, given that her mission appeared to be all about trying to liberate more of her planet and find others within the White Martian community who were not violent and horrific.
One of the man villains of tonight’s episode was basically her arranged-marriage husband back on Mars, who was a brutal tyrant who wanted her back for the sake of 1) unspeakable things most likely and 2) being punished for trying to help people. Just remember for a minute that most of the White Martians we’ve met on the show are terrible.
Case #2 – Alex and Maggie. Alex felt bad that she was going to miss a longstanding tradition with Kara to go and have a night out with Maggie at a concert, so she bailed in the middle of it and, as a result, saw herself roped into the mess that was going on at the DEO with the White Martians. This was a relatable conflict since it does happen to many people in new relationships, especially someone like Alex who hasn’t been in many in general. They got it sorted out, but one of the Martians put Kara through a terrible situation where she pretended to be Alex to have a talk with her about her feelings.
Case #3 – Kara and Mon-El. After seemingly disparaging the idea of a romantic relationship, he went and found someone else to date at the end of the episode. Of course, this case mere minutes after Kara decided that she was willing to explore this more than she thought that she was previously. Alas, it was too little, too late for her on her talk … for now.
The biggest issue with this episode probably was the sole fact that there was so much time spent on relationships, and not nearly enough focused on everything else going on within the world. James Olsen was nonexistent, and there was no movement forward on any other stories. We do understand that this is a character study more so than a superhero show, but when almost everything is about romance in a single episode, it can get a tad overwhelming. Variety is the spice of life, people! Grade: B-.
What did you think about “The Martian Chronicles” overall? Share some of your thoughts on the subject now in the comments.