Supergirl 2×04 Review: Survivors

Deception was the name of the game on last night’s Supergirl. “Survivors” emphasized that on this show, things are not always what they seem.

Last week’s episode, “Welcome to Earth”, introduced the idea that there is a thriving underground community of aliens living in National City. It was about accepting that we are not alone and acknowledging that everyone has the right to live as they wish. “Survivors” hammered home the reminder that, while everyone has the right to live free, that’s usually not how things work out.

It turns out that there is a secret alien fight club, and not everyone is there by choice. Catering to National City’s rich and powerful and run by a mysterious woman called Roulette, aliens are snatched from the street and forced to battle in a cage match – sometimes to the death. It’s a stark reminder that the same opportunities do not exist for everyone, and sometimes people must do things they do not want to do in order to survive – like M’gann.

The last daughter of Mars – Miss Martian – was involved in the fight club, which greatly distressed J’onn. He kept trying to talk her out of it, as though he has any right to dictate what she does with her life. When they’re forced into the cage in a death match, he is able to convince her that she may have had to do a lot of things to survive, but she doesn’t have to become a killer. In the end, M’gann realizes that J’onn has a point and refuses to continue with the fight.

I definitely got some creep vibes from their interactions. This may seem like a ridiculous comparison, but it really reminded me of Ice Age 2 when Manny meets Ellie and decides that since they may be the only two mammoths left, they should be together. When J’onn asks M’gann to bond with him, I initially thought he was proposing marriage after having met her basically twice. Actually, Martians initiate pyschic and telepathic links of a way of communicating, and I guess he just missed it, being as he’s long thought himself the only one of his species.

And it turns out he may still be the only green Martian left, because M’gann is not all she appears to be. In the closing moments of the episode, we learned that she is not a green Martian at all, but in fact a white Martian. Couple this with last week’s revelation that the President is an alien (or an alien is pretending to be the President), and there’s just deception all around.

Speaking of deception, let’s talk about Lena. When she was first introduced, I wanted to believe that she was going to be a good character, but now I’m not so sure. Her extreme willingness to give Kara walk-in privileges to her office and the fact that she just so happened to go to boarding school with Roulette indicate that she may be involved in something evil and is simply luring Kara in with a false sense of security. I think Clark’s change of heart about Lena in the first two episodes went a long way towards endearing Lena to Kara, and I think that means Kara will let her guard down around her.

With all of these characters having dubious motivations, I can only hope that Mon-El’s and Maggie’s intentions are pure – or at least, not evil. Mon-El seems very genuine in his behavior; he still hopes that others survived Daxam’s destruction but he seems content enough on Earth…just not being cooped up in the DEO. His interactions with Winn were fantastic, especially when Mon-El was manipulating Winn into taking him out for a night on the town. They have a really great rapport, and it was nice to see so much of Winn in this episode. But it’s Mon-El’s scenes with Kara that are the most intriguing. With Kara agreeing to “take custody” of Mon-El, it really seems as though they’re going to push a romance between the two of them. I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to that, but I do hope if they go that route that they take it slowly. It’s important for characters – especially female characters – to be allowed to grow and develop as individuals before they get placed into relationships, and there is a lot going on in Kara’s life right now without tossing in a star-crossed lovers type of romance. Let her figure out who she is and where she’s going before you add a man into the mix.

While we’re on the talk of relationships, they are clearly moving forward with an Alex/Maggie pairing, and I am fully on board with this decision. Alex seems to be aware of her feelings, at least on some level, hence why she invited Maggie out for drinks at the end of the episode. Maggie may not be on the same page, or she might simply be wary of Alex herself. We don’t know, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Regardless of their romantic potential, I do highly enjoy seeing them team up. Even Kara noticed that they make a good team, and the scenes with them together were great. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of them together, and I for one am thrilled about this.

There’s a lot going on this season on Supergirl, and this becomes abundantly clear in “Survivors”. Between new relationship developments, a smattering of new characters with questionable motives, and an over-arching theme of immigration, there’s just so much to speculate about. For example, I suspect we haven’t seen the last of Roulette, but who do you think her mysterious benefactor is? My money is on either the President or Lena. And we know M’gann’s story of escaping the prison camp was a lie, but is it possible that when she was describing the white Martian who had a change of heart, she was referring to herself?

Did you see “Survivors”? What did you think? Do you think Lena is up to something nefarious? Any theories as to why M’gann took the form of a green Martian when revealing herself to J’onn? What do you think Mon-El’s superhero name should be? Let us know in the comments!

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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