After the lapse that was ‘Survivors’, Supergirl is back on form this week with ‘Crossfire’. Exploring what it is like for Daxon alien, Mon-El (Chris Wood), to acclimatise to living on Earth, we get to witness some truly entertaining behaviours, a fun ‘costume’ montage, and a new pair of glasses made to disguise him.
Kara (Melissa Benoist) has gotten him an internship at CatCo, he’s meant to be working her old job, and she has barely briefed him before they arrived. It’s quite sweet to see him panic over the phones ringing (“What is that alarm?”), and failing to understand just what he is meant to be doing. Of course, Kara is trying a little to hard to mould ‘Matt’ into what she used to be, which is not going to work for him. She’s dressed him in some sort of Barry-on-Earth-2 apparel, and while he makes it work, it doesn’t really fit (both literally and figuratively).
Matt, as it turns out, is a bit of a flirt, and a ladies man. He manages to get James’ (Mehcad Brooks who returns this week after an absence in last week’s episode) assistant to do most of his job for him, and eventually gets caught by puppy in the headlights Kara trying to hook up with her in the cupboard. He even tries his luck with Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) who shows up at CatCo to invite Kara (and Supergirl) to a gala that she is having, that ‘Matt of the Interns’ gets himself invited to also (we’re sensing a little of the sexual tension here, and between him and Kara and honestly, we’re okay with that).
Cadmas comes out of hiding again, this time to face off up against Supergirl with guns with powers (anti-gravity, and various others, think Captain Cold and Heatwave). James helps defend Kara at the cost of his father’s camera, and it spark the vigilante in him. He wants to help. He’s tired of being the sidekick. So he starts going after these guys on his own, which sounds like a wonderful idea of you ask us… that’s going to end so well for you James. Winn finds out, and after some persuading decides he’s going to help.
Later, at Lena’s party, and there is some awkward back and forth where Kara tries to hide her identity as Supergirl. The party continues with Matt of the Interns and Kara going for a dance (something they both miss from their home planets) and as if on cue the bad guys appear, it turns out that actually Lena had planned it all along and had planted some scientific device thing to deactivate the guns/disarm the bad guys. It’s a great moment, but Winn gets in the way and it undermines Lena’s position as somebody who actually knows her stuff. The day is saved and the bad guys are packed off to prison (well, near enough before Cadmus has them killed).
Of course, the attention that Kara is paying to Matt of the Interns doesn’t go unnoticed by both Winn (Jeremy Jordan) and James. While James has more reason to be sceptical, we can’t help but groan as Winn seems to think he gets to have an opinion… You liked her Winn, Kara wasn’t interested, time to move on…
The romance storyline we are interested in, however, comes down once again to the developing feelings Alex has for Maggie. Maggie who has just been dumped, Maggie who was asking previously if Alex was interested in girls only to be shot down. It gives us a beautiful character moment in which Alex admits that she never thought about the idea that her lack of interest in romance wasn’t because she just didn’t care, but because the right woman hadn’t come along. While it does feel a little rushed on the whole, it is a good representation of somebody facing up to their true self. Alex isn’t quite ready to say it out loud, but she is ready to let Maggie know that maybe she was right about that thing about her.
The episode is back on strong Supergirl form, and with the ‘twist’ at the end of the episode (which we definitely didn’t see coming at all), it’s setting up for a really interesting overarching plot.
