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Recap / Supergirl (2015) S2E17 "Distant Sun"

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The Flash crossover episode "Duet" takes place between this episode and the previous one.

Mon-El continues to have issues with his parents, while Kara discovers someone has put out a bounty on her and hunters are coming from across the galaxy to collect it. Meanwhile, Alex is thrown when Maggie's ex comes back to town.


Tropes in this episode include:

  • Abusive Parents: Rhea may love Mon-El, but she is perfectly willing to toss him in a cell until they return to Daxam.
  • Apologetic Attacker: Both Mon-El and Kara, when he's People-Puppeted and forced to attack her, and she tries to subdue him while holding back, which she isn't used to doing.
  • Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Queen Rhea is rich enough to put a bounty on Supergirl's head of 300 quartz crowns, which according to Mon-El is enough money to buy a planet. In fairness she is Queen of her own planet, and though Daxam was ravaged by Krypton's destruction, apparently enough wealth survived to allow her to put up the bounty.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: Kara and J'onn team up once again.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: J'onn and the telepathic bounty hunter engage in one, which ends with J'onn winning and the hunter giving up his contractor.
  • Beam-O-War: Kara puts her heat vision against the Eye Beams of the alien bounty hunter, who ends up winning the struggle. His beams don't actually hurt her, though.
  • Brandishment Bluff: Winn holds a stapler to the back of the telepathic bounty hunter, claiming it's a gun, which gets the bounty hunter to surrender. Winn mocks him for it later.
  • Call-Back:
    • Winn has rebuilt the portal from "Supergirl Lives". This episode reveals it does not need a companion gate to function, so long as you have precise coordinates for it to target.
    • The last time she appeared, the President briefly changed form to show that she's secretly an alien. Here she goes all the way with it.
  • Carnival of Killers: Rhea puts a massive bounty on Kara that summons bounty hunters from across the universe, though we only see two — a reptilian being with a laser-shooting eyepatch, and a Human Alien with psychic powers.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: When ordered to stay at home, Supergirl feels really tortured by not being able to go outside and do her thing, especially while watching the news.
  • Continuity Lockout: Hope you watched the Flash crossover "Duet" where Kara and Mon-El get back together, or it'll seem like their breakup last episode was completely forgotten.
  • Continuous Decompression: Mon-El breaches the glass in the throne room on the ship to interrupt a duel between Supergirl and Rhea that the latter was likely to win, causing the ship to decompress for a solid minute. The kryptonite sais are sucked out the hole, as is a guard, before Lar Gand manages to trigger some emergency shutters. One wonders why they're not designed to close automatically in the event of a breach.
  • Dark Secret: Maggie cheated on her ex-girlfriend, Emily.
  • Eye Beams: The first alien Bounty Hunter that terrorizes National City has an implant over his left eye that can fire beams.
  • Eye Scream: Kara defeats the aforementioned Bounty Hunter by covering his eyepatch, causing his implant to cook itself on his face.
  • Forgot About His Powers: When J'onn mentions that nobody could stop Kara if she wants to engage the bounty hunters, he forgets that he very well could, and in fact has. Of course, he doesn't want to fight Kara, and given that fights between beings of that level always end up causing significant amounts of property damage, it's very understandable he wouldn't want to get into it in the middle of the DEO regardless.
  • God Save Us from the Queen!: While they both want what they consider to be best for their family and kingdom, Lar Gand is a Reasonable Authority Figure; Rhea, on the other hand, doesn't take 'No' for an answer, not even from her son or husband.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: Just after Lar Gand has stopped in his quest to forcibly bring their son with them and also stopped Rhea from hurting Kara more, he gets stabbed to death by his wife herself.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: A non-fatal version, but Mon-El agrees to give up his life on Earth and return to Daxam if it'll get his mother to retract the bounty on Kara. Thankfully, this is later averted.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Rhea justifies her actions this way towards her husband.
  • I Gave My Word: Despite all the horrible things she does otherwise in the episode, Rhea actually calls off the bounty on Kara after Mon-El surrenders himself.
  • In-Universe Factoid Failure: Used in-universe: Mon-El keeps referencing what a beautiful love story Romeo and Juliet is. Kara points out that he hasn't reached the end yet. (He also must not know about the prologue or the complete title. The sixth line of the prologue of The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is "A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life.")
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Alex tries to use this (again) on the bounty hunter, but J'onn stops her and challenges the hunter to a telepathic duel instead.
  • The Kingslayer: Rhea kills her husband when he allows Mon-El to return to Earth.
  • Kryptonite Factor: Rhea is armed with a Kryptonite sais; she states that Daxam has plenty of Krypton's remains. It's never stated how she knew that Kryptonians could be harmed with pieces of their own planet.
  • Liar Revealed: It is revealed to Alex that Maggie cheated on her ex-girlfriend, and it seems like it will be a major stumbling block in their relationship. Turns out it's not; Alex says that what Maggie did before they got together doesn't matter to her, but she does point out that Maggie has a bad habit of not trusting her with the complete truth, which Maggie seems to take to heart. (To be fair, Maggie technically didn't lie to Alex; she was truthful in saying the relationship didn't end well.)
  • Loophole Abuse: Attempted but failed. The Exact Words of President Marsdin's order is that Supergirl shouldn't engage the Daxamites to avoid a potential intergalactic conflict, so J'onn disguises himself as Kara to blindside them. However, Kara still ends up joining the skirmish. The President is not amused.
  • Mind-Control Eyes: The telepathic bounty hunter's eyes glow blue when using his powers, as do those of his victim when he takes control.
  • The Missus and the Ex: The episode's subplot has Alex meeting Maggie's ex-girlfriend.
  • Morality Pet: Mon-El turns out to be this for his father. First, Mon-El tries to get him to change how Daxam is run, then makes him realize that he shouldn't force him to stay with his parents.
  • Negated Moment of Awesome: Guardian, once again, tries to save the day (this time by engaging a body-controlled Mon-El) only to be casually thrown aside.
  • No-Sell: Rhea tries her Kryptonite sais on Supergirl when Supergirl teleports to her ship, only for them to do nothing. Supergirl then transforms into J'onn, who points out their radiation won't do anything to him.
  • No OSHA Compliance: It takes a special kind of idiot engineer to know enough to put emergency decompression shutters on the Daxamite ship and yet somehow at the same time neglect to install a system to automatically activate them upon a decompression event occurring!
  • Not Me This Time: Mon-El (rightly) suspects that his parents put a bounty on Kara, but they insist it's a coincidence and are only staying because they hope he'll change his mind. It turns out Lar Gand really is innocent, as Rhea put the hit on Kara without his knowledge.
  • Out of Focus: James Olsen, once again. In fact, after being casually thrown aside by the body-controlled Mon-El, he vanishes for the rest of the episode
  • Overshadowed by Awesome:
    • While James tries to intervene in the clash between Kara and the manipulated Mon-El, despite how much of a Badass Normal he may be as Guardian, beneath the suit he is still just a human being going against two Super-Strong extraterrestrials, whom Mon-El instantly knocks out of the fight.
    • The telepathic bounty hunter claims to be the greatest telepath in the Alcorean system. Unfortunately for him, he's not in the Alcorean system, and J'onn J'onzz is no pushover.
  • People Puppets: The telepathic bounty hunter hijacks Mon-El's body to make him attack Kara.
  • Playing the Victim Card: Rhea accuses Kara of being selfish and stealing Mon-El from her during their second fight.
  • Premature Encapsulation: This is the episode where Mon-El constantly references Romeo and Juliet. The previous episode was the one with a title taken from Romeo and Juliet.
  • Pstandard Psychic Pstance: The telepathic bounty hunter controls Mon-El's body in this pose.
  • Pun-Based Title: The episode centers on Mon-El and his parents growing apart.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Mon-El makes breakfast for Kara, even wearing an apron while serving it. He reveals that he'd been reading cook books, and, according to Kara's reaction, with very good results.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Rhea puts the bounty on Kara without Lar Gand's knowledge, and he doesn't approve of it once he discovers the truth. He also allows Mon-El to leave when it's clear Mon-El will never be happy back on Daxam. Sadly, it doesn't end well for him.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: J'onn reluctantly green-lights the mission to retrieve Mon-El even though the President orders him to avoid hostilities with the Daxamites. She's rather upset upon learning he disobeyed her, and promises that consequences will be forthcoming.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Mon-El references Romeo and Juliet, comparing it with his and Kara's own Star-Crossed Lovers' situation, even suggesting trying to run away together, as Romeo and Juliet planned to do in the play; Kara shoots down the plan by mentioning the play's Downer Ending. It turns out Mon-El hadn't finished reading it..
    • He also references A New Hope by calling Winn "a little short for a Stormtrooper." Winn is happy he's finally gotten around to watching it.
  • Til Murder Do Us Part: At the end of the episode, Rhea stabs Lar Gand to death.
  • To Be Lawful or Good: Kara and co. are faced with this, since they want to rescue Mon-El, but the President has ordered them not to engage the Daxamites. They do it anyway though.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: President Marsdin is not happy with J'onn after the fight in the warship, and scolds him.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lar Gand is dismissive of Mon-El's suggestion that they reform Daxam to be more democratic, believing that it is their families iron-fisted rule which has ensured Daxam's survival for a millennium.
  • You Have Failed Me: Rhea kills Lar Gand because the latter allowed their son to leave.

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