Supergirl season 3, episode 3 review: Far From the Tree
Reviewing Monday’s episode of Supergirl.
Preparations for the wedding shower are underway as episode 3 begins. I’m glad to see Kara in a better mood supporting Alex when there’s a knock at the door. J’onn informs the ladies of the distress call he received from M’gann. He’s going to Mars, but not alone; Supergirl to the rescue! They climb into a vintage Cadillac, adjust the radio, and cruise to Mars.
On Earth, Eliza joins Alex and Maggie for a homemade dinner. Maggie shares a touching story about how her family turned their backs on her when she came out to them. Eliza spoke the truth when she told Maggie that the only thing shameful in her story was how her father treated her. Later that night, Alex tries to convince Maggie to call her father and that maybe he’s caught up with the times. To Maggie’s surprise, her father accepts her invitation to the wedding shower.
On Mars, M’gann introduces J’onn to the resistance and informs him that he’s not the last Green Martian. J’onn is emotional when he finds out that his father has been alive all this time. We also learn that his father knows the location of a powerful staff that the resistance needs to gain the upper hand in this war, and they want J’onn to convince his father to release the location. Unfortunately, when J’onn goes to speak to his father, he’s convinced that this is another White Martian trick and no his son.
In another reunion with their father, Maggie and her father have an awkward moment at the bus station. We find out that he’s been keeping up with her cases. Maybe there is hope for reconciliation? However, all hope is lost when he storms out of the wedding shower after Alex and Maggie share a kiss. Maggie catches up with her father outside where he tells her how hard it’s been being a Mexican-American and being lesbian on top of that is just making things harder. “They are building a wall to keep us out because they think we’re rapists, murders, and criminals”. Sound familiar?
A fight breaks out on Mars among the resistance group, and J’onn is forced to take his father and Supergirl to his home on Mars for safe keeping. With a little help from Supergirl and a memory from J’onn’s past, we are fighting back tears when his father finally accepts that J’onn is real and not a trick from the White Martians. He finally agrees to help the resistance and leads everyone to the staff.
When they find the staff, Supergirl rides up to the enemy White Martians in J’onn’s Cadillac with Hit Me Baby One More Time playing on the car radio. If I can make one critique, why wasn’t Oops I Did It Again not the song playing on the radio? Anyhow, after she distracts them from completing the ritual, the resistance and J’onn jump out to join Supergirl in kicking some White Martian butt.
After the day is won, the resistance feels that the staff is too dangerous to have on Mars and ask that the DEO keep it on Earth. J’onn says “goodbye” to M’gann, then heads back to Earth with Supergirl and his father.
Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree as we’ve seen in this episode of Supergirl, where children grow to become someone entirely different from their parents. I don’t understand how Maggie’s father can reject her for loving a woman, but J’onn’s father is cool with him loving a White Martian. Maybe J’onn should have a talk with Maggie’s father. Maybe some of her father’s stubbornness is in her as we saw that Maggie is still adamant about not having children.
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The theme of family is strong in tonight’s episode of Supergirl. We all want to make our parents proud, but accepting that no matter how much good we do, they still won’t accept what makes us unique is a tough pill to swallow. The biggest takeaway from Far from the tree is that the family we’re born into isn’t all the family we have in our lifetime; there’s the family we choose and the one we make. Because of the heartfelt theme and Supergirl back to being her old self, I’m grading Far from the tree 4 out of 5.