Not to, like, break everyone's hearts on a Saturday night, but there's still so many scenes in Season 3 where Chris just elevated the hell out of a very shitty plot with some top notch face acting, and was able to convey so much more than was there in the script.
The early and middle parts of the season were all about him facing twin realities: that he's caused Kara this tremendous grief--which makes him feel both shame and guilt, even though we know he's blameless in this situation--but also that her love for him was real, and it was deep.
Because we know how madly in love with her he was (and still is). What must be have gone through in convincing himself that he was over her? In deluding himself that he could really ever love anyone else? Did he tell himself she was fine without him? That she must have moved on, too, and lived a happy life? Did he compartmentalize her as the legend he turned her into there? Did putting her up on a (possibly literal) pedestal make it easier, because that way not only is he honoring her, but he's creating an idealized version of her in his mind, replacing the real person she actually was, who had flaws and made mistakes?
What happens when suddenly he sees how much his absence affected her? And that she's real, and human, and broken, and angry?
What about when he starts to acknowledge to himself that his feelings are still there, that they're flooding back just from being near her, at remembering the real Kara, not just the inspiration that's guided him all these years?
What happens when he realizes that real person is getting over him after all and moving on with her life (and far more quickly than he did, to the extent that he did at all)?
What about when he has to walk away thinking he'll never see her again, knowing for sure that what he originally told himself is true: that she'll get over him. And he'll go back to a life that revolves entirely around her, while she'll do what he only pretended to: actually move on. And one day soon, she'll wake up and go about her day, and won't even think about him at all. He'll just be some guy she used to date a long time ago.
And here's the one that kills me: when they find Argo, and he sees that she has this chance to be with people like her, people who she can be Kara Zor-El with, people who can meet this need she has that once upon a time only HE could meet.
This is the one that absolutely floors me. Because just this one face and we know exactly what Mon-El is thinking:
"This is it. This is the moment when I lose her forever. She'll stay here, and marry some kryptonian guy, and that will be it. I'll be gone from her heart for good."
Anyway, props to this man for making Mon-El a real, nuanced, multifaceted person despite the frankly ridiculous patched up story that season.
And I truly hope they bring him back, because if anyone can make the end of this show epic and wonderful, it's him and Mel sharing screen again, having angst (and a likely love triangle with a guy who no hate to staz but I'm sorry the blinding chemistry these two have will make whatever they are doing with him and Kara laughable by comparison) and doing the big damn kiss at the end.
Let's make it happen show ISTG you better not flub this it's already set up FFS just pull the trigger.
