Supergirl and company are heading for her finale as things build to a head with Ben Lockwood and his anti-alien thugs on one side, and various heroic characters on the other. There are a few surprises, a new twist on a familiar face, and a revelation about someone in power. We also get the timely return of a powerful ally. All this and a road trip to another country in “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?”, a nod to the classic game show, “To Tell The Truth.”

While Kara and Lena prepare to go to Kaznia to follow up on the lead they discovered last time, and Kara tries to make lame excuses about why she should go alone, Alex and Kelly go for a jog. They talk about getting older, feeling their injuries longer, and then Alex gets a phone call from a plot thread I honestly thought they dropped. Alex has some very mixed emotions about this development, mostly panic. Young George Lockwood speaks at his mother’s funeral, and does a fine job of it, especially given his age. His father, Ben, is too rage- and hate-filled to listen, and leaves in the midst of George’s talk. Father of the year, there.

 

Lockwood takes his rage to the DEO and starts snapping orders at everyone. His demands include finding Dreamer, finding the alien that killed his wife, and figuring out how Olsen got powers. This is a major plot point in the episode that wouldn’t be an issue if Olsen had been smart enough to wear a mask. Again, there’s a REASON many heroes have secret identities, but apparently only women are smart enough to figure that out on this show. While Lockwood spews false claims as easily as anyone in the Trump administration, Brainy and Dreamer are at the Fortress of Solitude, testing the extent of James’ new powers. They seem to be having fun, while Olsen is less sure about this. Brainy gets called away when he gets the news that Lockwood is at the DEO, and both Col. Haley and Alex are elsewhere. I guess he’s third in command now? He’s also making great time from the Artic to the American west coast. I guess his flight ring has a speed component.

 

Lena pretty much just finishes boasting about how cool her fully automated plane is (look, Ma, no pilot!) when they get hit by weird purple lightning. Lena goes to try and fix the damage. Kara somehow magically gets out of the plane to catch it and bring it in for a landing, then gets back in the same way to pretend to unconscious. I really have no idea how she did that. They start exploring the base, which seems completely abandoned, finding left over gadgets and paper that implicate both AmerTek and the DEO in what’s been going on here. Lena recognizes Eve’s handwriting on many of the papers.

 

The Alex and Kelly subplot for the episode keeps them away from everyone else for the episode. We cut back to them several times. Essentially, Alex spends the episode in a variety of extreme emotional states, and Kelly draws on her training to try and calm her down. We also learn something new about Kelly which I really hope doesn’t hit at a future plotline that doesn’t seem like it should work to me.

 

Brainy does his best to stall Lockwood, which really doesn’t help. Lockwood is accompanied by his looming thug Cooper, who provides muscle and implied threat throughout his scenes. Brainy’s attempt to keep them out of Lena’s lab ends when Lockwood starts breaking various laws himself. Or more laws, anyway. Kara and Lena keep searching, finding references to Copy, an alien with the obvious power from that name. Then, investigating a noise, they find Eve locked in a cell. Eve is a weird combination of no help and sunnily up-beat, which doesn’t do much to help Lena’s grudge against her.

 

After another visit with Alex and Kelly, Kara and Lena notice that Eve keeps staring at the floor. Somehow, these two brilliant, perceptive people have managed to miss the big claw marks on the floor. They follow the marks, showing horrible security discipline with Eve. George somehow gets into the DEO (because all high-tech, secret government agencies let unaccompanied minors in), tells his father off, and storms back out. Cooper the thug tells Lockwood they found something.

 

After another check-in with Alex and Kelly involving high drama and consumed chocolate, Lena and Kara discover another section of lab they haven’t been in yet. Among the things they find are Harun-El samples and some green Kryptonite, just to further complicate Kara’s day. They also find a war plan that seems to be out of the old play “The Mouse that Roared,” notice some strange new quirks in Eve’s personality, and then get the first clue the good guys have had about Snowbird/Red Daughter/Lex’s Supergirl. There was a point in the comics when Lex and Supergirl worked together, but it was a long time ago, and different versions of both characters.

 

Alex and Kelly’s subplot ends on a sad note, and Kara and Lena start brainstorming about the other Supergirl. Kara once again puts on her rose-colored glasses and is sure there’s good in the duplicate. Eve laughs and disagrees. So does the other Eve who walks up to them. Yes, you read that right. New Eve presses something on her watch, reminding me a bit of Olsen’s signal watch (guess there’s nothing Lex won’t steal and corrupt) which sets off the base self-destruct. I think there’s a villain code inspector who makes sure all hidden bases have something like that.

 

Speaking of villains, Lockwood finds some of Lena’s Harun-El. Brainy earnestly warns him of the potential complications (side effects may include death, breakdown of your genetic code, and dizziness), which Lockwood ignores. Nameless DEO agent wanders in to tell Lockwood they found his wife’s killer, which of course calms everything down.

 

Lena and Kara split up to search for a way out, because they can’t use the one they came in because… reasons. Kara finds Snowbird’s cell and gets proof Lex knows a lot more about Kara and Supergirl that she thought or hoped. After she and Lena meet up and split again for a moment, Kara uses her heat vision to destroy the evidence in the cell. Because the ominous countdown to explosion wouldn’t do it, I guess? Lockwood leads a team to hit the alien safehouse where the killer is. Showing how brilliant she is, the killer runs directly at huge thug Cooper and then essentially goes, “Oh, you caught me.” Brainy pleads for the others there, but Lockwood wants them all for rendition and “enhanced interrogation.”

 

Kara and Lena find some more evidence and bring it with them as they flee the base. They get split up again, and Lena gets to the plane, finds an Eve, and they show us that Lena has some cool tools and that yes, there IS a practical reason to wear high heels. Kara switches to her costume and fights a legion of Eves armed with really high-end taser sticks.

 

There’s a lot of cutting back and forth between the next several scenes. Brainy pleads with the DEO to act on their consciences when Dreamer and Super-Olsen show up and Lockwood orders them arrested. That fight gets weird when Lockwood takes some of the Harun-El himself, which we all knew was coming. Lockwood hurls a truck at the heroes and somehow or other, Brainy deflects it. The classic, comic book Brainiac 5 has a forcefield belt that would explain this, but in this world, we’ve seen Winn with one (remember him?), not Brainy. Supergirl fights more Eves, makes a pop culture joke and then wishes she hadn’t. Lena beats her Eve down, physically and verbally.

 

As an aside, something occurred to me this episode: if Eve is so crazy, obsessively in love with Lex, always has been, and has been doubling for him all this time, her brief fling with Mon-El makes no sense at all. Maybe they’re hoping we forgot that scene. J’Onn arrives and tips the balance back in the good guy’s favor in the DEO/Lockwood fight. Olsen suggests something that, from an earlier scene in the show, we already know shouldn’t work, but it ends the fight. The aliens are freed, Kara and Lena escape the base, Eve is left to a very uncertain fate, and this would be a great place to end the episode. But they don’t.

 

Kara almost tells Lena her secret, but Lena essentially talks her out of it without even knowing what’s going on. Alex and Kelly talk more. And talk. More. George levels some nasty words at his father, who fully deserves them. Ben just sits there and takes it, and shows that the Haurn-El is still in his system. Kara and James talk about what Kara has learned, and she vows to tell Lena her secret after the mess with Lex is wrapped up. What part of “secret identity” do the CW shows not get? Kara goes to do the right thing, gets some really improbable instant access, notes new defenses, and gets taken prisoner. The only good thing about that final scene with Kara is there’s an actual mention of Cat Grant, who I thought everyone had forgotten about.

 

What I liked: The good guys finally found out about Snowbird, which has been a long time coming. Lena is kind of a bad ass, which I knew, but it was demonstrated again here. Hopefully they are done making excuses for J’Onn to not help out anymore, and he can contribute to the problem at hand. The scene at the Fortress was fun, logistical issues to one side. Brainy’s impassioned plea to his fellow DEO agents was nicely done.

What I didn’t: There were so many little things that either didn’t make sense or were just plain oddly written here. Kara’s magic entrance and exit from Lena’s plane was puzzling. Brainy’s anti-truck move made no real sense, nor did his commuting from the Fortress to National City so effortlessly and quickly. Ben Lockwood is increasingly a horrible person with no redeeming qualities. I really don’t think the Alex and Kelly scenes added anything to the episode aside from removing Alex from the command of the DEO at a critical time. Olsen has been around superheroes for years now. He, of all people, should understand the importance of a secret identity, but he’s thrown that away twice.

 

Parts of this were better than the last few episodes, but that’s a low bar. At best, this was a low 3 out of 5, and that may be generous.