"Will the Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?"

(Note that the review uses the originally advertised title, "Will the Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?". The CW press statements until now have spelled Eve's last name "Teschmacher".)

The title refers to the fact Eve can create clones of herself using the siphoned-off powers of an alien, Kopy. Because otherwise it would have been a pretty boring episode if Lena and Kara just fought a non-powered Eve. Why the copies (kopies?) have enough powers to go up against Supergirl is just part of the on-again/off-again superpower Supergirl seems to lack against normal people. Or maybe the copies have enhanced strength and invulnerability?

Why are Lena and Kara looking for Eve? They took off for Kaznia following Lex's trail. The base is abandoned, but Lex has left lots of clues and files detailing his master plan, which includes Red Daughter, the Supergirl Harun-El duplicate. The files also confirm Lex was using captured DEO alien prisoners to obtain their powers. Eve (Andrea Brooks) is also there, originally claiming she couldn't stand to see Lex torture aliens. She heel-turns pretty quickly and reveals she's faking it, and then is triggered into some kind of brain-shutdown mode. Then another Eve shows up, and Lena and Kara determine Eve has the power of Kopy, an alien that has appeared a couple of times ago.

Lena squares off against the "real" Eve, and once they're apart Kara dons her Supergirl costume and fights the clones. The base counts down to self-destruct, and Supergirl escapes just in time. Lena defeats Eve only to discover she's another clone, which is certainly convenient for the creative team. They can keep supervillains out there by always having a clone gets captured.

Back in National City, Ben is eager to find the alien woman who killed his wife Lydia. He leaves the church in the middle of the funeral, abandoning his son, George (Graham Verchere). Ben is working with Cooper (Michael Adamthwaite) to put the DEO resources to work finding the woman and learning how James gained superpowers. He finds Lena's research and takes a syringe of Harun-El with him when he and a DEO strike team go after the alien.

They find the alien at a safe house, and the DEO takes them all into custody. Brainiac-5 objects, and Dreamer and a kinda-costumed James shows up. Ben injects himself with the Harun-El, gains Kryptonian powers, and trashes them. J'onn arrives and... teleports? away from Ben's punches, then throws him into a tanker so they can escape.

George tells Ben he hates him and he got his wife--George's mother--killed. Ben is left with an empty church and another syringe of the Harun-El.

In the C plot, Alex gets a call a birth mother is going into labor, wants to give up her child, and wants Alex to be the mother. Alex and Kelly (Azie Tesfai) fly to the city and hole up in a hotel room. They talk about how Alex isn't sure if she can be a good mother, and how Kelly lost her loved one in the Army. Eventually a priest persuades the mother not to give up her baby and Alex is all crushed, but Kelly assures her she'll get better, and they send more signals to each other than an airport control tower.

Along the way, Kara (finally!) prepares to tell Lena she's Supergirl. But then Lena, her back conveniently turned, talks about how Eve's betrayal of her hurt because she lied to her face for months. And Kara has second thoughts, but later tells James she'll tell Lena the truth once everything has settled down.

And Kara goes to President Baker (Bruce Boxleitner) with Lex's files, which include having Kaznia invade the U.S. How a country an ocean away is going to "invade" the U.S. isn't clear. Baker has a piece of Kryptonite in the Oval Office, takes the file, confirms Kara hasn't told anyone about it (except Lena was there and knows all about it), puts it in his desk drawer, and hits an ominous-looking button.

"Will the Real?" was mostly a standalone episode. It established Lex's plan, but we already knew Lex's plan. The episode does clue Kara and the others in on what's going on. It basically separates Ben from his son and gives him superpowers.

Besides that, the episode mostly foreshadowed Alex and Kelly linking up. And established Kelly is a lesbian, because, you know, The CW 2019.

I'm not sure why the creative team felt the need to give Eve superpowers. She was annoying enough when there's one of them: now we have dozens.

The episode does establish Baker is evil rather than misguided, and he's apparently in on Lex's plot. More on that next week.

Jon Cryer is not present as Lex this week. And I'm getting a little irritated with the constant mentions of Lex. I wouldn't call Jon Cryer a great actor, but he was good in the part. So... why not use him? he showed up for a few episodes, and then disappeared, apparently until the season finale in two weeks. There's a "Waiting for Luthor" feel to the episodes since he disappeared off the radar. Everyone talks about Lex in hushed tones, but they seem to be getting nowhere in finding him or bringing him out of the shadows.

Kudos as always to Jesse Rath and Nicole Amber Maines. Brainiac-5 gets to provide more than comedy relief this week, I'm still not clear what his role in the DEO is: is it known he's an alien? if not what human alias does he use? And what the heck are Dreamer's non-precognitive powers? I know they mentioned a little while back Brainiac-5 created a device that turns her precognitive energy into energy weapons (I think). But that's not at all obvious, and I wonder why people think she uses the name "Dreamer"?

But watching Querl and Nia cheerfully testing James' new powers by beating on him is fun. And Brainiac-5 gets later scenes of looking tough, saying Ben had better hope Ben can handle him and then undermining Ben's investigation into Lena at the DEO. All of which make him look good and not just funny.

Everyone else is okay. Chyler Leigh gets several heartfelt speeches, and Ms. Tesfai matches her.

Overall, "Will the Real?" moved Supergirl to its finale in two weeks. The timing on Lex showing up feels odd: he shows up, and then disappears, and then returns for the finale. We don't know enough about him on the show for all of the ominous foreshadowing and character's onscreen absence to work. maybe it's the curse of 22-episode American broadcast network requirements. There are times when the buildup works, like in "The House of L" when they revealed everything Lex has been doing over the last few years. But that told the audience what was going on: now the creative team is bringing the characters up to speed by having them learn the same things. It's a little tedious to watch them learn things we already know because the creative team showed us those things.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?