Supergirl Review: Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up? (Season 4 Episode 20)
Supergirl Season 4 Episode 20, “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?” has the potential to be a great episode, but a great episode is not what we got.
On paper, “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?” has all the things I want in an episode of Supergirl. It’s a Lena/Kara centric episode, Alex’s relationship with Kelly gets some major development, and there’s lots of screen time for Nia and Brainy.
Just about all of my favorite things in one episode and yet I’m left rather cold by the entire hour.
To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with any of the plot of “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?”. There’s nothing that happens within the episode that I distinctly didn’t like and even a few that moments that I did.
The problem with “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?” comes down to writing and execution.
Coming after the beautifully written Supergirl Season 4 Episode 19, “American Dreamer” everything about “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?” feels hackneyed, forced, and worst of all dull.
Things that in past episodes were standout moments just didn’t work in this episode. A perfect example is the scene where Lena and Kara’s plane is struck by purple lighting and Lena thinks she’s saving the day while secretly Supergirl is actually guiding the plane to safety.
Earlier in the season, in Supergirl Season 4 Episode 2, “Fallout,” there was a similar situation where Kara isn’t able to slip away in a crisis and become Supergirl and has to protect Lena discretely while making it look like Lena is saving a helpless Kara.
In “Fallout,” that set up is delightful and funny. In “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?” it’s overly broad and feels out of place at that moment.
I am the first to agree that Supergirl can, at times, be overly serious. I love when they bring a bit humor and levity into an episode but, in that moment, they decided to go for silly when they should have gone for exciting and it just doesn’t work the way it did in “Fallout.”
But that’s the problem with the entire episode, moments that should be great are made, at best, average because they are either poorly written or poorly executed and because they should be great it’s all the more disappointing.
All that said, there are some high points on “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?” worth noting, namely the scenes between Alex and Kelly and the scene where Kara almost tells Lena she’s Supergirl.
Even though at times the scenes with Alex and Kelly feel a bit contrived and it isn’t exactly believable that Alex would just take off for the day in the middle of a crisis that involved Ben Lockwood getting superpowers, the scenes with Alex and Kelly are effective.
They continue to build the bond between these two women to develop a relationship for them that viewers can invest in. I’m ready to see where this new ship goes in season 5 and so far happy with the potential it brings for Alex and what the introduction of Kelly has already done for James.
As for the scene with Kara and Lena, it’s nice to see them finally really address the implications of Kara not telling Lena she’s Supergirl and what it might mean for their relationship if (and according to Kara at the end of the episode, when) she does.
I am hoping against hope that if Kara does, in fact, tell Lena she’s Supergirl that they don’t rehash the “is Lena going evil storyline” or erase all the progress Kara and Lena (and Supergirl and Lena) have made this season. I hope that the writers will come up with something more creative than that. But either way, it is well past time f
or them to actually tackle this storyline and I’m cautiously optimistic I’ll be happy with where it leads.
While those few high points can’t salvage a lackluster episode, hopefully, the developments set into motion in “Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?” will lead to two strong final episodes that offer more excitement than this episode did and a compelling conclusion to the season.
What did you think of this episode of Supergirl? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Supergirl airs Sunday at 8/7c on CW.
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Sarah Fields
Sarah is an obsessive geek who likes to get into the weeds and over think things. She is passionate about Sci-Fi and comics and is a giant classic film nerd. Sarah cares deeply about media representation and the power of telling diverse stories. When she's not writing or watching her favorite shows she spends her days working in the non-profit world trying to make life a little better for those that need some extra help.