“Batman would have never done that.” Usually, if you hear a character say something more than two or three times, it’s important to note. And, boy, was this line a good summation of this episode. Now that Kate has stepped into full vigilante duty, the comparisons to her cousin are undeniable; their differences, even more so. As Vesper Fairchild aptly points out throughout the episode, Batwoman is a full-time job, something that Kate hasn’t fully grasped yet. In an ideal world, there would be a learning curve, but for superheroes? That does not exist. Her lack of commitment to being Batwoman makes sense though, considering it wasn’t until the last moments of the previous episode that she embraced wearing the cowl for the people of Gotham, not just to catch Alice.
Despite having the (virtually) same suit, gadgets, and Batcave, the juxtaposition between Batwoman and Batman is evident—even the Batarangs can tell the difference. This motif also embodies the show, which works best when Batwoman is working as a unit with Luke. While Batman teamed up with other heroes, Alfred, and even Lucius Fox at times, Bruce didn’t really have a “man in the chair” partner like Luke, as Kate does. Now, that’s not to overlook the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin, but it goes to show that even their partnerships are contrasted.
Another strong part of this episode is how they choose to highlight Kate’s internal struggle with identity. Not only is she having a tough time juggling her personal life and this new, huge commitment, she is also feeling trapped with this new secret. From the beginning, Kate doesn’t have any hesitation claiming her sexuality; she knows damn well who she is and wholeheartedly embraces it. It’s honestly freeing to see a queer character so open and content with who she is, wearing her authentic self on her sleeve. But now, she has to hide part of herself again.
In fact, Kate’s aversion to withholding things is evident in her inability to lie. She is maybe the world’s worst liar, and there’s no doubt “Kate is Batwoman” has already crossed Reagan’s mind, as pointed out. When Kate decides to make the cowl her own at the end of this episode, she says, “Lies don’t make anyone comfortable, especially the one telling them.” She states that Batwoman isn’t a job that is made for comfort, and it’s a fitting way to break out of her struggle with hiding this part of who she is. It also makes a difference that she’s not hiding Batwoman out of shame, but because anonymity is safest for her and her loved ones.
Despite all the personal sacrifices and tough first days as Gotham’s Batwoman, it does all click into place for Kate when she saves that little girl. She comes to the conclusion that Batwoman is a job she wants to commit to, a job that includes all the hiding and loss of a love life (for now). She’s also helping the city as Kate, not just the red-haired hero, which highlights the good nature at her very core.
It’s interesting to see the drama unfold and get more of the mystery out of the way each week. Now that Catherine’s motives have been laid out in the open, things will get a bit messier in Kate’s life, and not just when she’s Batwoman. One good thing about this reveal, though, is that if Catherine’s telling the truth about why she faked Beth’s bones, she was acting out of a selfish impulse, not an evil one. This leaves one less evil mastermind, but also might not be the whole story.
Batwoman is really hitting all the right notes, and the weaker moments this episode didn’t sour the progress the show’s made in just four weeks. “Who Are You?” does a great job of making you empathize and root for Kate, something all superhero shows should elicit from its audience. There’s just some great, classic heroism going on, and it’s enjoyable too.
Stray observations:
- Magpie was a pretty good addition to Batwoman’s rogue gallery. She had style, she had some witty remarks. Overall, a good adversary.
- The addition of the Rihanna quote, “Hurt me with the truth, don’t comfort me with a lie” was a nice touch, and Riri’s influence strikes again.
- Don’t mind Kate, just nonchalantly mentioning Killer Croc as pillow talk. But in all seriousness, why does Batwoman feel like it’s doing such a good job of really tying in other DC characters and villains? Other Arrowverse shows do it as well, but it seems like the show is name-dropping in every episode. So far, it’s mentioned Wonder Woman, The Riddler, and Killer Croc, to name a few. I’m not mad about it; I actually like keeping my ears open each week to see what else they’ll reveal. It’s just something to note.
- Reagan was a good match for Kate, so it’s a bummer their relationship didn’t work out right now. With this newfound responsibility, Kate had to make this sensical call while navigating Batwoman duties. But wow, that’s why this sucks. The budding shippers are in mourning, it’s fine!
- Did you all die at Mary’s Alice impression? It was… pretty good! Not to mention, fast thinking. Mary is always making us proud, isn’t she?
- I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Alice is a perfect villain. She’s chilling to the core, dynamic, obviously broken. There’s an inkling of humanity left in her that you can see a little bit, here and there, which makes her story all the more tragic.
- Any guesses on who Mouse is? Odds are it’s Kate and Beth’s dad, Jacob. In Alice In Wonderland, the Dormouse is a main character who’s always sleeping and missing the action going on at the tea parties, much like Jacob who’s always a step or two behind Alice.
- This was a really solid episode, and it’s proving that Batwoman only has good things to come (hopefully). Although, they might not all be pleasant for the characters.
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Yeah, this was just a solid episode of superhero television, not a mind blowing experience, but a good hang, and honestly, that’s all I really want out of my cape stories so good job show! We’ll just not talk about how amazingly ropey those cgi explosions looked, woof. Also, keep letting Rachel Maddow be Kate Kane’s J Jonah Jameson and Mary is the best damn character.
I’m disappointed that they already broke up Kate and Reagan, they were a good couple from what little we saw. And I’m still not thrilled with the idea of Sophie and Kate because they’ve managed to make them not a particularly good paring.They need to develop Luke and Catherine a bit more, because right now Luke is just the tech guy and Catherine is just her conspiracy right now.I did enjoy Kate taking like 20 of those pearl bombs and being unfazed, like that should have warranted a comment.
That stunt with her throwing the Batarang to destroy the last pearl-bomb while shielding the girl was genuinely cool.
Four episodes in and I’m really enjoying this show. I feel like it already has a strong sense of itself.-Kate and Reagan were really cute together, so I’m disappointed it didn’t last; though I’m glad it ended in such a mature way.
-Mary fangirls over Batwoman, and then shrewdly finds a way to interrogate Alice’s boyfriend; I’ll just add it to my list of reasons why she might be the best
-Catherine is really shady, which I’m enjoying, but I also appreciated hearing her lay out the reasons why they faked the findings of Beth’s remains.
-I got such a good giggle out of Luke using Kate’s inability to talk as a chance to explain his fixing of the Batarang and what went wrong; there’s a solid sense of humor in every week, and I always get a good laugh out of something.
-I worry Sophie might be a no-win scenario character. Either she doesn’t care about Kate, in which case, what is the point of her? Or she does care, in which case she’s made (and continues to make) decisions that hurt Kate. Which makes her very difficult to like or root for.
Yeah they’ve really messed things up with Sophie so far and its going to be a hard recovery.
I have the worst feeling that Sophie’s husband is going to die, which will then send Sophie into the arms of Kate, and all things will be forgiven. I really hope that’s not the case, but that man as “dead man walking” written all over him.
No doubt, the question is: Will they hook up before that happens though?
I hope not, because that would be the final straw in making Sophie unredeemable, in my opinion.
He’s a non-entity, I don’t think he even has a full name, Tommy Merlyn and Eddie Thawne were actual characters with personalities.
Sophie is hiding from herself. She’s not self-accepting like Kate. The question is why?
Catherine coming clean first really helps flesh her out. A nice respectable thing to temper the sketchy.re: the Sophie thing, it’ll be really interesting. she’s a married LI who’s already chosen her career over Kate, and those would be two big marks to overcome even if she hadn’t lied to her husband about Kate. but at least they’re playing it longingly- I can believe something was there even if I’m not convinced they should revisit it.
Catherine is really shady, which I’m enjoying, but I also appreciated hearing her lay out the reasons why they faked the findings of Beth’s remains.That’s just on the verge of understandable, given her explanation. But to go from there to blowing up the truck Alice/Beth was in (and what happened to the driver, anyway?) seems like a drastic escalation.
I can’t imagine that the writers expect the audience to give Catherine the benefit of the doubt. She’s a wealthy, manipulative Gothamite involved in weapons design and manufacture. That’s a red-flag clearance sale. She doled out a hard truth to her husband because that was her least-bad option, and she framed it in the most favorable light she possibly could, obviously.
Pretty much the first thing they established about Reagan was that she was great at reading people, so she either had to be gotten rid of quickly or filled in on the secret identity quickly; no middle ground.
– Wow. Starting with a bang (no pun intended). Naturally this is when my mom chose to walk through the front room.
– Was there some sort of legal thing that allowed Kate to take control of Wayne Enterprises?
– So the DNA test was faked. I really hoped that those skull fragments had been real, and that’s why Alice was insane.
– I hope that that vase wasn’t expensive (it was).
– Batman actually had a device that changed his voice. Nice alternative to the Bale growl.
– Reagan and Kate have real chemistry.
– See, those guys didn’t shake off the teargas, unlike Kate and Sophie.
– So Luke has a different entrance to the Batcave, since he didn’t come out of the elevator.
– The batarang was attenuated to Bruce’s height? I thought that it would be that Magpie had something that interfered with it, and that’s how they would track her.
– If your body was 40 degrees, you’d be dead.
– Eff off, Sophie. You said for her to move on, so leave her alone.
– I seriously thought that Kate would summon the batarang back to hit Magpie in the back of the head.
– I still don’t understand why Catherine got personally involved. Did she know the Kanes back then?
Apparently she did, which does make me wonder how long her and Jacob have been married.
We know Kate’s mom died 15 years ago, and in the pilot she said that her and Mary’s parents have been married “for over a decade”, so it was a relatively short period of time between widowing and remarrying.
Man, poor Mary, all that time and her and Kate apparently didn’t get close at all.
Couldn’t get past her obsession.
Batman has an electronic voice-changer in “Batman v. Superman”, “Justice League”, and the Telltale Adventure games.
– If your body was 40 degrees, you’d be dead.That plot point actually reminded me of when I went to a science museum in winter a while back, and one of the exhibits was an infrared camera. I noticed the outside of my jacket was room-temperature, even while my body was toasty warm, so my head and hands seemed to be floating in space. Which makes perfect sense, and it means Kate doesn’t need to be 40°, just the outside of the suit (and her jaw, I suppose). She doesn’t need to be room temperature through and through, just cool enough on the outside not to raise the temperature in the room (by an admittedly hair-trigger amount) in less than two minutes.Though what occurs to me now is that all cooling systems need to make something else warmer to work, the laws of physics being what they are. If anything, the inside of the suit should’ve warmed up if the outside was being cooled down (and vice-versa, which would be a useful feature; cooling the outside to avoid heat sensors while, or cooling the inside because punching jerks on a hot summer night is sweaty work).
“- If your body was 40 degrees, you’d be dead.”Unless it’s celsius! Then you’d be feverish, but alive.
– Wow. Starting with a bang (no pun intended). Naturally this is when my mom chose to walk through the front room.
– Was there some sort of legal thing that allowed Kate to take control of Wayne Enterprises?
– So the DNA test was faked. I really hoped that those skull fragments had been real, and that’s why Alice was insane.
– I hope that that vase wasn’t expensive (it was).
– Batman actually had a device that changed his voice. Nice alternative to the Bale growl.
– Reagan and Kate have real chemistry.
– See, those guys didn’t shake off the teargas, unlike Kate and Sophie.
– So Luke has a different entrance to the Batcave, since he didn’t come out of the elevator.
– The batarang was attenuated to Bruce’s height? I thought that it would be that Magpie had something that interfered with it, and that’s how they would track her.
– If your body was 40 degrees, you’d be dead.
– Eff off, Sophie. You said for her to move on, so leave her alone.
– I seriously thought that Kate would summon the batarang back to hit Magpie in the back of the head.
– I still don’t understand why Catherine got personally involved. Did she know the Kanes back then?
Whoa. Deja vu.
How long did Batwoman have that guy prisoner for? One episode? Two? Outside of it being mentioned in passing it just strikes me as weird that the heroes holding someone captive for interrogation hasn’t been a bigger plot point. Similar to The Flash last week, I appreciate when one-off characters like Regan get more than one episode of development (and for all I know, she’ll return). It really helps break up the typical guest character formula where they’re in and out within the hour. I thought the Chicago filming was just going to be scenic coverage and transitional shots, but looks like they did stuff with Ruby and the other cast as well. I wonder if they can keep this up.With the news earlier this week that Batwoman was picked up for a full season, I can sort of see why the writers have been rolling out reveals fairly quickly, possibly under the assumption they may only have the 13 episodes to work with. Catherine’s reveal to Jacob is fine but might’ve worked better had we gotten to know them a bit better as a couple. What works great however is the scene after where Jacob realizes Beth may be alive/Alice, since it follows-up the flashback sequence nicely where he called off the search.
Loved the Chicago scene this episode. It was just so not-Vancouver. Though I was a bit concerned Kate might turn around and notice Trump Tower.
Kate doesn’t realize inviting Regan to an event that’s bound to be targeted by a supervillain is a bad idea? Are Alice & Kate on the Capricorn or Aquarius side for garnet? Mary was especially fun this week.Batarangs not being calibrated to Kate’s arms was cute, but they should’ve compensated for that earlier.
It’s funny that Magpie was a D-lister in the comics, but now she’s popping up in all the media. She’s off-brand Catwoman without the perks of being Batman’s girlfriend or headlining a title. This version was very Beware The Batman. I still prefer Gotham’s. Speaking of which, I finished my custom Joker for that show.
I imagine being offbrand Catwoman was part of the reason they used her here.
Definitely, it’s why she was in Beware The Batman too. At least she & Catwoman got to interact a bit in Gotham.
Batarangs not being calibrated to Kate’s arms was cute, but they should’ve compensated for that earlier.That’s one of the many things that are killing this show for me. The science and engineering is so poorly thought out. If there was a ‘return’ mode on the batarang, it wouldn’t return to a point at a certain distance from Batman’s shoulder. How would it know where his hand was at? It would return to a sensor on the glove. The length of his arm shouldn’t matter at all. If it were distance based he would have to have his hand in the exact position of it’s return every time. What if he moved or took a step? There has to be a sensor in the suit to let the batarang know where the suit was. Length of the arm is the dumbest method for an auto return ‘thrown item’The show is full of this type of bad science. It’s hard to watch as an engineer.
Is it based on a glove sensor or just the shape of the batarang? Either way, Kate should’ve realized she wan’t throwing them well enough before her fourth adventure.
Since DC has mostly switched Catwoman over to being a hero now, they need someone to fill her bad guy niche.
Isn’t putting the Bat signal on top of the Wayne building kind of a tell?
Considering the zero effort everyone seems to be putting in hiding their identities I doubt anyone will notice this.
Shit, given Flash and Arrow’s track record, by the end of the second season the number of people that know her secret identity will be in the double digits.
I mean, no one showed up except for Kate when Alice turned it on the other week.
That raises further questions” why is it not on GCPD HQ? If Jim Gordon’s not the Commissioner, who is? And will Batwoman finally meet Barbara, as either Batgirl or Oracle?Tune in next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!
I understand the crows are the private police force and have taken over gotham, but it does seem weird that there never seems to be any GCPD stuff going on. You’d think there would be some tension or interaction between the crows and GCPD at some point, but I guess its better to have a private security force be more of a villain than the actual cops.
I’ve seen Crows and cops on the show, pretty much doing the same jobs. I guess they have different parts of the city to patrol.Also, I haven’t seen The Crows as outright villainous so far. They’re just kind of… there.
It is (well, was) the tallest building in Gotham tho, so that makes sense. What’s odd is that there doesn’t seem to be a remote switch for it.
I am not convinced that Kate’s stepmom’s confession really makes all of her shadiness apparent. Though I hope for the sake of her daughter Mary who is the absolute best that she is not TOO horribly corrupt. Though I still presume that she took out the bridge and the vehicle with Alice in it last episode, which it would be harder to spin as well-intentioned. I will admit that her claiming that Kate not going to school or eating was a good reason to fake Beth’s death was a better argument than I expected
The lengths she went to to cover up the fact that she hid the truth about Beth’s “death” (including hiring goons in rabbit masks to steal the knife from Kate, etc.) says there’s clearly a lot of shadiness left to her.I sense she’s a “do the wrong things for the right reason” kind of character.
Yeah I’m feeling the same way about Catherine. I think she just gave up one secret to try to keep other ones from getting out.
I’m going to assume that she had to have something to do with Beth staying gone. She faked the DNA, Beth was found, and she did something to keep her hidden to avoid her initial crime being exposed (And maybe Beth just isn’t aware that she had anything to do with it).I’m expecting some sort of reveal that places her as the season Big Bad with Alice becoming the Token Evil Team Member.
Just wondering….is it standard practice anywhere to keep a valuable item inside a square glass case, in the middle of a large room, surrounded by invisible lasers and pressure-sensitive floor tiles?
-For a while, with their similar class commentary, I worried Regan was Magpie.-Luke’s reaction to Kate starting a real estate company is great. Clever use of Kate’s need to hold her breath for the batmerang fix earlier, too. Did you all die at Mary’s Alice impression? It was… pretty good! Not to mention, fast thinking. Mary is always making us proud, isn’t she?MARY YOU GODDAMN HERO. The presence of mind!He ruined my favorite plaid shirt when he stabbed me.Priorities!-How is the show that garden sheared off a finger on network TV airing the hour before Supergirl???-Batwoman+Mary scenes were fun but I hope we get more Kate+Mary next week. Mary flipping out over meeting Batwoman was cute.
-How is the show that garden sheared off a finger on network TV airing the hour before Supergirl???I noticed that too last week. It does seem to have more graphic violence than I thought an 8pm network show could get away with. They showed the dead couple whose throat’s Alice slit blood and all, a guy being stabbed in the neck and his dead body a couple times.
I missed there being a Kate-Mary scene in this episode, and also a Kate-Alice scene, those are easily the two most interesting relationships on the show for me, though Kate-Luke is fun too. I liked her telling him that he was going to be her assistant in her new real estate business & him negotiating that to “associate.” Also I really hope that Mary finds out soon that Kate is Batwoman and Mary & Luke join forces as Team Batwoman’s version of Cisco & Caitlin. Also it would be fun if they met Cisco and Caitlin…
I do wonder how long Kate’s going to keep Mary in the dark. They’ve already laid the groundwork for resentment if it goes too long because they showed Mary was upset Kate kept her at arms length.
You just made me realize that between Batwoman and Vinland Saga I got a double-dose of finger shears yesterday, yeouch.
So according to the showrunner the show is now caught up with the events of Elseworlds.
I know that tortured will-they won’t-they relationships are the CW’s bread and butter, but I really hope we can resolve this whole Sophie plot soon. I feel like it’s gonna end like a gayer Oliver Queen and Tommy Merlyn at the end of Arrow season 1, where something tragic happens to Sophie and Kate tearfully reveals her identity while Sophie confesses her love for Kate before promptly dying. And I know that sounds like a textbook fridging but frankly I don’t care because I hate all their interactions. Either give Kate a girlfriend and have her get over Sophie or have Sophie be bi and actually care for her husband instead of a lesbian in the closet (which is how they seem to be playing it but maybe I’m misreading it), or screw it, have them get together already, I don’t care. It is hands down the thing I cannot stand about this show. Maybe it’s just years of the Arrowverse’s relationship plots doing this and this is the proverbial straw breaking my back, but whatever, I’m just so tired of it.
The mouse is Sophie’s husband. And yes, Mary’s impression of Alice was great, she played that perfectly. I look forward to Mary figuring out who’s under the cowl, that scene should be amazing. My only complaint with this episode came from the final moments. Hearing another woman say “You have such a pretty face, have you considered smiling more” is worse and more cringey than hearing a man say it.
It’s even cringier when you know it’s Rachel Maddow saying it. I know what she is going for as Vesper Fairchild – a shock jock gossiper with a “bitch” brand – but it doesn’t quite work for me. They should have gotten someone less recognizable.
Of course Batwoman different than Batman. CW obviously make her a female Arrow instead.
Who they made a green painted Batman.
And thus the circle is complete.
I love, love, LOVE Alice and Rachel Skarsten is having so much fun playing her.This is the episode where I felt that Ruby Rose finally became the character, both in Elseworlds and in the previous episodes, something made it feel like she was just acting a part. Does that make sense?
I keep hoping the show will get good. It has not. It has all the horrible writing of Supergirl but none of the charm.
I’m only two episodes into this but I’m kinda interested in how overtly fascist (and reminiscent of Blackwater) Kate’s dad’s security firm is. I genuinely can’t tell if it’s intended as a critique or if it’s just an internalisation of how militarised the bat family comics have all become in the last 20-30 years.
I’m glad we spent an hour seeing Kate deal with the choices one makes taking on the mantle. That said, the handwaving of Bruce’s fuckboy tendencies makes you wonder.
This really underscores the problem with ratings systems. It should really be something like “B+ (CW)“, because implying that Watchmen (grade A) is only slightly better than Batwoman is silly.
I freaking love Alice so damn much.
Oh dear lord. The “Dear Bruce” conceit just went from bad to shockingly terrible. I died a little inside.
Setting aside the meme that Batman is Batman and Bruce is the alter ego (which is all well and good, really,) this episode is much more about how KK is not Bruce Wayne, but is realizing that the Bat-mantle (or womantle, if you will) does in fact get to Batsplain some hard truths to even the strongest, fiercest, outest, queerest, strong independent black African American black woman who don’t need or want no man (but will certainly strongly and independently take his gimp suit and freaky toys without paying for them because that’s just what heroes do.)Also, I’m getting another hint from the end of this episode that KK is just super-duper rich. “Hey I’m just gonna start a real estate company even though I know nothing about it because my recent fling offhandedly mentioned one of many ways in which Gotham is shitty. I’m gonna somehow stave off predatory developers and the entire profit motive of capitalism with pluck and spirit.”It’s gonna be tough to reel that back in and reveal that KK is actually dependent on her family for money. This shit is still mind-bogglingly unclear, and it’s shocking that an episode that highlighted the Bruce Wayne front in its dialogue didn’t give the audience any further details about KK’s circumstances.
I think needs to work on her witty Bat-banter. When Magpie said “Birds of a feather”, I think a better comeback to that would have been something like “Bats are mammals, genius.” But, I’m pleasantly surprised Reagan was not Magpie. That would have been TOO predictable.
Batman does have a “man in the chair” though. Alfred has sometimes served in that capacity but it was Barbara Gordon’s role as Oracle for years.As for all the name drops, I thought she was on a different Earth but it turns out she is on Earth-1 with Green Arrow & Flash.And Batwoman using the grappling hook to pull Magpie off the building like that was badass! Man that must have really hurt. Like caused serious bodily harm.
I kind of hoped we’d see Kate get pressured by Luke to try to be a detective, only for her to reinforce the “I’m not like Batman” angle by going “Magpie is obviously the photographer, because it’s obvious.”
Alice is a lot of fun – not too campy, not too Joker-lite (which would be easy directions to take her), just a hint of her old self occasionally rearing its head, and great repartee with Kate. I also appreciate that she enjoys the thrill of knowing her sister’s Batwoman and isn’t even attempting to make it public. Oh yeah, and she isn’t above cutting fingers off with SHEARS…!What’s Catherine playing at? I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to her than simply “did some real shady shit to force my new husband to forget about his missing daughter.” If she’s willing to go to these lengths for that, how far would she go for other reasons?
I think the show is getting better but I think Ruby Rose is too wooden to be on her own and is better playing off other people which is why I’m looking forward to Mary (easily the show’s MVP) joining the team. They are doing a good job of establishing why she’d take over for Batman, which I like.
I’m still not sold on Alice as a character. I think the actress goes too over the top and her motivation of “my dad stopped looking for me” doesn’t seem strong enough to make her the central antagonist. I’m hoping that her backstory gets fleshed out more because her just saying “You gave up on me!” is getting old.
AV Club should just fire you.
You’re totally right, Batman didn’t have a man-in-the-chairDid have a woman though. Her name is Oracle.
Yeah I’m suddenly on Team Mary.I’m a lot less on Team Kate And Luke now that I realize they kept a man prisoner and in need of medical care. That’s something Batman never would have done, and I realize that Kate doesn’t have to mirror Batman in all things, but this is one she ought to.This leads back to the question of why Batman doesn’t kill the Joker, that perennial example of people overcomplicating a simple matter. Batman doesn’t convict villains, he brings them in so that the courts can do so. Should the courts worry less about rehabilitating the Joker and maybe give him the chair? Yeah, probably. Is it Batman’s job to correct that oversight? Not if he is to be a protector of society, which is kind of his whole deal. Batman’s refusal to kill is what makes him a hero and not a bat-themed Punisher, which would be grounds for the people of Gotham to be pretty damn worried.
4 episodes in this show is very confident with itself. I think if anything the forthcoming crisis event will augment its storytelling to even higher levelsEpisode grade: 84.5%