In its third episode, Batwoman finally delivers the flame-haired crusader we all came to see. Ruby Rose’s portrayal of the iconic character has left room for Kate to grow into the mantle, which she deserves—she’s a true hero that cares for those around her and family is always a top priority. That’s why it’s been a tad frustrating to see Kate teetering on the precipice of going full Batwoman. Everyone has been waiting for that semi-bulbous cowl to disappear and be replaced with her well-known burgundy wig.
“Down Down Down” still makes us wait until its final moments for the big reveal. Luckily, by that point in the show, Kate is fed up with the evil antics of her sister Beth, now known as Alice. She held out hope that Beth was still somewhere within this eccentric villain, but that hope is finally disappearing—and now she can give herself over to being the winged vigilant.
As exciting as that moment is, Batwoman has been spinning its wheels. We understand Beth/Alice and Kate’s positions. Kate believes in family and is prepared to forgive her sister-turned-nemesis. She still has a very starry-eyed idea of who Alice is inside, even though she probably wouldn’t hold that much hope for anyone else. But Alice has also proven, time and time again, that she’s not willing to put their sisterly bond ahead of her plan for revenge on their father. She also hasn’t shown Kate that she can—or is even will to—change. How many more dead boyfriends or innocent elderly victims will it take to show Kate that Beth isn’t coming back? Kate’s original idea of using Batman to scare Alice off wasn’t ever going to bring her into submission. There have only been three episodes, but it felt like Kate’s Batwoman realization moment took too long because of this scenario.
Despite this back and forth, and Kate putting her faith in a dead sister, their strong bond doesn’t falter, which is also what makes it hard for Kate to give up on Beth. Rachel Skarsten as Alice is just the right type of maniac that she comes across as a true villain and doesn’t steer towards silly, regardless of the Alice In Wonderland puns from the previous episodes. However, Kate was able to get under that persona and reach her sister in the last episode, if only a little bit. But this episode proves that Beth might be truly gone, and Kate finally comes to terms with that.
Now, Kate is no longer hiding behind Batman as a way to scare Alice and get Beth back. Kate’s stepping fully into the spotlight of Batwoman and using the persona to protect Gotham. Again, it was a bit frustrating that she held off until now, despite a city that clearly needs someone like her and with people in danger. While it wasn’t purely for selfish gain, Kate wasn’t wearing the suit with their best interests at heart at first.
And now, let’s take a moment to just fawn over Mary. As I hinted at last time, Mary is fast becoming one of the best characters on the show. She’s admirable and hides her two personas pretty well, while also showing immense love for Kate, even though she doesn’t receive the sisterly love she deserves. Kate’s hangup with Beth/Alice is, again, a bit understandable, but Mary is right there! Even in Kate’s absence, Mary is going to bat for her step-sister, getting under Sophie’s skin and hyping Kate up when her ex gets a little too nosy. Mary Hamilton deserves the world, and everyone should know it.
Lastly, the “big” bad this episode was Tommy Elliot, a.k.a. the world’s laziest villain. He’s uninteresting, has the worst “comebacks” if you can even call them that, and he’s just plain annoying. Sure, they called him misogynistic as well—which he is—but he’s also just so run-of-the-mill elitist and arrogant that the sexist part of him doesn’t even hit that hard. He is the definition of an unhinged rich kid, though. Trying to kill innocent people and lure Batman/Bruce back home to get back at him for saving his “gold-digging” mommy? If we never see him again, it’ll be too soon.
This episode felt slow because the anticipation of “when will Kate Kane realize she has to be Batwoman?” was immense. But now that Kate’s given into Gotham’s hunger for Batwoman and realizes she’s the one that will be able to help them, it will probably be full throttle ahead. It was the last hurdle Kate needed to get over before fully becoming the vigilante hero she’s destined to be. It’s clear that Kate’s judgment remains clouded by the possibility that there’s still some good in Alice. But maybe now that she’s made the costume her own, Kate will finally be able to make up her mind.
Stray observations:
- Why does Kate think an ultimatum like “don’t kill for 24 hours” will do anything to Alice? She either won’t wait that long (which she didn’t) or she’ll wait and go straight back to killing. She has proven that she’s a killer, regardless of being Beth before. I know it was a last-ditch effort to get through to her sister, but it also just seemed like a silly thing to ask a villain, regardless of who she was to you before.
- I will say, even though I originally found the Alice In Wonderland quotes cheesy and annoying at first, they do show up in quite clever spots now. Maybe I’ve just grown used to them? Sue me.
- It’s so obvious how uncomfortable Sophie is around her husband, Tyler. It’s rough seeing him just oh so oblivious to it all.
- IF ONLY it were so easy to get a date in real life! If anyone knows a way to get someone like Reagan to be so forward with going out, send them my way, please.
- As usual, Luke is the voice of reason and an anchor in Kate’s life, and thank god because someone has to be. I truly enjoy their moments together and seeing them get closer to a fully operational bat-unit. I’m really rooting for a more Luke-focused episode, or just more Luke in the storyline in general because I want to write about his role in the show more than just in these observations.
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– Looks like little Beth stumbled onto something when she stumbled out of the river.
– Playing shadow rabbits with the Bat Signal. Classic.
– Yeah, Ruby is still just okay, but Rachel is amazing.
– Eric is too young to be Bruce’s childhood friend with what we know of Bruce.
– I like watching Kate reluctantly picking up the Batman mantle.
– Alice in the Kane household. I notice that there aren’t a lot of pictures of Kate.
– It’s amazing how ex-SEALs and what-not freeze up like that.
– Alice doesn’t exactly look broken-hearted over the fact that she broke the rules, and therefore Kate is going to brutalize her boyfriend.
– Nice bartender. And she’s taking shots while working the bar at a VERY prestigious party.
– Yeah, modern elevators don’t work like that.
– Tommy has a good plan, but still…I expected something more…developed.
– (Too me) The show seems to have more realistic, less overly dramatic dialogue than the other Beeboverse shows.
– Jacob and Catherine start dropping, and a weather alert cuts in.
– Ooo… I love the Kate/Alice dynamic.
Yeah Batman saving Thomas’s mom makes even less sense here than him saving Kate does. He’s gotta closer here to Jacobs age than Kates.
I think roughly, Bruce was in his twenties when Kate’s mom died, and the accident that involved Tommy’s parents was much later than in the comic.
I guess but this dude seems to be around Kate’s age rather than Bruce’s.
Would you believe the actor playing Tommy is forty-seven? But yeah, there’s a weird dissonance with the show wanting to have Bruce already be Batman when Kate’s mom dies, and Kate and Bruce having a near sibling relationship growing up.
Damn, someone knows how to moisturize.
Do you actually have a life outside of this site? It looks like you are never off it.
You are never off here. Do you live for these comments.
*Tommy is too young to be Bruce’s childhood friend with what we know of Bruce.
The show seems to have more realistic, less overly dramatic dialogue than the other Beeboverse shows.
But Beebo wuv yoo!
KNEEL BEFORE BEEBO!
>- (Too me) The show seems to have more realistic, less overly dramatic dialogue than the other Beeboverse shows.
This episode was written by Don & Holly. Makes a big difference. Alice’s dialogue on the roof with Kate was a cut above even for the show’s breakout character, and Mary’s duality was handled well too. She’s got a junior league secret identity, which is super neat.
Given the absolute flood of producer and executive producer credits on this show, it’s impossible to know who’s got what power behind the scenes to set the tone, but it feels like somebody’s trying to counterbalance the usual demands of cheese and drama. D&H are a decent bet.(I’d try to make a clever CW/DC pun out of drama and cheese, but alas, it’s the CW that demands the drama so the letters just aren’t working.)
Apparently Gabriel Mann is 47.
– (Too me) The show seems to have more realistic, less overly dramatic dialogue than the other Beeboverse shows.Agreed.
I’ve mixed feelings on both Alice and Mary but I’m leaning towards like on both of them. Luke and Catherine need more development though.As far as Batman villains go Hush is pretty far down the pull list so that’s alright, but apparently we’re getting the Riddler at some point.
I love both Alice and Mary, obviously in quite different ways. I wonder if Alice’s real grudge is with Catherine even more than her father…So did Sophie request the bodyguard duty on Mary not just because she correctly if belatedly realized Alice would go after her, but to pump her for information about Kate? Man I feel bad for Sophie’s husband & she really deserved the scorn she was getting from Mary. I really want Mary and Luke to team up and become the Caitlin and Cisco of Team Batwoman (Mary like Caitlin is basically a medical doctor, Luke is the tech genius)
Mary throwing all that shade at Sophie on behalf of Kate did so much to endear her to me.
Mary also reminds me of Thea from Arrow, the snarky party girl little sister who seems like she needs protecting but really is plenty tough and resourceful herself If they consciously decided to make her a combination of Thea and Caitlin (a medical expert with a kind heart) they are geniuses because those are two of my absolute favorite & the absolute best ArrowVerse characters
The Sophie bodyguard thing was so weird because she’s a high ranking agent and this felt like something that should have been lower rank duty.
nahhh. no use being a fancy private security guy if you can’t throw a totally overqualified bodyguard out to protect your daughter.
Ordinarily, it probably would be, but “boss’s stepdaughter targeted by supervillain” obviously gets some special treatment.
Still probably doesn’t need to be done by what’s implied to be Jakob’s second in command.
In a Venture Brothers comparison, that would be like Brock F’ing Samson requesting to be assigned the mission to be Dr. Venture’s bodyguard (Operation Rusty’s Blanket) instead of being given it as a kind of punishment.
Anyone reckon we’ll get a gender-switched Riddler
Well we got a villainous Nora Fries instead of Mr. Freeze during Elseworlds so I guess it’s not impossible.
I might have to rewatch Elseworlds because i dont remember that. Always thought Gotham missed a step by going the Arnold Mr Freeze route instead of introducing Nora as one of Bruce’s socialite friends & gradually bringing in Victor that way.
I’ll save you a rewatch:
Ohhh, that was Nora? I just assumed random escaped inmate. Thanks!
This question’s been on my mind since that scene: why and how is Nora Frise out of her cryogenic chamber, and in Arkham?
She got cured, but the cure drove her insane? Maybe she killed Victor?
This show is not good. Boring. Rachel is terrific, as always, but Rose is so stiff. Terrible editing (the bad guy reached for the gun behind his back twice), flat lighting and mediocre effects. Was so looking forward to this show too!
I usually give a show 4 to 6 eps to convince me.
So far I liked the first ep, though the second was a bit boring, and haven’t seen the third.
But as far as I’ve seen, it’s got good production values and I like the conflict between the characters and in Kate herself, so will keep watching. Heck, I kept watching Arrow, even after seasons 3 & 4.
Broken record here…but Arrow rebounded after fourth season. Just sayin’.
Well, sort of . . .
Fifth season is stellar.I realize it didn’t maintain that high…
I said I kept watching after season 4, so I know the pain and subsequent joy of which you speak.
Aye, I’m basically giving it until the crossover to really improve. I’ve seen enough genre TV series that struggle out of the gate only to find their footing later on (Agents of SHIELD, Legends of Tomorrow, like all of Star Trek beyond TOS) that I’m okay seeing where they’re going with it all.
Hush is…kind of a big deal, so I’m sure Tommy will be back. Which is too bad because that reedy dude they cast to play him didn’t really sell the character very well. The dropping elevators plot was also confused all hell, and Bruce Wayne developed a gun? Still, Kate’s got her wig so let’s go, and Ruby Rose looks damn good in the suit without the cowl on.
If they follow the comics he may not be played by the reedy dude next time he shows up. But then again he’s apparently not a Doctor here so maybe not. Hell he may never show up again.
I’ll admit, the extent of my knowledge on Hush is from the original Loeb/Lee story, and I haven’t reread that trade in years.
Well that’s mostly my knowledge too, plus the follow up story. That’s basically where his prominence ended anyway, after the plastic surgery stuff.
The appeal of Hush was, IMO, the mystery of who he was(if we could even call it that), and how his storyline rallied a lot of iconic Batvillains(before it became an increasingly common occurrence). Unless they make him a regular/recurring star in a Bruce Wayne show and position him as a dark version of what Tommy Merlyn is to Oliver Queen in Arrow, there’s not much point in using him.
And yet here he is for some reason.
Probably a one-off, trying to bank on the name recognition for fans to help boost the early episodes rating.
I think he would have worked really well here as an ongoing villain. Alice is an agent of chaos and Hush is a planner, giving Kate two different kinds of threats to deal with.
Their portrayal of Hush as THE WORST is pretty accurate. Were it not for dressing like a mummy detective, he would’ve been rightly discarded after the Riddler quit doing his homework. Let us never forget his standout moment:The journal voiceovers need to go!
Yeah, Hush is from the ground up a pretty lousy character.
While do think there have been some interesting efforts with the character, the way he was introduced and hyped up really set Tommy up to fail. While I always appreciate a good twisted reflection villain, Loeb just took it far too literally. It also didn’t help that Loeb just cheats like hell while trying to write a mystery.
Although the original Hush run still has one of my favorite comedic moments in Batman history, as unintentional as it may have been, where Harvey Dent asks that was it so impossible for him to have gotten reinstated as a lawyer.
I personally thought Paul Dini did a good job of fleshing him out in Heart of Hush. I think there’s interesting material to be explored with a character who thinks he deserves to be Batman’s greatest enemy, but is consigned to being a B-lister.
A B-lister if he’s lucky.
Were it not for dressing like a mummy detectiveA mummy detective who quotes Plato!
I was about to respond to this comment by saying that I liked Hush, but then I thought about it and I realized I only like the mummy detective look.
Maybe not quite as strong as last week’s, but I still really enjoyed it. And I got more than one good laugh out of it – I think the humor and characters are coming together well.-Even though we already saw it in Elseworlds, the reveal of the Batwoman suit was still really cool.
-Luke is filling such a familiar archetype, but I’m still getting a real kick out of it; and his scenes always bring something different out from Kate
-I could definitely use more Gabriel Mann; would love if he became recurring
-Mary is in serious dangerous of becoming my favorite character; on the opposite end of the scale, Sophie might be the worst. All of her story material just guarantees to make my eyes roll.
-With scenes opposite Mann and everything with Luke, I feel like Rose is already settling into the role; and the exchange between her and Mary on the elevator was so great.
-I did orchestra in high school so I always get a good laugh when people on television play stringed instruments; impressive that she learned the Bach Cello Suites as a child and can still play flawlessly after all these years.
I loved Alice’s scorn for the red wig. (“A red wig? And I’m supposed to be the crazy one.”) And Alice despite claiming not to care if Kate sees her as a sister any more, for the 2nd episode in a row has an intimate moment where she touches Kate’s face & obviously is moved by being close to her, after one of them saves the others’ life
I wasn’t sure if she was making a reference to her CW’s Reign character re. The red hair?
Mary is great. Loved her needling Sophie about Kate’s dating prospects. Also loved the ditzy med student(????) act she was somehow pulling on Sophie and that she immediately risks it to help the elevator victims.
Mary putting on a tight party dress to intentionally get caught sneaking back into their place after actually spending the night at her secret free clinic was amazing
Right? I feel like she’s already the most layered character. And I always good a get laugh now when she does play up the socialite influencer in any way.
I suppose in a world with both Batman and Green Arrow, it’s nice to finally have ONE character who actually tries to use being a seemingly-obvlivious wealthy socialite as their cover for good deeds (Oliver only really tried it for a handful of episodes and then moved on)…
Looks like they made some alterations on the BatSuit, since elseworlds. New and improved.
Ouch. This was a very, very bad episode for Rose’s American accent. I can only hope the VO/scripts aren’t in filming order and the pilot represents a real-world-chronological improvement from this episode. After the initial voiceover, I was tempted to say that the accent breaks down specifically when Rose tries to put more obvious emotion into her lines… but the rest of the episode killed that theory. It’s an even more systemic issue.
Otherwise, though, the stuff that wasn’t explicitly tied to the villain of the week was pretty good. The villain of the week was, indeed, pretty bad.Kate’s dad, as a character, is still being whacked by the Stupid Stick when it comes to the whole is-Alice-Beth thing. He’ll believe it, disbelieve it, or suspect it based on the demands of every new scene, and that’s kinda lame. Tonight, his conveniently oscillating credulity is used to reiterate to the audience that Stepmom is connected to Alice/Beth and up to no good.
I do share the reviewer’s thinly veiled skepticism about that bartender, but, then again, Rose is basically a supermodel that decided to dabble in acting. Absent any strong attempts by makeup and lighting to fug her up, well, that means Kate is too. Life ain’t fair, and we can barely even keep track of all the ways. No matter the bartender’s announced opinions on Gotham’s upper crust, I imagine she’d be less inclined to give her number to somebody she met during her lunch-hour shift at a middle-tier strip joint. Beer-drinking supermodel at a glitzy function? Yeah that’s gonna tilt the calculus, just a bit.
And even if she doesn’t yet know exactly how said supermodel is connected to money*, she sees her looking for the stupidly-rich real estate guy and chatting casually with the stupidly-powerful private army guy, so it’s clear that this supermodel isn’t just here to make the party look nicer.*do WE understand what’s going on with that? How rich is Kate’s family, and how rich is she? Why can she just wander around the Wayne building, and even waltz into a crime scene at the Wayne lab, as though she owns the place? Who DOES own Wayne (if Bruce has been completely missing for three years, hasn’t he been declared dead?) Who controls Wayne?I don’t want a boardroom drama per se, but it would be nice if the worldbuilding were nailed down a bit more firmly, rather than Wayne Enterprises and its assets being a big, vague black box that can be dipped into as much or as little as the plot demands for no clear reason…
Yeah, it’s a huge omission, especially since the show is staking out financial privilege as a front-and-center issue. Kate’s financial situation is 100% relevant. If she’s still under daddy’s thumb, that’s huge. If she’s not, well, why not? What’s her mailing address, now that she’s back in Gotham? Where does her family think she sleeps?She came back to Gotham from an interrupted overseas ninja-training montage and turned down the one job she’s qualified to do, in a city where I’m assuming the joe jobs aren’t exactly plentiful. And, while that refusal certainly created some DRAMA (please envision jazz hands,) nobody asked the simple question of how she’s going to, you know… eat. Or what the fuck she’s doing all day if she has no job and isn’t going back to school. I guess she’s beginning to stake out the halfway-a-cover-story that she’s just decided to become a totally unsanctioned busybody into Crow and police affairs *as Kate Kane.* Maybe that’s some next-level psyops. “Kate Kane can’t possibly be Batwoman, because look at how obviously she’s acting like a vigilante during the day! She’d never do that if she were trying to hide the fact that she’s Batwoman!”
We’re on episode three already. While the ramifications on various relationships and show themes might’ve been far-reaching, the plain exposition of KK’s financial and domestic (read: cover story) situation could’ve been addressed in, like, 15 seconds.It’s gonna be real weird when (assuming from last year’s crossover) she becomes Bruce’s de facto heir or proxy, and breathes a big sigh of relief… that she can *continue* to not worry about money or employment or any elements of a cover story, because now she’s effectively a billionaire. Hrm.
Hey, it’s Gabriel Mann! I always wanted to see the Arrowverse crossover with Revenge.
Emily VanCamp was on Everwood (which was made by Greg Berlanti). They could totally hook her up.
they kind of wasted him. he used to chew a lot more scenary as Nolan.
Dude looked like Jared Kushner here. Wonder if that was on purpose…
Sooo…Bruce made a leathal gun to counter the suit…sigh, can’t we have one live action Batman interpretation outside comics where he doesn’t use lethal guns?
I don’t recall Batman from the 60s series using one. At any rate having a gun to test the suit does make sense. It’s not like he would bring it into the field with him.
I’m talking about the rail gun. Luke said it was made so that Bruce could take out anyone who stole the suit.
Hey, last episode of Titans had Bruce(as the “good” part of Dick’s mind) reminding Dick of the “No guns!” rule. So there’s that. Fantastic episode, too.
The thing that annoys me is that… it’s not even a unique weapon, really.Oh, sure, I can buy that the super-advanced Batsuit could deflect/absorb/whatever most-to-all handguns and maybe even some lower-penetration rifle rounds, but a steel-core deer slug? Armor-piercing bullets from an assault rifle? Hell, the .50 BMG, a round so large you could stab someone to death with it?Just such a stupid rationale for having them go up against a super-gun. Just have it be something Bruce made as an anti-materiel device, you know, in case he needed to punch a hole in an armored vehicle’s engine block…
That works. It also could have been Tommy who had it made followed by a phony theft to give him an alibi.
Does BMG mean “Big Motherfuckin’ Gun”? I want it to.
So we are definitely going to get a sequence of Alice doing something scary/ crazy set to Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” right? If so it could threaten to rival my previous favorite use of the song, on season 1 of Warehouse 13, when crazy Alice Liddell comes out of the cursed Looking Grass & terrorizes them
Knowing how the Arrowverse does things, it will be very unlikely that they’d use the original version of “White Rabbit”, and find a downbeat, acoustic version.
F***, you are probably right
Worse yet, it could be one of those new singer-songwriters who whisper or mumble their words and the suits think that’s what “clicks” with “the youth”. [shudder]
Please take all the stars Warehouse 13 reference. This show deserve to be talked about much, much more. Except that last “season”. Those episodes should never be talked about again.
I’m already disinterested in this love triangle. Someone give Batwoman’s number to Nyssa al Ghul.
Kate and Nyssa I’m guessing would have some heat to it Yeah I am ready for them to pull the plug on Kate-Sophie already but I guess we are going to have to put up with it for a while longer before hopefully it does the way of other ArrowVerse s1 failed romantic storylines like Oliver-Laurel, Kara-James, and Iris-Eddie
History does point to them being doomed.Given the blase nature of the whole thing, and that Sophie only exists at this point to create romantic angst for Kate, I would be thrilled if they cut things off at the chase and just find something else for Sophie to do on the show.
I am pre-emptively sad that I assume that Alice will probably only be on the show for a single season as the big bad, though I would love if like with Reverse Flash they can find ways to revisit her. If Sophie was only to be on the show for one season I would be okay with that
Well, the bad guys here get sent to Arkham, which both has terrible security and allows consulting-with-Hannibal visits, so it should be easy enough to bring her back in later, if they don’t ‘tragically’ kill her off. Particularly as her backstory seems like she may have knowledge of a bunch of other psychopaths.
That’d be an upside to them sticking so closely to the formula. Will a supporting character also sacrifice themselves at the end of the first season?
Kate’s dad or Sophie’s husband would seem like obvious candidates if so
At this point, I’d put the love triangle at sub-Oliver/Laurel/Tommy, but still above Ray/Kendra/Carter/Vandal Savage
I would put the Batwoman love triangle above Barry and Linda Park, but below Barry and Patty Spivott
Honestly, I’d have taken Barry/Patty over Barry/Iris.
What I want to know is why she had such a hard time fighting some rich douchebag? A guy like that she should be able to completely destroy without breaking a sweat.
The show didn’t do a good job showing the lengths Tommy goes to to one up Bruce/Batman – just his obsession to do so.In the comics this includes training to be his physical equal and to be able to best him in combat physically and tactically. So, if they’re staying true to that, him being able to go toe to toe with Batwoman makes sense and her upperhand is that he wasn’t training to fight her and was surprised that she was the one who appeared instead of Bruce – but the show should have demonstrated that for us and not leave it to us knowing the comics.
I mean, he was able to pull off that smash-and-grab heist at the beginning, so obviously he’s got some skills going on besides “has money”.
Also nice to see the actress who plays Regan is going to have a regular gig on this show. She was pretty good on “The Passage”.
I felt like Kate was checking out Reagan pretty blatantly when they first met, which made sense. It also is quite plausible that Reagan would be into it, since Ruby Rose looks like Ruby Rose
Also a nice change of pace that — unlike Bruce — Kate’s public persona thus far didn’t require her to be “making moves” on Regan. That Kate got to be surprised at the end was a nice little payoff all its own.
I liked her more in her introductory scene than I have pretty much anything of Sophie.
I only know the basics of Alice in Wonderland – do the 2, 3, and 8 cards have relevance from that? It definitely seems to be tying Catherine to the Queen of Hearts I assume which makes sense with her role as a manipulator. Outside of Alice in Wonderland I can’t think of any immediate significance. 8s appeared in the dead man’s hand but the other cards, and suits, don’t line up and while playing cards also make one think of the Royal Flush gang they don’t seem a fit with the story being told right now.
My guess is uranium. U-238 is the most common isotope. You can’t make a bomb directly from it, but you can turn it into plutonium.And for some reason, Kate’s mom’s car was carrying a bunch, which made it too heavy for the bat-cable.
Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see Alice saying “U-ranium? My-ranium.”
They appeared to have a significance to Catherine. Catherine obviously has various evil plots, so I assume the numbers are related in some way to those, and Beth is warning/threatening her that she knows more than Catherine thinks she does.
If you want to bring plain old MATH into it, 2 cubed, denoted as 2^3, = 8. But I like the U-238 idea. Every Bat-villain tries to destroy Gotham City at least once; it’s practically a rite of passage.
The scene with Kate and Mary in the elevator was great. It showed they are starting to build a sisterly bond.I don’t really know what to make of Sophie yet. I’m leaning towards her being a major drag. I can’t decide if she’s in full on denial about being a lesbian, or if she’s just a bisexual that realized she has feeling for an old girlfriend. I suspect it’s the former, since she’s lying to her husband about her past relationship with Kate, which I find disappointing. If that is the case, I hope she and Kate never end up together, because as it is, Sophie just isn’t good enough for Kate. Plus, it would establish that your only two gay main characters don’t HAVE to be in a relationship with each other.
The scene with Kate and Mary in the elevator was very fun. I especially liked that their banter was for Sophie’s benefit & not what they were really talking about. Kate pretended to think that Mary was just there because she was a shallow socialite (which is why Mary made the face at her) and not really just because she had a bodyguard because of Kate inadvertently causing Alice to target her (which is why Kate silently mouthed “sorry” to her)
The scene ending with Mary making faces with her back towards Sophie sealed it. Then later with her muffled “don’t worry I’m not going to say anything” when Sophie was paranoid about being outed to her husband.
Even if her reasons for not being with Kate are somewhat understandable, her choices have so blatantly hurt the show’s lead that it’s really, really hard to like or root for her in pretty much anyway.
In the first episode, I understood her reason for signing the document at West Point. “I can’t afford to be outraged”, with the emphasis on afford. Kate has money and nepotism to fall back on. For her, graduating from West Point would have been a nice check on a list of achievements her father would have arranged for her, but it’s not a necessary one. For Sophie it is. But the Army has since repealed DADT, which is why her keeping that a secret in 2018 (?), 2019 is such an odd choice. We’ve got this giant plothole revolving around someone’s sexual identity when the show really should be focusing on much more important things. I really hope they do address whether she’s a lesbian still in the closet, or just bi pining after an old flame.
Her relationship with Kate was discussed pretty openly at the Kane family breakfast last episode, a conversation that included Sofie’s boss, who is also her husband’s boss. Don’t think staying in the closet’s a viable long-term option there.
Anothe option is that she is not in the closet, but since Kate was far away and since the whole thing between them was extremrly painful amd guilt-induced for Sophie, she never mentionned that part of her history to her husband. Which is not a problem in and of itself – you can keep some parts of your past secret from your partner. But since Kate is back, Sophie should probably come clean to her husband before he finds out from someone else.
I feel kind of uncomfortable about the Sophie plot.Maybe they’ll take it somewhere interesting. But right now, at best it looks like “deceitful bisexual woman has to choose between two lovers who don’t believe she’s bisexual, lies to and eventually betrays husband because she can’t resist her love for a woman, despite her vows”, which is kind of uncomfortably close to a lot of negative stereotypes. And worse, given her zero chemistry with or apparent respect for her husband, and the nature of her lies, it looks like they may be going for “allegedly bisexual woman is just a lesbian in denial”, which adds a whole additional level of uncomfortable to it.
Whereas, “lesbian protagonist meets her old flame, a bisexual woman now married to a man… but because her ex is in a committed relationship, they both agree they need to move on, and continue to just be friends, and the protagonist develops a mutual respect with her ex’s new partner founded upon honesty and shared concern” would be genuinely revolutionary! Why can’t we have that!
I’m really not a fan of Sophie either. I grt why she signed the paper at Westpoint, but she continues to act in a hurtful manner towards Kate, without a good excuse this time.However, I don’t think she is in denial about her sexuality. I think, as Mary said in episode 2, that she is bi, and that her husband may actually know that. However, she never told him about that one specific relationship at the Academy. She feels guilty about it, it’s probably painful for her to think about, and as long as Kate is on the other side of the world, it’s easier to not talk about it. However, now that Kate is back in town, if Sophie truly cares about her husband and her relationship with him, she’ll tell him about Kate before he finds out by himself. Because finding out from anybody but her will hurt him. I may be very wrong, of course.
Costume is bomb
Set to explode at any time?
Of course we’ll see Tommy again. HE’S HUSH!!!Quite a flex to show off your S2 big bad three episodes into S1.
“Stop killing for 24 hours” was the kind of gimmicky request that could really work in a Bat-universe. It’s nonsense, but potentially compelling nonsense. You could imagine the Joker doing it in the animated series.The problem I had is that Ruby Rose, although she’s doing fine at the scowling and cowling in general, can’t hold her own in her scenes against Skarsten, who’s having way too much fun here. It’s tough when I just want the show to be “The Adventures of Alice in Gothamland”.
Rose is very good at a certain side of the character, whether it’s menacing baddies or acting very cool at a party. But her range seems to be very limited, and I think they’re going to have to lean on the characters around her more, to overcome her lack of affect.
Agreed. It can still work (and even become an asset, see Arrow) if the villains and side characters keep developing.
Skarsten has come a long way from being the weakest part of Birds of Prey (tied with 75% of that show’s plot).
I think I’m a little biased towards her because I loved her as Queen Elizabeth on Reign. It should have gotten a fifth season!
I loved Reign but I think the series ended at the right time besides the weirdly rushed ending given they knew before the season started filming that s4 would be the final season. By trying to follow history better in that final season (amd historical accuracy was NOT the reason anybody would be watching Reign) & having lost the majority of its OG cast (both for historical/plot reasons & desperate budget measures to try & stay afloat) with few of the newbies besides Elizabeth & Catherine’s daughter (Claude?) making much of an impact & the remaining characters so far isolated from one another meant all the juicy drama that made the show engaging just sorta wasnt there (besides Catherine’s dungeon $ex-capades lobotomising a man).
It’s amazing how much I hate this show simply because the actress has been so pathetic about scarring herself so much with the disgusting tattoos. What level of self-hatred does that practice involve?
* As villains go, I thought Tommy was a decent pull – making him a real-estate douche instead of a Mad Doctor (who is actually a doctor) brings him closer to being a distorted version of Bruce, and sometimes you just need a baddie who can be beaten down without any complications.
* Got to agree with some other comments down the thread – it’s time to retire the Dear Bruce device; you telling me he wouldn’t leave a contact email for Luke – or that Luke wouldn’t have one for Alfred or Dick?
* If nothing else I admire a superhero show for being this committed to depicting cis-het marriages as full of putzes on both sides rather than Twue Wuv. That’s a change of pace in and of itself. Sophie can go eat rocks; team KReganate!
WhatI loved was Vesper’s broadcast at the end. She want dismayed it want Batman, she didn’t ridicule her, she REVELED in that she was a sexier curvier version. She engraved the new heroin and hopefully this means a large part of the city will too.
So far I’m struggling with pretty much every character except Kate and Mary. Alice is an eye-roll of a villain, basically a theater-kid-cranked-to-11 rather than a legitimately sinister or menacing figure — it seems like they’re trying to create a Batman/The Joker parallel here, but Alice isn’t holding up her end. The rest are still ciphers, whose machinations and/or personal problems I am not at all invested in through three episodes. I don’t care that Big Daddy Kane married a social climber with a hidden agenda (nor what that agenda is) and I don’t care that he runs a private security force; I don’t care that Kate’s ex-girlfriend is either bi or engaged in a sham marriage, because she has zero chemistry with Kate, so who cares who (or if) she marries; I don’t care that Luke is trying to be the lovable but feckless sidekick who Kate can talk to about Bat-stuff. I don’t even care what the show is trying to say about whether private security forces can coexist with democracy or human rights or whatever larger point they’re after. There’s just nothing here I give a bat’s ass about but Kate’s growing acceptance of the “Defender of Gotham” mantle and Mary’s double life as a partygirl/free clinic doc, and hopefully a payoff of warm fuzzies when Kate learns to trust her.I want to like this show, I’m committed to watching this show, but this stumble out of the starting gate, characteristic of the Berlantiverse, is a real drag. 🙁
RAIL GUNS DON’T HAVE KICKBACK. Now that I have that out. Good ep. Although I am not a fan of the CW trope that the protagonist deserves the love interest.
I’m getting really curious to see what they’re going to do to reconcile the timeline. Batwoman is already an established hero in the “present” and will take part in Crisis, which is only a few weeks away. So are we going to skip 3 years ahead once the Alice story wraps up?At least they’re not using this as another opportunity to tell more FLASHBACKS!
It’ll be awesome when Luke eventually becomes Batwing. Maybe season 3-ish. Also the suit reveal was cool it’s a dope suit for tv standards
Mary is a cutie
I wish they’d cast an actor in the lead role. Even the make-up is failing to cover the tattooed hack underneath.
My thoughts:I liked how Alice saved Batwoman from Tommy Elliot near the end of the episode, since it brought together the two storylines and showed more to Alice’s character, like motivation and her messed-up relationship with Kate. Applying Venture Brothers logic, her hitting Tommy away was her way of telling him, “Back off, ya poser! She’s MINE to arch!”Who here didn’t so much as giggle at Tommy’s almost-name-drop of The Riddler? Here’s hoping Kate goes up against him.I guess Mary can’t keep up the “vapid selfish party-gurl” act for long after stepping in to help the EMTs like that.Alice’s habit of speaking in Lewis Carroll quotes goes back to the Batwoman arc in “Detective Comics” by Greg Rucka from, like, 10 years ago.You think Tommy Elliot was a douche-nozzle? I think that was the point, and has been since he was revealed as the main villain in the HUSH arc. As a twisted version of Bruce Wayne, using his family’s wealth for his own selfish reasons and murdering his parents to get it, of course you’re not supposed to like him!
It also had a lot to do with how Kate views herself, her relationship to her family and Gotham as a whole, and that she was unsure of herself. She has only just discovered that Bruce is Batman, her long-thought-dead twin sister is alive and returned to her hometown after a long absence. So, there is an emotional weight too. But maybe it wasn’t conveyed as well as it could’ve been.Yes, Mary is the best. Like her and Kate’s dynamic too, think Kate’s just to bogged down by everything else to really take time to determine her relationship with Mary. Plus, it’s probably the only positive thing about being back in Gotham right now, save for Luke’s support.Was very worried back when the trailer was released, seeing Luke, that they were doing the stereotypical ‘black best friend/sidekick’ trope (and they did that horrible ‘magical asian/native american’ trope in the pilot). Hopefully, Luke gets to be a full character in his own right. Like him a lot in the few glimpses we get.
I’m liking the show so far, but not completely sold on it. But what a waste of Tommy Elliot. Really got the impression that he was a one-off, single-episode bad guy.
“it also just seemed like a silly thing to ask a villain”I think at this point, Kate still saw “Alice” as her sister and not a villain. But after this episode, I assume that’s done and she sees her as a full villain.
This episode really felt like the final part of a 3-part pilot, with her finally creating the Batwoman suit and assuming that persona instead of just letting Gotham think that she’s Batman. I assume the next episode will have a first-episode-after-a-pilot feel.