So, this is it. Tonight’s episode brings viewers the Mad Tea Party Alice has promised for the past couple of weeks. Ever since Mouse came onto the scene, this “party” has represented pinnacle point of their devious planning, and it did not disappoint. “Mad Tea Party” episode inverts everything so quickly—by the end, all the characters are at a completely different point than they where they started. Emotionally and physically, Kate and her family are damaged, and their journey to the end of the season is looking rough.
In “Tell Me The Truth,” Alice teased the sinister Mad Tea Party as the best Gotham has seen. While it wasn’t full of Mad Hatters and tiny sandwiches, it was truly devious and on par with Alice’s productions. This episode is one of the climaxes of the season as a whole, but it starts off rather tame. Kate strolls in and out of Alice’s lair, no weapons cocked or present; no backup or suit. Alice has shown that she isn’t out to kill Kate, but this is still a pretty chill way to approach a villain. Kate puts a lot of faith in Beth coming back in the end. Things are also looking up for Catherine and Mary’s relationship. Even though Mary is very disgusted by her mother’s actions, she’s turning a new leaf and supporting her for the gala. The audience knows that Mouse is parading around as Jacob, though, so the other shoe is bound to drop any second.
As Alice, Rachel Skarsten has given one of the strongest performances on the show and the Arrowverse as a whole, which this episode celebrates. Skarsten brings Alice’s humanity, a.k.a. her inner Beth, to the surface on multiple occasions. In her dealings with Kate and her weirdly sweet gesture of delivering the fatal Batwoman bullet, Beth peeks through now and again—or rather, what Beth would do. It’s “weirdly” sweet because Alice had to kill people to obtain it and stop people from remaking it, but still. She was looking out for Kate in her twisted villain brain.
With that said, Alice’s inner “good” has been squashed before. With Mouse in her ear and her irrepressible desire for vengeance against Jacob, it’s not a surprise that her evil side wins out big time in “Mad Tea Party.” Both Jacob and Catherine show genuine remorse when faced with Alice. It’s not just for show or because they’re facing death, but because even they can see how the horrors Alice faced have made their way onto her face and into evil demeanor. How can they not be sorry for ending their search for Jacob’s poor little girl? Alice is affected by Jacob’s sincerity as he says, “I failed you,” but it’s not enough to stop the fallout.
Mary (Nicole Kang) and Alice come face-to-face for the first time this season. They are the two strongest characters on Batwoman, hands down, with the most emotional pull with the audience, so it’s no wonder their confrontation is spectacular. These are Kate’s two sisters: Mary, who’s convinced she’s playing second fiddle to a psycho, and Alice, who is violently jealous of Mary. Despite Kate putting Mary on the backburner for a bit, Alice revels in her victory of not only killing the woman she holds responsible for her years in captivity but also in one-upping Mary in her sick way. Mary’s anguish and heartbreak are nearly palpable.
Finally, Kate’s eyes are wide open in regards to Alice. Kate put every member of her family below Alice on her list of priorities and stopped at nothing to get Beth back. After Mary asked multiple times before if Alice was worth all the trouble Kate was going through, Kate now realizes that she wasn’t, far too late. Kate took up the mantle of Batwoman to save Beth. She risked everything for her. She, of course, realizes the power and duty—to all of Gotham—she has as Batwoman. But that doesn’t change that the root of her vigilante identity is based on her sister. Now that Alice has shattered Kate’s family again, it’s war. Kate will not save Alice from death or the law anymore.
At the beginning of the episode, we hear Kate’s refrain: she chooses hope. She’s always chosen hope. Kate chose it the moment Beth fell into the river, and her body went missing. She decided to see the bright light at the end of the tunnel, even when Alice was at her most vile. But now, all hope is shattered. It took a death to make Kate see that Alice isn’t the sister she lost as a kid. And in the process, she lost Mary, too. Kate’s hope is a shambles. Beth is dead to her now, and Catherine’s death is weighing on her conscience—not to mention, her father is now in jail.
Next week, the crossover episode probably won’t touch on the events that took place here, as most crossovers don’t. So any commentary regarding Mary or Kate’s family life won’t happen until the new year. But Kate is beaten and down. Everything falls apart for her, which is not a good place to be when you’re a pillar of strength in your city.
Stray observations
- This episode was just so good at showing both sides to the Alice/Beth outcome. I literally have in my notes, “Beth is still in there somewhere,” because Alice shows the cracks in her armor often this time around. However, in the end, Alice won out, and it was heart-wrenching to see all of Kate’s faith and work destroyed.
- Again, Luke is underused in this episode, but you can’t blame the show for making Alice and the Hamilton-Kanes the center of attention.
- Even though Sophie and Tyler broke up, for now, I hope this isn’t a ploy to get her together with Kate in the end. For one, Kate doesn’t need that right now, although support is probably welcome. And two, Sophie hasn’t proven to be a reliable, loyal, or good partner. Much to think about.
- Also, I know Tyler is going through some shit, but is it the appropriate time to bring up relationship milestones he wants with Sophie right after Jacob is put in prison? Read the room, sir.
119 Comments
– She can just break that staff over her knee?
– I like that Alice isn’t exactly surprised that Kate showed up.
– So Kate is Jewish.
– If Jacob is rich, why is he staying in no motel?
– It’s nice that on this show the people are actually figuring things out.
– Still don’t care about Sophie, her married drama, or how it affects Kate.
– That speech is a nice take on the class warfare theme of “Batwoman”.
– Boy, they’re just piling on the evil on Katherine this episode.
– I was wondering why Mary wasn’t showing symptoms.
– It looks like Alice wants to drag Kate ‘round the twist with her.
– Katherine is dead for good. I DID NOT see that coming.
– I imagine that that’s the last of Alice we’ll see for a while. I believe that they’ll bring in a new big bad for while and bring Alice back at the end of the season to lead into season two.
– A “Crisis on Infinite Earths” stinger.
– A “Crisis on Infinite Earths” stinger. I feel like I must have missed something with that. Maybe a previous Arrow stinger as that’s the only Arrowverse show I don’t watch. Monitor saved Wells’ life from what?
Watch The Flash to find out!!! (Don’t)
Counterargument ..I have to watch a regular episode of this to find out somethng that happens in the Flash??? ( I won’t)
Actually it’s on Supergirl as well ,( so you can catch it there)
It’s probably on Arrow and Flash too.
We don’t know yet. We still don’t know a whole lot about this version of Wells.
Judging by that bright light gobbling him up, I’d say he’ll become Pariah during the Crisis.
Ugh, this just annoyed me. It’s been 8 episodes and all of this felt rushed and unearned.Catherine’s death means nothing because we barely spent anytime with her. We knew nothing about her as a person because she got like one scene per episode and none of them painted her in a consistent light. We knew nothing about what her company was up to other than making a Batman killing gun.We knew nothing about her relationship with Kate because they had like two scenes together where they barely interacted and then for the rest of the show Katherine never mentioned Kate and Kate only brought her up a couple times and yet we had a big speech from Katherine about trying to ease Kate’s pain.Her relationship with Mary has never been consistent and her speech to Mary at end just felt like they were trying to make it sad. And again we’ve had barely any interaction between Mary and Katherine so any follow up there isn’t going to have much meaning.
Sophie and Tyler broke up of course, it was only a matter of when, not if. Hopefully Tyler can just leave with what’s left of his dignity, because he is not getting back with Sophie after this. At least Sophie didn’t interact with Kate in this episode.
Oh yeah, this shows a part of Crisis and its build for the event was a 2 minute something that only made sense if you’re watching The Flash. In case anyone thought there would be consequences here.
I guess mostly what I think about Jake & Catherine is that Alice is right that they have been exploiting Gotham and are not the good guys everyone sees them as. Catherine’s death was powerful to me not so much because I cared about her but more how it affected Mary, the show’s best character. Also I think Catherine did find some redemption in apologizing to Alice for what she did & for making sure that Mary took the antidote. Alice’s hostility to Mary is interesting, before it was cast just as jealousy that she stole her sisterly relationship with Kate, but now it seems more that she sees Mary as being shallow and unworthy of inheriting the life that Beth herself should have had (which we know is unfair to Mary but Alice doesn’t)
Well the problem with that is again, they haven’t shown us anything to suggest that there’s any truth to Alice’s accusations. We just have her word on that.
I think we’ve seen that Gotham is crime-ridden and overly stratified and the Kane-Hamiltons are complicit in that, and they run a quasi-fascist paramilitary force that they profit off of. So I’m pretty sure that all makes them not the good guys, anyway
We’ve seen that Gotham is a shithole yes, but there’s been nothing to really suggest that the Crows are to blame for this, no more than anything else in the city. And again we’ve seen almost nothing of Katherine and her company to know what she’s been up too.
That is fair. A lot of the larger stuff on the show has been painted in very broad strokes so far. I don’t really understand what is happening with Wayne Co either for that matter. Is there still a board running it? Is so are Kate (as head of her new real estate division) and Luke (as head of security) working with their approval? Or has Kate pulled off some weird corporate takeover?
Who the hell knows what’s going on with Wayne Co at this point because I was under the impression is was out of business to close to it.Also I’m not sure they’re going to stop using broad strokes because now Katherine’s dead and we’ve had no other representatives of her company show up so that thread my have died with her. As for the Crows I guess we’ll see.
The Wayne Co building they are working out of was “closed for renovations” but I think the company itself still exists? But again that is confusing
Its status changes by the week.
Much like Queen Industries on Arrow, it only exists to explain why the character is rich and set up “troubled legacy” plotlines. Comic books tend to have a very superficial relationship with the business world, and major corporations are usually just around to finance secret supervillain projects (like battlesuits and world domination) rather than serve any recognizable purpose in the economy.Admittedly, this caricature seems a lot more accurate these days — if someone told me Apple or Google or even Starbucks had a secret lab creating genetically engineered super-soldiers, I’d wonder what struggling Midwestern community it was bringing jobs to in exchange for tax breaks.
The annoying thing is, ‘they’ (the writers of these things in general) have a whole bunch of characters set up to tell a certain genre of story (Batman/Batwoman, Green Arrow, Iron Fist, etc), they every time completely shy away from telling that story*, even though that story could be really interesting.These are all in theory stories about a young person who suddenly finds themselves one of the Masters of the Universe, and there’s so much potential there. You’ve got the story of what someone must be like, when they’re groomed for a position like that. You’ve got the story of how they try to come to terms with their own power – do they try to ‘do good’, and how badly does that turn out? You’ve got the story of whether their power is real – how are they hemmed in by corporate boards and governments and the media and so on? You’ve got how people react to them – how do ordinary people feel when they find out they’re oligarchs, and how do their fellow oligarchs feel about this young upstart? You’ve got the story of them and their employees, because a king isn’t a king without their ministers and soldiers. And you’ve got the basic power fantasy of having a likeable protagonist actually have agency, real agency, more agency than the viewer has – way more power than just being able to punch someone in the face. Power not just over other individuals, but over society and over (through R&D departments) the nature of the world. Can’t you tell a story in that world?Apparently not, because they keep taking these stories and turning the characters into ordinary middle class people (but with batcaves and bunkers). I know they’re frightened of the power both because it’s controversial and because it makes it harder to put the protagonist in peril. But not THAT hard, with imagination! Even the rich face plenty of obstacles they can’t easily solve – again, media, markets, governments, families, boards, morality, psychological issues, etc. And if you want to make the owner of Queen Industries or Wayne Enterprises feel they have to resort to punching people in the face, well that in itself should BE an interesting story! And yes, making them genuinely rich and powerful will also make them harder to like, but that also isn’t necessarily a bad thing in a story!
[I found the worst in this regard was Iron Fist. Guy who is a) a privileged princeling, b) the survivor of trauma, c) a total hippy, d) owner of an international conglomerate, and e) believed dead for a decade, there is SO much thematic and emotional potential there…]I mean, it’s not like rich and powerful people can’t be interesting. Look how popular The Crown is. Or better yet, look at Succession. Tell me that a version of Succession in which Siobhan is secretly also a vigilante superhero wouldn’t be great fun to watch! And Roman’s rocket isn’t just a satellite but a spaceborne mind-control ray…*I think the only exception is Iron Man, where they at least touch on that side of the story. But it’s a bit different because Stark, while not the founder, has a more direct role in building the company before his epiphany, whereas the others have their epiphany before taking contol of their companies. Nonetheless, it’s an example of how these stories can work. I don’t think anyone thinks that the Avengers/Iron Man films would have been better if Tony had permanently lost control of his company in the first film and spent the remainder of the series operating out of a cave somewhere with one sidekick, unknown to the world…
I think that with Wayne Enterprises that all of the assets that actually belong to Bruce (like Wayne Tower), Kate has gotten power of attorney over.
Would be nice if they had told us that.
That is what it seems like, I just am unclear on how that was possible & how she pulled it off
There are people who would have a better claim to it than her.
Luke seems to be in one way communication with Bruce. Once he told him that Kate had picked up the bat mantle, Bruce probably just had her given power of attorney over his things.
What was the way Alice described Mary..“That vapid run-on-sentence of a daughter.” (paraphrasing)If that isn’t a great description of the average wanna-be Instagram influencer, I am not sure what is.Obviously, Mary has a lot more depth than that, and is quite a nuanced character.
And Alice has to know that Mary has more depth to her than that, since she knows about Mary’s secret free clinic, since she sent her hench-boyfriend there to kill Mary. So Alice’s jealousy and anger are warping how she sees Mary, not that there is much chance for her to make amends now that she has murdered Catherine (who she hated more reasonably).
Totally agree with the Crisis add on. If you hadn’t watched The Flash at all this season, that scene didn’t mean jack.
True, but there is precedent. Like last year, how they ended each primary show with the tease of Earth-90’s Flash and the Monitor, which also acted as a non-sequitur when taken only in the context of the show.
What I don’t understand is how Crisis fits into the timeline. We only caught up to Elseworlds around episode 5. And an entire year hasn’t passed in the last three episodes. So…?
Well according to this show it has. Once Crisis is over its going to pick up exactly where it left off.
I was bummed that Kate refused to accept Mary’s invitation/ guilt trip to come to the gala, both because it hurt Mary’s feelings, and also it deprived us of getting to see Kate in the stylish fashions that Mary brought for her (was that a tux?)
It’s funny, that scene made me kind of disappointed in Kate. Because I really want her to connect with Mary. And I really want someone to make Mary feel valued. But then I realized that’s actually the point. As was laid out in the review, Kate’s been putting her attempts to save Beth ahead of everyone and everything. And now it’s cost her everything – including Mary.
I like Mary too, she’s my favorite character on the show… and yet, damn, she is desperately thirsty for a relationship with a step-sister who has never demonstrated more than basic politeness at best. Admittedly, Kate has not been doing a great job with her secret identity and has zero plausible alibis for why she’s not available to hang out, but c’mon Mary, how many times must your open hand be slapped away before you get the message? Maybe it’s time to find some friends who appreciate you, besides junkies who are bleeding to death of course.
It does appear that Mary has no friends. Or co-workers. Or family members other than the three of them.
I’d like to think this was intentional, for psychological reasons, but really it’s because the worldbuilding on this show is so laughably thin.
And after the preceding episode ended with Kate and Mary seemingly bonding over building a gay bar across the street from the snooty restaurant, too.
Exactly. But it kinda cool too because I’m actually waiting with bated breath for when Mary (eventually) finds out Kate is Batwoman puts two and two together and realizes that her mom would still be alive if Kate/Batwoman took out Alice earlier.
The good: all the lay it out conversations. The fight with Batwoman and Alice’s mooks in the opera house.The bad: all those pole-axed expressions of Sophie whenever Tyler asked about their relationship.
Totally agree with the review’s points about why the Sophie and Tyler scenes were intrusive and clunky, but that I am glad they are at least broken up & hope that it stays that way, but I also don’t think that she and Kate should get back together.
I really, really, really want to like Sophie. I really, really do.I’m hoping they can find a way to write her out of this corner they’ve backed her into. Because right now, Sophie is the only thing on the show that’s not working for me.
Earth 2 Sophie? Worked for Laurel.
Yeah the show really missed the mark with her character. There were a bunch of little tweaks they should have made to give them the storyline they seemingly want to tell, but still have the audience root for her and Kate. In the next coming weeks we really need to see Sophie make a choice about how she feels and how to move forward in her relationships rather than everyone else seeing her uncertainty and just cutting her off. She’s too much of an emotional doormat and a wishy-washy character right now.
I wonder if there is a way via super slow-burn. Let Sophie work on herself, come out, date a woman who isn’t Kate, then see what happens two or three seasons down the line.(of course if they find a good pairing for Kate in the meantime, they have to be willing to go for it)
Yeah, I pretty much think that’s their best option. Give Sophie story material that has nothing whatsoever to do with great. That would be a great start.
*Kate (not great)
Yes, Sophie has definitely been not great. *rimshot*
Crows stuff would make the most sense. Maybe even butting heads and being mentored by Jacob if they want to argue over the purpose of their expensive private security force.
Post whatever reckoning Alice has coming (Arkham presumably), building on Sophie as the daughter Jacob always wanted within the Crows, thereby pitting everything Sophie is against everything Kate is, and then having Sophie make a CHOICE that favors Kate is the only way to really redeem her I think.
Good Sophie moment in this episode: telling Tyler at the end of the episode that she was going to check on Mary as a priority over anything else she might have thought she had to deal with as the #2 of the organization with its head under arrest
They’re dealing with this dire, tragic situation and the next word out of Tyler’s mouth is “I want to have a baby.” SERIOUSLY DUDE
Well, that was a real gutpunch of an episode. As far as mid-season climaxes go, it did not disappoint.I have deeply conflicted feelings about the death of Catherine. On one hand, it was thematically resonant, the fallout has incredibly story potential, and it’s a really bold move to make in your first season.But on the other hand, Catherine was an interesting character, and I’m disappointed to lose her so early in the run of the series.Overall, I have to say I think this might just be the strongest opening run of any Arrowverse show (maybe even more than Arrow, which is my favorite, and I love its first year, where I know others are a bit more critical). The casting is on point. The drama is never overwrought. The conflicts are remarkably complex. There’s a ton of emotional nuance. Really, just gotta say, a really great opening for Batwoman. Caroline Dries is doing an excellent job.
I have been more impressed with Batwoman’s first season so far than I expected, too.Arrow also killed its morally conflicted mother character Moira off too soon, though they at least waited til the 2nd season. But that does seem to be in keeping with Batwoman feeling that they have to move things along a bit more briskly
I think I’d give The Flash the strongest opening season award.
Caroline Dries’s tenure as showrunner of “The Vampire Diaries” coincided with my least favorite seasons of that once-beloved show, so I didn’t hold out high hopes for this.
But honestly, this is right up there with the final season of “Arrow” at the top of the pack for me this year. Partly it’s because this feels new and fresh while her seasons of TVD felt tired and stale. But partly because I think her strengths work better here. She took a show that was primarily a gothic romance with a healthy dollop of sadism and murder, and put the sadism and murder front and center. But sadism and murder are Gotham City’s bread and butter.I like how all of the main characters on “Batwoman” have a lot of baggage, and how that baggage continues to define them.At this end of this episode, Kate and Jacob vow that they’re done with Alice in the wake of Catherine’s murder. But I think we all know that that’s not the case. It’s not just that she is Kate’s twin sister and Jacob’s daughter. It’s that both Kate and Jacob are consumed by the guilt they feel for letting Beth down. The drive to redeem Alice isn’t just because she was Beth. It’s because they won’t be able to live with themselves if they don’t redeem Alice.But that drives a wedge between Kate and Mary, because Mary has none of their guilt and none of their affection when it comes to Beth. She knows intellectually that what her mother did was horrible, that it trapped a young girl in a horror show for many years and turned her into a murderer. But what she feels is that Alice carefully and methodically killed her mom, in the most horrible way imaginable, right in front of her. I don’t see how Kate can repair her relationship with Mary while Alice draws breath.It’s all good drama because it’s earned drama. There was a car crash, and a little girl went into the river. Everything that has transpired since is a consequence of that.
To be fair, TVD was also in its waning years when it was all so messy I don’t know anyone could’ve done much to save it.
The show was at its best when, except for Damon, most of the characters were fundamentally good people who found themselves, again and again, in these morally murky situations requiring horrible actions. After a while, though, there’s only so many horrible actions you can have them commit and casually brush off, before the show loses its heart.
Take Alice and Mary out and I think the series falls dramatically. I see alot of the same structure therefore the same mistakes as it’s predecessors. Considering its had there examples of what works and what does not I expected better not to say it does not have great potential. Black lightning to me had the best first season just by trying it’s best to remove what has become the Arrowverse staples. Quippy tech friend. Love triangle etc…
It takes a really sick villain to make a hero lose hope. I just wish they can provide won for Supergirl; she’s been “holding on”, as Kylo Ren puts it, for far too long.
The fight up the opera-house steps was some on-par-with-Daredevil-level single-take goodness.I kept hoping “the cure” or “the poison” given to Catherine would somehow turn her into a mutant super-villain. I know, it doesn’t seem like that’s show’s style. But I guess I’m enjoying the show well enough, and looking forward to them getting into a wider rogue’s gallery. Post Crisis seems like a good time to expand.
I loved how her red wig was popping in and out of the shadows in the darkened corridor!
Were those guys Batwoman beat up real Crow agents or Alice’s Wonderland gang in stolen Crow uniforms?
Couldn’t tell ya. It would be hilarious if Kate showed up at Crow HQ the next day, just to check in on things, and found half the employees were wearing arm slings and leg braces. ‘Chowing down on ibuprofen.
So the Batwoman lead-in to Crisis is that everybody hates each other? That sucks. It is, however, very very Berlanti, so I should have seen it coming.
Well I don’t think anyone other than Kate is going to be in Crisis so I don’t think that it’ll matter.
I am very worried about Kate for the Crisis because everyone else kind of heard about it and know about metas and multiverses and Kate is going to be “multi what now???”.
Kate was around during Elseworlds so none of this is new to her.
She was but except from being confused about Oliver and Barry’s body-swap, she wasn’t really informed about the whole thing. Everyone else was told about the actual crisis and had time to prepare but for her, it’s going to be all “well, all the worlds are about to be wiped out so help”
Nobodies prepared for this, even the peole who prepared aren’t prepared for this.
Okay, up front I want to say that I am still watching it because my
best friend loves to hate watch it. Batwoman is precious to her, and
when she got me to read it, I fell in love with Kate Kane as well.
I feel like this is
easily the worst show they have produced on the CW. I understand
comparing it to stuff like Watchmen, The Boys, Daredevil and Jessica
Jones might not be the fairest thing. But just because a show is on
the CW, doesn’t mean it has to give into the channel’s worst
tendencies. Especially this many years into superhero television
programming. Riverdale spent it’s first season doing that, before
becoming it’s own crazy thing and became all the better for it imo.
The best season of the CW superhero shows imo was the first of the
Flash. Where while you could tell it was on the CW, you could also
still tell it was the Flash. This show is so CW to it’s core, there
is very little Batwoman left.Kate is not Batman,
her stories aren’t Batman’s, but that is how this show plays.
Like bad Batman fanfic, just like Arrow. Because of this, I feel
like the show has none of what makes Batwoman as a character so
special. The show feels like the awful run they recently had for the
character in Detective Comics, down to her father being the head of a
PMC. Kate and Alice are nothing like the source material. I
understand that isn’t the only way to judge something. But to me,
this has just led to them being crappy knockoffs, especially Alice.
Alice should be legit, break from reality, crazy. She was
legitimately transformed by her own personal protection from the
trauma she had to live through. When Beth comes through it is
fleeting and something that would take years of help to ever truly
bring back out. At first I thought she was just a low rent Harley
knock off, but it is much worse then that. Instead they seem to be
playing her like she is Kylo Ren. There is still good in her, even as
she is purposely doing evil thing after evil thing, while fully aware
she is doing it. When she started yelling about being in a cell for
years, it reminded me of the issue with this interpretation. Beth and
Alice aren’t two different people, it’s the same person. Just
like ole Ben and Kylo. Alice the excuse, for what Beth wants to do.
Beyond Rose being a
horrible person, making it ironic that she is playing such a
character in the first place, she is flat as hell.
And honestly, it’s
the little things that really get me. Kate talking about being out
and proud since she was a kid, but then she went to a school she knew
had a code of conduct that forbade such behavior. Why? They haven’t
even touched on her and her dad’s relationship that would have made
that decision viable in the comics. Where she was a little girl who
lost everything but her dad, and he became everything she aspired to
be, including a soldier. Until of course, that all went down the
tubes.
Watching this on the same night as Watchmen and Mr Robot, then coming here and seeing Batwoman with an “A-” is pure comedy. I used to say, well, we have to review it for what it is, you can’t grade a super hero show in the same way that you would something like “The Wire”. Fair enough. But Watchmen is exactly the same genre, just with a budget, quality actors, and, most importantly, quality writers. The Arrowverse is getting harder to watch every week.
It may be the same genre, but it’s a different kind of show with different things to say. It’s OK to prefer Tolstoy to Dickens, but both are classics for a reason.
One more time for the people in the back:
Review grades are not an abstract rubric of quality overall, nor are they graded based on genres. Review “grades” at the AVC are INTERNAL TO THE SHOW ITSELF. Not all television serves the same purpose, nor “entertains” the same way. Mindless fun just is not the same as the heights of the medium; limited budgets and big budgets result in different creative realities. The grades reflect how well a show did related to its POTENTIAL. Batwoman is never going to be Shakespeare, or Watchmen. This was an A- episode of Batwoman, not an A- minus episode of all of television.
There are reasons for this at the AVC for TV Reviews aside from budget and genres as well, including intended or likely audience, and that it is more accurate to reflect the individual episode nature of the medium for things that do both stand alone episodes as the default and ongoing arcs, and for things that may have been running for 20+ seasons. People complain about the C’s for a perfectly fine current SNL episode, or for a B for a pretty/good funny episode, but an A would be an all time classic – which we know what that looks like from SNL’s history. Flash and Supergirl will also have some less than ideal special effects because of certain cgi limitations, and those need to be given breathing room because in the end they are not what the actual story or characters are about, which means they will never quite line up on a platonic scale of some kind either.
Letter and number grades are inherently reductive, and should be avoided. When they are used, they invite the type of criticism in my post. I was unaware that AVC used a “same show” curve for it’s letter grades, but I’ll take you at your word. If so, however, they should make that apparent as a disclaimer. Perhaps “This is a show that will never, on its very best day, be better than a quickly cancelled 90s network sitcom. That in mind, here’s what we thought this week.”But, fair play, I can forgive the lack of VFX, the lack of decent stunt people or fight choreography, and the costumes that are one bare light bulb away from a visible zipper, that’s all been constants in the Arrowverse. However, on most of the shows, they’ve had a wildly charismatic cast and at least competent writing (for the first season or two, it appears the decent writers find better paying work after that). While the cast is OK (I like Ruby Rose, but I’m sure she has the chops for the lead role, at least not yet), the writing has been wooden, and the ‘fun’ that saves the Flash and Supergirl, at least for a while, are mostly missing. It’s a damn shame, I wouldn’t put this much time into it if I didn’t really want to like it. Maybe it’ll hook me with the “Crisis” crossover.
Television criticism, in part derived from schools of thought in film criticism, which evolves from theater criticism, has mostly always included some kind of review/ranking system in the modern consumerist age to allow consumers to make a more informed purchase decision. However; the ongoing nature of many tv series, and the nature of original programming as functionally “free” on broadcast means that television criticism has evolved some distinct aspects away from the ways theater and film reviews tend to reflect a more cohesive idea of the “arts”. Grades or systems don’t necessarily assign intrinsic value to a thing (guilty pleasures are still pleasures), they just indicate how well done it is or probability of enjoyment when choosing to spend your time. But if you don’t really like an overall television show, even its best episode may not change that.
Here at the AVC …. the internal to show metric has kind of been that way since at least 2006 at least? I don’t know if the print version did tv reviews. (That’s like 3 or 4 major commenting platform changes ago and two major waves of lost reader-commenters from those platform changes). Regular TV coverage has dropped substantially, as has the ongoing comments, so it’s probably less relevant. But for any review system, the viewpoint of the reviewer is always going to shade the nature of the review anyway, no matter where it is posted.
Once again, I’m almost positive the writers plotted with 13 episodes in mind before getting the pickup for the back 9. This is the kind of game-changing twist you save for later in the season, whereas winter break is more of a “hero clashes against nemesis for the first time and fails” kinda cliffhanger. I also assume this ends the weird “frenemy” dynamic between Kate and Alice that lets Kate casually stroll into Alice’s lair; probably not as much fun anymore with a murder between them.So where was Batwoman during Catherine’s poisoning? I get Mouse knocks her over the railing, and they escape, and then Batwoman just…leaves? The next time we see her she’s back in civilian clothes answering her dad’s call. I don’t think there’s anything Batwoman could’ve done to save Catherine, it just feels weird she didn’t stick around to look for the two key people being targeted. It felt like I had missed a scene when the show came back from commercial.Poor, poor Mary. Great job from Nicole Kang who shoulders the drama this week after playing the engaging comic relief so far. I don’t quite believe Catherine would willingly let her daughter work alone in that clinic (maybe if it had other staff or looked a bit more respectable), but it’s a good moment between the two.
-Ooh, Kate, you fucked up hard in this one. Wouldn’t go to the gala even to support Mary…and her mother dies at that gala at the hands of the crazy-ass sister you do make an effort for. And when Mary finds out you’re Batwoman and did nothing to save Catherine? That should also be explosive. Next week, the crossover episode probably won’t touch on the events that took place here, as most crossovers don’t. So any commentary regarding Mary or Kate’s family life won’t happen until until the new year. She could use a good WTF speech from the Danvers sisters about having respect for non-blood family…-Kind of sad to see the end of Catherine here. Love that she knew about Mary’s clinic all along.Even though Sophie and Tyler broke up, for now, I hope this isn’t a ploy to get her together with Kate in the end. For one, Kate doesn’t need that right now, although support is probably welcome. And two, Sophie hasn’t proven to be a reliable, loyal, or good partner. Much to think about.It would be like the terrible romantic resolution to Agent Carter, in which the guy who didn’t have the guts to talk to Peggy got dumped and realized he might as well try after all. They need to not even think about putting Kate/Sophie back together this season.
That should also be explosive.Kinda hoping it is!
#flamebird
-Ooh, Kate, you fucked up hard in this one. Wouldn’t go to the gala even to support Mary…and her mother dies at that gala at the hands of the crazy-ass sister you do make an effort for. And when Mary finds out you’re Batwoman and did nothing to save Catherine? That should also be explosive.On the positive side, she’ll fit right in with Team Arrow.
To be fair, Agent Carter’s romantic subplots got resolved in Avengers: Endgame where Peggy was married to Steve the whole time. I guess being hitched to a time traveler hiding in her basement made Peggy’s romantic interludes seem more … complicated. Or her and Steve are totally into it.
I don’t mind at all that it got rewritten by the movies lol
I’d dig a post Endgame Agent Carter rewatch where you can just picture Peggy going home and complaining to Steve about killer Russian assassins and stuff and these well meaning earnest guys at work keep making passes at her meanwhile Steve has to make sure he has a fake beard on so he can go buy milk while she’s out in LA.
Hmm… I think this episode made it clear what I think my issue with this show is: It doesn’t feel like a ‘Bat’ show.
From the 1960’s Batman, through to the 1990’s animated series, and even the Arkham games. They all felt like they were about Batman, his crusade to save a thoroughly corrupt city, and the escalation that his presence brings to the types of criminals. He expanded the Bat Family, got wrapped up in the machinations of several villains, and it made it feel cohesive.
Batwoman, the CW show (can’t speak for the comics), is so laser-focused on the Kate/Alice/Father dynamic that it feels like the Kate Kane show where she occasionally puts on a stolen suit and a red wig and pretends to be a Bat-person for a while. That’s not to say what’s there is bad by any stretch of the imagination – if anything, Alice is the show’s strongest asset and focusing on her is a good thing – but the conflict feels like the only conflict there is, like when Bruce left town Gotham came to a standstill and no one took advantage of the power vacuum. Unless we are to assume that all of the classic villains are dead/locked up, then Gotham seems like a very clean place compared to what it should be.
We’ve only really had one member of Bat’s Rogue’s Gallery* – Hush, of all people, the last person who should be facing Batwoman (or anyone other than Bruce) given his reason for being a villain – and for Batwoman it’s just wall to wall Alice.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s time the show did a bit of world building. Arrow, Flash and Super-Girl all spent some time building up the world (and city) they inhabited. Black Lightning made a huge deal about getting across what Freeland was and who inhabited it. Legends… is insane. Forget Legends. I think that perhaps the people running the show have just gone “It’s Gotham! Everyone knows Gotham!”, except we don’t. And certainly not this Gotham. A Batman-less Gotham that seemingly has no protector or any other vigilantes to speak of… and no villains either, but has a para-military group running security ‘cause the GCPD is doing… what exactly? I mean the only time we visited Arkham was in a different show altogether.
Yes, it’s the show’s first season. Most first seasons have rocky starts (Arrow and Legends sure did) and sometimes it can take anywhere up to 3 seasons for a show to find its legs and really hit its stride. But there seems to be too much time focusing inward on the Kate/Alice storyline and not enough time establishing Batwoman as a symbol within Gotham, someone who can fight against the corruption and the crazed killers that are apparently all on holiday somewhere (Starling City, I guess!).
Batwoman feels like a tertiary character in her own show. Luke hasn’t developed into anything more than the nerdy guy who sasses back whenever Kate breaks a gadget, or gets flustered when she’s in trouble. Mary is awesome. Catherine wasn’t on the show long enough for us to really care. Anytime someone asks Sophie a question she says nothing and stares off into the middle distance. She’s an annoying character. Tyler… why do we care about him? Do we care about him?
The show isn’t bad, and this most recent episode certainly was good. It’s just not living up to its potential. We already had a show about a broody person who fights crime in the dark. He found humanity and people to talk to. Kate hasn’t found that, and yes, it’s early days, but they need to start expanding before they collapse in on themselves. But first we’ve got a Crisis to get through…
*I’m not saying Batwoman (the show) needs to just take all of Batman’s villains (even if Arrow took some of them first!). It just needs more than The 24/7 Alice Network.
Since Kate can seemingly just stroll in and out of Alice/Beth’s “lair” as easily as walking into a Circle-K to pick up a bag of ice, wouldn’t it make logical sense for her to advise the Crows* or GCPD about where she is and have them raid the place in force? I mean, sure, Kate wants to “save” her sister but Alice/Beth is still responsible for the deaths of a number of people, massive property damage and a whole host of other crimes yet to be catalogued. I’d think the place to start to get Alice/Beth the “help” Kate believes she needs would be to get her safely inside the walls of a secure facility like Arkham. Regardless of how much Kate wants to “save” her sister, Alice/Beth is still personally responsible for everything she’s done.*Probably not the Crows since they come across as the single most incompetent “elite” private security organization in history.
They’re tied with every single crime fighting organization in the Arrowverse on that front.
So… Alice kills Kate’s step-mum, which breaks Kate’s relationship with her step-sister, and now Kate wants to kill Alice even though she’s been wanting Beth back her whole life no matter what.
This doesn’t so much “invert everything” as it does jump to conclusions.
Yeah, it seemed odd – Kate has no problem with Alice gleefully murdering whole hosts of innocent people, but when she murders the one victim who arguably does have it coming, suddenly THAT’S beyond the line and she flips from protecting Alice to hating her…[This being Catherine who perpetrated a terrorist bombing in the city centre, as well as developing a host of plagues and superweapons, allegedly selling them to criminals, and also condemning Kate’s sister to a fate worse than death. THAT’S the killing that goes too far…]
I don’t think Kate wants to kill Alice/Beth. She has just given up hope of saving her.
She also framed their dad for killing his wife.
Is it gay-la or ga-luh because there were 2 different pronounciations of it throughout the episode and I was thoroughly confused.I think Kate did Mary very wrong and hopefully can fix it before it is too late. And if Catherine’s death is the gateway to Mary becoming Flamebird, I’ll gladly take it. Sophie continues to be the worst and it’s a shame that they are making her very hot husband a very lame guy.
We have been calling him Bland Husband because why bother to learn his name?
I like the way you think
He’ll die anyways before the season is over. He has “Eddie Thawne-itis” written all over him lol
He is definitely excessive baggage, and as it currently stands, cannot contribute anything positive to the show.
But cis white male CW drama fuel lol
Oh yeah, almost certainly.
Lol
I was actually shocked when I realized that he hasn’t been wearing a red shirt this entire time.
At least Eddie & Tommy had charm.
Indeed. Lmao this guy is just fragile male ego and emotionally petty haha
Sophie saying that Alice wouldn’t kill her because she knew Kate would never forgive her seems inconsistent with Alice kidnapping Sophie and pushing her off a building in the first episode. But I guess Alice didn’t realize that kidnapping Sophie would bring Kate back to town, which has caused her plans to change in various ways possibly some of which she does not even realize.
Yeah, at that point Alice knew that killing Sophie would inflict max harm on Jacob, so off the building she went.
This has to be one of the strongest first seasons of any ARROWVERSE show, right? Everything the characters do makes perfect sense (even desperate, boring Tyler) and it all feeds off each other to make drama that actually matters. Also, if Mary doesn’t find out Kate’s been keeping her bat-shaped secret from her soon, I’ll eat my hat. Although, I kind of suspect this will be some big revelation saved for the finale.So what are all the other escaped Arkham inmates up to? This is literally my only complaint with the show right now – you’ve got a ton of criminally insane villains free and they’re all…what? And with regards the Crisis: wasn’t Pyscho Pirate in the Elseworlds crossover? I’d have thought he’d be a good way to link this show/episode with Crisis.
I have to agree with mrrpmrrpmrrpmrrp downthread. Kate’s last message to Bruce this week should’ve been a bit more succinct:Dear Bruce,I fucked up. Do you have Jason Todd’s number handy? Does he take commissions?
The Red Hood would be a cool addition to this show, as a rival to Batwoman over who is Gotham City’s rightful costumed crusader. And bring in at least one Robin.
I loved that Crisis stinger and the episode as a whole was great. Painful seeing Mary witness her mother’s death. Alice is out for blood. Now Jacob in prison too. Spicy stuff!See y’all next week for CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS!!!!
I thought the events in Batwoman are actually set a few years before the current Arrowverse time. What is happening in the series now will have nothing to do with Crisis.
No, Elseworlds happens between Episodes 4 and 5.
Yeah, I’m confused about the timeline too. They caught up to Elseworlds in episode 5, but that means that this show is still one year behind the other arrowverse shows. So where does Crisis fit into the timeline?
Alice is such a great villain. I was concerned before the show started that she would end up being like Jervis Tetch was on Gotham (i.e. terrible), but she’s got the perfect combination of smarts, resources and craziness to be an awesome Batverse villain. And Skarsten is knocking it out of the park with her performances week after week. She’s right up there with Thawne & Tobias Whale for best Arrowverse villain.
I now understand how Harley fell in love with a maniac. I would do anything Alice told me to.
Mary doesn’t deserve the amount of crap she gets on this show. Tyler may be bland, but he also doesn’t deserve all the crap he gets on this show. Alice is a killer villain and her actress is great, but I’m tired of her at this point. Maybe if Kate is well and truly over Beth and is actually capable of stopping her, then I won’t mind, but I need a break from Alice on this show.
Seems pretty obvious that they needed this to do the time jump, yes? That’s what I took from the episode anyway. And it’s good storytelling. Mary won’t be in immediate grief and some time will have passed, changing the dynamics.
Yeah Sophie really isn’t working this season. Her role as a source of pain for Kate worked – but that doesn’t actually do anything for her as a character especially now that Kate is letting that rest.She doesn’t work well as a foil, she sure doesn’t work as a potential love interest, and there’s not enough to her to make her stories with Tyler or the Crows matter or hold interest. I’m not necessarily holding this against Tandy as an actress – she’s working with a tertiary character’s amount of writing depth thrust into a primary character’s time and spotlight.
This was a good episode, lots of action and dramatic moments. Sometimes the play for drama and emotion were overdone but it still made for an impactful episode.I did like the almost one-shot staircase fight sequence of Batwoman fighting the henchmen. They still make the fight scenes too dark – ala Arrow but this sequence was nicely done.I understand why many feel Rachel as Alice is the strongest character. She certainly gets to display the most personality out of the cast. But she tends to overcook it at times with the histrionics and her performance can come of more campy than crazy. Her range is off at times, works in some parts probably in her scenes with Kate where she is slightly more restrained. It will be interesting to see the effect and change in Mary as a character
I can’t believe I never realized this before, but… I guess Kate and Beth both had their “Bat” Mitzvahs. I’m imagining a squeaky voiced Ruby Rose trying to read torah in front of a giant menorah shaped like the bat signal.
I guess that unlike j’onn, whatever role kate is to play in the crisis does not in any way require she unload her baggage. 🤣
I’m hard on “Mad Tea Party” was finally the episode that showed
potential. Alice’s tea party was a more intimate affair than I was
expecting, & that was the right move. This most effectively laid out
its thesis of class warfare, singling out Catherine & Jacob as
being complicit in keeping Gotham a cesspool of crime. (One could argue
their unethical businesses are the city’s top job providers.) You can
tell this is set on Earth-1 since someone nobly sacrificed themself in
the first season. Although I don’t like to see Mary suffer because she’s
the best, karma caught up to Catherine. Alice won the battle by killing
her wicked stepmother, but now even her sister is willing to put her
down permanently now. Considering she’s the second billed actress &
best scenery eater, however, I’m sure this resolution is hollow.
Ok, I’m really confused by the timeline. Around episode 5 we caught up to Elseworlds, which aired in December 2018. So how does Harrison Wells in the tunnel fit into the timeline here? We obviously haven’t progressed an entire year in 3 episodes.
I thought this was a pretty strong episode but one issue that I have with the show in general is that I just don’t find Alice that compelling. The motivation of “You stopped looking for me” just doesn’t really create enough resonance to where I can watch her repeatedly get upset over and over about the same thing.It would work fine for a Villain of the Week, but considering so much of the show is this battle for Beth’s soul, it takes away a lot of the impact from that. There’s nowhere else to take it. They thought she was dead and stopped looking and it’s an argument that repeats itself seemingly with every episode.