Batwoman finally gave us her full red-wig version of the character last week. Just like us though, that’s the last time Gotham saw the hero. Just as we all figured she would, she hooked up with the bartender.
Apparently, it’s been going on long enough for Batwoman’s disappearance to make talk radio. She catches one bad guy and now everyone expects her to do everything around here. This week, it’s a jewel thief. No, not that one. Though Luke Fox has a nice name drop, Catwoman is nowhere to be seen. Instead, he deduces that no one’s been able to find this thief, because they’re not looking in the right place. They should be looking for a bird.
We appear to be in Batwoman’s villain-of-the-week stage. I’m for it, because as interesting as the Alice story can be, it can’t carry the entire season on its own. This week’s villain is Magpie. In the comics, Magpie is a museum curator-turned-jewel thief. Both Batman and Superman fought her at one point. Now that Batwoman is officially known to Gotham City, Magpie is her first real test in their eyes. The first fight… doesn’t go well. The scene itself is fun and fast, though I wished a little more wire work. But Magpie gets away and an off-balance batarang smashes a priceless antique vase. The talk radio is extra harsh on Batwoman after that.
Rachel Matthews as Magpie. (Photo Credit: The CW Network)
We’ve heard it before, but the radio show takes a more prominent role in this episode. It seems to be replacing the narration that grew so tiresome in the first three episodes. It’s still annoying, but now you get the feeling that that’s kind of the point. It’s setting up Batwoman to prove the smug DJ wrong. It provides the rest of the episode with extra urgency, which is a lot more than I can say for the narrated letter to Bruce. We only get that at the end, and it works best there. It makes the ending feel more climactic, rather than distracting from the action like it does when it happens in the middle of the show.
Coincidentally, considering Magpie’s comic origins as a curator, this episode also centers on a museum exhibit. Kate allows her aunt Martha’s pearls to be put on display in a jewelry exhibit. Which makes it the perfect target for Gotham’s newest jewel thief. Magpie manages to get the drop on Luke and steal them. It’s a good excuse for Kate to do some out-of-suit detective work. Which more often than not means asking Sophie. Gotta get our weekly dose of bat-sexual tension. Sophie knows (or at least strongly suspects) that Kate is Batwoman. It doesn’t help that Kate can’t stop complimenting her alter ego. Sophie helps anyway because she’s obviously still in love with her.
Rachel Matthews as Magpie. (Photo Credit: The CW Network)
We’re lucky enough to get two jewel heist scenes in one episode. Kate uses the information Sophie gave her to track down Magpie’s hideout. Luke has to lower her body temperature and Kate has to hold her breath to avoid setting off the room’s temperature sensor. You want to instantly add tension to a scene? Make a character hold their breath. It works. A two-minute time limit makes finding her aunt’s pearls and copying Magpie’s hard drive so much more exciting than it would be otherwise. Even the cliche of an ill-timed sneeze is forgivable when it’s quickly followed by Batwoman grappling away from an explosion.
Kate doesn’t return the pearls to the exhibit, so she’s surprised when they suddenly appear right where they should be. She immediately figures out they’re fake. They’re hiding a bomb meant to distract everyone while Magpie makes off with the jewels. It’s not just the crowd they’re meant to distract. It’s Batwoman. The bomb may not be Magpie’s goal, but it’s still real. Batwoman has to choose between catching Magpie and saving people’s lives. Obviously, she chooses the latter. She throws a re-calibrated Batarang to knock a pearl bomb out of a little girl’s hand, then shields her from the explosion. It’s an awesome visual. I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get a second Magpie vs. Batwoman fight, but that helps. Plus, catching Magpie by grappling onto her as she flies away and yanking her out of the sky is a badass way to end this.
Ruby Rose as Kate Kane and Meagan Tandy as Sophie Moore. (Photo Credit: Sergei Bachlakov / The CW)
A common refrain from Luke in this episode is “Batman wouldn’t have done that.” It’s more than just an excuse for Kate to say she isn’t Batman. In at least one case, she’s learning why Batman wouldn’t have done that. That being go out on a date and try to catch a jewel thief at the same time. It’s not a secret to us that beneath the cover of Bruce Wayne’s billionaire playboy act, he was miserable and depressed. Mentally healthy people don’t put on bat costumes and beat up criminals.
Just as this is the first time Gotham City sees Batwoman as their new hero, it’s also the first time Kate sees herself as its hero. Along with everything that entails. She doesn’t get relationships with cute and interesting bartenders. She gets to be a weird loner with a double life. At least she decides on a more productive double life than her cousin though. Instead of an aloof rich person, she decides to get into real estate: Buying up buildings in poor areas of Gotham and keeping rents low. So a good landlord? Man, what crazy fantasies can’t these comic book shows come up with?
Ruby Rose as Kate Kane. (Photo Credit: Sergei Bachlakov / The CW)
The villain of the week story was a lot of fun, and I’m glad that once again, they kept Alice in a side plot. I like that the show is actually interested in showing Kate do Batwoman things, and not just the family drama. That’s still here, but Kate stays largely out of it. The most she does is deliver her captured Alice henchman to Mary when he’s about to die from sepsis. Mary fixes him up and gets a little bit of information out of him while he’s on morphine. Alice has big plans for someone named Mouse. That’ll definitely turn into something interesting down the line.
For now though, Alice is after something else. Instead of tormenting Kate in this episode, she turned her attention to Catherine. She wants information about a weapon Catherine’s company has been building. And she threatens to reveal Catherine’s secret to Jacob.
As Alice is alive, we’ve wondered why Jacob was so sure she was dead. It turns out Catherine fabricated the skull fragments and paid off the DNA analyst. She did it so Jacob would move on. Since Alice is going to spill the secret to Jacob, Catherine has no choice but to tell him herself. It comes at a really bad time too, because he’s been listening to the recording of Alice playing the cello over and over again. He knows she’s his daughter. Hearing that his wife stopped him from looking for her isn’t great for his mood.
Rachel Skarsten as Alice. (Photo Credit: Jeffery Garland / The CW)
Finally, the family drama part of the story is getting interesting. In the past few episodes, it’s just been the slow scenes we had to wait through to get to the action. Like Arrow’s early Malcolm Merlyn stuff, but less interesting. By having Alice focus on that part of the story, rather than just on Kate, Batwoman injected some life into the scenes that don’t involve red wigs and grappling hooks. I just hope they stay that way next week.
Batwoman airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
Previously on Batwoman:
- ‘Batwoman’ Season 1 Episode 3 Recap: New Hair, Starting to Care
- ‘Batwoman’ Season 1 Episode 2 Recap: Alice’s Rabbit Hole
- ‘Batwoman’ Series Premiere Recap: A Dark and Expository Knight
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