It is always a roll of the dice when a CW show comes off a particularly good episode. Last week’s edition of Batwoman was a high for the series. Every story element worked exactly as intended. It was the most I’d felt for the characters all series. After an episode that good, you never know if the show can keep the quality going. Any slump at all will be so much more perceptible. This one certainly starts out strong. We see a prosecutor get electrocuted, a bat signal in the sky (much to Colonel Kane’s dismay), and Alice attaching a guy’s face to Mouse’s. That last image gives me the creeps.
The bat signal leads to a cool dueling investigation sequence between Wayne Tower and the Crows Nest. The way the scene kept switching back-and-forth between the two Kanes as they reached the same conclusions kept the pace up. It’s even more exciting when Batwoman and Sophie storm the same facility where someone identifying himself as the Executioner claims to be. Instead, they both walk into a trap. Batwoman and Sophie try to stop a police officer from going further into the facility. He doesn’t listen and triggers a wall of automatic rifles. He dies and Sophie takes a bullet. Kate promises to get her help and Sophie immediately makes her problem bigger: She knows Batgirl’s identity.
Batgirl dumps Sophie off at Mary’s clinic to keep her quiet until she can figure out what to do. In the meantime, there’s a serial killer to catch. She and Lucius figure out the Executioner is mimicking capital punishments for his kills. First an electrocution, then a firing squad, next seems to be gas. Batwoman checks out the warehouse where the chemical is kept. After a serviceable comic relief scene with a fanboy guard, she determines the place hasn’t been touched. Yet. While the Crows catch the wrong guy, the real Executioner crashes an armored car through the door, knocking out Batwoman. It was too early in the episode for her to catch the bad guy.
The design of the Executioner is simple, but that’s what makes it so effective. It’s a burlap hood and a medieval ax. That’s it. It doesn’t take much to make a threatening villain. As soon as he showed up onscreen, my pulse started going a little faster. He gets even better, too. Batwoman tracks his house down and finds the injection canister just sitting in his living room. She and Luke debate over the proper protocol in a scene that’s equal parts funny and tense. Like, it could be a trap somehow and they both know it. Neither they nor we know how this will play out. And the way they respond to this situation is by bickering. This series needs that bit of fun every once in a while. The can turns out not to be a trap. Inside, there’s a USB drive containing a video message. The Executioner once did the job for the city. Then he found out that corrupt officials and cops were putting innocent people to death by falsifying evidence and confessions. That’s when he quit and turned against them.
Jim Pirri as Executioner. (Photo Credit: Liane Hentscher / The CW)
A villain is always better when their motivation is something real and understandable. Especially when they’re just a little bit right about what they’re saying. When they’re essentially good guys, but they’ve just gone a little too far. That’s what makes this episode so good. What the Executioner says is plainly shown to be true. He says he noticed all the people he was executing were people of color and poor. And wouldn’t you know it, the Crows and the cops arrest a black man in a poor area of town and try to pin the murders on him. At the same time, the people the Executioner’s going after did put some actual bad people away. The Joker, for one, as well as the man who shot Lucius Fox. That complicates things. Luke and Kate have to wrestle with the fact that exposing the corrupt officials will reopen all those cases as well. It makes for some good TV.
They figure out the Executioner’s next target: A judge who just so happens to be burning some evidence when Batwoman catches up with him. Batwoman assures him that while she’ll keep him from getting killed, he’s definitely going to prison. He tries to run away from her only to meet up with the Executioner. I think he’ll be rethinking Batwoman’s deal now. Especially after she saves him. The fight scenes in this episode aren’t anything special, and that includes this one. It does involve a giant ax though, which instantly makes it cooler. The Executioner gets close to using it on Batwoman too, but Jacob rushes in and shoots him. For all his talk about how she’s a criminal vigilante, he still doesn’t want to let a hero die.
Dougray Scott as Jacob Kane. (Photo Credit: Cate Cameron / The CW)
Unfortunately, killing the Executioner activated a dead man’s switch. The room fills with cyanide gas and Jacob starts succumbing to it. Batwoman tries to keep him talking by asking what he hates about Batman. It turns out people get brutally honest with themselves when they’re sure they’re about to die. In Jacob’s case, he admits that he hates Batman only because it stops him from blaming himself for his wife’s death and Beth/Alice’s disappearance. Aw, buddy. Last week’s episode actually made the emotion of this scene work. Because we saw everything both he and Kate went through, and how torn up about it they still are, this revelation hits extra hard. The feeling lingers even after Batwoman saves them both by burning off the cyanide gas in a cool explosion.
I was so ready for last week’s high point to be a one-off spike in quality, but so far, Batwoman’s keeping it going. The show seems to have settled into a pace and tone that really works for it. It no longer feels like an Arrow replacement. It’s its own show. Like the character itself, Batwoman has moved beyond the shadow of its older relative and found a voice all its own.
Even the Alice storyline, though it didn’t really move things forward at all, felt necessary and told us something new. It looks like Alice and Mouse’s relationship might be just a little toxic. I mean, no surprise there, but the specifics tell us a few new things. Mouse isn’t another pawn or henchmen. He appears to have a say in their relationship and can be a mite controlling. Yeah, that tracks with what he knows about his childhood. The way they both lie and manipulate each other, all over Kate, has me feeling genuinely concerned for Alice. There’s a lot they can do with this story as the season goes on, and none of it’s happy. Especially when we learn that Alice is preparing a “tea party” for her, Mouse, and Kate. No indication of what that means, of course, but I’m much more interested after all this.
Batwoman airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
Previously on Batwoman:
- Batwoman Season 1 Episode 5 Recap
- Batwoman Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
- Batwoman Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
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