The first of the CW shows to return after “Crisis” is Batwoman. Its Gotham appears to be affected the least by the events of last week’s crossover conclusion. We get a message on the radio about Oliver Queen’s death before the show picks up its pre-Crisis story.
That’s a good thing, because the last regular episode ended things in an interesting place. Alice poisoned Catherine and framed Jacob. Now Kate’s not talking to her, and Mary is done trying to be sisters with Kate. Now Jacob’s in jail, and despite Mary’s insistence that she saw Mouse wearing his face.
Mary spends most of the episode with people telling her she’s seeing things that aren’t there. First, a professor tells her face swapping is impossible and she must have hallucinated in response to seeing her mother die. Then she thinks she sees Alice going into a building at the university, but when Sophie and the Crows show up, they can’t find any trace of her.
As much as it sucks to watch Mary get repeatedly gaslit, it does add up to something… kind of. The episode does a good job of making you feel for her. She doesn’t get many scenes, but each one is sad and affecting. All you want to do is to give her a hug, which is why the end of the episode, when she finally lets Kate in for one, is so satisfying.
Ruby Rose as Kate Kane and Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox. (Photo Credit: Colin Bentley / The CW)
Despite some urgent family matters, Kate also has to deal with a new villain this week. Well, sort of a villain. More of a scared kid, but she doesn’t know that just yet. All Kate knows is that someone hacked into Gotham’s subway system and disabled the brakes. She stops the train just before it hits a wall, but her grappling hook comes undone. An attractive male cop pulls her out of the way of her own hook, and now the whole town is shipping them. Well, that’s awkward.
After Kate and Luke figure out how the hacker got into the subway system, every phone in Gotham gets a message. It’s a talking emoji threatening to out everyone’s secrets if they don’t collectively send her $5 million. Crowdfunding blackmail, how modern. When the mayor tries to reassure everyone there’s nothing to worry about, the hacker broadcasts his credit card number to the whole city.
It’s an exciting premise for a Batwoman episode because it isolates her even more than normal. Since the hacker can apparently access any computer, Luke turns off the one in the Batcave. That means no communication when Batwoman is out searching for the hacker. She’s extra vulnerable, and the show uses that effectively.
Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman and Rachel Skarsten as Alice. (Photo Credit: The CW)
They track the signal from the device used to hack the train, but that only leads them to a decoy hacking group that had nothing to do with it. They didn’t even know the signal was routed through their system. Then, Luke unscrambles the voice from the blackmail message. It sounds like a young girl. Kate recognizes one of the sounds in the background too. The message was recorded in Gotham Prep, her old high school.
Batwoman crashes the school dance, and everyone starts taking selfies with her. She tosses out an EMP device that kills all electrical devices for a few seconds. The only person whose phone still works must be the hacker. It works. Kate tracks the hacker down only to find that it’s a high school girl named Parker. Parker’s ex-girlfriend revenge-outed her to her parents. Her parents didn’t react well. She resorted to hacking to escape them.
It’s all delivered in a super melodramatic soap opera-y way, but the show works surprisingly well with that tone. Comics have always had more in coming with soap operas than fans of either medium would care to admit, so it makes sense that the CW would find so much success by taking a soapy format and tone and just adding capes and fight scenes.
Parker assumes Batwoman was the popular girl in high school and is now the city’s hero. She assumes she and Batwoman have nothing in common. Batwoman realizes how much it would mean to Parker, and loads of kids like her, to know Gotham’s superhero is gay. She just doesn’t know how much she should say yet.
Just like Parker though, the decision is soon made for her. Alice kidnaps Parker, having figured out she was the hacker… somehow. Yeah, that part’s never really explained. Alice holds a circular saw to Parker’s face, forcing Batwoman to remove her mask. Parker, despite still being in a life-threatening situation, is in awe of Batwoman’s real identity.
Alice tells Parker to out Batwoman’s true identity to all of Gotham, or she’ll blow up the school dance with C-4. Instead, she sends out a call for help, telling everyone there’s a bomb in the gym. Parker makes an escape and Batwoman captures Alice just as the police and Crows arrive.
Rachel Skarsten as Alice and Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman. (Photo Credit: Colin Bentley / The CW)
The police manage to get all the kids out, but the handsome cop from the beginning is about to be caught in the explosion. Batwoman pulls him out of danger and everyone starts chanting for them to kiss. That’s when Batwoman decides to tell everyone she’s gay. Kara Danvers even writes up the story in CatCo. because they share the same world now. Cool! Kate is ready to get an earful from Luke about leaking too many details that could tie her to Batwoman, but he agrees with her.
Having Batwoman come out like that probably did a lot of good for the city. I loved that dig at toxic fans in the ending radio voice, though. In discussing Batwoman’s sexuality, she says politics should be kept out of superheroes. You know, because gay people existing is politics for some reason. God, those people are the worst, and it’s always refreshing to see that these shows know it.
Batwoman came back from Crisis on a strong note. At times, it felt a bit like an after school special, but at least it was a good after school special. The episode focused on the characters, showing us exactly how they’re moving forward after the chaos of the last couple episodes. It’s what the show needed. It reminded us why we care about these people, and set them all in motion for the rest of the season.
We also saw one exciting effect of Crisis right at the end. Kate walks into her office to find Beth. Not Alice, Beth. She’s just returned to Gotham from a semester abroad, having no clue about Alice. I guess she’s from an Earth where she didn’t go missing? We’ll find out more next week, but that’s one intriguing cliffhanger to leave us on.
Batwoman airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on The CW.
Previously on Batwoman:
- Crisis on Infinite Earths Parts 1-3 Recap
- Batwoman Season 1 Episode 8 Recap
- Batwoman Season 1 Episode 7 Recap
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