There can’t be any easy solutions, can there? Batwoman returned from its two-week break with a stressful, emotional tragedy. After the Crows captured Mouse at the end of the last episode, both Alice and Beth started having debilitating headaches. We’ve seen enough parallel universe stories to know what’s going on here. We have two of the same person inhabiting the same universe. While that was sustainable before Crisis when the multiverse existed, it’s causing some real problems now. Fortunately, it doesn’t take the characters that long to figure it out. Between Mary’s medical skills and Beth’s theoretical physics studies, they figure out what’s happening. Both Alice and Beth’s cells are deteriorating as long as they occupy the same Earth. It’s immediately obvious to us what has to happen. Hell, it’s obvious to everyone but Kate until the very end. She’s going to have to choose one sister to save. Much of the episode is spent trying to figure out how to save both, but the episode makes it pretty clear that’s a hopeless cause. The episode works though, because the drama doesn’t come from trying to find a solution that doesn’t exist. Instead, it’s about how much time they have to realize what they have to do. It creates an undercurrent of dread and sadness throughout the whole episode. Kate is going to have to say goodby to one or both of her sisters by the end. Both will wreck her in entirely different ways.
Rachel Skarsten as Beth — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW
All this is complicated by the fact that, after Alice escaped custody last week, Sophie put out a shoot to kill order on her, and set up checkpoints all throughout the city. The Crows don’t know that Beth isn’t Alice, so while trying to find a cure for her cell degeneration, Luke and Mary have to protect her from a heavily armed paramilitary force. All that combines for a genuinely thrilling episode. By the end, I was so invested in the characters, I was almost tearing up right along with Kate. The dystopian nature of the Crows’ lockdown of Gotham could have been fleshed out more. I appreciate that the show is finally taking some time to acknowledge how messed up it is that this organization exists, but right now, it’s not much more than lip-service. The radio host has a “holy police state, Batwoman” quip at the beginning, which is cute. Then Alice’s henchman, who was a plant in the Crows, attacks Jacob in the prison bathroom. He stabs Jacob in the stomach and throws him around the bathroom. All the while, he lays out everything the Crows have done wrong. Falsified evidence, victimizing anyone too poor to pay for their services. The Crows, to hear him tell it, are the exact nightmare a privatized police force would be in real life. But why is this the first we’re hearing of this? And why is it coming from this guy? If the show really wants to deal with the police state aspect of The Crows, it should show us all this information. The story would feel much meatier and more satisfyingly complicated if, in this one instance at least, the bad guys had a point.
Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman and Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox — Photo: Katie Yu/The CW
I get why the show didn’t choose this episode to go deep into that stuff, though. It was packed with story as it was. Not one scene felt unnecessary. Adding yet another plot to this episode would have made all of them suffer. So instead, it told a tightly woven story where each thread converged into a well-executed tragedy. At the beginning of the episode, Jacob asked a famed plastic surgeon to swear that it’s possible for Mouse to have disguised himself to frame Jacob. The plastic surgeon appears skeptical until he learns they have Mouse in custody. He goes to talk to Mouse, and reveals that he’s wearing a mask too. The plastic surgeon is Mouse’s abusive father, whom Mouse thought was dead. Mouse’s dad resents Alice for taking his son away and waylaying the plans he had for him. He kidnaps Mouse and leaves him chained up in one of those convenient abandoned buildings Gotham has everywhere. He says he’ll be back. Meanwhile, Alice visits Mary and figures out how to keep herself alive. Since she gave Mary that rare antidote that saved her life, she needs a sample of Mary’s blood. The antidote will regenerate enough of Alice’s cells to wait out Beth’s death. Alice is able to get a syringe of Mary’s blood, but Mary ambushes her, handcuffs her to a bed, and takes the syringe to Kate. Now, Kate has a choice to make. As Mary says, the blood will only slow the cell breakdown, not stop it. She can only use it on one person, and wait for the other to die. The show drags out this choice as long as it can, but it works. The next scene is Kate walking up to Alice, and it is tense. Did she really choose Alice over Beth? The eventual reveal is a relief. She didn’t. She gave Beth the syringe, and is only here to say goodbye. She holds Alice as she dies, and it’s actually heartbreaking. Alice has been the scenery-chewing bad guy all season, but this one episode made me genuinely sad to watch her death.
Rachel Skarsten as Beth and Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox — Photo: Katie Yu/The CW
Still, there’s a nagging feeling in the back of all our heads, right? We’re only in the first season, but Batwoman doesn’t seem like the show to give us an easy solution like this. Kate defeats the big bad and gets her ideal sister back? In February? The episode’s not over yet, and we’re almost certain something will go wrong. And well, that’s exactly what happens. As Lucius and a now-recovering Beth escape to an inn outside of town, Sophie is waiting with a sniper rifle. She’s about to take the shot, but reconsiders and calls for an arrest instead. But she’s not the only one there. Mouse’s father, also thinking Beth is Alice, shoots her in the chest. As Beth dies, Alice wakes up, furious that Kate chose Beth over her. This episode brought us right up to the brink of resolution, and made everyone’s situation so much worse. As tough as it is to watch, it makes for some great drama, and sets up a ton of exciting storylines for the rest of the season. Alice now knows Kate would kill her if she had to. Sophie will likely be blamed for Beth’s death, and there’s a new face-changing villain in town that no one knows about yet. Things are especially dire in Gotham right now, which is perfect note for Batwoman’s return.
Batwoman airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on The CW Previously on Batwoman:
- Batwoman Season 1 Episode 11 recap
- Batwoman Season 1 Episode 10 recap
- Crisis on Infinite Earths Parts 1-3 recap
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