For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.
Plot
The new Batwoman is approached by Commander Kane and Sophie Moore about locating a piece of art that leads the way to Coryana... and Kate Kane. Ryan is reluctant to return to her criminal past, but Luke and Mary push her to agree. Meanwhile, Alice locates the mysterious Ocean and learns that there may be parts of her past on Coryana she doesn't remember.
Influences
Marc Andreyko's run on Batwoman (character of Wolf Spider)
Goofs
The CGI of Wolf Spider in the opening scene is really cheap.
Performance
Again, Rachel Skarsten steals the show.
Bat Trivia
Ethan Blake aka Wolf Spider is an villain from the comics who first appeared in Batwoman (Vol. 2) #26 and was created by writer Marc Andreyko and artist Jeremy Haun. Wolf Spider was an art thief who first encountered Batwoman while stealing a series of paintings by a Depression era artist which formed a map to a cache of stolen money. Wolf Spider was revealed to have been hired by the grandson of the robber baron from whom the money had been stolen. However, when his client was killed and the truth about the money revealed, Wolf Spider elected to dispose of the blood money in Slaughter Swamp.
The Ethan Blake of the Arrowverse seems to be a similarly minded thief and something of a Robin Hood figure, who attempts to steal the Napier painting to spite the rich jerks paying tribute to a famous serial killer and uses his Banksy-style art crimes to mock the elites of Gotham City. He has no superpowers, but is a skilled acrobat and a master of parkour.
The idea of Joker's real name being Jack Napier and him going through an artist phase is a nod to the version of The Joker played by Jack Nicholson in the 1989 Batman movie.
Technobabble
Luke runs a spectral analysis to find the original map under The Napier.
According to Mary, Evan Blake's injuries include a distal femur fracture, a dislocated elbow, a minor concussion and a nicked femoral artery.
Dialogue Triumphs
Sophie: Look. I don't know where you got this idea that all Crows are bastards, but some of us are trying to make a difference.
Batwoman: Well, in my experience, when the crows fly together, they call it a murder for a reason.
(Ryan is sitting on the balcony looking at the city. Luke comes and takes a seat next to her.)
Luke: So. Crows horror stories. You want me to go, or...Do you want to do your first?
Ryan: My girl Angelique had a drug habit, and on a very ugly night, she was gone, like a different person, so I found her stash, and I took it, thinking I could somehow straighten her out, bring her back. I'm on the street, crying, no question what kind of night I'm having, and I pass these two Crows, and one of them yells out, "You'd be cuter with a smile on your face." And my Mama told me what to do about it. I... pay them no mind and keep moving, but they... they wouldn't let me go, so my hand went out, my finger went up, and boom, those Crows had what they wanted.
Luke: They found the drugs and thought they were yours.
(Ryan nods softly.)
Luke: Sorry that happened to you.
Ryan: What was yours?
Luke: Um... The Crows... Killed my father.
Ryan: Wait. What?
(She looks at Luke who is clearly struggling to hold back the tears or the urge to scream.)
Ryan: Really?
Luke: Really. It's, uh, not a story for today, but, um... It's the worst thing that ever happened to me.
(Without a word, Ryan scoots closer to Luke and puts an arm around him, leaning her head onto his shoulder.)
Ryan: I should have let you go first.
Luke: Look. I will never forgive them, and I don't want to help the Crows either, but we need them to help us.
Alice: Shall I explain?
Ocean: I do wish you would.
Alice: Some lunatic on a far-away island is holding my sister hostage, and she won't hand her over until I gut you and air mail the evidence.
Ocean: This woman got a name?
Alice: Enough women want you dead I need to be specific?
Alice: I have spent more years of my life in captivity than any elephant in the Gotham Zoo. The key to surviving... Keep yourself entertained.
Ocean: Rough childhood?
Alice: You could say I come by my abandonment issues honestly, yeah.
(Alice and Ocean have just killed the three assassins sent for them with style, trashing the motel room in the process.)
Alice: Hey. Do you have any cash? We should probably leave the maid a tip.
Ocean: You're dark.
Alice: Shouldn't have doubted me.
Continuity
Jacob Kane learns that the Napier painting Kate was researching is in the possession of a group of art snobs called The Collective, which is made up of the richest people in Gotham City, including many of his clients. They are said to hold regular meetings where they buy, sell and trade forbidden art items.
Garrett Hall, the man who tells Jacob about The Collective, is killed by a man armed with a spear. Batwoman subdues the man before he can kill Jacob. Hall was an investment banker at Gotham Cpital with no criminal record, according to Luke Fox.
Kane asks for Batwoman to hand the man over to him. She refuses.
A mysterious prankster artist known as Wolf Spicer climbed to the top of Gotham Century Tower and painted an emoji on the top of the building.
There are rumors in the Gotham Press that the new Batwoman is working with The Crows, after having been seen with Jacob Kane for the second time is as many nights.
Ryan and Angelique are apparently back together.
Ryan has not told Angelique that she is the new Batwoman yet.
It is revealed that Angelique had a drug problem when she and Ryan were last dating and that Ryan took her stash in a bid to force her to get clean. It was while carrying Angelique's drugs to dispose of them that she was caught by the Crows and set up on a drug dealing charge.
Angelique claims that she is now clean and has turned her life around.
Angelique offers Ryan a make-up present - one of a set of matching bracelets. She keeps the other bracelet for herself.
Angelique sees the wound Ryan acquired in 201. It is getting worse and is now turning green.
Mary treats Ryan's wound, giving her antibiotics. Ryan claims she has no symptoms apart from feeling more tired than usual. After hearing that, Mary gives Ryan two of a special painkiller that Kate swore by.
Ryan is not on Twitter.
Ryan asks Mary not to tell Luke about her wound or her feeling sick, because she's tired of Luke's judgmental attitude towards her.
Ryan wants to starve the spearman from Coryana but Luke says that will take too long and suggests working with The Crows as they're better at questioning hardened criminals.
Sophie and Jacob interview Ethan Blake - a fixture in the Gotham art scene who was caught with plundered artifacts several years earlier and forced to pay restitution.
Blake was friends with Kate Kane as a teenager. They went to Gotham Preparatory Academy together.
Kate helped Blake to out himself in 8th Grade by agreeing to be his date to a dance and then trading clothes with him, so that he arrived at the dance wearing one of her dresses.
Blake was senior editor at the Gotham Museum of Antiquities and curates his own private collections.
Blake knows the legend behind the painting known only as The Napier. The story is that The Joker broke into the home of some rich person and started slashing them to ribbons, spraying blood over an old oil painting. Inspired, The Joker painted over the painting using the blood and guts of his victim. Somehow, the painting disappeared from the crime scene and has been bouncing around the Gotham underground ever since.
Blake denies being part of The Collective and tells Sophie and Jacob that there will be lawyers present if they want to talk again.
Jacob tells Sophie to start spying on Blake. She suggests it might be easier if they try to work with Batwoman.
Alice tracks Ocean to the Burnside Motel and finds him in the hotel bar.
Sophie uses the Bat-Signal to contract Ryan and pitches her idea. Ryan is against it, but says she'll consider working with The Crows and letting them have the spearman.
Wolf Spider is shown to be listening in to the talk between Batwoman and Sophie.
Ryan tells Luke and Mary she doesn't want to work with the Crows, especially Sophie, given how they tried framing her for multiple crimes.
Luke tells Ryan about how The Crows killed his father and covered the crime up for years, so he understands why she hates them, but they have to think of the greater good this time.
Sophie and Jacob begin to question the spearman under Ryan's supervision. He uses a cyanide capusel to kill himself before answering any questions.
Ryan agrees to help The Crows infiltrate a meeting of The Collective they have learned about, but only if Sophie is in charge of the team, with no Crows on site and no surveillance of the location.
Ocean tells Alice that he's a soil technician and that he grew up in nature with his family cultivating all they needed to survive.
Alice follows Ocean back to his room but he knocks her out.
Alice sleeps through half the next day.
Ocean reveals that he is Safiyah's brother.
Mary helps Ryan pick out an outfit and get made-up for the Collective event, which is to be held at a private hangar.
Mary had a rivalry with Evan Blake because they were both trying to get her attention before Evan realized he was gay.
Ryan is able to buy her way into the auction by trying to sell one of Batwoman's batarangs.
Ryan's cover is almost blown because new people are only supposed to come to The Collective as the guest of known member. Thankfully, Angelique is there to claim Ryan as her "plus one."
Evan Blake is gender fluid.
Angelique is at The Collective event as a drug dealer. She claims to have not lied to Ryan because she is clean and doesn't use drugs herself anymore.
Ryan lets it slip that she is gay to Sophie Moore over their comms.
The Napier is revealed to have been painted over an ocean current map rather than an oil painting.
Luke tries to scan the painting remotely but says he'll need the painting in person to find the map. This means Ryan will have to steal the Napier somehow.
Ocean does not recognize Alice, despite claiming to have been on Coryana at the same time she was.
Ocean then has a flashback where he argues with Safiyah about getting what she wants and that upsetting her.
Luke hides the Bat-Suit inside a tampon dispenser at the airstrip.
Wolf Spider steals The Napier before Ryan can get it.
Ryan is momentarily disabled when the pain in her shoulder from her wound gets worse.
The Crows officers chasing Wolf Spider hit him with their truck, take the painting and leave him for dead.
Ryan saves Wolf Spider and finds out he is Evan Blake. She takes him to Mary's clinic.
According to Ocean, the cardinal law of Coryana is no outsiders, which makes Alice's story of having been invited to come there after impressing Safiyah very unusual if true.
Sophie says that The Crows who left Wolf Spider for dead have been fired. Ryan doesn't care.
Ryan says she will never work with The Crows again and urges Sophie to quit the group.
The Napier painting is revealed to be a forgery, made with pigs blood.
Ryan's wound is getting worse.
Alice has another flashback while fleeing with Ocean, in which she sees herself kissing him.
Ocean is revealed to have the real Napier painting.
Untelevised Adventures
Apparently Alice and Ocean were romantically involved and both had their memories erased.
The Bottom Line
A filler episode, but an amusing one, which does a lot to develop Ryan and her relationships with the rest of the cast. Of course Alice steals the show again and, ironically, is the only one who makes any progress on the quest to find Kate Kane.
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