Plot
As Ryan's condition becomes worse, she begins to hallucinate and becomes a danger to herself and Gotham City, more determined than ever to kill Alice before what she believes to be her certain death. Meanwhile, as Sophie and Jacob continue the hunt for the map to Coryana, Tatiana arrives in Gotham City to confirm Ocean's death and tells Alice the full story of why Safiyah erased her memories.
Influences
The Batwoman Rebirth series (Safiyah flashbacks)
Artistry
The various nightmare and hallucination scenes are truly horrific.
Bat Trivia
This episode reveals that Ocean and Alice had their memories of one another erased by a master hypnotist named Enigma. While there have been several DC Comics villains to use that name, none of them were hypnotists.
Technobabble
Mary says that Ryan is suffering from acute radiation poisoning, which has her bone marrow disintegrating and her circulatory system failing.
Luke has installed a second GPS tracker inside Ryan's gauntlets, in case she ever tries turning off the tracker she knows about again.
Mary mixes two complementary cardiotonics to calm Ryan down and speed up her system.
According to Safiyah, the Desert Rose is delicate, but its serum can cure any illness, hereditary disease, toxin or pathogen.
According to Mary, the buttons for the wind-shield wipers and the rocket launchers on the Batmobile look exactly alike and have no labels.
According to Ocean, the Desert Rose requires a woman's blood to bloom.
Dialogue Triumphs
Safiyah: Relax. I'm not going to hurt you, and from the looks of what you did to my men, I wouldn't stand a chance.
Beth: Why am I here? What do you want?
Safiyah: First, I'd like to know why a beautiful young woman with her entire life ahead of her was found sequestered away on a boat floating in the middle of nowhere.
Beth: Let's just say I've grown accustomed to small spaces.
Safiyah: The real world can be an overwhelming place sometimes. I understand we both have a bone to pick with Catherine Hamilton-Kane.
Beth: She convinced my entire family I was dead while I spent the last 11 years in my kidnapper's basement cell.
Safiyah: And here you are... a siren once trapped in a net, who somehow found her way out.
Alice: So you're telling me that... A little crush on the first cute boy I laid eyes on after escaping captivity for 11 years threw the island queen into a tizzy?
Tatiana: It wasn't like that. In fact, at first, no one even noticed.
Alice: Let me guess- clandestine trysts by the water well?
Tatiana: No. The reason no one noticed was because you two hated each other.
(Luke and Mary are loading the Batwoman into the back of Luke's SUV. Once that is done, as a spotlight from a hovering GCPD chopper finds them, Luke offers a set of keys to Mary.)
Luke: I'll meet you in the Batcave.
Mary: Why are you giving me the keys?
Luke: I have to take the Batmobile!
Mary: I can take the Batmobile.
Luke: You've never driven it befor!.
Mary: I've never driven your car before!
Luke: Mary, no!
Mary: Yes!
Luke: No!
Mary: Yes!
Luke: Mary!
Mary: Yes!
Cop: Release the suspect.!
(Luke looks up at the chopper and pulls another set of keys from his pocket.)
Luke: We don't have time for this.
Mary: Gimmie! Gimmie!
(Luke reluctantly hands Mary the Batmobile keys as they both run to their respective cars.)
Alice So Safiyah and I shared a common enemy, she thought I'd be a good soldier, and I started to hate-crush her metaphorical brother. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm missing the motive for a lobotomy.
Tatiana: You're really not getting it, are you?
Alice Well, you're not exactly unfolding the plot to a Shakespearean drama here.
Tatiana: Safiyah would claim she wanted you for her army, survival instincts would make you an excellent fighter and advisor.
Alice: And what would you claim?
Tatiana: That she was in love with you.
Ryan: Wait. How did I get back here?
Mary: Luke and I found you outside of Angelique's.
(Ryan winces.)
Mary: Yeah. But good news... I got to drive the Batmobile. Bad news... the wipers button and the rocket launchers look very similar. Someone should label those.
(Tatiana finishes telling Alice about her foiled escape plans with Ocean years earlier.)
Tatiana: The man you were willing to change your life for, the one person who offered you a second chance and freedom from your past is the same man Safiyah convinced you to stab through the heart!
(Tatiana laughs wickedly. Alice looks at her, completely nonplussed,)
Alice: I'm sorry. That's it? That's your big mic drop moment? "Surprise! You killed your soul mate that you don't even remember!". Yeah. I found my mother's head in a freezer, so if you're trying to shock me, you're gonna have to do a little better than that.
(Ryan kicks in the door as Alice is getting ready to leave Ocean's lab.)
Ryan: Alice, do you know who I am?
Alice: Okay. I've had a day. Can we do this in, say, 2... 3 weeks?
Ryan: Do you know who I am?!
Alice: Honestly, so many women keep showing up in that outfit, it's impossible to keep track.
Ryan: How's this? (pulls off her mask and wig) You killed my mom, and now I'm here to kill you.
(Alice laughs and then realizes how serious Ryan is.)
Alice: You're kidding, right? That's what this is about?
Ryan: My mom was Cora Lewis. Your gang beat her to death on December 13, 2015.
Alice: I get it. Mommy died, and now you're a "Woman on fire", which means I'm responsible for spawning not one Batwoman... but two.
Ryan: You think this is funny?
Alice: (nonchalant) Yes.
Continuity
Ryan describes the effects of Kryptonite poisoning as feeling like a brain hemorrhage. Later, she describes it as causing a worse hangover than two-dollar tequila.
According to Luke, Ryan's wound smells worse than it did the day before, but Mary cuts him off before he describes the smell.
As Ryan goes unconscious, she has a dream of killing Alice.
Tatiana shows up to verify Ocean's death. Alice knocks her out and ties her up after she sees the fake body Alice prepared.
Jacob believes Amygdala's story about being sent after him and Mary by doctors employed by Hamilton Dynamics. He imagines the thugs who stole the Coryana painting from Sophie were also working for those same doctors.
Jacob determines the most likely suspect is Dr. Ethan Rogers -a neurologist with Garrick Logistics, who treated Amygdala, who is believed to have been running off-the-grid experiments.
According to Tatiana, the reason why Safiyah spared Alice was because they had a common enemy in Catherine Hamilton.
Reportedly Catherine burned Safiyah on a defense system for Coryana. Safiyah was going to retaliate by stealing one of her boats, only to discover that Beth Kane was hiding there, waiting for a chance to kill the woman who stopped the manhunt for her.
Beth was able to take down four of Safiyah's soldiers before they brought her down. Tatiana described Beth as fighting lie a feral animal.
Tatiana claims that while she would never admit it, Safiyah views herself as a prisoner of Coryana.
Safiyah turned Beth over to Ocean, hoping to turn her into a perfect weapon to use against Catherine Hamilton.
According to Tatiana, there are few laws or rules on Coryana beyond no leaving without permission, no stealing the Desert Rose and if Safiyah wants something, she gets it.
Mary says the Desert Rose is the only thing she thinks can save Ryan, but she's at a loss as to how to convince her father to get one once he gets to Coryana.
Jacob is still unaware that Mary was helping Batwoman, despite shutting down her clinic.
Ryan suits up and takes the Batmobile while hallucinating.
According to Tatiana, Ocean and Beth hated each other at first, so nobody suspected when they became attracted to one another.
Coryana has no electricity.
Beth told Ocean about the world outside Coryana, as he knew nothing beyond combat and botany.
Ryan has a nightmarish hallucination of her mother telling her that she didn't approve of Angelique as she was helping set her hair, only for the back of her head to become bloody.
Angelique's apartment is on the West End and Mary knows where it is.
Ryan tries to break into Angelique's apartment to question her about Ocean. She finds Angelique is already with another woman.
Angelique does not drink.
Angelique tells Ryan that Ocean has a mushroom farm in Coventry before pushing her off the fire escape - an attack Ryan can't avoid in her weakened condition.
Mary and Luke find the injured Ryan and are barely able to escape from a GCPD helicopter patrol that spots them and the Batmobile.
Luke hides the Batmobile keys inside of Dino - the dinosaur in the Batcave.
Tatiana claims that Safiyah had a crush on Beth and hoped to seduce her. She also admits to loving Safiyah, but denies she looked for an opportunity to kill Beth out of pure jealousy.
According to Safiyah, Coryana was founded by a group of women who fled their abusive husbands seeking an island located under the constellations of Cassiopeia and Andromeda. The Desert Rose is said to have first bloomed on the battlefield after many women died to defend their new home from the men who came to take them back.
Sophie tells Jacob that she knew about Mary's clinic.
Sophie and Jacob discover that Dr. Rogers and all of the rest of the staff of Garrick Logistics are dead, heaving been injected with the Desert Rose blood that killed after being used to save a single patient.
Jacob finds the map case that held the Coryana painting, but it doesn't hold a painting: just a message reading "IT'S BEST YOU STOP DIGGING - SAFIYAH"
When they were on the island, Alice told Ocean about feeling Kate's presence when she and Jacob almost found her. as depicted in the flashback in 105.
Ocean planned to escape Coryana with some snips of the Desert Rose, which he would use to finance his travels around the world. He wanted to take Beth with him when he escaped. It was Tatiana who caught them in the act.
Alice refers to the events of 115 and how she found her mother's head in a freezer.
Ryan determines where Ocean's hideout is, guessing that a mushroom farm would require a moist area near the river and demand a lot of power for the growing lamps.
Mary agrees to help Ryan find Alice and gives her the Batmobile keys after Ryan says she may never have another chance to stop Alice before she dies.
According to Tatiana, Safiyah decided that Alice's punishment for her betrayal was to become a dark mirror of what Safiyah saw herself as: a queen held hostage by her position, who could not be allowed to love anyone. This turned Alice into a cold, hard, vengeance-obsessed killing machine with little of Beth Kane's warmth left.
Enigma removed all of Ocean and Alice's memories of one another, but also went a step further in removing any chance of truly feeling love that Alice had.
Alice tells Ocean what she learned from Tataiana. They agree to part ways, as Ocean goes to Portofino.
Alice intends to return to Coryana and get her revenge on Kate.
Ryan finds Alice as she is leaving Ocean's hideout.
Alice's gang beat Cora Lewis to death on December 13, 2015.
Ryan almost beats Alice to death, but stops after she hallucinates her mother telling her not to do it.
Alice leaves Gotham for Coryana.
Ryan planted a tracker on Alice's boot as they were fighting, figuring they can follow her to Coryana and Kate.
Location
Coryana
Untelevised Adventures
A series of flashbacks reveal how Beth Kane came to be on Coryana and how she was taken into Safiyah's confidence, fell in love with Ocean and then betrayed that confidence to run away with Ocean.
The Bottom Line
A solid episode, despite its focus on Alice and it largely being devoted to confirming what we already guessed from the flashback sequences from before. As per usual, the scenes with Jacob and Sophie are completely pointless and add nothing to the show. Still, the "Ryan being a potential killer" storyline is settled well enough and the Alice fans in the audience (of which I am one) will love it and the revelation that she's not responsible for her murderous personality.
No comments:
Post a Comment