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Plot
Ryan faces a new challenge, as Gotham City's Snakebite addicts become desperate for more than their next fix. Meanwhile, Mary finds a surprising ally in dealing with the medical consequences of the crisis, as Alice confronts Enigma with her knowledge of what truly happened to her sister.
Influences
Zombie horror movies. The idea of a new Snakebite formula turning people into crazed cannibals appears to be based on the real world stories of people acting like zombies after smoking bath salts.
Performances
Nicole Kang nails the monologue where she tells Jacob off for becoming a Snakebite addict.
Artistry
The direction does a great job of capturing the zombie movie aesthetic.
The script is smartly written, with Richard Monaghan being established to offer a more personal view of the Snakebite crisis.
Bat Trivia
The title of this episode changed several times in preproduction, originally titled "...And Justice For All" and also being titled "Within Limitations" and "Within the Limitations" before being titled "And Justice For All" without the ellipses.
Luke makes mention of a part of Gotham City called Amusement Mile. In the comics, this is a district, usually located by the waterfront, where the city located most of its fun fairs, theme parks and other entertainments in better days. Naturally the abandoned fair-grounds are usually taken up as secret hideouts for The Joker.
Technobabble
Kate Kane went through days of uninterrupted hypnosis after having her psyche shattered to convince her that she was another person. This is a far more involved process than what Enigma did to turn Beth Kane into Alice, which involved simply removing Ocean from her subconscious.
Mary says that Jacob was 10 chest compressions away from flatlining during his last Snakebite binge.
According to Mary, the original Snakebite formula contained psilocybin from the mushrooms and diethylamide from the Fear Toxin.
According to Mary, the new Snakebite formula that is turning people into zombies looks like "a Latin midterm from Hell." It contains mephedrone, which causes panic attacks, mood swings and violent episodes. She also notes that Richard Monaghan's glucose levels are super-high, which would explain why he feels hungry.
The GCPD put out a 10-33 call for Batwoman. This is the code for a general Emergency.
Mary says the new Snakebite formula causes a mephedrone spike so intense it changes the composition of the users pupils. Since the original Snakebite accessed the hippocampus, which acts as the memory storage archive of the brain, Mary thinks the new formula is making people crave memories, which, thanks to some major synaptic misfirings, leads them to eat brains to try and get other peoples' memories.
According to Mary, a controlled dose of clonazepam will sedate brain activity, which will neutralize the effects of the mephedrone and force the bad Snakebite out of the user's systems.
Dialogue Triumphs
(Ryan is going crazy trying to figure out how she can balance patrolling and dating.)
Ryan: How did Kate date?
Luke: Terribly. Why do you think she was so broody all the time?
Ryan: Okay, but I don't brood, so we're gonna have to figure something out.
Luke: Well, welcome to the glamorous life of double identities. Most people you care about are only gonna get to know one of you. So either step up your lying game, or get your brood on.
Ryan: Do you know Mary's cell?
Luke: No.
Ryan: What about the clinic?
Luke: No.
Ryan: (to the desk officer watching the holding cells) Who actually knows people's numbers by heart anymore?!
Luke: Do you really think that's helping anything?
Ryan: Excuse me, Mr. "Pardon us, officer. We'll turn the music all the way down".
Luke: Okay. What exactly would you like to say to me right now?
Ryan: We could have used your backup.
Luke: Yeah. I was your backup, but, no, excuse me for trying to defuse the situation peacefully!
Ryan: Peacefully? That's a privilege.
Luke: A priv... A privilege. Okay. (sighs) Ryan, I'm sure that you think that growing up with rich white kids taught me how to play nice, but it taught me how to keep my head down. There is a difference. I don't just run into fights when I know I can't win.
(There's a long pause as Luke paces and Ryan stares at the floor.)
Luke: Okay. How about we just focus on getting out of here?
Ryan: Yeah.
Luke: (crossing to the phone) Uh, Sophie. I could call the Crows hotline and see if they can connect me.
(Enter Sophie, escorted by a police officer.)
Sophie: Yeah. That's definitely going to voicemail.
(Alice is sitting on a couch, talking to someone. As she rambles, we see that Enigma is strung up behind her)
Alice: These conversations are always so awkward, Dr. Rhyme, but I think it's time that I moved on, you know, found a new therapist, someone who actually had my best interests in mind, someone who would mention in my therapy sessions to erase my sister from my memory that she's actually alive and, uh, not only alive but brainwashed by you into believing that she's some dead girl named Circe Sionis. Needless to say, Dr. Rhyme, you're fired.
Mary: Thank you for this. I don't know what I would have done without you.
Jacob: Don't thank me. None of these people would be alive right now if it weren't for you and this clinic.
(There is a long pause as Jacob looks with Mary with what seems to be respect.)
Mary: You wanted to see Kate and Beth again, didn't you? That's why you kept using. The Snakebite let you redo all of the mistakes you made with them and gave you a do-over.
Jacob: (sighs) Yeah. You're right. I wanted to see Kate and Beth again.
Mary: What do you want me to say, Dad? Do you want me to feel sorry for you? You don't think that I wanted a do-over? I lost all the same people that you did. I feel the same pain that you do every day, every night because I lost everything, too, except I'm not trying to escape it. I'm trying to learn how to live with it because apparently I was dumb enough to think that you would do the same thing for me. You want so badly to live in this fantasy with the two daughters that you lost that you can't see that you are losing the one daughter you have left.
(Alice tries to revive Enigma without success.)
Alice: What did you do?
Ocean: The thing I knew you couldn't.
Alice: So you picked now to get your revenge on her for screwing with our heads?!
Ocean: This has nothing to do with that.
Alice: Then why kill the only person who can help me get Kate back?!
Ocean: Because I don't want you to get Kate back! (pause) I don't expect you to get it.
Alice: Oh, I get it. You're jealous because you think if I get Kate back I won't want you.
Ocean: I... love you.
Alice: (stunned) What?
Ocean: You said it yourself. You sat in a cell for years waiting for your sister to find you. Did she? Am I the only one who finds it ironic that freedom is Kate's emotional touchstone? How nice must that be. Tell me something, Alice. After you escaped and you finally came face to face years later, did she even recognize you? Did Kate recognize you the way you recognized her through the burns, the new voice, the different personality? No. No. And Kate tried, but you were too hard to fix, Alice. And when she had to choose between her city and you, what did she choose, huh?
Alice: (bitterly) You've made your point.
Ocean: She chose a bunch of strangers over her own twin. She locked you in another cell. She gave up on you. That's not love, Alice. That's apathy. Kate is toxic, and you're better off thinking she's dead.
(Ocean turns around and leaves as Alice begins crying silently.)
Continuity
Alice is able to make Kate Kane into the spitting image of Circe Sionis, facially. The likeness is so good it stuns Black Mask.
Black Mask agrees to let Alice live for what she's done.
Alice tries to stay, saying she should stick around in case the skin doesn't stick to the musculature. Black Mask threatens to cut out her tongue if she says anything about what she's seen.
A new Snakebite formula hits the streets - one that is blue rather than red and yellow.
Ryan encounters a woman eating another person as Batwoman at the Gotham Presbyterian church, apparently having gone feral and turned to cannibalism.
Ryan holds a fundraiser for the Sheldon Park Community Center at The Hold Up.
Luke tells Ryan that another partly-eaten body was found at Amusement Mile, suggesting there's another "zombie" running around.
Ryan ditched a date with Imani to go out as Batwoman the night before. She told her that she had to help Luke after his mom broke her ankle. Luke finds this out after Imani asks how his mother is.
A group of white GCPD officers show up and try to shut down the fundraiser because of a noise complaint. It is implied, however, that they are racist, based on how they look at the crowd of largely Black and Latina attendees and make reference to "you people" being loud.
When Ryan points out that they are in a bar, the cops say they can't hold a fundraiser in a bar without a permit so the only options are shutting down or paying a fine and getting a black mark on their liquor license.
Luke and Ryan are arrested after Ryan reacts to one of the police officers touching her.
Sophie arrives the Hold Up as the GCPD are winding things down. She is arrested after she questions the officer in charge of the scene regarding the details of the "crime."
Luke and Ryan are unable to use their one phone call because they don't have any of Mary's phone numbers memorized.
The action briefly focuses on a seemingly rich man who went crazy after using the new Snakebite formula. He exhibits signs of super-strength, denting a dumpster with one punch. His name is later revealed to be Richard Monaghan.
Sophie says Ryan shouldn't have touched the cop as it escalated the situation. Ryan counters that the only reason Sophie is in holding with them is because she wasn't wearing a Crows Security uniform.
Alice confronts Enigma and threatens to kill her unless she helps her get Kate Kane back.
Enigma says that they'll need a simple object unique to Kate to rattle a core memory.
Mary keeps Jacob in her clinic for observation, despite his protests that he feels fine.
Jacob tells Mary about how he was first injected with Snakebite by some False Face gang members in 210.
Mary notes that she found 16 puncture marks on Jacob's body, indicating he sought out Snakebite to use on at least 7 occasions.
Richard Monaghan comes into Mary's clinic and ties himself to a bed using a medical restraint after asking Mary for help.
Alice returns to Ocean's lab, where she stashed a bag with some personal belongings. She finds Ocean is there waiting for her.
Alice tells Ocean that Kate is alive.
Alice shrugs off Ocean's offer to help her, but he says he wouldn't be there if he didn't want to help.
Richard Monaghan knew about Mary's clinic because she helped a friend of his who had overdosed on heroin.
Richard Monaghan reveals that he turned to Snakebite after his wife died in a car crash. He spent his time while high talking with his wife and having the deep conversations they never had the chance to have in real life.
Sophie reveals that she became a cop because she thought it was important for there be Black people patrolling Black neighborhoods, having grown up in a community where all the cops were white.
Ryan says she respects that, but that The Crows don't exist to serve the ideals police are meant to upheld - they're a wall between the rich and reality.
Sophie, in turn, says that Ryan gets to choose when to make a difference, but Sophie chose to he out there all the time with her face exposed to the world.
A white man named Eli is thrown into holding with Luke, Sophie and Ryan. He claims to be oppressed, like them, though he was accused of trying to steal a station wagon.
Eli tells them about how Gotham City is apparently besieged by zombies.
The GCPD put out a call for Batwoman and light the Bat-Signal.
Imani bails out Luke, Sophie and Ryan, having gotten a civil rights lawyer involved in their case.
Imani asks Ryan out that evening, but Ryan says she has a thing she has to do.
Jacob learned how to suture a wound while serving in the military.
Jacob helps Mary out as victims of the zombie attacks are brought in to the clinic.
Sophie tries to take command at Crows HQ, but is given a hard time about this (and her arrest) by Russell Tavaroff.
All of the zombie reports occurred within a four block radius of the old Gotham Presbyterian church.
Tavaroff points out the old Gotham Presbyterian church is outside of the Crows' jurisdiction. Sophie says that doesn't matter when innocent lives from around the city are in danger.
Luke secures several doses of clonazepam to treat the Snakebite zombies. Unfortunately, it has to be injected to be effective, meaning Ryan has to get up close to the zombies to treat them.
Alice and Ocean return to Enigma's office.
Enigma had no idea Ocean was still alive.
The item Alice brought to unlock Kate's memories are the keys to her motorcycle.
According to Alice, she was the first among the twins to walk, talk and wear a training bra.
Kate's motorcycle is a red Triumph.
Alice says that to Kate the motorcycle symbolized freedom.
Enigma reminds Alice that she won't be getting back the sister she dreamed of - she'll be getting back th e woman smart enough to lock her up in Arkham.
Enigma says that in addition to the object trigger, Kate will need a trigger phase to start the process of regaining her memories.
Ocean kills Enigma by snapping her neck before she can tell Alice what Kate's trigger is.
Tavaroff and the men he's leading gun down all the addicts in the church rather than try to subdue them, in defiance of Sophie's orders.
Unbeknownst to Tavaroff, Batwoman was in the church as he was shooting the Snakebite addicts, having taken cover under a pew while fleeing the zombie hordes.
Jacob tells Mary she saved a lot of people and none of the people they helped that day would be alive without their clinic.
Mary guesses that Jacob was using Snakebite because it let him see Beth and Kate againand reads him the riot act for not appreciating the one daughter he has left to dream about the two he lost.
Richard Monaghan breaks his bonds by chewing off his own fingers and runs out into the streets in a frenzy.
The same police officer who arrested Ryan, Luke and Sophie finds Richard Monaghan and tries to talk him down non-violently. He is attacked, but Batwoman saves him.
The police reports that there were 22 victims in total as a result of the zombies created by the new Snakebite. The Crows are credited on the news with having kept the death toll down.
Sophie tells Ryan that she is quitting The Crows.
Ocean says that he killed Enigma because Alice is better off not having Kate in her life and she's killing herself trying to recover the relationship they had as girls.
Ryan tells Imani there's a part of her life she can't share and things are complicated, but she can't share that with her despite knowing she deserves better. Imani accepts this, after jokingly asking if Ryan is in the CIA or something like that. She says it's preferable to being afraid of her sleeping around.
Luke spots Eli as he's breaking into a car. After taking pictures of him in action, he tries to talk him out of stopping.
Agent Tavaroff happens to drive by at that moment and asks what is going on.
Eli claims that Luke is the car thief and attacked him after he tried stopping him.
Luke reaches for his phone to show Agent Tavaroff the pictures he took. Taravoff responds by drawing his gun and shooting Luke in the chest three times.
The episode ends with Luke on the ground, passing out.
The Bottom Line
A smart, well-written and topical episode that evokes the best spirit of the Denny O'Neil days of Batman, with one hell of a cliffhanger.
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