Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 2 - Loose Tooth

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Forced to work with Alice to track down the Bat-Trophies, Ryan Wilder's life is further complicated by the emergence of a new Killer Croc and the sudden arrival of Jada Jett; a powerful CEO who is insistent on meeting Wayne Enterprises' new CEO. Meanwhile, a secret threatens to drive Luke and Mary apart, as Sophie grows closer to Ryan.

Influences

General beastman horror movie aesthetic, with a man-eating monster in the sewers of Gotham.


Goofs

Steven's father reportedly took him to several Gotham City doctors trying to treat his condition, yet none of them noticed the resemblance to Killer Croc's rare condition?


Performances

As usual, the interplay between Javicia Leslie and Rachel Skarsten is the best aspect of the episode.


Artistry

The direction of the episode does a good job of pushing the horror movie elements of the story, particularly in the opening scene at the pool.

The make-up for Croc 2.0 is good.


Bat Trivia

This episode title kept changing from "Loose Tooth" to "Loose Teeth" in various announcements building to its release.

Killer Croc first appeared in Detective Comics #523 in February 1983. Born Waylon Jones, Croc was the victim of a rare form of atavism that gave him reptilian skin. His mother died in childbirth and he was raised by an abusive aunt. In the Pre-Crisis reality, he was the killer of Jason Todd's parents and presented as a large, but still basically human mob boss.

After Crisis, Croc was reworked into a more monstrous figure, with his condition being aggravated by a virus that devolved him in the Hush storyline. More recent comics have made Croc more animalistic, but explained away his enhanced strength and ability to breathe underwater as the result of his disease interacting with his metagene. 

The Arrowverse version of Killer Croc was a professional wrestler named Waylon Jones, who developed some kind of disease that started slowly turning him into the monstrous crocodile man of the Post-Crisis era. Reportedly Batman tried to find a cure for his condition, but the GCPD elected to solve the problem of Croc's cannibalism by dropping thermite into the sewer. Reportedly all Batman could find of Croc afterward was a single tooth.

In the opening scene, one of the new Croc's victims makes reference to Aquaman and how he is ripped. This could be an indicator that the Arrowverse Aquaman is a doppelganger of Jason Momoa's famously muscular and often shirtless take on the King of the Seven Seas.


Technobabble

The original Killer Croc suffered from an unidentified infection that caused his skin to grow scales, eventually developing an elongated jaw, claws and a tail. 

According to Sophie, Killer Croc's saliva contained a paralytic agent which rendered his victims unconscious.

Mary notes that medical professionals do not use the word "crazy" to describe patients now.

The Batwing suit tracks medical date like biometrics, eye movement, electromagnetic impulses to the brain and heart rate. Due to a glitch, when the person wearing the suit is injured, it places the suit in safe mode and shuts down.


Dialogue Triumphs

Montoya: If you attempt to escape, this release will be rescinded and you will spend the remainder of your life at Arkham in solitary confinement. Any questions?
Alice: Yes. (gestures to tracking bracelet) Does this kind of wreck my ensemble?
Montoya: Any questions I'm likely to answer? 

Ryan: You're tying my fate to a psychopath? 

Montoya: Well, more like handcuffing it, but yes.

(Mary and Luke are working on the Batwing suit.)
Mary: If I'm reading this right, the suit thought you were injured.
Luke: Yeah, which prompted a system-wide shutdown, putting the suit in safe mode.
Mary: Turning off in the middle of a fight because it thinks you need medical assistance seems more like unsafe mode. 

Luke: Yeah, well, there's a reason that this thing was under a tarp in my dad's lab and not out on patrol in Gotham. 

Alice: I was thinking back to my first kill, for which I chose a geriatric harpy with an oxygen tank. Now, do you know why I did that?
Ryan: Because you're a killer, Alice.
Alice: No. (beat) Well, yes, but that's not the takeaway. I chose her because she was easy pickings.

Alice: Do you really think I'm gonna run?
Ryan: Do you really think I'm going to believe that you give a damn about stopping this Croc? Yes. I think you're gonna run the first chance you get. So, it's my job not to give you any chances.
Alice: Oh, that's funny. I thought it was your job to save a little girl.
Ryan: Don't act like you're here to do the good deed, Alice. You only think about yourself, so, don't you dare use that little girl as camouflage.
Alice: (intensely) I was that little girl. Don't act like you're the only one with abandonment issues. I will not give up on this girl the way everyone gave up on me.


Continuity

The opening scene shows two college students sneaking into a private pool, which was apparently turned into a lair by the new Killer Croc. What remains of their bodies is discovered later.

Alice is released into Ryan's custody, with the understanding that if she harms or attempts to harm anyone she will go back to Arkham for the rest of her life. She likewise threatens to out Ryan as Batwoman and put her in Arkham if she refuses to go along with this and fails to keep Alice under control.

According to Luke, Killer Croc ran wild in Gotham 20 years earlier and was a professional wrestler named Waylon Jones.

Bruce Wayne apparently tried to research a cure for Killer Croc's condition, but the GCPD killed Croc before he got the chance. All Batman was able to find of Croc afterward was a single tooth. It's possible the tooth could spread the same infection.

Wayne Tower is 44 stories tall, according to Alice.

Jada Jet, the CEO of Jeturian Industries contacts Wayne Tower wanting to have an immediate meeting with the Wayne Enterprises CEO.

Before leaving Gotham City, Kate Kane named Ryan Wilder the acting CEO of Wayne Enterprises so that she could handle an problems that came up in her absence.

Jada Jet took over Jeturian Industries after her husband's death a decade earlier and doubled the company's wealth.

Jeturian Industries specializes in microtechnology.

Sophie tells Ryan that Jada Jet is her birth mother.

Jada Jet says she met Bruce Wayne a few times. She exchanged heated words with him after he poached one of her best employees.

Jeturian Industries is 12 blocks away from Wayne Tower.

Jada Jet explains that she came to talk to Ryan because someone hacked into her company's servers and the trail led to an IP belonging to Wayne Enterprises. She accuses Ryan of corporate espionage and tells her this is her one warning to stay out of her business.

The artificial intelligence in the Batwing suit has Lucius Fox's voice and something of his personality, as it offers to show pictures of Luke when he was 6 when Mary asks it what Luke was like as a kid.

Alice theorizes that the new Killer Croc, like any young predator, would start out going after lone targets or other easy prey. This leads her to go through the missing persons reports and discover a spike in missing persons on the East River, less than two miles from the pool murders.

A girl named Whitney Hutchinson is abducted by the new Croc while playing in a park near dusk.

Alice finds a sizeable piece of shed reptile skin which had to have belonged to the new Croc.

Alice tries to get Ryan talking about meeting her birth mother. To shut her up, Ryan says she seemed powerful and strong, but she doesn't care to have her in her life.

Ryan and Alice discovered rotting meat hanging in one part of the sewer. It was hung by a man who said the new Killer Croc was his son, Steven.

Mary gives Luke a physical. He seems to be in good health, apart from his heart racing when Mary touches him while his shirt is off.

Luke decides to override the fail safe on the Batwing suit, thinking the AI is overprotective.

According to Steven's father, he discovered Killer Croc's tooth in the stomach of a bluegill they caught while on a fishing trip. He put the tooth on a necklace and cut himself on it. After that he got an infection and began changing in ways the doctors couldn't explain.

Steven' father uses an animal taser to incapacitate Batwoman.

The new Killer Croc grabs his father and drags him off.

Alice takes the taser and uses it to short out her tracker bracelet before running for it.

Mary lies about the suit being fixed when Ryan asks her about it and if Luke can join her in the field.

Alice hears Whitney Hutchinson crying for help, but abandons her when she discovers her leg is broken.

Ryan tries to talk the new Croc down, but gives up after she finds the father dead.

Batwing catches Alice and injects her injects her with nanobot trackers.

Batwoman is able to beat the new Croc and save Whitney Hutchinson.

Vesper Fairchild dubs the new villain Croc 2.0 and reports that Arkham Asylum is building a special cell for him.

The Lucius AI is not speaking since Luke disabled the failsafe.

Mary determines that the suit was shutting down because it sensed an injury around Luke's gunshot wound from last year. She suggests that the suit was sensing psychological tension.

The Rogues Unit investigate a Poison Ivy vine that is determined to be a fake.

Ryan confronts Jada Jet and tells her that she is the baby she abandoned.


Untelevised Adventures

Montoya encountered Poison Ivy at some point in the past.


The Fridge Factor

Alice abandons the missing girl after saying she'd never abandon a girl like she was, in a forced moment that seems to have been written into the show purely because the audience was feeling more sympathy after Season 2 for Alice than Ryan.


The Bottom Line

Largely lackluster, despite some effective horror-movie direction and good production values on the new Killer Croc. Unfortunately, the whole thing suffers from feeling rushed and Alice acting out of character because the writers are apparently afraid they need to remind the audience that Alice is an anti-hero constantly.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 12 - Initiate Self-Destruct

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Ryan is faced with a difficult decision that could expose her as Batwoman, creating a rift in the Bat Team. This leads to an unlikely alliance with Alice, who has her own score to settle with Black Mask. Meanwhile, Black Mask's plans for Kate Kane begin to unfold, as Sophie tries to decide where her loyalties truly lie.


Influences

Every Batman story where Batman forms a reluctant alliance with a villain in the name of the greater good, particularly the Halrequinade episode of Batman: The Animated Series. (Alice and Ryan have a similar scene where Alice starts playing with buttons in the Batmobile.)


Performances

Javica Leslie and Rachel Skarsten have great chemistry and the best parts of the episode center around them bantering with one another.


Artistry

The script is witty, with some great dialogues.


Bat Trivia

Black Mask makes reference to a Sionis family tradition of every family member having a replica mask made to decorate their casket. This is a nod to the comics, where Black Mask made his mask from the black wood of his father's coffin.

Mary's clinic is revealed to be located on Park Row in Gotham City. This is the same street where Thomas and Martha Wayne dies. In the comics, the once nice Park Row neighborhood deteriorated afterward and became known as Crime Alley by the time Bruce Wayne was an adult.

While using her night vision, Batwoman's coordinates were shown as being 42° 5' 23" N, -75° 6' 13" E, placing Gotham in the real-world location of Delaware County, New York, on the north of the Pepacton Reservoir. This is, it should be noted, far and away from where Cisco Ramon's map of Post-Crisis Earth showed Gotham City to be located (i.e. near Chicago, Illinois.)


Technobabble

Enigma tells Black Mask that while she has repressed Kate Kane to turn her into Circe Sionis, psychologically and behaviorally, she could do nothing to alter her voice. This was due to larynx damage during her kidnapping and subsequent torture.

Luke determines that Black Mask kept tabs on his drug labs with video feeds. This allows him to track the IP address of the cameras to get the location of the lab where Angelique was being held.

Luke has Mary deliver a targeted kill drive to Sophie - a device that, when introduced to the Crows' computer system, will scramble the data of the Batwoman blood test results.


Dialogue Triumphs

Black Mask: Masks have taken on various meanings over time. Deceit. Disguise. Cheap entertainment. But as Jung once said, we all wear masks, both to create an impression upon others but also to hide our own true natures.

Sophie: I thought you should know the Crows are in the process of extracting your DNA profile from blood spatter found at the Snakebite facility. Once they have that, they're gonna upload it to the national DNA registry. Of course, they'll need something to match it against, so you should be good unless of course you've ever been in the system. Anything you want to tell me?
Batwoman: Other than you need to destroy that sample?
Sophie: It's already being processed. They'll have the profile in a few hours. Arrest warrant won't be long after that.
Batwoman: I better use what time I have left to save the one person who had the guts to testify against Black Mask. Remember her? The one the Crows were supposed to protect?

(Batwoman enters the False Face drug lab. She finds several dead men, burned, and Alice in the middle of torturing another one.)
Batwoman: What the hell is this, barbeque for one?
Alice: Batty, what brings you here? Oh. Was it the odor? Honestly, I've been at this so long I can hardly smell it.
Batwoman: Why are you here?
Alice: The False Face kidnapped a friend, so I've been popping by their known hideouts, seeing if someone would be willing to spill his possible location.
Batwoman: I'm looking for someone they kidnapped, too.
Alice: Really? Her name wouldn't happen to be... pbb... I don't know... Angelique by chance?
Batwoman: How do you know that?
Alice: Well, according to Mr. Extra Crispy over here, when Angelique couldn't conjure up the special sauce that gives Snakebite its bite, Black Mask took her phone and used it to track down the actual chef, who does know all herbs and spices.
Batwoman: You're talking about Ocean.
Alice: Mm-hmm.
Batwoman: I thought you killed him.
Alice: Heh. Well, that's completely besides the point.
Batwoman: Which is?
Alice: Angelique and Ocean are apparently being held at a place that is more fortified than this one, and quite frankly, I need backup, by which I mean someone to stand behind so that the bullets don't hit my visage.
Batwoman: Damn. You're crazier than everyone already thinks.
Alice: Well, enemy of my enemy, doesn't that mean...
Batwoman: That you're still the bitch who murdered my mom.
Alice: Touché. But I'm also the bitch who knows where our beloved cooks are. 

(Batwoman and Alice are sitting in the Batmobile, observing a distant watchman.)
Batwoman: Okay. You draw him out, I'll take him out. Think you can handle that?
Alice: Sure.
(Alice reaches over and starts honking the horn of the Batmobile.)
Batwoman: What the hell are you doing?
Alice:What you asked.

Alice: If they were harmed in any way, I swear to you on my headless mother's grave...

(Alice has just finished knocking out a guard.)
Batwoman: Oh, my God. You love him.
Alice: I just kicked him for no reason.
Batwoman: Not him. Ocean.
Alice: Ocean? What? N-No.
Batwoman: Is that your boyfriend?
Alice: I drove a knife through his heart.
Batwoman: Well, for you, that's not a no.
Alice: Oh. That's true. 

Alice: Just a little piece of advice from an antihero to a hero. You can't save everyone. Not without losing who you are.

(Alice is being strangled by the masked Kate Kane.)
Alice: Help me!
Batwoman: Good luck with that.
(Batwoman turns around to leave.)
Alice: (desperately) I remember your mom. Cora. I remember her. Short hair, purple sweater. I lied about forgetting her. Now help me... please.
Batwoman: Like you said, can't save everyone. 
(Batwoman turns around again and leaves Alice for dead.)


Continuity

With the aid of Enigma, Black Mask hypnotizes Kate Kane to believe that she is his daughter, Circe Sionis.

Black Mask gives Kate a mask based on his daughter's face, which had been buried with her.

Black Mask tells Kate that she was badly burned after escaping from a fire in Arkham Asylum. This seems to be a nod to the events of 119 and would explain why Black Mask blamed Batwoman for his daughter's death, as The Crows blamed Batwoman for a riot at Arkham Asylum and the fire that followed.

Circe Sionis was apparently an inmate at Arkham Asylum.

Alice wakes up in bed with Ocean and tries to sneak out before he wake up.

As Alice is making her escape, she runs into three members of the False Face Society. They taser her and she blacks out as they are beating up Ocean.

Sophie learns about the sample of Batwoman's blood which Agent Tavaroff found in 211. She also learns that he's been authorized, by Commander Kane himself, to run a full analysis comparing it to the national DNA registry.

Sophie tries to talk to Jacob about focusing so many of the Crows' resources on Batwoman, but he refuses to talk to her, being high on Snakebite.

Luke is able to determine the location of the False Face drug lab where Angelique was being held.

Sophie lights the Bat-signal to warn Batwoman that the Crows have her blood.

Sophie does not tell Batwoman that she knows who she is now.

Ryan is not scared and says she'll use what time she has left to catch Black Mask.

Sophie says she will do what she can to destroy the sample.

Luke is in favor of dropping Angelique's rescue to focus on recovering the blood sample. Ryan tells him to help Sophie if he thinks it's that important.

Ryan discovers Alive in the middle of torturing the False Face gang members in the lab when she gets there.

Alice tells Ryan about Ocean's kidnapping and guesses that she's there looking for Angelique.

Alice suggests they team up since Angelique was apparently taken to the same place as Ocean. Ryan reluctantly agrees.

Sophie tries to sneak into the lab with the Batwoman blood sample, but finds another agent is sitting with it and watching it as it finishes compiling.

The False Face Society members holding Ocean and Angelique start recording them making a batch of Snakebite.

Mary delivers a targeted kill drive to Sophie that she can use to destroy the blood test results. She also offers to act as a distraction, so that Sophie can gain access to Jacob Kane's computer to use it.

Sophie figures out that Mary works with Batwoman as well.

Ryan handcuffs Alice outside the drug lab once they take care of all the guards on the outside.

Sophie finds out they are uploading multiple investigations to the DNA database at the same time as the Batwoman sample. This leaves her unable to use the kill drive, as it will also destroy all those records.

Mary's clinic is revealed to be located at 8845 Park Row.

Mary has changed her mind about making her clinic legitimate and shows Jacob what she has done to bring it up to code. This includes proper storage, certified nurses and doctors and Mary limiting her aid to doing the paperwork.

Mary notices that Jacob is sweating and seems anxious to leave.

Jacob notices that Mary's fax machine, the official means of notifying the police of suspicious patients (such as anyone with a bullet wound) is unplugged. He shrugs this off, however, saying that he can live with the compromise if it means Mary is talking to him again.

Sophie is able to destroy the record with Batwoman's identity before Agent Tavaroff can open it.

While covering her tracks in Jacob's office, Sophie finds his Snakebite kit.

Once Ocean and Angelique are done making the Snakebite, the False Face member filming them gets ready to kill them. He shoots Ocean before Batwoman steps in to save them.

Batwoman tells Angelique that Ryan sent her.

Ocean had apparently been talking non-stop about Alice ever since being captured.

Angelique helps Ocean to escape as Batwoman goes back for Alice.

Batwoman runs into "Circe" and the two fight.

Alice joins the fight, having freed herself, but is overpowered by "Circe".

Ryan abandons Alice, leaving her to the mercy of "Circe".

"Circe" seems to freeze up while looking at Alice, seeming to remember her somehow.

Sophie stops by Mary's clinic and asks if she's noticed Jacob acting strangely.

Mary talks about Jacob signing off on her compromise, which Sophie says seems out of character.

Sophie shows the Snakebite kit to Mary and says she thinks Jacob is using the drug.

Mary refuses to believe Jacob is an addict.

Angelique goes to Ryan and thanks her for all she did to save her.

Angelique says she's worked out a deal with the Feds and is going into Witness Protection. She wants Ryan to come with her.

Ryan refuses, saying she's not ready to give up on making Gotham a better place so kids don't suffer like they did.

Kate took Alice alive and took her to the Sionis home. Black Mask is ready to kill her, but suddenly changes his mind, saying there is one way she might be helpful.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode which establishes the depths of Black Mask's evil while giving us some great moments with Alice and Ryan playing off of each other.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 4 - Fair Skin, Blue Eyes

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

As the new Batwoman fights against the False Face Society and the proliferation of their Snakebite drug across Gotham City, a chance encounter forces Ryan Wilder to confront an unpleasant part of her past. Meanwhile, the friends and family of Kate Kane confront the idea she's still alive somewhere, leading to a number of unexpected alliances and betrayals. 


Influences

Batwoman: Rebirth (character of Safiyah Sohail)


Performance

Linda Kash, who is best known for her comedic performances and voice work, turns in a truly terrifying performance as The Candy Lady, purely because of how sweet and kindly she does seem despite being a vicious child trafficker. The fact that this sort of person exists in the real world and the unspoken question of just how many children she made disappear over the two decades she was at work before Ryan stopped her only adds to the horror of the episode.

Javicia Leslie does some fantastic silent acting as she expresses Ryan's terror at confronting her childhood abuser and the anger she feels as she overcomes that fear and steels herself for the sake of a lost boy.


Artistry

The flashback sequences set in Ryan's childhood are suspenseful and terrifying, seeming more like something from American Horror Story than a superhero show.


Bat Trivia

The day-glow mask worn by the False Face drug dealer Ryan chases in the opening scene looks a lot like the mask worn by the Flash villain Murmur in the comics. However, the Arrowverse version of Murmur (last seen in A417) did not wear a mask.

It should be noted that Ghost Kid, Ryan's favorite superhero, is not a previously established DC Comics character.

Eagle-eyed viewers will note that the Free Comics rack at Hero Galaxy Comics in the modern day holds a copy of Green Lantern Corps: Edge of Oblivion #6. This suggests that the Green Lantern Corps exist in some form in the post-Crisis Arrowverse and may be known to the people of Earth, even if they are presumed to be fictional characters. (Or that the props master wasn't careful about what books they put on the rack. But it's more fun to think this is setting something up!)

The rack also contains Looney Tunes, Claw the Unconquered and Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth comics - all series published by DC Comics.


Technobabble

Snakebite is a party drug which took its name from the dual-pronged injector needles that distribute the drug. Delivering a dose of "fantasy and fright," Snakebite is a mixture of psychedelic mushroom oil and Scarecrow's fear toxin. It is as lethal as it is addictive.

The Batmobile is equipped with a bolo-style towing rope, capable of non-violently snaring a running person.

According to Luke, Coryana must have the most advanced blocking technology on Earth, as it does not show up on any satellite maps of Earth.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Luke annoys Mary with his belief Kate is still alive, based on Sophie's testimony.)
Mary: Yeah, and the person who told Sophie that Kate is alive is named Alice, And Alice heard it from some mystery woman named Safiyah, Who just hired a hitman to try and kill me! So we are playing a game of Telephone with a bunch of homicidal women.

(Sophie finds Alice in her kitchen, cooking breakfast.)
Sophie: What the hell are you doing in my condo?
Alice: Sampling the products in your guest bath. (winces) Of course your theme is lavender.

(Alice is disappointed in how bad Sophie is at searching for information.)
Alice: In hindsight, I don't know why I thought you could help me figure out who this person is, considering you didn't even know you were swapping spit with your former flame. 

(Ryan goes to confront The Candy Lady)
Mary: Wait. Aren't you gonna suit up?
Ryan: No. She needs to see my face.
Mary: Well, how can I help?
Ryan: You can clear out my bedroom, Which you're currently using as your walk-in closet.

(Alice is raiding Sophie's fridge.)
Alice: Do you have anything with actual calories in here? 
Sophie: There's rat poison under the sink.
(Alice licks the bell pepper she was holding and puts it back in the fridge once Sophie isn't looking.)

(Ryan is bound and dazed from the drugs, recalling the last time she was locked in the attic room and how Angelique and she escaped before.)
Young Angelique: C'mon Ryan! We've got to go before she wakes! Ryan! Ryan, you've got to fight this! Fight!
(Young Angelique glances at the unconscious Candy Lady. Inspired, she tries something else.)
Young Angelique: Fight like Ghost Kid would fight! Remember when he lost his lame-ass invisibility and everyone kept throwing crap at him, but he kept fighting anyway? Ryan! Get up!
Young Ryan: (smiling softly as she stirs) You read Ghost Kid?
(Young Angelique smiles as the flashback fades back to the adult Ryan as she shakes off the drug and begins straining against her bonds.)


Continuity

Ryan experiences a twinge of pain that makes her space out while chasing a drug dealer. This is caused by the wound she acquired in 201, which still has not healed.

While questioning the drug dealer, Ryan hears a nearby alarm go off. This alarm was revealed to have been set off by a young boy, who was hoping to get Batwoman's attention since he couldn't get to the bat-signal. He tells Ryan about his older brother, Kevin Johnson, who disappeared between home and school three months earlier.

Jacob Kane offers a $1 million cash reward for information on Kate's whereabouts. This is said to be the largest reward for a missing person's case in Gotham City history.

Mary is still skeptical about Kate being alive, despite what Sophie apparently told them, given that the source of the information is Alice.

Ryan asks Mary to help her with finding Kevin Johnson.

Kevin Johnson is a black male foster kid who has been in Juvenile Detention. Ryan says this is probably why the police have not spent much time looking for him.

Ryan used to live in a group home in the same neighborhood as Kevin when she was a teenager; Wayside Heights, AKA Wasteside. This was several years before she was adopted.

Ryan's adoptive mother's name was Cora Wilder.

When she was 12, Ryan's favorite color was yellow and her favorite animal was the snow leopard. 

Ryan liked comic books and her favorite hero was Ghost Kid, because his only power was being invisible, which was how Ryan felt most of the time.

Ryan befriended another girl who agreed to watch her back in exchange for Ryan opening their bedroom window to let her back in after she snuck out. This girl is later revealed to be Ryan's ex-girlfriend, Angelique Martin.

Mary had no idea that Ryan was living in a van.

Mary loves vintage vans.

Hero Galaxy Comics is a comic shop in Wayside Heights which Ryan frequented as a kid. It is still around in modern day Gotham. It has a rack of free comics on the street for poor kids to take.

Ryan was apparently a fan of Looney Tunes comics as well as Ghost Kid.

When Ryan was 12, she was abducted by a woman known as The Candy Lady, who lured children into her van with candy and comics, broke their wills and sold them to gangs. Ryan theorizes the same woman may have taken Kevin Johnson.

Sophie lives in a condo that is large enough to have a guest room and guest bathroom.

This episode takes place 2 days after the events of 203 and Alice and Sophie's return from Coryana.

Alice reveals that the task Safiyah asked her to complete involves tracking down a man callled Ocean. She suggests that she and Sophie work together to do this.

Jacob Kane puts an Crows agent named Whelan in charge of tracking down the Jack Napier painting mentioned in 203. It was apparently stolen from an active crime scene and is now bouncing around the black market. 

The Candy Lady locked Ryan in an attic room with a jar full of 60 jellybeans. She removed one bean for every day that passed, claiming Ryan could go home as soon as someone came looking for her. This preyed upon what Ryan said was the worst fear of every foster child - that they wouldn't be missed and nobody cared about them.

Ryan did have one moment of hope during her captivity when a group of volunteers from Gotham University came to the house looking for a missing girl. That hope was dashed when she heard the description of the missing girl: "Fair Hair. Blue Eyes" Last seen wearing a red-stone necklace.  

Mary realizes the missing girl the volunteers were looking for was Beth Kane, which inspires her to retrieve the records Kate kept regarding every search party that looked for her sister to see where they hadn't checked.

This establishes Ryan Wilder as being a year younger than Beth and Kate Kane, who were 13 at the time Beth and Ryan both disappeared.

According to Alice, Coryana is not big on last names.

Alice claims that the only reason she wants to work with Sophie is because she's equally driven to find Kate; not because she's particularly talented or even competent. 

Mary is now living in the loft above Kate's bar, as it made the commute to manage the bar easier and Kate had plenty of room.

Mary offers to let Ryan move into the spare bedroom of Kate's loft. She accepts.

Angelique rescued Ryan from The Candy Lady by letting herself get captured. Ryan says this was the first time in her life she felt she mattered to anyone.

Ryan reluctantly calls Angelique on the off-chance she might remember where The Candy Lady's house was.  Angelique says she has the wrong umber.

Mary and Ryan are able to use Kate's records to narrow down the neighborhood searched by the Gotham University volunteers on the day Ryan remembered seeing them. 

Ryan elects to confront The Candy Lady out of costume.

Alice reveals that she was told to kill Ocean after finding him.

Luke stops by Sophie's apartment and is put to work on the search for Ocean.

Jacob Kane gets a tip on Kate's whereabouts in Wayside Heighs, which he goes to check out personally.

Ryan finds The Candy Lady's house but Kevin Johnson has already been sold off.

Ryan is tasered and drugged by some gang members working with The Candy Lady.

Luke is able to find an address, but communicates to Sophie not to tell Alice through a typed message while Alice isn't watching the computer screen.

Luke is allowed to go back to Wayne Enterprises to use their superior system to search for something.

Sophie goes to check on Jacob Kane and his lead, instructing Alice to stay in her apartment.

In the past, Angelique tried shooting The Candy Lady with a slingshot. She tried to drug Angelique, but Ryan stepped in and took the shot. This gave Angelique time to grab the jar of jellybeans and throw it her face, knocking her out.

Ryan is able to escape by breaking the Candy Lady's jar and using it to cut her bonds.

Ryan beats The Candy Lady until she reveals she sold Kevin to the False Face Society.

The lead Jacob Kane was going after is revealed to be a trap set by the False Face Society, who plan to initiate Kevin into the gang by having him kill Jacob.

Luke reveals that the address he found was provided by Julia Pennyworth, who was already looking for Ocean. She narrowed his whereabouts down to four addresses. Two were demolished. One was now an ice cream parlor. The last one was am abandoned building next to a pizzeria in Gotham City.

Ocean's hideout contains a small lab. Upon entering it, Sophie is jumped by a woman who claims to be a burglar casing the joint.

Sophie is saved by Alice, who followed after her. The burglar flees, saying they can have whatever is in the lab as it is clearly more trouble than it is worth.

Sophie seems to recognize the burglar briefly.

Alice knocks Sophie out. It is unclear what happens after, but Alice apparently took Sophie home as Sophie later shows up at Crows HQ while Alice goes back to search Ocean's lab.

Alice admits she is only trying to find Kate so she can kill her herself.

Ryan saves Kevin and Jacob Kane from the False Face Society as Batwoman.

A radio report reveals that The Candy Lady was arrested and that her real name was Candice Long.

Both Batwoman and Jacob Kane are credited with rescuing Kevin in the press.

Jacob reluctantly admits that he'd be dead if it weren't for the new Batwoman.

Sophie tells Jacob that Alice is looking for Kate and they have to find her first.

Ryan's Kryptonite wound is still not healing.

Mary admits that her reluctance to thin Kate is alive came from her not wanting to believe Alice was right or telling the truth about something.

Ryan gets a call and rushes off to answer it. This turns out to be Angelique.

When Alice searches Ocean's lab, she finds a card dropped by the burglar - a key card for Room 11 at the Burnside Motel 

Alice also finds an envelope with writing on it. It reads DROP THE MERCH AT THE HOTEL BEFORE 5 PM TOMORROW - OCEAN.

Alice also sees a picture of a man which triggers a flashback to her time on Coryana and a man who was apparently Ocean, whom she apparently knew.

Ryan tells Angelique that the Candy Lady has been caught. 

Angelique is revealed to be the burglar who almost killed Sophie.

Angelique and Ryan haven't talked for two years.

Ryan says she's missed the woman who always had her back.


Untelevised Adventures

The final scene with Alice makes reference to Alice's past on Coryana and suggests that she might not remember all of her own time on the island as she has a flashback suggesting she knew Ocean.


The Killing Jokes

Sophie continues to be more than useless and the only reason it doesn't come off as sexist is that she's being propped up by other female characters. (i.e. Alice and Julia)

Jacob Kane doesn't fair much better, going off to investigate a lead by himself, with no back-up. 

The Bottom Line

A solid episode where the sections centered on Ryan overpowers the subplot with Alice (for once), presenting an all-too real evil that is more terrifying than the likes of Zsasz and Hush.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 2 - Prior Criminal History

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

After Julia rejects Alice's proposal of an alliance to take on Safiyah Sohail together, Alice enacts her own devious plan to get back at the woman who killed Kate Kane. This drags Ryan back into the Bat-Suit and her first confrontation with  her mother's killer, but can she place her need for revenge over the needs of the city when the heat is on?


Influences

Batman: Year One (Alice's bat-summoning gadget is exactly the same as one Batman used in this story, the general theme of a new vigilante just starting out.) and Batwoman (Ryan being saved by Batwoman mirrors Kate's origin story in the comics, where Batman came to save her from some muggers only to find her in the middle of fighting her attackers.)


Goofs

The caption and set design for the flashback where Kate saves Ryan suggest it is Halloween (Ryan is in a cat costume, a jack-o-lantern is seen on the street  as a decoration) but the caption at the start of the scene says it took place 2 months ago. That would place this episode sometime in January 2020, which is just barely possible if all the events of the second half of Batwoman Season 1 are crammed into the better part of a month.(Most of the episodes take place over a span of days, so this is possible, but it didn't seem to be that short a span stretched out over several weeks.)

About 10 seconds pass between the pharmacy robbers fleeing the scene and a Crows agent showing up to arrest Ryan as she goes to check on the injured clerk. Granting that the GCPD/Crows are one step above the Keystone Cops, how could the cop fail to notice two masked me (one of them limping) leaving the scene of a robbery? 


Performances

Again, it has to be said that Rachel Skarsten is the best thing about this show. What's damnable is that despite having become even more unhinged in the face of Kate's death, she's still one of the most sympathetic characters on the shows and it's a wonderful defiance of the usual comic book clichés that our chief villain is the one who proposes working together against a common enemy. Creepy as her sing-song nursey rhymes are, she's engaging and Skarsten is clearly having the time of her life with this role.

Two episodes in, Javicia Leslie is making this her show. She gets more material and more chance to interact with the cast this time around, showing us who Ryan Wilder is rather than telling us. When Ryan tells Alice she is going to kill her, you believe it and believe she's capable of it.


Artistry

The fight scene in the pharmacy is incredibly intense for its brevity.

The scene where the bat emerges from Mouse's corpse is an effective gross-out and a fantastic jump-scare.

It's amazing they were able to simulate a bat attack on a televiison budget and do it as well as the similar sequence from Batman Begins.


Bat Trivia

The cat costume Ryan Wilder wears for Halloween seems to be a nod to Eartha Kitt's Catwoman suit from the 1966 Batman show.

Batwoman showing up to save Ryan seems to be a nod to Kate Kane's origin story in the comics, where she was inspired by a show of respect Batman made when he came to save her from muggers only to find she was holding her own in a fight.

The device which Alice uses to lure her poisoned bats to the Batwoman rally seems to be based on a similar device used by Batman in the comics. The device first appeared in Batman: Year One and was used to create a distraction when Batman was cornered by a SWAT team made up of crooked SCPD officers.

At one point, Luke tries to guide Ryan to the Schwartz Bypass as she is driving around. This is likely a nod to Julius Schwartz - a long-time editor at DC Comics.

The assassin who comes for Alice in the final scene of the episode is said to be named Tatiana. Advanced press notices for the show identified this character as an assassin called The Whisper. This may be an adaptation of the League of Assassins member called Whisper A"Daire; a shape-shifter and immortal with some snake-themed powers including an acidic venom she can spit like a cobra and a hypnotic gaze. The Whisper displays no such powers in this episode.


Technobabble

Gotham City is 330 square miles.

The Desert Rose toxin (at least, the variant Alice uses) is not lethal to bats. They can become carriers of the toxin and infect people with their bites.

Alice uses some kind of sub-sonic device to lure the bats to the site of the Batwoman rally.

Ryan is able to use the Bat-Suit's echo-location abilities to find the transmitter for Alice's bat lure.

Julia was able to track down Alice's hideout by analyzing the dirt Alice left on her floormats. The dirt contained traces of tri-ethyl benzene - a biproduct of tire manufacturing. Her best guess is Alice is hiding out in the abandoned Dresner Motor Plant.


Dialogue Triumphs

Alice: (singing softly, as bats swarm around her)

Twinkle twinkle little bat.
How I wonder where you're at.
Up above the world you fly
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle twinkle little bat.
Up until your plane went splat.

Sophie: (accusingly) How could you not know?! You two spent nearly every day together. You were her associate.
Luke: Assistant, actually. And it looks like she was good at keeping secrets from both of us.

(Sophie apparently asked Luke about Kate's plain being sabotaged.)
Luke: I thought you said it was an accident?
Sophie: We're not ruling anything out. Just looking into any possible enemies.
Luke: (dryly) You mean other than every agent in this building? Right? Or maybe just the ones who lured her into a trap? Tried to gun her down on he 50 yard line? You know, it's too bad she didn't  have someone who loved her watching her back.
(If looks could kill, Luke would be dead from the glare Sophie gives him.)

(Alice has suggested teaming up with Julia.)
Julia: Why would I ever work with a psychopath?
Alice: Because there's another psychopath hunting you who is even scarier than me?

Alice: Retribution is coming for both of us, Pennyloafter. We can work together and get to that sister-killing psycho-bitch before she gets to us. (cheerful) You know? Have each other's backs.
Julia: (laughs) Ha! Yeah. Until you stick a knife in mine.
Alice: Well, we could do a couple of trust falls first. Hmm? Work up to the idea? How does that sound?
Julia: Sounds like you're desperate. Kate was the only person who had any sympathy left for you. (chuckling) Now that she's gone, you don't have anyone.
Alice: (thoughtful) Hmm. You know what else I don't have? A knife sticking out of me.
(Alice stabs Julia in the side.)
Alice: At least it wasn't in your back.
(Alice exits the car and skips away, waving at Julia as she writhes in pain.)

Alice: What exactly are you doing in my sister's hand-me-downs?
Ryan: The one thing she wouldn't do. I'm going to kill you.

(Alice pulls two pistols and unloads in Ryan's direction. She throws up the cape and the bullets fall harmlessly to the ground.)
Alice: (sighing) Well! The suit's for real. (drops her guns) What about the girl inside?
Ryan: Let's find out.
(The two charge at each other and begin sparring.)

(Alice tosses a bag of blood onto Mary's desk.)
Mary: You're giving me your blood?
Alice: (looks confused for a second) Oh! No. Actually, that's your blood. I swiped it from you when Nocturna tried to drain you. (winces) So... technically it's a regift.


Continuity

The opening flashback scene of Mouse telling Alice that bats eat rats comes from 120.

Ryan was saved from muggers by Kate Kane on Halloween Night 2019. In the middle of the fight, Ryan picked up a discarded Batarang and used it on a mugger who had recovered his gun.

Ryan has been trained in half-a-dozen forms of martial arts.

Ryan spent 18 months in Blackgate Penitentiary as part of a plea-bargain deal in exchange for a guilty plea. Ryan figured it was a better alternative than fighting false charges with a free lawyer and getting 15 years instead of 18 months.

Ryan applies for a job as a security guard, but they refuse to hire her because of her criminal record as an ex-drug dealer.

Video of The Crows betraying Batwoman and ambushing her in 120 is leaked to the press. This spurs someone to organize a rally in support of Batwoman.

Jacob interviews Mary over whether she had any idea Kate was Batwoman. Mary denies everything, asking if Jacob seriously thinks Kate would trust her with anything after rejecting all her efforts to reach out to her and try to be a sister.

Sophie interviews Luke about his connections to Batwoman. Again, Luke denies knowing anything, but he is much more pointed about The Crows trying to kill Batwoman and Sophie treating Kate terribly.

Sophie figures out that Julia must have known that Kate Kane was Batwoman, reasoning there is no way she'd be trusted with the location and combination of  her secret safe and not her secret identity.

Ryan is still suffering from the wound she acquired after being shot with Kryptonite in 201.

Sophie and Ryan know each other. Apparently Sophie was one of the Crows agents who framed Ryan for drug-dealing and she has picked Ryan up on suspicion of other crimes since Ryan's release from prison.

Ryan is able to deduce that Alice is Beth Kane, based on a slip of the tongue Sophie makes after Ryan says she knows why the Crows haven't just shot Alice dead by now. While she's implying that the Crows are racist and go out of their way to take the white serial killer alive, Sophie thinks Ryan somehow knows about Alice being Jacob Kane's daughter.

Ryan goes to Mary's underground clinic and tells her she knows Alice is Beth. She asks if the entire family keep secrets. 

Mary gets angry when Ryan accuses her of trying to protect Alice, saying that she would love to see Alice die because she killed her mother in 108.

Ryan tells Mary about how Alice killed her mother as well.

Mouse's body is found by some of the homeless people who come to Mary. They bring his body to her.

Alice ambushes Julia in her car at Crow's HQ, telling her she's planning something big and public. She proposes an alliance against Safiyah Sohail, whom she tells Julia is taking credit for the plane accident. Julia refuses and Alice stabs her.

Mary's toxicology study of Mouse's body determines he was killed by the same toxin from the Desert Rose plant that killed Catherine Hamilton.

Ironically, Ryan has a feat of bats.

Ryan guesses that Alice is probably going to try and attack the Batwoman rally.

Ryan offers to wear the Bat-Suit and try to end the rally before Alice can enact her plan. Mary is on-board with the idea. Luke is reluctant but agrees because he can't think of a better plan and Julia is too injured to play at being Batwoman.

Jacob is able to identify Ryan as an imposter through a pair of binoculars.

Ryan is able to hold her own against Alice in a one-on-one martial arts fight.

Alice gives Mary a bag full of blood which she took from Mary after the fight with Nocturna in 113. She says this can be used to create a cure for the toxin.

Ryan takes the Batmobile and drives it to lure the bats away from downtown Gotham. 

Gotham City General Hospital reports 250 victims of the bat bites.

Mary tells Sophie about the blood she was given from Alice and decides to take it to Hamilton Dynamics to see if they can synthesize an antidote from it.

Ryan deals with the bats by trapping them inside a Crow's prison bus and blowing the bus up.

To Mary's annoyance, she isn't credited for donating the blood sample that Hamilton Dynamics used to create a cure for the Dessert Rose toxin.

Sophie and Mary agree Alice has a reason for poisoning the city and then offering up the cure for free. It is later revealed that Alice did this to make Safiyah Sohail's trademark poison completely useless by making a mass-produced antidote possible.

Julia does not know who the new Batwoman is. 

Julia and Sophie's romance is officially confirmed to be dead; both because Sophie no longer trusts Julia but also because she isn't Kate.

Julia is able to give Sophie a lead on where Alice is hiding out. Sophie goes after her alone and tells Julia not to tell anyone what she's doing.

Julia guesses that Kate told Sophie that she loved her in the letter she left for Sophie.

Jacob apologies for grilling Mary over Kate being Batwoman and asks for her help in searching for Kate, who he believes is still alive somewhere. She agrees.

Luke agrees to let Ryan continue working as Batwoman until Kate comes back, on the grounds that the city needs a hero. Ryan agrees not to kill as Batwoman in accordance with Kate's code.

According to Vesper Fairdhild, some people reported a new Batwoman protecting the city during the Bat swarm. This means that some people have noticed Ryan's presence on the streets.

Ryan reads Kate's journals and discovers that Kate wrote about her encounter with Ryan on Halloween. She says that Ryan reminded her of herself: scared yet fearless and determined not to let the darkness of Gotham get the best of her. She also said that "People like her are the hope this city needs."

Ryan starts a journal of her own, writing letters to Kate as Kate was writing letters to Bruce. This means, logically, that Ryan probably knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman now. (As if getting into the Bat Cave through his office weren't clue enough.)

Sophie ambushes Alice in her new hideout, only to be knocked out by an assassin named Tatiana. Alice is also knocked out by Tatiana. 


Location

The flashback in which Ryan is mugged and is saved by Kate takes place on Halloween Night 2019.

This episode takes place one week after the events of 120, according to a news report that Batwoman was last seen publicly when she was ambushed by The Crows.


Untelevised Adventures

Reference is made to Alice and Julia Pennyworth both having a past with Safiyah Sohail.


The Bottom Line

Another great episode with a clever script that elegantly explains away some issues you think would have come up, such as why nobody has connected Kate Kane's disappearance with Batwoman vanishing. The only real sour note in the whole episode is the writers thinking we should give a damn about Sophie, despite her literally being the worst. 

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 1 - What Happened To Kate Kane?

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Kate Kane is missing after her plane experienced a technical failure while landing. As Kate's friends and family begin searching for her, Alice and Hush have a falling out over their respective plans. Meanwhile, the Batsuit finds its way into the hands of an unlikely hero; a woman named Ryan Wilder, who may become the hero Gotham City needs in its time of need.

Influences

Joker (the scene with Ryan meeting her parole officer resembles Arthur meeting his social worker.) Also, while not directly based on any particular comic, there are a number of stories based around the idea of an unlikely pupil taking over Batman's role. These include Batman: Prodigal, Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin, Batman: Knightfall and the series Batman Beyond

Goofs

Why would Kate Kane fly out to visit Kara Danvers? Couldn't she just call her? If not, wouldn't it be faster for Kara to fly to her? (Kate's the sort of person to do business face-to-face and it's far easier for her to get away from her day job unnoticed than Kara.)

Wayne Manor seems remarkably well kept for having been abandoned for four years. (Perhaps Luke has been paying for maid service since Alfred left?)

Performances

Javica Leslie doesn't get much time to introduce Ryan Wilder in this episode, but she makes the most of what little time she has and the fact that she's having to play against herself for most of the episode. Still, she immediately manages to establish Ryan as a much different person than Kate, both in and out of costume. 

Rachel Skarsten is entertaining as always, but she outdoes herself with the scene where a drunken Alice shows up at Wayne Manor in mourning clothes and starts reading Hush the riot act for not following her plan, even while acknowledging how utterly pointless it is with Kate Kane now dead.

Dougray Scott gets a great moment of silent acting in the final moments of the episode, as he turns on the Bat Signal and starts to cry silently, his face still stoic but his eyes showing his pain.

Artistry

The opening sequence in which the plane crashes over Gotham is thrilling and the pacing is a fantastic display of Ryan's skills, showing us who she is without having to tell us that she's brave enough to go into a dangerous situation and kind enough to try and help others, though still not use to tense situations. 

The closing montage of all the cast reacting to the news that Kate is likely dead is a powerful moment, well-shot and well-acted.

Bat Trivia

The gang members Ryan questions for information in her first outing as Batwoman are members of the False Face Society. This is a gang with a rather notable history in the comics, though it is unaffiliated with the Golden Age Batman villain False Face, who was a master of disguise. 

The first False Face Society was formed by the Joker as part of a tournament to determine the greatest criminal in Gotham City, with each of the participants committing their crimes while masked. Batman thwarted the plot and revealed the Joker's plot to steal all the tournament winnings before the winner could be declared. This False Face Society continued to operate without the Joker and without much success.

The second False Face Society was founded by the crimeboss Roman "Black Mask" Sionis.. His gang was alternatively known as both the False Face Society and the False Facers. In the most recent wave of Batman comics, the False Face Society was founded by Richard "The Mask" Sionis and eventually broke into three factions; the loyalists led by The Mask, the rebels led by Roman "Black Mask" Sionis, and a splinter group led by David "White Mask" Franco. Black Mask eventually won the battle.

At one point, Hush sings the "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" parody that has existed for many years in the real world.

Technobabble

Luke says that The Crows have unplugged the Bat-Signal so there's no way to turn it on remotely. 

Luke says that the nanotech of the cape of the Bat-Suit is more advanced than a NASA parachute and Kate could easily have survived a 10,000 foot freefall while wearing it. 

The Crows determined that Kate's plane was flying with a recalled engine part.

The Bat-Suit ha a GPS which only Luke Fox can track. He uses this to locate Ryan Wilder while she's in the costume.

The Batmobile has missiles.

Luke is capable of hacking the Batombile and shutting down its systems remotely. 

Dialogue Triumphs

Social Worker: You have the power to turn this around.

Ryan: You want to know why I haven't paid my fines? Because I can't find a job. Because I don't have a home. Because no landlord wants to rent to an ex-con on post-release. You see how this works? (frustrated) No one cares that the dope wasn't mine or that The Crows were dirty or that I'm a actually decent human! I am a file in your cabinet. That is not having power. That is the very definition of powerless. 

Hush:(holding up the Kryptonite) Only thing stronger than the Bat-Suit. Which Mini-Fix is in the process of retrieveing. And very soon the world will call me Batman.

Alice: (sarcastically impressed) Ooooh! Do you want a parade? Because I'm pretty sure my sister is in the large intestine of a Great White! 

Hush: Oh, is that what this is? (gestures to Alice's black garb) Are you mourning? You wanted her dead! 
Alice: I wanted to kill her myself!
Hush: (shushing Alice, trying to keep his own voice down) Not to say I told you so to a... belligerent psychopath. You could have shot her months ago, when she was out of the suit! 
Alice:(slowly, as if speaking to a child or an idiot) When did I say I was going to shoot her? I said I wanted her dead! (gritting her teeth, clearly trying to remain calm)  You, "cousin Bruce", procured the Kryptonite. I was going to ensure Commander Kane found it. The scene would bring them together. Batty would get caught in his crosshairs. Then BANG! As she went down, he would pull off her cowl to discover, in sinking horror, that he had killed his own daughter!

(Hush regards her calmly, clearly thinking that Alice is completely nuts, as if he could throw stones.)

Alice: (sighing) Alas... mechanical failure. 

(One of Hush's conquests from the night comes halfway down the stairs.)

Model Hey Bruce? There's no steam coming out of the steam shower.

(Clearly annoyed, Alice throws a knife into the model's throat, killing her instantly.)

Hush: What the hell did you do that for?!
Alice: (bored) No reason at all. Reason doesn't matter.

Hush: She has a friend upstairs!. Do you want her to call the cops?!

Alice: (ignoring him) I tried being reasonable once. I was tethered to reason. I was calculated. Precise. Planned. (giggles madly) And look where that got me?! Sharing a room with Bruce Lame! 

Hush: On what planet do I agree to live with a woman who just told me her plan to have her father kill her twin, like some kind of April Fool's Day joke?

Alice: On my planet. Because on my planet, you are still Tommy Elliot! And if I so much as breathe a word, "Bruce Wayne' goes from being the meat in a Top Model sandwich to the guy with a stick for a face! 

(Jacob Kane enters his office to find Bruce Wayne there, drink in hand. He does not bother to hide his disgust.)

Jacob Kane: Oh. Bruce Wayne. I take it they're out of cocaine in Belize?

Hush: Missed you too, Uncle Jake.

Ryan: (looking at a picture of her mother) You're right, Mama. What am I doing wearing the suit of a hero when I couldn't even save you?

Alice: (angry) Kate Kane is Batwoman!

(Jacob is stunned for a moment. Doubt creeps over his face for a moment but he steels himself and smiles mockingly.)
Jacob: And I'm The Joker. Arkham's waiting.
Alice: (sarcastic) Use your brain, Commander. A lesbian superhero who could have killed me a dozen times but didn't? Hmm. - wonder who that could be?

Jacob: (doubt seeping into his voice and face) That's preposterous. Kate would have told me!

Alice: You rejected her. Over and over. To the world. To her face? (giggles) You wanted her dead!

Jacob: You're wrong.

Alice: Am I? Or did you spend your last precious moments together firing a gun at her? (mockingly sweet) You got your wish, Daddy.(harsher) Batwoman is dead! And she died knowing that her father hated her.

(Alice takes Jacob's gun from him. He doesn't resist. She walks away, leaving Jacob stunned.).

Alice: If you don't believe me, turn on the Bat-Signal. See if she comes.

Dialogue Disasters

((Ryan having put on the Bat-Suit for the first time, looking at herself in the mirror.)

Ryan: Time to be powerful.

Ryan: Trust me. I know I'm not a symbol. Or a name. Or a legacy.

Mary: Exactly! So why do you think you're worthy of wearing it?

Ryan: Because I'm a number. I'm the 327th baby of a black woman who died in childbirth that year. I'm a $20 a day check to a group home. I'm Inmate 40757. 18 months for a crime I didn't commit. But I can work with all those numbers, because the mom who adopted me? I was her Number One. But it turns out she's just one of a quarter million murders in this country who have not seen justice. And that is a number I can't live with. So you can have this damn suit back when her killer is dead.

Continuity

Ryan Wilder is introduced as a homeless woman living out of a van on a pier in Gotham City. She appears to be recently homeless, as her van contains some furniture and houseplants.

In a dream flashback, we learn that Ryan was going to share an apartment with her mother and that she is a lesbian.

As the episode opens, Luke notes that he hasn't heard from Kate since her plane landed in National City the day before.

Ryan is brave enough to run into a crash site to look for survivors.

Ryan is trained in CPR, using it to save a homeless man who was hit by falling debris while on the riverside beach. 

Ryan also seems to suffer from PTSD, having flashbacks to the violent deaths of her mother and landlord when she sees he injured homeless man lying on the ground.

The stress of saving the homeless man leads Ryan to vomit, showing that for all her training she is not used to high-pressure situations. 

Ryan Wilder finds the Bat-Suit among the wreckage on the beach, apparently having fallen out of Kate Kane's luggage.

Luke notes that it has been four years since he's seen Bruce Wayne when Hush shows up at Wayne Enterprises pretending to be Bruce.

Hush bluffs his way past not knowing where the trigger to open the Batcave is by telling Luke he's been the man of the house for so long the honor should be his.

Ryan Wilder is an ex-convict who reports to a parole officer. She still owes money on her court fees.

Ryan taught martial arts for several years, but can't find any dojo willing to hire her due to her criminal record. She also can't find housing, because nobody wants to rent to an unemployed ex-con.

Ryan was framed on drug possession with intent to sell  by The Crows. She served 18 months but insisted that the drugs did not belong to her.

Sophie suggests to Julia that Safiyah, who revealed that she was spying on them, might have gone after Kate to get to Julia.

After the head of the plane's pilot is found washed up on shore, the search for Kate Kane officially goes from a rescue mission to a recovery mission and she is presumed dead after being missing for less than a day.

Hush takes the one piece of Kryptonite from Luke.

The weather the night Kate's plane went down was clear and the pilot had a clean record. There's no clear reason why the plane went down and no evidence yet of a bomb disabling the plane. 

Alice's grand plan was to get the Kryptonite to her father and trick him into killing Batwoman with it, finding out as he unmasked her that he had just killed his own daughter. 

Before leaving Gotham City, Kate told Julia Pennyworth to take care of the documents in her safe if anything happened to her. She also asked her to keep the location of her safe a secret.

When Luke and Mary confront Ryan, she unmasks and gives them her real name.

Ryan's birth mother died in childbirth. She was later adopted by a single mother. 

Ryan says she'll return the Bat-Suit to them after she uses it to take care of some personal business.

Hush goes to Crows HQ, posing as Bruce Wayne, and tells Jacob Kane that Alice is hiding out in Wayne Manor. 

Hush runs into Julia Pennyworth on the way out of Jacob Kane's office. He met her, as Hush, in 119.

Julia becomes suspicious when Hush doesn't respond when she asked if he had thought to "ring the Eagle" since his return. It is later revealed this was the codename Bruce gave Alfred Pennyworth when he was running comms for him.

It is revealed that Alfred is alive and well, living in a flat in London. Julia tests Hush by saying that the Eagle is still living in Glasgow in a cottage in the woods. 

Julia first became suspicious when she smelled alcohol on Hush's breath when she hugged him. The real Bruce Wayne does not drink booze.

Ryan is tech-savvy enough t disable the GPS on the Bat-Suit.

The Kane family home is in a 56th floor penthouse.

Ryan's father died before she was born.

Ryan ran away from home as a teenager and spent her youth moving in and out of group homes.

Ryan was a high-school dropout, but eventually earned her GED after reconciling with her adopted mother.

Ryan's mother and her landlord were killed by squatters who had been living in what was meant to be their new apartment. They also nearly beat Ryan to death.

The squatters were members of the Wonderland Gang.

Ryan reads about the sort of person Kate was in a newspaper article profiling her. She concludes that Kate was a hero, in and out of costume, based on her funding several housing programs, including (apparently) the one that should have given her and her mother a new home.

Ryan reactivates the GPS after realizing Kate wasn't just some bored billionaire playing at being a hero.

Luke says he blames himself for Kate's apparent death, since it was his insistence on destroying the Kryptonite that led to her flying to National City. 

Julia reveals that she ran the fingerprints on the glass Hush left behind in Jacob's office and matched them to Tommy Elliot.

Hush's birthday is given as May 14, 1972.

Hush is able to find the hidden Batombile bay iinside the Batcave using the sticky bombs in the Bat-Arsenal. He takes it to go find the Bat-Suit.

Alice tells Jacob Kane that Kate Kane was Batwoman.

Hush shoots Ryan in the shoulder with the kryptonite shard. It is revealed at the end of the episode that Ryan has a wound that will not heal as a result.

Ryan beats Hush in the face so badly that it damages his Bruce Wayne flesh mask, revealing his real face.

At the end of the episode, the divers searching the river still have not found any trace of Kate Kane.

Mary and Luke were barely able to hide the Batmobile before The Crows found it.

Hush is back in Arkham. 

Ryan returns the Bat-Suit to Luke and Mary along with the Kryptonite shard.

Julia gives Sophie a letter that Kate left for her in her safe. In it, Kate says that she never stopped loving Sophie, reveals that she is Batwoman and says that lying to her about being Batwoman was the hardest thing she'd ever done, but she did it to protect her.

As Alice is returning to her lair in the sewer, a paper airplane made from a newspaper page lands in her path. It is the latest issue of the Gotham Gazette and their front page profile of Kate Kane. On the other side of the page, written in red ink or blood, are the words CONSIDER US EVEN - SAFIYAH. This seems to confirm that Kate's disappearance is connected to Safiyah Sohail.

This news overjoys Alice, who now has a new purpose: revenge on Safiyah Sohail.

Alice is revealed to still have Mouse's corpse in her hideout and she falls aslseep next to him, looking up through a sewer grate at the Bat-Signal.

Untelevised Adventures

Kate Kane flew to National City to speak to Supergirl directly about destroying the last piece of Kyrptonite that she had, sometime after the events of 120.

The Killing Jokes

The usually paranoid Luke Fox is dumbed down a bit so that Hush can successfully con him into believing that he's Bruce Wayne. (The episode explains this somewhat by revealing that Luke is distracted by his guilt over being the one to suggest Kate go to National City in the first place and not thinking clearly.)

The Bottom Line

A bit disjointed, but pretty good considering all it has to accomplish with removing Kate, introducing Ryan and allowing the ensemble a chance to respond to Kate's apparent death and Ryan's taking over the Bat-Suit. Of these three tasks, Ryan gets the least amount of screen time, but Javicia Leslie does a decent job with the material she's given. It just feels like she should have been given more or someone to talk to besides a plant.