Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 13 - I'll Give You A Clue

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

Plot

When Sophie is forced to face an old enemy from her rookie days with The Crows, Ryan, Mary and Luke are also drawn into the sinister game of the man known as Cluemaster. Meanwhile, the tables are turned on Black Mask after he takes Alice captive, as Jacob grows more addicted to Snakebite.


Influences

The Batman comics of Chuck Dixon (use of Cluemaster and Stephanie Brown)


Goofs

Sophie refuses to call the Crows since Cluemaster would consider that cheating. Yet she thinks nothing about taking help from Ryan, Mary and Stephanie or calling Luke in to assist. 


Performances

Morgan Kohan has a fantastic first turn as Stephanie Brown. Hopefully it will not be her last appearance on the show and she'll be given more to do than act as Luke's love interest.


Bat Trivia

The Cluemaster (aka Arthur Brown) first appeared in Detective Comics #351 in May 1966 and was created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. A failed quiz show host, Brown turned to crime and adopted the gimmick of leaving clues to his crimes before he committed them, differentiating himself from the similarly-themed Riddler in that he didn't bother to phrase his clues in the form of riddles.
Despite joining with several other villains to form the Injustice League, Cluemaster was largely forgotten until a  Dark Age of Comics revamp spearheaded by writer Chuck Dixon, which introduced his daughter, Stephanie.

The Arrowverse version of Cluemaster is cut from the same cloth as the original, being a failed game show host named Arthur Brown who turned to crime.  

Stephanie Brown first appeared in Detective Comics #647 (August, 1992) and was created by Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle. The estranged teenage daughter of Cluemaster, Stephanie adopted the masked identity of The Spoiler and began leaving clues for the police and Batman to warn them of her father's crimes without risking her mother being endangered. Stephanie would later enter into a romantic relationship with the Tim Drake Robin and assumed the mantles of both Robin and Batgirl later in her career. 

The Arrowverse version of Stephanie Brown adopts a similar role, having been responsible for turning in her father and allowing Sophie Brown to take the credit for figuring out his hints to his identity. This version of Stephanie Brown was much closer to her father, who took a hand in training her in ciphers and cryptography as a child and used her as a sounding board for the questions on his quiz show.

One of the clues in Cluemaster's game show makes mention of Lazlo Valentin - the secret identity of Professor Pyg.


Technobabble

The puss caterpillar is the larval form of the Southern Flannel Moth. It is of the genus Megalopyge.

Ceasar and Playfair are two popular ciphers.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Batwoman is interrogating a False Face Society member.)
Batwoman: Where's Black Mask? Let me guess. You're more scared of him than you are of me.
False Face Member: You have a code. He doesn't. Do the math.
Batwoman: I love math. Here's some. There are three bones in your ankle. If I break two, how many are left?

Ryan: So you woke up to discover you were covered in some coded message?
Stephanie: You say that like your dad doesn't write cryptograms on you while you're unconscious. 

Black Mask: Ohh. The once-powerful queenpin of Gotham now protecting the city's hero. It's pathetic. I've had enough of this. Give me Batwoman's name, or end up all over my Malbec.
Alice: What's in a name? Circe, Black Mask... Roman Sionis.
Black Mask: What did you do?
Alice: Circe told me her father rescued her from the Arkham breakout, so I got to thinking how would dear, old dad feel about his precious daughter hanging out with a guy who wears a kinky skullcap? Unless dear, old dad is the guy in the kinky skullcap.
Black Mask: You just gave me three reasons to kill you.
Alice: Relax. This is a good thing. You happened to kidnap Gotham's most illustrious skin seamstress. I... I make faces, human faces. If you want your daughter to stop hiding behind that cheeseboard, then let me help you. I can give you your beautiful daughter back.
Black Mask: Tell me how.
Alice: Oh, I'll do one better. I'll show you.


Continuity

5 years ago, Sophie Brown was responsible for busting a would-be supervillain who called himself the Cluemaster on her first day with Crow's Security. This case went on to make her career. 

The Cluemaster, aka Arthur Brown, was sentenced to 13 life sentences for his crimes. 

The Cluemaster escaped on the 5th anniversary of the day of his arrest.

The Crows are still more interested in capturing Batwoman than Black Mask.

Jacob goes to the park which was Beth and Kate's favorite place and hallucinates them on the swings, after taking a dose of Snakebite.

Black Mask threatens to cut off Alice's fingers, one at a time, until she tells him who the new Batwoman is.

Ryan returns home to find Sophie hanging out with Mary.

Sophie was given a bottle of tequila for her five year anniversary with Crows' Security.

Sophie affirms that she's a lesbian rather than biexual.

Sophie, Ryan and Mary wind up playing Never Have I Ever - a drinking game where a person drinks a shot for every outrageous thing they've done.

Mary once had sex on an airplane but she is quick to note it was a private plane.

Ryan is revealed to have accidentally sexted Mary while messaging someone named Imani. This is the woman Ryan met at the community center fundraiser in 210.

Ryan makes Sophie do a shot by saying "Never have I ever compromised my values to support a white supremacist organization."

Sophie does a shot for "has kissed Batwoman."

All three women do a shot for "has been saved by Batwoman."

Kate saving Ryan as Batwoman occurred in the flashback of 202.

Mary discovers an insect in the tequila bottle that at first she thinks is the traditional worm.

The worm is identified as a puss caterpillar, which is the most venomous caterpillar in North America and one of the deadliest in the world. However, a single one is not deadly to adult humans. 

After this, Ryan reads the card that came with the bottle and finds out that it came from Cluemaster rather than Sophie's coworkers.

The note from Cluemaster reads ""A girl's been poisoned. (Not you. That's no fun.) Can you save her before midnight? I'll give you a clue, hot shot: Probably not. Love... Cluemaster".

Arthur Brown was the host of Quiz Bowl - a game show local to Gotham that was a rip-off of Jeopardy. After being fired, he went on a killing spree, leaving clues to his crimes for the police to find.

Sophie says they can't call the other Crows or the police, as Cluemaster will see that as cheating.

Based on the words "hot shot," Ryan heats the bottle, revealing a strange symbol. Sophie recognizes it as the logo for a shooting range she frequented as a cadet.

Alice rips out one of her own finger nails to escape Black Mask's trap and frees her hand.

Alice tries calling Jacob Kane to beg for help. Unfortunately, he's stoned and, confused as to why Beth is calling him when he sees her in front of him, tells Alice she has the wrong number.

Cluemaster was finally caught after he sent a letter to the newspaper regarding his plans to bomb a party celebrating the top-winners of Quiz Bowl. Someone else solved the puzzle and called in the tip that Arthur Brown was the Cluemaster to the Crow's Tip Line while Sophie was answering the phones.

Mary finds a bottle of antihistamin and a note reading "Just a nip should do the trick" before a woman in a glass box is revealed.

The woman is Stephanie Brown, Cluemaster's daughter.

The puzzle to free Stephanie involves four colored targets and four boxes - each a different color, with a different animal on it. The boxes were chained together, which Ryan determines is a reference to the food chain. The targets have to be shot from the top down: bobcat, bird, spider, fly

Sophie's training as a sharpshooter was first revealed in 107.

Stephanie Brown, once freed of the glass box, is revealed to have a cryptogram written on her upper torso that is apparently the next clue.

While threatening Alice, the fake Circe Sionis tells Alice that the last person who tried to one-up her had their eyes gouged out.

Alice recalls meeting Circe Sionis while in Arkham and how she was committed after poking out the eyes of some corporate bigwig. This leads to her figuring out that Black Mask must be her father, Roman Sionis. 

Alice asks Circe about being trampled to death during a riot at Arkham, but she denies dying.

Sophie reveals that Stephanie Brown was the one who solved the Cluemaster's puzzles and called in to the Crow's Tip Line, asking her to take credit for it.

Stephanie says her father used her as a barometer for his puzzles, so she's an expert at cryptograms and ciphers.

Stephanie taunts Luke with a puzzle based around her name, naming clues involving strong women - "I'm smarter than my king, my technology protects Wakanda.... You think it'd be as easy as kissing a frog. I woke a monster by reading from The Book of The Dead... I helped lay an iron giant to rest.  As smart as I am mighty, the chosen one still gets all the credit." These are references to Shuri from Black Panther, Tiana from The Princess and The Frog, Evie from The Mummy, Pepper Potts from Iron Man and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter - S-T-E-P-H.

Luke sees the phrase "You're Stumped" written on Stephanie's back. They decide this must be the basis of a substitution cipher based around the catchphrase from Quiz Bowl.

Sophie, Ryan and Mary decide to check out the old Quiz Bowl set while Luke and Stephanie work on the code, since Cluemaster said he wanted to "finish what he started."

Ryan and Mary are caught in a deathtrap as a recording of Cluemaster offers them more time if they answer some trivia questions about Gotham's criminals.

The first question involves "a poor man's version of Cluemaster." The answer is The Riddler.

Stephanie graduated from MIT in the class of 2016, having skipped several grades.

Luke makes reference to having been accepted to MIT, but never going, due to the trauma of his father's death.

Stephanie knocks Luke out after figuring out the cipher.

Ryan figures out that a question about a "frosty foe" who gave The Dark Knight "a run for his money" is about The Penguin rather than Mr. Freeze.:

Angelique used to work in the backroom casino at The Iceberg Lounge.

The final question is about the new Batwoman fighting a certain tally-taking hitman.

Ryan's fight with Zsasz as Batwoman occurred in 203.

Sophie suggests calling Batwoman for help, but Ryan tries to dismiss the idea.

Mary tries calling Luke for help, but he's still unconcious.

Alice offers to make Circe Sionis a flesh mask to hide her burn scars. 

Sophie finally says that she knows Ryan is Batwoman.

Ryan tells Sophie how to enter the Batcave and what tool to bring her.

Ryan thinks Sophie only went to Mary hoping to liquor her up and get her to confirm that Ryan was Batwoman.

Mary points out that Sophie hasn't acted on the information that Ryan is Batwoman or turned her in.

Mary tells Ryan about what Sophie told her about Jacob using Snakebite and how she's starting tot hink that might explain his odd behavior.

Sophie brings the baton that lets Ryan and Mary get off the pressure plate safely.

The clue in the cipher pointed to Stephanie Brown's childhood home.

Cluemaster asks Stephanie to join him. She declines and tells him that she was the one who turned him in five years ago after solving his puzzle.

Cluemater seals himself and Stephanie in his car and releases a toxic gas.

Luke shows up in time to save Stephanie, having solved the cipher on his own after waking up.

Stephanie kisses Luke and tells him to call her but doesn't given him her number, guessing he can find it on his own.

Cluemaster is taken to the hospital and then back to jail.

A few homeless men bring a strung out man into Mary's clinic. It is revealed to be Jacob, who still has a Snakebite injector jammed in his leg.

Sophie tells Ryan how she figured out she was Batwoman by finding the tech in Mary's car in 211.

Sophie also tells Ryan about how she erased her record with the crows to keep them from identifying her based on a blood sample she left behind as Batwoman in 212.

Circe Sionis is confirmed to have died in the fire at Arkham Asylum in 119. Alice recalls stepping over her body as she made her escape.

As she is fitting "Circe" for her mask, Alice recognizes her as Kate Kane, as she has their father's eyes.

Location

Gotham City - 2015


The Fridge Factor

Sophie Moore is revealed to have built her entire career on a lie and taking credit for what a teenage prodigy did. Then again, given that she's also portrayed as being stupid enough to drink strange liquor without reading the card saying who it is from, this isn't exactly a huge shock.


The Bottom Line

The biggest problem with this episode is that it left me wanting a show focused on this version of Stephanie Brown. I'd love to see  a show based around a super-genius vigilante rebelling against the legacy of her criminal family rather than the continued adventures of Sophie Moore: Bad Detective. Thankfully, everything else is engaging, even if the main plotline is a bit unsatisfying and serves no purpose beyond dragging most of the characters secrets into the open. Maybe I stand alone in being more interested in Alice messing with Black Mask or Stephanie Brown being brilliant than the main characters... but I doubt it.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 10 - Time Off for Good Behavior

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

Plot

Ryan uncovers a sinister plot after a new villain dubbed Kilovolt attacks the community center she helped to repair. Meanwhile, Jacob faces a new challenge in his war on the False Face Society and Alice seeks out the mysterious Enigma with a new goal: forget about her sister.


Influences

The Batman comics of Alan Grant (character of Horton Spence).


Artistry

The dream-like imager of Jacob's hallucination scenes is quite effective.


Bat Trivia

Luke makes a joking remark about Black Mask blaming Aquaman for killing his daughter. This is the first confirmation that Aquaman exists within the post-Crisis Arrowverse. 

This episode marks the first appearance of Horton Spence - an idealistic reporter who alerts Batwoman to the connection between various social programs in Gotham City being attacked by criminals.

Horton Spence first appeared in the comics in Batman #475 in March 1992 and was presented as a partner to Vicki Vale, investigating a new street drug called Fever together. The two also dated for a time.

This episode confirms that Dr. Evelyn Rhyme is Enigma. Dr. Rhyme is an original character unique to the Arrowverse and has no connection to any other character named Enigma.


Technobabble

Community centers bring about a 10% drop in crime and a 15% increase in graduation rates from nearby schools.

According to Dr. Evelyn Sharpe, Snakebite attacks the hippocampus - the part of the brainwhich stores memories and emotions, targeting those memories most associated with regret or remorse. This triggers a hallucination where the user is able to alter the circumstance of the bad memory so they end happily.

Mary uses a mafenide acetate cream to treat Horton Spence's electrical burns.


Dialogue Triumphs

Alice: I see you got my message.
Julia: Oh, the sad desperation came through loud and clear. Gotham’s most deranged diva reduced to making prank phone calls. What’s next? Ding-dong-ditch? Heh.
Alice: (pulling a knife) How about "ghost in the graveyard?"
Julia: (batting the knife away) Oh, you’re not gonna kill me. You’d just be lonely again. I mean, that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? With Kate gone because no one really cares about your every move. I mean, the new Batwoman doesn’t give a damn about you anymore, and that must drive you absolutely crazy. Well, crazier. What will Alice become now that her sister is dead, hmm? I mean, it’s the age-old question, isn’t it? If a lunatic throws a tantrum in a forest, will anyone hear? Guess Gotham’s not much of a playground without a playmate.
Alice: I don’t need a playmate. I need a partner.
Julia: Well, your last overture at partners ended with a knife in my gut, so…
Alice: (wincing in exasperation) Oh, I really need to work on my negotiating skills!

(Black Mask shoots one of his followers - a man in a clown mask.)
Black Mask: You’re forgiven. (turning to the rest of his followers) Does anyone else want to apologize for the fact that for the last two weeks not a single viable dose of Snakebite has been produced? Anyone? I got plenty of bullets to go around!

Mary: Look. I don’t care what you have to say I’m opening the place back up, so if you want to stop me, you’ll have to arrest me.
Jacob: I don’t want to stop you. I want to help you. Make this place a real clinic. Hire real doctors. I’ll even pay for it.
Mary: You know that there are some things that you can’t fix by writing a big check.
Jacob: What possible objection could you have to making this place legit?
Mary: Because it goes against the very reason I started the clinic, ok? I don’t ask for I.D., I don’t require insurance, I don’t report O.D.s or non-violent criminal behavior. I opened up this place to serve the people that you don’t see as legit.
Jacob: Come on. You haven’t even finished med school...
Mary: And yet yesterday, I saved a guy’s life, and, you know, for the first time since Kate died, I don’t feel hollow! I feel like what I did mattered! That I can make a difference in this crappy city, and you want to take that away from me, and for that, I will never forgive you.


Continuity

As the episode opens, Batwoman is attacking her third Snakebite distribution center that week.

Batwoman specifically calls out Black Mask in a live TV feed.

As Jacob Kane is watching the news report on Batwoman's raid, he is kidnapped and injected with Snakebite.

While high on Snakebite, Jacob hallucinates that he was able to save Beth while she was a teenager.

Batwoman is calling the leader of the False Face Society Black Mask as she has no idea who he is.

According to Luke, Kate never killed anyone's daughter as Batwoman.

Ryan visits Angelique in Edgewater; a private prison facility.

The price of phone calls inside the prison has almost doubled since Ryan served time. According to Angelique, a ten-minute phone call is $22 and some change. It as $11.50 when Ryan was in prison.

Ryan encourages Angelique to flip on the False Face Society. She still refuses.

Ryan and Mary attend the opening of the new Sheldon Park community center Jordan Moore was working with. They are singled out for their help in getting it set up again.

A reporter named Horton Spence asks about the community center's security.

Ryan meets with Imani, who is the head of the community center's tutoring program.

Ryan is asked about teaching martial arts classes at the community center.

The community center is attacked by a man with an electric gun. The media dubs him Kilovolt.

Luke determines that a weapon like the lightning gun costs more than a community center is worth.

Horton Spence was fired from the Gotham Gazette six months earlier for undisclosed reasons.

Julia Pennyworth goes through her expense accounts from when she was searching for Kate and discovers that she spent two nights in Monaco with a layover in Valencia and a car rental in Madrid, but she has no memory of being in any of those places.

Alice calls in an anynonmous tip to The Crows, addressed to "Penny Dreadful," about a break-in at the Cartwright farm. Julia takes this as a sign that Alice wants to meet with her.

Julia makes reference to Alice stabbing her in 202.

Alice tells Julia about Enigma and asks for her help in finding her. This prompts Julia to think that maybe she already ran into and that is why she can't remember anything.

Jacob has a meeting with Dr. Evelyn Sharpe - a noted therapist with a practice in Gotham City, who joined the Crows special Snakebite task force. She has a PH.D in criminal psychiatry.

Dr. Sharpe somehow knows that Jacob used Snakebite. She says it is addictive enough that even one dose can hook a person.

Batwoman confronts Horton Spence about the community center attack. He tells he that several other social programs have faced similar attacks, such as the Narrows Midnight Basketball court being burned by an arsonist and the Diamond District tutoring center being shot up.

Spence claims he was investigating a link between the attacks when he was suddenly fired from the Gotham Gazette. He had just gotten his former editor to agree to take another look at his case.

Kilovolt tries to kill Batwoman and Spence, but her suit largely insulates her from the attack. Kilovolt gets away, but Ryan is able to get his gun.

Spence gets third degree electrical burns from the attack, but Mary is able to treat him with what few supplies she has left at her clinic. Unfortunately, his laptop was destroyed by the attack.

Luke traces the lightning gun to some tech being sold by a shady Russian defense contractor.

Luke is able to pull a partial finger print from the gun and traces it to a convict named Michael Kastrinos, who has been locked up in Edgewater Prison's Cellblock J for two years.

Alice discovers a to-do list written on Julia's boarding pass, which notes that she had a meeting with Dr. Evelyn Rhyme before flying to Madrid. Julia has no memory of this meeting.

Julia agrees to confront Dr. Rhyme about the meeting, while Alice investigates her office on Sixth Street.

Jacob has a private session with Dr. Rhyme where he admits that not saving Beth was his biggest regret and that not an hour goes by that he doesn't think about how he left her in the cell in Cartwright's farm.

Jacob admits he's tempted to try Snakebite again because of the good feeling he got from being able to save Beth, if only in a dream.

Jacob and Mary have not been speaking.

Dr. Sharpe suggests that Jacob try and mend fences with Mary.

Ryan visits Michael Kastrinos in prison. He refuses to confess to being Kilovolt, but Ryan identifies the injury she gave him before he escaped.

Luke checks the security footage of the time Kilovolt attacked Batwoman and it shows Michael Kastrinos in his cell, where he is meant to be.

Ryan visits Angelique and asks if she knows anything about a secret way out of the prison. She does not.

Ryan also pleads, once again, for Angelique to turn on the False Face Society. This time she seems to consider it when Ryan says she can protect her.

The False Face Society has not been able to produce any Snakebite in two weeks as only Ocean and Angelique knew the formula.

Ryan calls Sophie Moore about the two names she got from Angelique. They're both managers at the Gotham Gun Club. Sophie is skeptical, but agrees to check into it.

Luke matches the security footage of Michael Kastrinos to identical footage from 2 weeks earlier. This suggests that someone in the prison is deliberately altering the footage.

Michael Kastrinos wasn't going to be eligible for parole for another decade, yet somehow got a hearing for an early release the day after the community center attack. Discovering this led Luke to look at all the recent paroles from Edgewater prison and led to the discovery that a serial arsonist was paroled the day after the midnight basketball program was burned down and an armed robbery enthusiast was released the day after the Diamond District tutoring center was shot up.

Luke determines that Edgwater's CEO Ellis O'Brien personally signed off on each of the early releases. Ellis was also on the executive board of the Gotham Gazette and would have the power to fire Horten Spence.

Roman Sionis shows up at Jacob's office with a Snakebite dose he claims was found in one of his employee lockers. He asks if Jacob can dispose of it for him.

Julia confronts Dr. Rhyme, who reveals herself as Enigma before easing Julia's memory again.

Batwoman confronts Ellis O'Brien, who confesses that he was trying to destroy social programs that prevented at-risk children and repeat offenders from filling his prison.

Luke shows up in time to give Batwoman some back-up when he detects three guards with lightning guns coming for her.

Sophie finds the two men Angelique implicated, dead on their shooting rage, wearing masks.

Alice listens to Dr. Rhyme's recording of her session with Jacob.

Mary gives Horton Spence some antibiotics, since his insurance won't kick in for a few more weeks.

Horton spence was apparently rehired at the Gotham Gazette and given a promotion as well.

Jacob offers to pay for Mary to open a real clinic but she refuses his money.

Julia puts in for a transfer to the Crow's Security office in Berlin.

Sophie tells Ryan that a WITSEC team is moving Angelique into protective custody until Black Mask is captured, thanks to the DA accepting a plea deal.

Jacob takes the second dose of Snakebite Roman Sionis gave him.

Angelique is abducted by the False Face Society, after the Crows' Security caravan escorting her is attacked.


The Bottom Line

An enjoyable episode that plays out like a classic Green Arrow comic, with all of the ensemble being given a chance to shine.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 9 - Rule #1

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

Plot

As Kate Kane's friends and family make some difficult decisions, Alice takes a wild trip down memory lane. Meanwhile, Ryan faces the leader of the False Face Society -the fearsome Black Mask!


Influences

The Pre-Crisis Batman comics featuring Black Mask.


Goofs

It seems highly unlikely the Police Commissioner of Gotham City would be leaving his day-long meeting alone or without a security detail.


Performances

Peter Outerbridge utterly dominates as Black Mask.


Artistry

The design for the Black Mask costume is truly terrifying.


Bat Trivia

This episode offers the first view of Black Mask in the post-Crisis Arrowverse. Apparently reality has been rewritten so that nobody knows Black Mask's identity in the revised reality, as Black Mask's mask was among the objects in storage in Arkham Asylum during the Elseworlds event.

First appearing in Batman #386 in August 1985, Black Mask was created by writer Doug Moench and artist Tom Mandrake as a more mature take on the older villain False Face. He was also intended to be a dark mirror of Bruce Wayne and Battman, being the scion of a rich Gotham City family with a double life, only as a crime boss instead of a crime fighter. He was also a failed business man, as opposed to the successful Bruce Wayne.

One trait Black Mask originally had in the comics was a hatred of hypocrisy, which fueled his obsession with masks and the "false faces" people presented the world. This was inspired by his appearances-obsessed parents, who mocked their rich "friends" in private while devoting their lives to impressing the people they despised. This is reflected in the Arrowverse version of Black Mask, whose motivation is to bring down the hypocritical "agents of justice" running Gotham City; i.e. the GCPD, Crows' Security and Batwoman.


Technobabble

The material used to confirm Kate's death was a parietal skull bone found off the coast of Bludhaven.

The time stamp on the security footage at City Hall indicates that someone scrubbed several minutes before and after the murder of Commissioner Forbes.

The NTSB report on Kate Kane's plane crash suggests that based on the weather and atmosphere that night that a lightning strike could have knocked our the controls and that a recalled circuit breaker could have sparked an electrical fire in the cockpit. 


Dialogue Triumphs

(Ryan narrates the opening scene, as we see Kate Kane's funeral.)
Ryan:  Dear Kate... It doesn't feel real to say good-bye. Unbeknownst to us, Julia Pennyworth spent months with a recovery team combing the ocean floor for any sign of you. She found something caught, a parietal skull bone in the shores outside of Blüdhaven, had different labs match it to your DNA. It was enough to confirm you were gone, and since I can't exactly be there to say good-bye in person, I'll say it here in the place where I feel like I know you the best, and since I can't lay flowers at your gravesite either, I have another idea. This plant was my connection to my mama. Then it turned out to be more than a plant. It's a Desert Rose from Coryana, probably snuck over to the states by an islander named Ocean, who eventually gave it to my ex for safekeeping, who then gave it to me, having no idea that its serum was actually a miracle cure. Like you, this plant is one of a kind, and like you, it gave me a second chance. Beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing, praise, and comfort. So now when I look at it, I won't just think of my mama. I'll think of Kate Kane, and I'll think of the woman who saved a hell of a lot of people, the woman who created a family for everyone, the woman who could keep us from surrendering to our demons, the woman who inspired people to stay true to themselves even when it felt impossible, to always be there whenever someone needed them, who brought out our humanity, even in the darkest of moments, and the woman who changed me. Like everything good in my life, I thought my time as the Bat was temporary, but it's for real now, and I'm not in your shadow anymore. I'm it. I am Batwoman. Good-bye, Kate Kane. Thank you for changing my life. May your memory be a blessing. 

Angelique: I said some pretty awful things to you a while back.
Ryan: Well, I mean, in your defense, you were in the process of dumping me. 

(Team Batwoman spots Jordan Moore's graffiti. Ryan and Luke start talking as Mary looks at her phone and starts typing.)
Ryan: Someone could have been tagging the building while the shooting was happening.
Luke: Then got the hell out of Dodge, left behind work in progress. 
Ryan: Which means the tagger could have seen the shooter!
Luke: And the shooter could have seen them. So how do we track down a potential witness and protect them solely based off the words "Defund the police?"
Mary: I think I found it.
Luke (flabbergasted) Literally how?
Mary: Social media. Figured the "X" inside the "O" and the monochrome on top of the neon was some sort of signature.
(Mary hands her phone to Luke as Ryan looks over.)
Ryan: Definitely could be the same artist.
Luke: I'll get the user's info. 
(Mary does an exaggerated bow.)

(Alice has a tea party with a hallucinatory teenage Kate.)
Alice: I just spent the last two weeks in the bowels of a ship, trying to escape a godforsaken island. Trust me. If I were to conjure up some fantasy, this would not be it.
Teen Kate: You mean the same island you risked everything to get to in order to see me again? Well, here we are.
Alice: Of course. I ask the universe for my sister, and this is what I get.
Teen Kate: I'm not sure why that's surprising. You never get what you want.
Alice: Cheers to that.
Teen Kate: Nothing about your plan unfolded the way you wanted. After we left you in this cell for years, you set out to make sure your family never left you again, but Dad helped lock you at Arkham, and I'm dead.
Alice: Am I so mentally disturbed that my imagination created you to rub it in?
Teen Kate: You created me because you were always the one who got us into trouble, but I was always the one clever enough to get us out of it.

(Jacob asks Julia to investigate the investigation into Kate's death.)
Julia: I take it I'm reading their report because you don't believe that?
Jacob: Well, in the last few months, I've discovered that one of my daughters is Batwoman while the other ran an illegal underground medical clinic, so I'm not taking anything at face value anymore. 

Ryan: So she's somewhere inside a janky, old sawmill?
Luke: Gotham bad guys wouldn't have it any other way. 

(Batwoman has just witnessed Black Mask sawing one of his men in half.)
Batwoman: What the hell are you doing?
Black Mask: It's an HR matter. What are you, OSHA?!
Batwoman: I'm here for your prisoner. Let her go. She's not like you.
Black Mask: Oh, please. Enlighten me. Who am I?
Batwoman: You're a sadistic drug lord.
Black Mask: Okay. I can see why you might think that, but it's Gotham that's sadistic, not me, and they say the best way to change the system is from within.
Batwoman: You're not changing crap.
Black Mask:And you are?
Batwoman: I'm doing my best every damn day!
Black Mask: Your best isn't good enough, and I know that better than anyone. My daughter was imprisoned by the Crows and killed by Batwoman.
Batwoman: I never killed anyone.
Black Mask: But you've taken on the symbol of the woman who did. So tell me is that change? Or is that just pandering to a sick city that worships extremist Crows and Bats? Maybe you wouldn't bother me so much if I said I was a squirrel.
Batwoman: You've really convinced yourself this creepy mask is a symbol for, what, a concerned citizen?
Black Mask: No. It's a symbol of liberation from people like you. People who think they'll never be held accountable as long as they pretend that what they do is justice.


Continuity

Kate Kane's funeral is attended by Jacob Kane, Mary Hamilton, Luke Fox, Julia Pennyworth and Sophie Moore.

Julia Pennyworth, unbeknownst to everyone, had a ocean dive team searching the coast for signs of Kate. They recovered a skull bone that belonged to Kate.

Ryan plants the Desert Rose plant that saved her life in the Batcave as a memorial to Kate.

The crime boss called Black Mask is revealed to have Kate.

Police Commissioner Forbes, last seen in 106, attends a day-long budget meeting one month after Kate Kane's funeral.

Commissioner Forbes, unlike Jacob Kane, welcomes Batwoman's help in dealing with the Snakebite drug and the False Face Society. 

Commissioner Forbes is confronted by an activist on the way to the meeting. This activist is later revealed to be Jordan Moore, Sophie Moore's younger sister.

Apparently the GCPD killed four unarmed black me in the past year alone.

Ryan makes good sweet potato pancakes; a dish Mary had never had before.

Angelique shows up at Mary and Ryan's apartment, claiming that she's ready to change her life to get back together with Ryan.

Alice is hiding out in the old Cartwright home. 

Alice hallucinates a teenage Kate coming to her to have a tea party.

Commissioner Forbes is gunned down on the steps of City Hall by two members of the False Face Society. This is witnessed by Jordan Moore, who was in the middle of spraying anti-police graffiti on the side of the building.

The morning after Commissioner Forbes' death, local billionaire Roman Sionis, CEO of Janus Cosmetics, makes a public statement offering his support to any solution that can end the gang violence in the city.

It's common knowledge among the city elites that Forbes was cheating on his wife.

Ryan notices Jordan's graffiti on the altered security footage of City Hall at the time Forbes was murdered. This leads to the search for Jordan after they realize the footage was altered.

This also indicates that whoever killed Commissioner Forbes has access to Gotham City's CCTV feed.

Mary is able to identify Jordan Moore based on her graffiti tag - an x inside her letter o's.

Ryan is unsure whether she should get back with Angelique or not.

Jordan goes to Sophie for help, but refuses to testify to the Crows.

The False Face Society attack Sophie and Jordan in the parking garage at Crows Headquarters.

Batwoman arrives just in time to save them.

Jorfan tells Batwoman that Commissioner Forbes was killed by two men in masks - a gas mask and a hockey mask. Their getaway driver was a woman in a babydoll mask who had a bracelet with a big gold key on it.

Ryan recognizes this description as a distinctive bracelet Angelique always wore.

Ryan confronts Angelique over how she didn't really get out of the False Face Society.

Angelique asks how Ryan knows this. Ryan half-lies and says that she knows Batwoman.

Angelique claims that she was able to get out after agreeing to act as the getaway driver on one last job.

Ryan says she can get Batwoman to help Angelique if she agrees to testify against Black Mask. Angelique asks for time to think about it.

Luke and Mary are both skeptical about Angelique doing the right thing, given that she let Ryan go to prison over her crime.

Mary points out that Kate was similarly blind to Alice's inability to change until after Alice murdered Catherine Hamilton.

Julia claims she never thought Safiyah was responsible for Kate's disappearance, as it didn't fit her MO.

Jacob doesn't believe the report which says a lighting strike or recalled circuit breaker could have caused Kate's plane to crash.

Jacob asks Julia to investigate the investigation into Kate's plane crash and confirm that noneof her enemies or his enemies could have been responsible.

Jordan stays at the Hide Out while laying low.

Jordan has issues with authority in general, including Batwoman, seeing the cops, the Crows and the costumes as "suits who shoot first and ask questions later."

Jordan is working with several grassroots groups to get a new community center built in the worst part of Gotham. She also phone banks to keep new jails from being built and is on a council trying to get more money spent on neighborhood-led safety initiatives than police weaponry.

Jordan and Sophie's mother told Jordan about Sophie coming out to her. Unlike their mother, Jordan has no issue with Sophie being a lesbian. Indeed, she encourages her to ask Ryan out.

Sophie says that will never happen - not even an enemies-to-lovers maybe.

Sophie calls Luke and asks if he can tell her why Batwoman seemed to single out the clue that the False Face getaway driver wore a key bracelet. Luke lies and says he'll check with her.

Luke tells Mary that he's trusting Ryan's judgement and that the Bat team only works when they trust each other and have each other's backs, even when they don't agree.

Angelique calls Ryan and says she's ready to make things right. However, when she goes to pick her up as Batwoman, her apartment had already been ransacked and she was gone.

Luke is able to track Angelique's phone to an old sawmill in the West Yard district.

Batwoman is swarmed by the False Face Society and tied up to be sawn in half in the sawmill.

Batwoman watches Black Mask kill one of the masked men she fought who was sent to capture Jordan Moore.

Black Mask reveals that his daughter was imprisoned by the Crows and then died because of the original Batwoman. It is implied that she was innocent.

Sophie shows up to save Batwoman, having been called by Luke who got worried when Batwoman's comms were shut off.

Batwoman rescues Angelique, who turns herself in to Sophie.

Sophie confesses to the murder of Commissioner Forbes.

Sophie gives Ryan Angelique's key bracelet. She says that Angelique asked her to deliver it because Angelique agreed to take the fall because Black Mask had threatened to kill Ryan if she didn't. 

Julia calls a man named Kurt about the loaders at National City's private airport. He claims to have spoken to Julia a month ago and that they talked about her accent and how they both went to camp in Oxfordshire. Julia has no memory of this conversation.

Ryan creates a set of rules for the Bat Team. There are three rules.

3. Support - We have each other's backs.
2. Accountability - We hold each other accountable.
1. Legacy - We build something better, rather than just beating bad people senseless.

In accordance with Rule #1, Ryan suggests they all help Jordan with getting her community center built. Luke and Mary agree.

Alice digs up her dead cat and hallucinates that it is still alive.

Realizing that she's having a psychotic break, Alice decides to just forget Kate existed rather than grieve her.

It is revealed that Black Mask kidnapped Kate Kane from her plane and that her face was messed up during the fiight.

Black Mask employs Enigma, the same hypnotist used by Safiyah, to start reprogramming Kate Kane.


Location

The episode is set in Gotham City, but jumps forward one month in time after Kate Kane's funeral.


Untelevised Adventures

We don't see what  Alice was doing in the past month it took her to get back to Gotham, including two weeks in the bowels of a ship. 

The Fridge Factor

Ryan doesn't come off well in this episode, being easily overpowered by the False Face Society. 

The only reason Sophie is able to help rescue Ryan is because Luke told her where to go.


The Bottom Line

If I had any doubts left that the main reason to watch this show was Alice, this episode eliminated them. Despite this, the show does a fantastic job setting up Black Mask as the main villain for the second half of the season and does bring Ryan's arc with Angelique to a satisfying conclusion. Yet I still wish the story were focused on Julia Pennyworth, because it seems like all the most interesting things are happening to her off-camera. 

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.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 20 - O, Mouse!

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


Plot

Jacob Kane forms an uneasy alliance with Batwoman to catch an Arkham Asylum escapee on a rampage. Meanwhile, things come to a head between Alice, Mouse and Hush, as Alice attempts to put her house in order while plotting how to best bring Batwoman down. 

Influences

Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka & J.H. Williams and the Heart of Hush storyline.

Goofs

It beggars belief that a big guy like Tim "The Titan" Teslow can walk around Gotham City in an orange jumpsuit wielding twin machetes and go unnoticed, particularly since he's making no attempt to stay hidden.

Perhaps the most ludicrous conceit of the episode is that he manages to get into Gotham University's stadium undetected, despite it being surrounded by The Crows, and that he shuts down the power before taking down several men in body armor.

Why don't The Crows shoot at Teslow while he is charging Batwoman on the field? Why do they wait until after Batwoman spends a minute talking him down, apart from it making it clear just how evil The Crows are? Most annoyingly, why don't they try shooting her uncovered face rather than her well-armored chest?

Performances

Rachel Skarsten absolutely nails Alice's monologue as Mouse dies.

Artistry

The opening action sequence on the train is one of the best in the show's history.

Bat Trivia

It is confirmed in this episode that Batman was given a piece of Kryptonite by Superman in case it was ever necessary to end his life. Superman also did this in the comics.

The episode ends with Alice having given Hush the face of Bruce Wayne. The same thing happened in the comics, in the storyline Heart of Hush.

Technobabble

The Crows release an app to the general public that can be used to summon them in the event of an emergency relating to Alice or the other Arkham escapees. 

Kryptonite is described as a mineral with a natural green luminescence and strong covalent bonds.

Kryptonite is nonreactive to acetic, hydrochloric and sulfuric acid. 

Mary says that Tim Teslow's Dorsal Posterior Insular (the part of the brain that regulates pain) shriveled down to next to nothing after years of traumatic head injuries. This explains why he felt nothing when he fought Kate.

A trauma-bond exercise is a psychological event where you destroy something that connects you to your pain as a way of moving on. In this case, Alice suggests destroying her copy of Alice in Wonderland with Mouse so they can move on to a new life.

Luke was finally able to destroy the Kryptonite using a hydraulic press generating 40,000 pounds of compressive force.

Dialogue Triumphs

Mary: You told me that The Crows wanted to make over their image. Why not start by allying yourself with someone the city actually roots for?

Jacob: You did this?
Mary: I knew I'm one of the only people who could get through to you! (sighs) I believe in her Dad!

Jacob: Mary - I said anyone affiliated with her will be brought to justice.
Mary: Then arrest me! Arrest me for believing in someone who saves lives and who stops criminals and who inspires hope without charging a penny for it! I'm your daughter and if I don't believe in what you're doing , how can you expect a city of strangers to?!

(Alice and Mouse are burning their copy of Alice In Wonderland.)

Mouse: What happened to us should never happen to anyone. But there's no one in the world I would rather have gone through it with than you.
Alice: (sniffling) Nor I without you. And I mean this - with all of my heart. (pauses) I still want to join you in the beautiful garden, and smell the seasons in bright flower beds, and make a wish in cool fountains. I want to meet a man with many hats and smile back at the Cheshire Cat. And run... with you forever.... through our Wonderland.

(Mouse reaches up to his nose. Blood has begun to run from it.)

Mouse: Alice? 

(Alice shakes her head, holding back the sobs and trying to avoid Mouse's gaze.)

Mouse: What did you do?!
Alice: (suddenly bitter, intense) You made me choose. 

Mouse: You poisoned me?!  Why did you do that?!
Alice: (softly, stammering) Be-Because I couldn't let you leave me! Not you too!

Mouse: This...this wasn't even real?

(Mouse moans and pitches forward. Alice takes his head into her lap and begins stroking his hair. She begins crying freely.)
Alice: If only pain could turn to ash, with the strike of a match. (intensely, hissing the words) But my pain is a part of me, the way my family is a part of me.And you could never understand why I need to enact my revenge. Because you have never experienced true betrayal. (sadly) At least not until now.

(Alice bursts out crying again.)

Alice: Goodbye, my sweet Mouse. My brother. My everything.  I'll see you again in Wonderland.

Continuity

Kate saves Jacob from a psychotic man on the subway, in her civilian identity. The man beheads another man before making his escape.

Vesper Fairchild identifies the psychotic man as former college football star Tim "The Titan" Teslow.

Tim Teslow was a Tight-End for the Gotham Goliaths before he was committed. He was the best in the team's history, scoring at least one touchdown in every game he played, making 100 catches and rushing 1000 yards each season.

Mouse wants to leave Gotham and start a new life with Alice somewhere else.

Alice is insistent she needs to kill Kate before she can leave Gotham, which means finding the Kryptonite mentioned in Lucius Fox's journal.

Hush insists that Alice keep up her end of the bargain and get him a new face, which she promised in exchange for Lucius Fox's journal and help translating it.

Luke says that the shard of Kryptonite Superman left in Bruce Wayne's possession is the only Kryptonite left on Earth. We know this isn't true, however, as Kate acquired a piece of it from the Bruce Wayne of Earth-99 during 109.

.

Luke sets about trying to figure out how to destroy the Kryptonite.

Kate does not follow sports at all.

Mary knows a shocking amount about football and the career of Tim Teslow, largely because Tim Teslow's brother Apollo was dating her friend Selu Corova.

Apollo Teslow is the Goliaths' Running Back. 

Tim Teslow used to be the kind of man who would walk the neighborhood kids to school to make sure they felt save.

Tim Teslow was committed after he killed a referee on the field after a referee made a call against him. After that, it came out that he was abusing steroids.

Mary warns Kate against getting involved as Batwoman, but Kate insists she knows how to work around her father.  

Mary recalls that Kate, as a teenager, stole a Crow's SUV and was arrested for joy-riding in it.

Mary also recalls that Kate threw a party in Jacob's penthouse without asking and Jacob let the police land a helicopter on the roof to arrest Kate.

Kate wants to come clean to her father about being Batwoman.

Alice approaches Professor Darby, the head of the geology department at Gotham University, regarding Kryptonite, as his name was mentioned in Lucius Fox's journal.

Alice kills Professor Darby after learning that he sent the Kryptonite sample he was given to analyze back to Wayne Enterprises.

Apollo Teslow testified against his brother at his trial.

Apollo blames years of untreated head injuries coupled with steroid abuse for turning his brother into a psychotic maniac. 

Tim Teslow shows up at the stadium where Apollo is training and gets past Batwoman to stab him in the back, paralyzing him permanently. 

Kate suffers a couple of cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder during her fight with Tim Teslow.

Luke determines that the man Tim Teslow killed on the subway was an administrator at Gotham University, who was fired from the college's neuro clinic for falsifying the brains scans of student athletes. This caused the players to keep playing even when it wasn't safe and likely aggravated Tim Teslow's condition. 

Wayne Tower is 45 stories high.

Mouse asks why Alice is making Hush a face whens he promised him they would kill him, before he threatens to leave Gotham without Alice. 

Mouse is still bitter that Alice didn't visit him for the 5 years he was trapped in Arkham Asylum.

Alice finally agrees to leave Gotham City with Mouse, but says they have to throw a party first.

Coach Kurt Donahue of GU's football team took early retirement just before the scandal with the college manipulating the players' brain scan records broke. While nothing could be proven legally, there was no way he could be ignorant of what was being done to keep his players on the field.

Mary lights the Bat-Signal and is taken into custody by The Crows. This leads her to approach Jacob with an offer to work with Batwoman to bring in Tim Teslow. 

Jacob agrees to the truce.

Coach Donahue gives a press conference, asking to meet Tim Teslow on the field at Gotham University's stadium so he can apologize to him in person for putting the game before his health.

Alice poisons Mouse to prevent him from leaving her.

Sophie and Julia are not informed about the partnership between The Crows and Batwoman. This leads them to conclude that Jacob is setting a trap for Batwoman, since Jacob knew they had contact with her before.

The Crows gun down Tim Teslow after Batwoman has talked him down.

Batwoman escapes after The Crows try to shoot her.

Sophie criticizes Jacob for putting her in charge of managing the Crows App, suggesting he did so to keep her out of the way while he went after Batwoman. 

Julia confesses to Sophie that she was involved with a woman named Safiyah who put a price on her head. She shows Sophie pictures of them together, which were left at her hotel room - a sign that the are being watched and that Sophie is now a target as well.

Kate admits that Mary was right about her not being able to come out as Batwoman to Jacob.

Luke successfully destroys the Kryptonite Bruce had.

Kate reveals the existence of the Kryptonite she got during Crisis on Infinite Earths to Luke and Mary.

Kate declares there should be no more secrets between the three of them. 

The Crows recover some of the expended bullets that failed to penetrate the Bat-Suit. This leads Jacob to declare they need to find something stronger than a Desert Eagle.

Alice is revealed to have given Hush the face of Bruce Wayne. He asks him to walk into Wayne Enterprises and get the Kryptonite from Kate.

The Killing Jokes

The Crows and Batwoman look horribly incompetent in this episode, given they have trouble taking down a single psychotic ex-athlete with brain damage. 

The Bottom Line

Had this been a regular episode, it might have been okay. As a season finale, it's a bitter disappointment, due to a villain who has to be made into something far bigger than he should be to justify the conflict with The Crows and Batwoman. As per usual, the best bits of the episode involve Alice and even with her killing Mouse its increasingly difficult not to see her as the least of all evils out of all the characters in this show. Still, the cliffhanger is an awesome one and a great lead into Season 2.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 19 - A Secret Kept From All the Rest

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


Plot

With Lucius Fox's journal recovered, yet utterly unreadable thanks to a unique code, Alice and Tommy Elliot (dubbed Hush by Gotham's media) begin kidnapping code-breakers from all around Gotham City, eventually grabbing Luke Fox and Julia Pennyworth. Yet as Kate goes into a battle to save half of her allies, she finds herself wondering who she can really trust in the faet of a stunning revelation..

Influences

Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb & Jim Lee and Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka & J.H. Williams.

Artistry

The chase scene where Batwoman moves to save Parker Torres from Hush is amazing.

The fight scene with Kate taking on the inmates in Arkham is a good one.

Bat Trivia

This episode gives the Arrowverse version of Tommy Elliot his supervillain codename; Hush. In the episode, this is because of the one word he is heard to say while abducting a professor from a library. In the original comics, Hush's codename was a reference to the nursery rhyme, "Hush, Little Baby" about a baby that is promised various gifts if it will stop crying but is never satisfied.

Batwoman saves Parker Torres near the Williams Viaduct. This is likely a nod to artist J.H. Williams, who co-created the modern version of Kate Kane.

The translated page of Lucius Fox's journal we briefly see when Alice is viewing it through the translator glasses contains a number of references to the 2007-2008 "Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul" storyline. Apart from confirming that Batman had dealings with Ra's Al Ghul and Talia Al Ghul in the Post-Crisis Arrowverse timeline, the blurb also makes mention of the vigilante Azrael and the Order of St. Dumas and Order of the Pure that created him.

The journal also makes reference to the Suit of Sorrows - an armored costume which was created for Azrael and apparently briefly worn by Batman before he fell victim to a curse on the suit that caused whoever wore it who was impure of heart to go berserk.

Technobabble

Hush uses two .45 caliber pistols.

The code Lucius Fox used to write his journal is a poly-alphabetic cipher, using hundreds of characters in multiple languages and alphabets. 

A corresponds with Heth, which is the first letter of the Aramaic alphabet, which is the first alphabet alphabetically out of all the languages Luke recognizes in his father's journal.

B corresponds with the Babylonian alphabet, but it isn't the second letter. 

There's an interval variance each time the code changes alphabets. Luke eventually figures out that it is based on his social security number.

Parker asks if Mary can bypass the data throttle on the Bat Computer.

Mary discovers a pair of Lucius Fox's old glasses in a drawer in the Batcave. These turn out to be a pair of smart glasses that are programmed to auto-translate Lucius Fox's journals when the person wearing the glasses looks at his code.

The Bat-Suit is equipped with a sonic scanner that, in addition to picking up radio signals like the police band, allows Kate to find the distinctive sound of an electrical current running in a large building.

Dialogue Triumphs

(Kate grills Julia on why she secretly went after Reagan without telling her.)
Kate: Why didn't you just use your name? Tell her you're with The Crows?

Julia: I see. Reagan can't be trusted and now no one can be trusted.
Kate: Not no one. Just people who have lied to me in the past and last time I checked that included you. 

(Luke says he doesn't think Julia is hiding anything from them, despite Kate's suspicions.)

Kate: Do you believe her over me?
Luke: Am I not allowed to disagree with you now?
Kate: Not when we're both being lied to.

Luke: I trust her, Kate!
Kate: Then I can't trust your judgement.

Luke: Says the girl who went home with the bartender and left the key to destroying Gotham on the nightstand.
Mary: Damn!
Kate: If you don't like how I do things, no one is forcing you to be here. 
Luke: You know what? You are absolutely right. 

(As Alice kills the second code-breaker in as many days.)

Hush: They need more than 90 minutes to figure it out! Alice, you keep killing them!

Alice: Well, they keep disappointing me!

(Kate and Mary have just hit on the idea of trying to track Hush by using Professor Carr's pacemaker.)

Mary: So we trace it back to where it transmitted its last signal. And then we'll know where he died and then we'll find Hush. That's genius!
Kate: Mmm-hmm.
Mary: Right.

Kate:  Let's do it.
Mary: Ok. 

Kate: Yeah.
Mary: Yeah.
Kate: Right.
(There is a long pause as they both look at each other expectantly.)
Mary: Sooo.... trace it!
Kate: Uh... How?
Mary: You don't know?!

Kate: (quietly) Kind of a Luke thing.

(Kate and Parker exit the elevator down to the Batcave.)
Parker: OMG! Full disclosure; I thought Batcave was a metaphor. Are there, like- AAH!
(Parker screams as a swarm of bats fly past her on the walkway. Kate doesn't even blink.)
Kate: Yep. Not a metaphor. 

Continuity

Tommy Elliot, his face still bandaged, kills 3 people with silenced pistols before abducting a professor from Gotham University Library. He is dubbed "Hush" after the one word he was heard to say by any witnesses.

Kate tracks down Reagan and learns of her relationship to Magpie.

Reagan tells Kate that Magpie's real name is Margot.

Reagan tells Kate that she told all this to a blonde woman with a British accent who knew Kate. Kate realizes immediately this is a reference to Julia Pennyworth. 

The professor Hush abducted is identified as Professor Carr.

Carr identifies characters in Lucius Fox's journal that are Aramaic, Babylonian and Mayan.

Mouse asks why Alice doesn't simply kill Kate when she's not in her bat costume. Alice insists there must be a reckoning and Kate must know it was her who arranged her death, which is also why she doesn't just have Hush kill her.

Professor Carr's area of expertise is numerical analysis rather than linguistics. 

Alice electrocutes Professor Carr to death.

Alice wants to abduct Luke Fox. Mouse is against this, as that will surely get Batwoman's attention.

Alice agrees to let Mouse and Hush try and kidnap two more experts before she goes after Luke Fox.

Kate confronts Julia over her going after Reagan in secret.

Tony Kim, a Crow's client, was abducted. He is 45, works undercover for the NSA as a code-breaker. 

Professor Carr's body was dumped in the same vicinity as where Tony Kim was abducted.

Luke has know Julia since they were kids and he considers her trustworthy.

Mary knows who Professor Carr was, saying he taught Cryptography I and II at Gotham University. This, coupled with the news Hush just kidnapped an NSA agent, leads her and Kate to conclude that Hush must have the journal and is trying to get someone to translate it.

Alice kills Tony Kim; again by electrocution using a shock therapy device.

Alice sends Hush to kidnap Parker "Terrier" Torres from 110.

Mary remembers that Professor Carr had heart troubles. This leads Kate to wonder if he has a pacemaker that can be tracked. Unfortunately, neither she nor Mary have any idea how to track a pacemaker on-line.

Parker has a girlfriend named Gina now.

Gina calls Kate's landline for Gotham Pride Real Estate and tells her the last place Parker was on FindMyFriends.com was in Somerset and that someone grabbed her while they were chatting on FaceTime.

Batwoman is able to save Parker from Hush, though he is able to escape.

After failing to catch Parker, Alice insists that now they go after Luke Fox, like she wanted to in the first place.

Luke did some digging on Julia and confirmed that the SRR let her go for freelancing. He confronts her on this fact at Crow's Headquarters.

Crow's HQ is based in Wilson Plaza.

Kate brings Parker to the Batcave.

Julia says there are things about Kate Luke doesn't know and can't know, which relate to who she is freelancing for.

Mouse mimics Kate's voice in a phone call to find out where Luke is so they can kidnap him. 

Alice threatens to kill Julia if Luke can't crack the code on his father's journal. 

Luke says that his father was a Mensa member with a 163 IQ.

Sophie shows up at Kate's office to ask her if she had seen Julia.

Sophie offers to break things off with Julia if that's a problem for Kate. Kate says she can do whatever makes her happy.

Sophie tells Kate that Luke was with Julia before she went radio silent.

Alice plans to kill Hush once he stops being useful and tells Mouse this in private.

Luke is able to crack the sequence his father created for his journal. 

Luke's social security number starts with 535.

Parker is able to use the Bat Computer to track Professor Car's pacemaker. This leads her to discover he died in Arkham Asylum. Kate then makes the leap, based on the burn marks on Carr's body, that Alice is electrocuting her victims.

Mary discovers a power of Lucius Fox's old glasses is a pair of smart-glasses coded to auto-translate his journals. 

Luke translates part of his father's journal, but refuses to tell Alice what it says, saying his father died for this secret and so will he.

The journal Alice has doesn't contain weapon designs: it describes how to break the Bat-Suit.

Kate offers to trade the glasses for Luke and Julia's lives. Alice agrees.

Alice arranges a mass jail-break at Arkham Asylum to cover her escape and distract the Crows, who show up to arrest Batwoman.

Jacob Kane blames Batwoman for the break-out after the fact.

Luke tells Kate that she screwed up trying to trade his life for information that could hurt her.

Kate tells Luke that there is no Batwoman without him.

Parker tells Kate she should fight harder for Sophie.

Julia is confirmed to have nerve damage in her arm and a numbness in her left hand.

Sophie and Julia kiss after Julia is looked over by the medic.

Julia tells Kate that she tracked down The Rifle after he tried to kill her in 107 and she made a deal with his boss to save her life. Julia was going to exchange the journal for Batwoman's life. Julia made the deal before she knew the journal explained how to kill Batwoman and, knowing that, the deal is now off.

Julia says the woman she was working for is Safiyah Sohail - the woman who was first mentioned in 107 as having a grudge against Alice.

Kate claims to have never heard of Safiyah Sohail.

Jacob Kane lights the Bat-Signal to tell Batwoman that if he sees her again it will mean war.

Alice finishes reading the journal and determines that the element needed to destroy the Bat-Suit is Kryptonite.

The Bottom Line

A solid episode which does more to make Hush seem threatening than 90% of his comic book stories, even as an underling of Alice, even as it lays the groundwork for Season 2 and Safiyah Sohail's arrival in Gotham. This episode doesn't really feel like the penultimate episode of the season, however, so it will be interesting to see how everything is tied up in a week.