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.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 18 - If You Believe in Me, I'll Believe in You

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




Plot

Kate recruits Luke and Julia for an undercover mission to recover one of the most important items in her cousin's arsenal, but Mary also wants to prove herself to her step-sister. Kate also reunites with an old flame, as Jacob visits Alice in Arkham to ask for a favor, not knowing that Alice has begun taking steps to turn Arkham into her own personal Wonderland. 

Influences

Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka & J.H. Williams.

Performances

As Mary proves her worth to the Bat-Team, so too does Nicole Kang dominate this episode and prove her place as the ensemble's VIP this week.

Artistry

The opening action sequence in which Batwoman rescues seven human trafficking victims is fantastic.

The Magpie Vs. Batwoman fight is pretty awesome too.

Bat Trivia

Mary suggests that Kate consider something in her cowl that electrocute anyone who touches her hair. While she dismisses the idea, it should be noted that both the Batmobile and Utility Belt have had similar defenses in the Batman comics.

Mention is made of a comic book heroine called Kitty Delgado, who is apparently some kind of master cat-burglar. Based on her white hair, low-cut costume and impossible figure, she seems to be a parody of Marvel Comics' Black Cat, who was a fairly shameless rip-off of DC Comics' Catwoman.

Technobabble

Mary suggests they could solve Kate's problems with her wig by running an electrical charge through her cowl so anyone who touches her hair gets electrocuted. Kate dismisses the idea, but Luke seems to consider it.

Dialogue Triumphs

(Kate and Luke enter Kate's office. Mary is there, holding two champagne flutes.)
Mary: Congratulations! On behalf of the medical profession both licensed and unlicensed, I'd like to offer my sincerest whatup on shutting down that chop shop.
(Mary winces and looks to where the bottle of champagne is on ice.)

Mary: (apologetic)  I wasn't sure how you guys celebrated. 

Kate: Usually by icing my knuckles. 
(Kate walks past Mary to the table, removes the bottle and plants her fist into the ice.)

(Mary is trying to talk Kate into letting her come on the mission.)
Kate: You're not going, Mary. 

Mary: What? 

Kate: I'm sorry. It's too dangerous. 

Mary: Dangerous? I have been poisoned, stabbed, and nearly exsanguinated, and the fact that I have lived to use that word as a verb is proof that I can look out for myself.

(Johnny Sabatino just told Tommy Elliot he's keeping Lucius Fox's journal over the phone.)

Tommy: That son of a bitch was like a brother to me! 

Alice: Clearly, you are an only child. Otherwise, you would know that our dear siblings are the ones most predisposed to betray us. 

Tommy: Why aren't you more upset, considering you won't be getting the journal you so desperately want? 

Alice: You should be more careful who you trust. 

Tommy: If you can't trust your money launderer, who can you trust? 

Alice: Hmm. No one. I only trust in the fact that people can't be trusted. 

Tommy: So you knew that Johnny was gonna betray me? 

Alice: No. I just didn't trust him not to.

Jacob: Tommy Elliot just hanged himself, or that's what it was meant to look like. Do you know anything about that? 

Alice: (sighs) What do I know? I know I don't give two hoots about Tommy Elliot! I know I don't have any motivation to help you! And I know it is impossible for one to heal from the trauma of being locked in a cage when one is still locked in a cage! 

Jacob: How many times did you tell me that Beth was never coming back? This is me admitting that you were right. 

Alice: (softer) Do you know what they do to patients in here? They put electrodes on our heads and blast us with so much electricity that we seize. And I don't know the exact science, but... after about 10 jolts, let me tell you, you start convincing everyone around you that it worked. 

Jacob: I'm sorry that it ended up this way. 

Alice: (sobbing)If you mean that, then get me out of here.

Jacob: I can't. I have to protect the daughters that I have left. 

Alice: (coldly) The thing they don't tell you about ECT is that once it's over all that's left is clarity. Ha! I see everything now. How this came to be. How it will end. And I promise you, Daddy, what I have in store for you is so much worse than a cage or electrodes or insanity. I guess you could say it's... worse than being me. But you'll see.

(Magpie is walking across the roof of The Lookout. Suddenly, Batwoman grapples up before her and lands on the roof ledge.)
Batwoman: Seriously? 

Magpie: Early bird gets the worm. 

Batwoman: You're a long way from Arkham. 

Magpie: I told you I wasn't a jailbird.

(Magpie reveals her talons and the fight begins in earnest.) 

Kate: Okay. So which one do you want to hear first -"Thanks for saving my ass" or "Sorry for always shutting you out"? 

Mary: Uh... you pick. 

Kate: I'm sorry for always keeping you at arm's length, but it's not because I don't trust you or think that you can't handle yourself, which obviously you can. It's because I've already lost one sister, and the thought of losing you, too, I... I can't, Mary. But thank you for not listening to me and risking your life to save mine. I guess I just have to get used to the fact that you are... a total badass. 

Mary: Badass enough to be one of your real estate assistants? 

Kate: I believe they prefer to be called associates. 

Continuity

Kate saves seven people from a human trafficker who is selling them to a man for their organs. Unfortunately, the trafficker escapes.

Kate has issues with her wig during the fight. Luke suggests she try braiding her wig in the future, but Kate dismisses the idea.

Julia and Sophie search a warehouse full of property seized from Tommy Elliot looking for Lucius Fox's journal.

Tommy Elliot was a comic book collector and had a nude oil painting of himself. 

According to Luke, Tommy Elliot owned 40 buildings in Gotham City alone.

Kate visits Tommy Elliot in Arkham Asylum to try and provoke him into telling her where the diary of Lucius Fox is.

According to Kate, Wayne R&D is the world leader in defense technology.

Dr. Butler (i.e. Mouse) had Tommy Elliot declared competent to stand trial for Lucius Fox's murder.

Tommy Elliot tells Mouse and Alice that Bruce Wayne is Batman. He also tells them that he wanted Lucius Fox's journal because it held the secret on how to destroy the Batsuit, in case it ever fell into the wrong hands.

Alice offers to make Tommy Elliot look like a new man in exchange for the diary. 

Luke determines that after Kate visited Tommy in Arkham, he made a call to a night-club called The Lookout, considered by some to be the hottest night spot in Gotham City.

The Lookout is run by a man named Johnny Sabatino, who has been rumored to be laundering money for Tommy Elliot for years, as Tommy Elliot owned the building The Lookout was located in.

Kate suggests they sneak into the club as patrons.

Mary helps Kate find a stylish outfit that can conceal her Batwoman costume and again signals her desire to do something more to help her.

Kate finds out that Sophie outed herself to her mother and that Julia and Sophie now have a thing together.

Julia uses the call-sign Tuxedo One.

Kate uses the call-sign Red One.

Reagan, the bartender last seen in 104 whom Kate briefly dated, works at The Lookout.

According to Reagan, Kate has been buying up a lot of property around Bennett Park and lowering the rent. 

Julia is captured after she cuts the power to the club.

Batwoman is knocked out by a booby-trap in Johnny Sabatino's office.

Tommy Elliot is reported as dead when Sophie goes to take him into custody, apparently having hung himself in his cell. In truth he's alive, but Alice removed his face and put it onto another body.

Mary offers to go into The Lookout to try and rescue Julia and Batwoman. She says that she knows Johnny Sabatino's cousin, Aria, having pumped her stomach after she overdosed. 

Johnny Sabatino betrays Tommy Elliot, deciding to auction off Lucius Fox's journal himself along with Batwoman. 

Alice sends Magpie to steal the journal from Johnny Sabatino.

The bidding on Batwoman starts at 2 million.

Mary forces her way into the auction and bids 10 million, claiming she wants the secrets of Batwoman's armor for Hamilton Dynamics.

Sabatino's men contact the SRR after Julia claims to be an agent in their employ. It is revealed that she was actually fired from the SRR six months earlier, after betraying them. 

Jacob Kane visits Alice in Arkham and asks her for information on Tommy Elliot's death. She refuses to help him and says her revenge on him will be worse than he can imagine.

Mary only has 2.5 million in cash, but Johnny Sabatino agrees to sell her the Bat-Suit for that much... once it is pealed off of Batwoman's body.

The trafficker from earlier in the episode wins the auction. 

Mary's briefcase contains a flash-bang. In the confusion, she uses another Bat-gadget to cut the chains holding Batwoman down.

Magpie steals the journal from Johnny Sabatino's office as the auction is going on.

Julia frees herself after an alarm goes off when Batwoman escapes.

Batwoman recovers the journal but Magpie escapes.

Kate and Reagan hook-up again and go to Kate's place.

Mary sees the Batcave for the first time and takes a selfie. Luke immediately erases the photo.

Luke accidentally tells Mary that Bruce Wayne is Batman.

When Kate wakes up, Reagan has gone... and the journal is missing.

Reagan is revealed to be Magpie's sister and to have worked for her as an advance scout, but she swears she is done helping her since this cost her a great girlfriend.

Julia takes a phone call from her real employer, promising them the journal of Lucius Fox. 

Alice removes the tracking chip from Magpie.

Mouse discovers that Lucius Fox's journal was written in code.

The Bottom Line

A solid episode that expands Mary's role on the team and throws in some wicked 11th-hour twists. It's also clear they're starting to set Tommy Elliot up to become Hush (who I can take or leave) but the entire ensemble is firing on all six cylinders this week.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 16 - Through The Looking Glass

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



Plot

Dr. August Cartwright is dead, but the nightmare for the Kane family is far from over. As Kate struggles with having broken her vow to never kill, she wonders if she really is all that different from Alice, agreeing to help her sister break into Arkham Asylum as part of her plan to free Mouse. Meanwhile, as the man convicted of  killing his father is set free pending a retrial, Luke struggles to keep it together when he uncovers evidence of a conspiracy around Lucius Fox's death.


Influences

Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams.


Goofs

How does Mouse find the home of Nurse Tammy in a drugged stupor?


Performances

The interplay between Ruby Rose and Rachel Skarsten in this episode is fantastic.


Artistry

The fights in the halls of Arkham are well-shot and well choreographed.


Bat Trivia

Alice is anxious to leave Gotham because of a "friend from Coryana." This is probably Safiyah Sohail - a former lover of Kate Kane's from her days traveling the Earth in the comics, who ruled the pirate nation of Coryana - who was name dropped in an earlier episode by The Rifle. It is believed that she may wind up being the chief villain of Batwoman Season 2.


Technobabble

Protocol at Arkham Asylum demands that high-risk escapees be confined to the basement, away from the other inmates. Access to these cells requires two keys; one is held by the head of security for Arkham Asylum and the other is held by Dr. Butler. 


Dialogue Triumphs

(Alice and Kate watch as Jacob continues filling in the grave they dug for Cartwright.)
Alice: (wistful) So the monster who ripped this family apart all those years ago has brought us all back together. (sighs) Ah, Irony! You are one sick bitch!

Kate: Let me guess - you need help finding the guy who put Dad in jail and killed Catherine?
Alice: Both done at my request.
Kate: Didn't he also try to kill you?
Alice: And yet I still forgive him, choosing to see the best in him. Ever try that?
Kate: All the time. Never works out.

(Alice promises to leave Gotham forever if Kate helps her find Mouse.)
Kate: Fine. But on one condition. We do it my way.
(Alice sighs as she thinks about this.)
Alice: (quietly) Considering your way involves strangling a man until he choked to death on his own blood... (suddenly manic) I would love absolutely nothing more!

Kate: Have to draw the line somewhere.
Alice: Yeah, but who arbitrarily decides when and where those lines are drawn? You?
Kate: Mouse is in custody. If I were to help you break him out of there, then how am I any better?
Alice: Don't you get it by now? You're not!
Kate: I'm not a criminal.
Alice: (laughs) And they say I'm the delusional one.

(Kate and Alice are lying on the bar floor, looking at the ceiling, catching their breath.)
Kate:"Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster."
Alice: I'm afraid that passage wasn't in the one book I was allowed to read.
Kate: Someone once said that to me.
Alice: How did that work out?
Kate: I became a monster.
(There's a long pause. Alice turns her head and looks at Kate.)
Alice: (softly, almost sobbing) I know I've made light of things, but I owe you a thank you. Thank you for killing the man who destroyed my life. Destroyed our family. (firmly) Do not feel guilty for what you did.
Kate: I... I don't. The only thing I feel guilty about.... is I don't feel guilty.
Alice: (looking to the ceiling) So now you're scared you're becoming me.
Kate: (turning her head to look at Alice) Isn't that what you wanted?
Alice: (turning her head to look at Kate) Would that really be so awful?
(There is another long pause as the sisters stare at each other. Finally, Kate begins to sit up.)
Kate: I'll do it.  I'll do it.  I'll reunite you with Mouse.
(Alice sits up and regards Kate seriously.)
Kate: But I... I need to be able to trust you.
Alice: (nodding) Ok.
Kate: Say it.
Alice: You can trust me Kate.
Kate: (firmly) No one dies in the process.
Alice: (sighing and rolls her eyes) Kate... have I ever lied to you?
Kate: Literally dozens of times.
(Alice thinks on this.)
Alice: Yeah, okay.  (sighs) I promise. (hesitating with each word) No. One. Will die. (smiling softly) You can trust me.
(Alice gets up, leaving Kate along with her thoughts. She returns seconds alter and drops a White Rabbit mask into Kate's lap.)
Kate: What's this?
Alice: Well, we're breaking a killer out of Arkham. So you can't exactly go in dressed as a flying rodent.

(Alice is trying to undo all the restraints on Mouse's chair.)
Alice: Why are there so many straps? Kate? Help me.
(There is a loud metallic clank from behind her. A look of terror passes over Alice's face as she looks up and confirms that Kate has indeed locked her in the cell with Mouse.)
Alice: What are you doing?! Open the door! (softer) Open the door.
Kate: I can't do that, Alice.
(Alice puts her hand on the glass. Kate mirrors the gesture.)
Alice: (sadly) You... you promised.
Kate: I promised to reunite you with Mouse. You wanted to be with your brother. Now you are.
Mouse: (weakly) Why did you trust her?
(Jacob Kane enters the cell block from behind Kate.)
Jacob: It's over Alice. You can't hurt anyone anymore.
Alice: (incredulous) Me?! You are no better than me! (looking to Kate) And you? You and I are the same person! We are no different!
Jacob: Let's get out of here.
(Jacob turns around and leaves as Alice begins to say the word "no" over and over. Kate stands there and watches for a moment as Alice turns her attention to her.
Alice: No!  Kate, don't leave me!  Don't leave me! No, Kate! No! No! No!
(Kate takes the keys and leaves Alice behind, as Alice screams for her father and sister and pounds on the glass door, like a girl trapped in a mirror, her worst nightmare come true again.)


Continuity

Kate, Jacob and Alice bury Dr. Cartwright under a bridge.

Alice steals Jacob's gun and goes off to look for Mouse on her own.

Kate nearly loses control as Batwoman and nearly chokes a criminal to death and has a panic attack afterward.

Kate lies to Luke about not having any idea where Dr. Cartwright is.

Reggie Harris' reconsideration trial was bumped up. Luke leaves Kate to her own devices to attend the trial.

Reggie Harris was found on the scene of Lucius Fox's murder holding the murder weapon and soaked in his blood. Luke is certain there's no way he'll earn a retrial.

Alice returns to her base to find that her henchmen are all dead. The only clue to who is responsible is a note, written in blood, which reads "DO YOU THINK I WOULD FORGET? YOUR FRIEND FROM CORYANA" This is likely a reference to Safiyah, who was first mentioned in 108.

Jacob asks Sophie to investigate the rest of the Crows and see if someone was taking bribes in relation to Lucius Fox's murder.

Alia Nazari was the Slip N' Dash owner paid $50,000 for damages. Jacob thinks Nazari might have been paid to lose the security footage of Fox's death.

Kate seems to be having PTSD flashbacks of her killing Dr. Cartwright.

Alice says she plans to leave Gotham forever once she finds Mouse.

Alice says she wronged someone in the past who killed The Wonderland Gang and she wants to get out of Gotham.

Kate agrees to help Alice find Mouse but only if they conduct the search on her terms.

Jacob tells Kate that Mouse attacked a nurse outside Arkham Asylum the night before.

According to Alice, Dr. Butler, the current head of Arkham Asylum, used Mouse as a test subject to gauge the effects of Scarecrow's fear toxin as part of an experiment to see if it might be used to control the more unmanageable inmates.He tortured mouse for hours before a nurse brought him out of his fear fugue state.

Alice and Kate go to the home of Tammy, a retired Arkham nurse, claiming to be Crows Agents who suspect Mouse may be coming after her.

Mary attends Reggie Harris' trial and sits with Luke to offer him moral support.

Judge Wellington is the judge presiding over the Reggie Harris trial.

Sophie goes to interview Alia Nazari at her apartment and discovers her dead body. She is almost killed by a sniper, but Julia Pennyworth saves her.

Julia tells Sophie that there is a bounty on her head and that she's also Kate Kane's ex.

Mouse, as Alice predicted, shows up at Nurse Tammy's house.

The Crows capture Mouse after Nurse Tammy calls them, having guessed Alice and Kate were not real Crows agents. They just barely escape before Jacob leads a team into the house.

Alice tells Kate that her worst fear is being locked up in a cell and abandoned by Kate.

When Mouse escaped from Arkham Asylum, he showed Alice every way in and out of the facility.

Alice tells Kate that she could have easily killed Cartwright but she left him for Kate so that she'd hear her story and do it for her, proving they aren't that different.

Reggie Fields is released, pending a new trial, thanks to the revelation that his confession was coerced and the judge on his trial was on the take - revelations that came to light in 106.

Kate agrees to reunite Alice and Mouse.

Alice uses a dummy bomb strapped to a laundry truck to distract the guards at Arkham while she and Kate sneak into the building through a service tunnel.

Sophie takes Julia to Mary's clinic and tends to her bullet wound there.

Mary recognizes Julia as one of Kate's assistants from 107. Julia tells her that she also used to date Kate.

Luke confronts Reggie Fields as he's walking home with his grandmother after doing some grocery shopping.

Reggie recognizes Luke and says Lucius was bragging on him to anyone who would listen the night he died.

Reggie claims to be innocent, saying that someone figured he'd be an ideal patsy as an ex-con with dreadlocks and tatoos.

Reggie is shot by a sniper. Luke tries to perform CPR on him, but can't get him to wake up.

Alice goes after Dr. Butler.

Kate goes after the head security guard at Arkham.

Kate is as good as using a butterfly knife as Alice.

Kate locks Alice in the cell with Mouse, saying she only promised to reunite them - not let them escape.

Alice is placed in isolation with a 24-hour watch.

Jacob took care of moving Dr. Cartwright's body while Kate kept Alice distracted, so there would be no way Alice could use that against them.

Luke goes to Mary, still soaked in Reggie's blood. He says the GCPD think it was a professional hit.

Mary tells Luke that Alia Nazari was killed under similar circumstances. She also thinks Reggie Harris might be innocent.

Luke isn't sure what to believe, but given everything that's happened, he admits it is a possibility that Reggie was innocent.

Julia sets Sophie up in a safe hotel room.

Lucius Fox was Julia Pennyworth's godfather.

The sniper tries to kill Jacob. He is able to wound the sniper, who dies of his wounds before Jacob can ask who hired him.

Julia and Kate wind up making out on the balcony of Kate's office.

Alice declares in her cell that she doesn't want to be a prisoner - she wants to be a queen.


The Bottom Line

A powerful episode but at this point I'm rooting for Alice over Kate and hoping the show takes the daring step of killing off Jacob next, in defiance of the comic book continuity. While I can believe that Kate would trick Alice into Arkham, I cannot believe that she would not act on the information that the head doctor was conducting experiments with fear gas on Mouse or that she wouldn't get Alice into any facility other than Arkham. Kate has lost all the moral high ground she had, but that has nothing to do with her killing Dr. Cartwright. Then again, Kate doing questionable things for her father's approval is part and parcel of the comics, so I can't say this is horribly out of character. That still doesn't mean I find Alice to be the lesser of two evils compared to her sister or father.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 15 - Off With Her Head

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



Plot

Alice leaves Dr. Cartwright trussed up for Kate, along with a note reading "Ask about Mommy Dearest." What follows is a horrifying recounting of how Cartwright's mother, "The Queen of Hearts," came to live with him and Mouse and how Beth Kane truly became Alice, which will forever change Kate, Jacob and Alice.


Influences

Mommie Dearest (Mable Cartwright seems to be modeled on an aging Joan Crawford, as is the abuse she inflicts on a young Beth Kane modeled on what Crawford did to her daughter. )


Performances

Debra Mooney is a wonderfully nightmarish Queen of Hearts.

Nicole Kang has a nice comedic moment as Mary is secretly searching Kate's office for the Bat Cave entrance without Luke knowing.

The scene in which Kate loses control and realizes what she's done may be Ruby Rose's best moment yet as Kate Kane. Those who thinks Rose is a bad actress who can't emote rather than an actress playing a character who hides her emotion would do well to watch this scene and learn.

Again, Rachel Skarsten gives a powerhouse performance during Alice's breakdowns, all without saying a word.


Artistry

Alice's nightmare sequences are tensely directed, with amazing Elfmaneqsue music suggesting a world gone mad. The blue lighting and zombie make-up on Mable Cartwright are nice touches as well.


Bat Trivia

Dr. Cartwright makes reference to "an old colleague" named Dr. Jonathan Crane who created a chemical that made Mouse quite easily to manipulate. Kate identifies this as fear toxin - the preferred weapon of The Scarecrow - the criminal identity of Dr. Jonathan Crane.

The address of the old Cartwright house is said to be 614 Williams Street. This is likely a nod to Batwoman artist J.H. Williams III.


Technobabble

Unless a person is given a shot of adrenaline soon after being exposed to a massive quantity of Scarecrow's fear toxin, they will become incurably insane.

The carotid artery pulses steadily, unlike other arteries contained within the human neck.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Gabi has just given Kate and Beth matching garnet necklaces.)
Gabi Kane: Red is a very symbolic color. It's the color of love, but also the color of passion, courage, war. At one point or another you're going to have to wrestle with all of these emotions and what defines your character is how you balance them. So keep me close to your heart, because I'll be thinking of you when I wear mine. (pulling aside her hair to reveal her matching earrings)

(A thug is following after some woman, cat-calling her and refusing to leave her alone.)
Thug: Come on! I'm friendly!
(Batwoman drops between the thug and the woman.)
Batwoman: I'm not.

(As Kate and Jacob argue about what to do with Cartwright, he starts coughing as he wakes up.)
Jacob: Rise and shine, you son of a bitch!
Cartwright: (confused) I was expecting Alice.
Jacob: Well you got one meaner. (grabbing the back of Cartwright's head) Do you want me to start with your nose or your knee-caps?

(Cartwright has been describing the abuse Alice suffered at his mother's hands to Jacob and Kate.)
Cartwright: I imagine... now,in the throes of Alice's madness, my mother is once again calling for her tea.
Kate: You threw Beth in a cellar and taught her how to carve up faces, but mommy is the bad guy? Nice try.

Kate: Is that why Alice told me to ask about Mommy Dearest? Because your mom was the one who broke her?
Cartwright: She wanted you to hear her story. And get you to kill me. She wanted to break you too.
Kate: You're wrong. She knows I would never kill anyone.
Cartwright: Because... you're so different?
Kate: We are different.
Cartwright: Then be merciful. Give me water. I'll tell you where she is.

(Mary is advising Kate on how to treat a neck wound over the phone.)
Mary: Okay. It's not the carotid artery, but you still need to close the wound. Do you have a needle and thread?
Kate: Uh... I have a staple gun?
Mary: (wincing) Wouldn't be my first choice.

Kate: I'm offering you a free pass out of here.
Cartwright: And the second I tell you where she is, what's to stop you from killing me?
Kate: Me. Because I'm not a killer.
Cartwright: Yet.
Kate: You don't know me. So let me tell you who I am. I am everything you stripped away from my sister. Hope. Honor. Integrity. I'm what she would have been if not for you. And I'm giving you an out. Tell me where she is.

Alice: Where's Kate? Waiting outside with her hand on the door?
Jacob: She's with Cartwright. She was the one who got him to tell us where you were.
Alice: And you came running?  Why?
Jacob: Because I care. And to keep you hanging on to whatever sense of sanity you have left.
Alice: (smiling slightly) Touching. Well, I take it if Cartwright's still alive he hasn't gotten to the part of the story about Mommy Dearest.
Jacob: Oh, he told us everything. His mother sounded like a treat.
Alice: (confused) His mother? (smiling weakly) Is that what you think this is about?

Kate: Did you shoot a woman in a motel parking lot who you believed to be Alice?
Cartwright: She... looked just like her. The face... The eyes.
Kate: Of course you did! (sweeping the glasses off a table)  Of course it was you!
Cartwright: I thought it was her. Even wore a necklace that matched those damned earrings.
Kate: (quietly) What did you just say? What necklace matched what earrings?
Cartwright: The ones my mother so coveted that caused all the problems.

Kate (Voice Over): I thought I'd found the balance, Bruce. But I was wrong. I crossed the line. And now I'm the very thing I've been fighting against.


Continuity

Gabi Kane had a set of garnet earrings which matched the necklaces her daughters were given for their bat mitzvah.

Alice leaves Dr. Cartwright tied up by the Bat-Signal for Kate, along with a note reading "Ask about Mommy Dearest."

Kate takes Dr. Cartwright to her bar and contacts Jacob.

Kate tells Jacob that Alice is still alive. She does not try to explain the alternate universe Beth to him, saying that it doesn't matter if she was a Skin Pirate impostor or whatever Jacob tells himself to understand it.

Alice finds Mouse in the basement of the old Cartwright house - the one that used to belong to "The Queen of Hearts.".

"The Queen of Hearts" was the nickname Alice and Mouse gave to Mouse's grandmother, Mable Cartwright, who came to live with them after she proved unable to care for herself anymore and required an oxygen tank to live.

By this point in time, Dr. Cartwright was addressing Beth as Alice and Beth was repressing all memory of her old life, saying she couldn't remember where she'd gotten her bat mitzvah necklace from when questioned about it by Mable Cartwright.

Kate reveals to Jacob that Dr. Cartwright was posing as Dr. Campbell.

Jacob says they can't go to the police because their story sounds insane and the only person who can collaborate any of it is Alice, who everyone thinks is dead.

There's bad blood between Jacob and the GCPD Police Commissioner ever since Jacob was freed from jail based on Dr. Campbell's testimony.

Cartwright confesses he spent the last six years posing as Dr. Campbell.

Kate asks Cartwright about the phrase "Mommy Dearest" and Cartwright begins to tell Jacob and Kate about what happened when his mother came to live with him, Alice and Mouse.

Mouse has become unbalanced from the fear gas exposure and hates Alice now, having bought into his father's lies about her being dead and trying to destroy their family. He claims that Alice was ultimately the thing he was most afraid of.

Mouse leaves Alice tied up and exposes her to the fear gas as he makes his escape.

Alice begins to hallucinate Mable Cartwright when first exposed to the fear gas.

Luke goes to Mary's clinic for the first time, after Mary contacts him, saying she thinks she has a lead on Beth's killer.

Mary's lead is a man named Mad Dog who saw her flyer, who came into the clinic for a flu shot. He claims to have seen a car matching the description of the one Luke saw with the same plate numbers in a junk yard at 30 and Green.

Dr. Cartwright tries to bargain for his freedom in exchange for Alice's location. Both Kate and Jacob refuse the bargain, even as Cartwright points out that Alice could become even more dangerous if she isn't found soon.

Alice's flashback visions reveal that she was a slave to Mable Cartwright for years and was made to call her "Your Majesty."

Mable Cartwright claimed she was beautiful when she was young, but she got married to a man who didn't really love her.

Mable Cartwright was physically abusive to Alice, throwing things at her or striking her if her tea was too sweat and burning her hands if her tea was too hot. She also forced Alice to go out in the cold without a coat to a pantry in the same building as Cartwright's workshop to get certain foods she wanted. She also made Alice keep her hair cut short because she was too pretty with long hair.

There was one refrigerator in Cartwright's workshop he kept locked and told Alice not to go near.

Cartwright tells Kate and Jacob about how his mother abused Alice, downplaying his own role in abusing her.

Kate gives Jacob Cartwright's cell-phone and suggests he use it to track where Cartwright had been. Jacob leaves to do that.

Cartwright asks for a glass of water. He manages to get a hand free and breaks the glass, attempting to cut his own throat with it.

Mary and Luke find the car Mad Dog told them about in the junk yard. Inside the trunk, they find a rifle with a bullet of the same caliber that killed Beth.still in the chamber.

Kate calls Mary using an unlisted number and identifies herself as Batwoman, asking her for advice on how to treat a slit throat.

Alice hallucinates Kate coming to rescue her as Batwoman but being stopped by Jacob. The two fight with Jacob finally convincing Batwoman that Alice isn't worth saving.

Alice's real worst fear is being abandoned by her family and left alone forever.

Kate offers to let Cartwright go if he tells her where Alice is. Cartwright doesn't believe her, saying there is nothing to stop her from killing him once he tells her what she wants to know. Kate says there is - her honor, which is what she believes separates her from Alice now.

Kate calls Jacob and tells him Alice is at 614 Williams Street.

Mary tries to search for the Bat Cave entrance while Luke tracks the license plate number they found.

Luke matches the plate of the car to Mable Cartwright, after checking inactive license plate entries.

Alice breaks a window and is in the verge of slitting her throat when Jacob finds her and gives her an adrenaline shot.

Alice tells Jacob that when she wrote the note about "Mommy Dearest" she didn't mean Mable Cartwright; she was referring to her own mother, Gabi Kane.

Luke and Mary tell Kate that Mable Cartwright's car was used by the man who killed Beth and that the murder weapon was in the trunk of the car.

Kate grills Cartwright on whether or not he killed a woman he thought was Alice. Cartwright confesses to the killing, saying that the woman he shot looked like Alice and even had a necklace which matched the earrings his mother wanted that caused all the problems.

It is revealed that the incident which finally turned Beth Kane into Alice came one day when Mable Cartwright was showing off a fancy set of garnet earrings, which she said were a gift from her son. Alice recognized them as Gabi Kane's earrings that matched her daughters' necklaces and finally remembered where her necklace came from.

Alice opened the forbidden fridge and found Gabi Kane's severed head, being preserved.

Alice tells Jacob the same story Catwright tells Kate; about him keeping Gabi Kane's severed head in a fridge.

Cartwright admitted he was using the head as leverage to keep his mother pacified, promising that someday he would give her a beautiful, young woman's face again. He said he couldn't use actually Gabi Kane's face, however, because she was too well known as a Gotham City socialite, but he did finally give his mother Gabi's earrings.

Mable Cartwright was Alice's first kill.  Alice killed her by turning Mable's oxygen tank into an improvised flamethrower.

Kate loses her temper and strangles Catwright after he says that Gabi Kane was a beautiful woman and it would be a shame for her face to go to waste.

Mary and Luke look up the fate of Mable Cartwright and confirm that she seemingly died in a house fire 7 years earlier - just before her son disappeared and replaced Dr. Campbell.

Kate sends Sophie a text, saying she needs someone to talk to.

The episodes ends with Kate, Alice and Jacob preparing to dispose of Cartwright's body.


The Bottom Line

A deeply disturbing ride from beginning to end that manages to convey more true horror than many horror movies and series. Brilliant on all levels and powerfully acted by the entire ensemble. Perhaps the best episode of the series so far.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 10 - How Queer Everything Is Today!

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



Plot

When Gotham goes gaga over a potential romance between Batwoman and a handsome young cop, Kate wonders if she can be true to herself in both her identities, despite the risk of exposure. Meanwhile, as Alice revels in her victory over Catherine Hamilton-Kane and Mary throws herself into managing Jacob's defense, a master hacker ransoms the secrets of everyone in Gotham City.


Influences

Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams, the movie Batman Begins (mention of a Scarecrow plot involving the trains) and All-Star Batman: My Own Worst Enemy by Scott Snyder and John Romita Jr (villain blackmails a city by threatening to expose their secrets.)


Performances

Ruby Rose does a fantastic job of selling Kate's conflict over being true to herself and the necessity of a secret identity.


Bat Trivia

The hero cop who is shipped with Batwoman is named Slam Bradley. In the classic DC Comics universe, Samuel Emerson "Slam" Bradley was a private eye, who first appeared in Detective Comics #1 in 1937. Slam had his own feature until Batman appeared two years later and slowly took over the Detective Comics title. Slam would make infrequent appearances over the next few decades. A cop named Slam Bradley would later be shown as a member of the Metropolis Police Department through Superman in the 1990s,but this Slam Bradley would later be retconned as the son of the original. The original Slam later became a supporting player in Ed Brubaker's Catwoman and went on to father her daughter, Helena Wayne.

The Arrowverse Slam Bradley is a good-looking cop described as resembling actor Chris Evans. Both Luke and Kate sarcastically refer to him as Captain America, confirming that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still a thing in the Arrowerse.

The idea of a villain trying to crowd-fund a ransom or threatening to reveal everyone's secrets is similar to the plot of an All-Star Batman storyline, My Own Worst Enemy. In that story, Two-Face threatens to reveal the secrets of everyone in Gotham City if someone doesn't save him from being "cured" by Batman.

Mention is made of a safety protocol added to the trains after a Scarecrow incident involving the trains. This could be a nod to the movie Batman Begins.


Technobabble

The elevated trains in Gotham City run on a 650-volt, 3-rail system,.

Ever since Scarecrow hacked all the trains in Gotham City at some point in the past, each train is run off an independent analogue system.

Luke discovers that the hacker is using a packet analyzer - a deice which intercepts and jumbles traffic as it passes over a digital network - to hack the trains remotely.

Luke designs an electric charge disruptor, which kills every electric current within a 100-meter radius for 10 seconds.  He believes they can use it to find the Terrier since shell probably have her phone protected from such things.

Like uses an offline reverse audio modulation of the talking Terrier emoji to access the hacker's actual voice. He determines she's a teenage girl. Kate is able to further narrow down the suspect poll by recognizing the bell in the background of Terrier's recording as the bell at Gotham Prep.


Dialogue Triumphs

Luke: I got to say I can't really blame people for shipping you and Captain America.
Kate: Have we not had this conversation? I'm very, very gay.
Luke: Have you not seen Batwoman? Major straight vibes. Kate, it's not a total negative.
Kate: That I'm apparently dating Mr. Underwear that leaves nothing to the imagination?
Luke: That Gotham's confused. It's misinformation. The less they know about you, the easier it is to keep you a secret.
Kate: A train lost its brakes, and I saved 450 people from smashing into a concrete wall, and all Gotham cares about is Batwoman's sex life.
Luke: They just want to see her happy.
Kate: Well, too bad because she's not.

Sophie: You ever feel like you're hiding from the world?
Batwoman: I'm literally standing in a shadow.

Kate: Am I a fraud?
Luke: You still hung up on this Slam Bradley love affair?
Kate: Yeah. Whenever I put on this suit, I feel like I'm lying to our entire city.
Luke: Well, that's the job.
Kate: According the Multiverse, my job is to be a Paragon of Courage.
Luke: Right because a Paragon finder said so before the infinite Earths collapsed into a single space-time continuum. I'm sure it was all very exciting.
Kate: I live in shadows, I wear a disguise, and I let people believe that I am dating Captain America. What part of that is courageous?
Luke: Kicking bad guys' asses to protect your city is pretty damn courageous.
Kate: You said it yourself. I'm the most famous face in Gotham, but their image of me is not me.
Luke: They think you're a hero, Kate. You are.

Parker: My mom and dad thought they'd been raising some BTS-loving heteronorm. Now they sleep clutching rosaries and want to disown me. That's why I need the money To get out of Gotham.
Batwoman: That sucks, and it's not fair, but it is not an excuse to put hundreds of lives in jeopardy
Parker: My parents want me to be someone I'm not. Do you know how that feels? I hate myself, okay? And let's raincheck your it gets better PSA. We both know I'm gonna grow up hiding my girlfriends and aspiring to be represented by an ancillary character on my favorite TV show just like you were probably the cool girl in high school, and now you're famous, and everyone's shipping you and the hottest guy in Gotham. We have nothing in common. In fact, you pretending to feel bad for me is kind of making it worse, so could you just leave me alone before I find more reasons to wish I were dead?
(Parker storms out of the bathroom.)

(Batwoman finds Alice and Parker in the middle of the Gotham Prep Woodshop. Alice is holding a circular saw in one hand and holding it close to Parker's face.)
Alice: Mmm! I love living in a world where we trust teenagers with these things!

(Alice tells Parker to send a picture of Kate with her mask off all around Gotham.)
Parker: And if I don't, what are you gonna do, kill me? You need me. If you kill me, you lose.
Alice: As do you because you're dead. I'm sorry. Do they not teach Math in school anymore?

Alice: You're not a hero!
Batwoman: It doesn't take a hero to know what pure evil looks like. You ruined my life.
Alice: I fixed your life, Kate. Our father didn't believe us, and now he's being punished. Catherine tried to keep us apart for 15 years, and now she's dead. What more do I have to do to prove my loyalty to you?
Batwoman: You can tell me that you didn't put a bomb in a gym full of kids.
Alice: Ugh. Here we go again. Judgy, judgy, judge, judge.

Kate: (in journal, closing voice over) We all wear a mask of some kind; a cowl, a husband, wife, denial, anger. We all need our shield to protect us from the world, but for people like us, it's not always about stopping a runaway train or disarming a bomb... Sometimes, the best way to save someone is to be yourself.


Continuity

Luke gives Kate a custom motorcycle to ride as Batwoman.

As this episode opens, it is two days until Kate's birthday. When she mentions this to Luke, he says he had no idea.

Kate stops the runaway train using the two-way grappling hook last seen in 103.

Vesper Fairchild mentions the death of Oliver Queen, which occurred during Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Alice and Mouse hold a tea party on Catherine Hamilton-Kane's grave.

Mary is signing off her social media for a while due to the constant stream of negative comments she is getting regarding her family.

Kate tries to reach out to Mary but is blown off.

The hacker who sabotaged the train is dubbed The Terrier after she hacks a live news feed and puts a cute dog filter over the mayor's face.

Mary is able to get Jacob's trial bumped up a week from February 14th.

Luke tracks the packet analyzer used by the Terrier to a gang of Russian hackers. Batwoman goes after them only to find Sophie Moore is already there questioning them.

Tyler left Sophie, saying he thought she was lying to herself about being over Kate.

Kate and Luke are able to narrow the search for the hacker to Gotham Prep.

Mary seemingly starts to hallucinate seeing Alice everywhere.

Kate discovers the Terrier is a teenage girl named Parker Torres.

Parker was blackmailing the city to get the money to move out on her own, having been disowned by her parents after she was outed by the ex-girlfriend, Kayla Mason, who dumped her after she refused to come out to the whole school.

Alice plans to use Parker to reveal Kate's secret identity to the world.

Kate unmasks herself and reveals who she really is to Parker.

Parker is able to pull off a hack that summons the police to Gotham Prep while also sending a false message to Alice and Kate's phones.

Mary plans to close down her free clinic, but Sophie talks her out of it.

Alice bombs the Gotham Prep dance, but the building is evacuated before anyone is hurt.

Batwoman tackles Slam Bradley out of the way of the explosion and refuses to kiss him despite the cheering kids demanding it happen after he tries to kiss her.

Kate signs Parker up for 150 hours of scrubbing graffiti as punishment for what she did. She makes it clear that if she catches her hacking again, she will turn her in to the police.

Parker promises to keep Kate's secret identity a secret.

Alice is placed in the custody of the Crows as a favor to Sophie Moore from the mayor.

Luke bakes Kate a Batwoman-themed cupcake for her birthday. He also says he supports Kate for why she did what she did and says they'll do with the fallout when it comes.

Batwoman outs herself to the world as a lesbian in an exclusive interview with Kara Danvers (i.e. Supergirl's secret identity) conducted in CatCo Magazine.

The same issue of CatCo Magazine outing Batwoman also has a feature on STAR Labs facilities and mentions that Lena Luthor was recently seen in Gotham City. This further makes it clear that Earth-38 and Earth-1 are merged together.

The episode ends with Kate returning to her office only to find Beth Kane waiting for her. As this occurs while Alice is in custody and she doesn't seem to be wearing a flesh mask, the implication is that this is an alternate-universe version of Kate that somehow survived the collapse of the multiverse.

Beth claims to have just returned from a semester abroad and found her apartment was turned into a boys dorm.

Beth asks if Kate fired the hot guard at the front desk. This may be a reference to the guard Kate let go in 107, after he let Mary into her office without calling ahead.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode with a truly shocking ending that could forever redefine the show. It looks like the fallout from Crisis isn't quite over yet.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 7 - Tell Me The Truth

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




Plot

Faced with the knowledge that Sophie is certain she is Batwoman and is certain to tell her father, Kate must decide how much she trusts her first love. Meanwhile, Alfred's daughter Julia Pennyworth - now a super-spy for a secret agency - returns to Gotham in search of a mysterious assassin with a connection to Alice and the Wonderland gang.


Influences

Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams.


Performances

Ruby Rose gets a powerful moment confronting the bigoted restaurant owner on his own territory.

Christina Wolfe is an immediately charming presence as Julia Pennyworth - one I hope we see more often in the future.


Artistry

The opening sequence with Batwoman stopping The Rifle from killing a man at Alessandro's is wonderfully composed and balanced against the music.


Bat Trivia

Julia Pennyworth first appeared in Detective Comics #501, though at that time she used the name
Julia Remarque. Julia was the product of a brief romance between Alfred Pennyworth and Mademoiselle Marie - a French resistance fighter and one of DC Comics' war comic heroines, who appeared in various titles over the years. Julia was raised by a friend of her mother's, Jaques Remarque, who finally told Julia the truth about her mother and how her final words were the name of Alfred Pennyworth. Julia went after Alfred thinking he was her mother's murderer. Thankfully, Batman was able to learn the truth and father and daughter were happily reunited. Julia would go on to become a permanent guest at Wayne Manor through the end of the pre-Crisis Bronze Age of comics.

Julia Pennyworth was revamped for the New 52 era of comics in the pages of Batman: Eternal. This Julia Pennyworth was of mixed racial heritage, having darker skin than her father and an unspecified mother. A member of the British Army's Special Recognizance Regiment, Julia was a master spy who briefly worked for Team Batman as mission control, using the codename Penny-Two. She would later go on to team up with Batwoman in the pages of her Rebirth solo title and harbored a clear attraction to Kate Kane.

The Arrowverse version of Julia Pennyworth splits the difference between both versions. Like the modern version, Julia is a master spy with an organization she refers to only as "The Agency." She is, however, a Caucasian woman with blonde hair. (The first Julia Pennyworth was a Caucasian brunette.) She also has a prior romantic relationship with Kate Kane, having posed as a martial arts instructor to check up on her, as she traveled the world, at Bruce Wayne's request. The romance ended with an old enemy tried to kill Julia and called her by her real name before Julia could tell Kate the truth about who she was and why she'd sought her out.

There is a dinosaur toy that Kate keeps in the Batcave which Julia Pennyworth recognizes. This may be a nod to the giant dinosaur which is routinely seen in the background of the Batcave in the comics.

The trope of the superhero and their alter ego appearing in the same place is evoked here, with Julia Pennyworth impersonating Batwoman to make Sophie doubt her belief that Kate Kane is Batwoman. While this was done repeatedly throughout the Silver Age of comics, the most famous example of it in the modern day is probably Alfred the Butler donning the Bat-Suit to impersonate Batman at events where he had to appear with Bruce Wayne in the 1966 Batman show starring Adam West.

Mention is made of a Grant Street at one point. This could be a nod to either Alan Grant or Grant Morrison - two prominent Batman writers.

At one point The Rifle makes mention of a woman named Safiyah who will be angry about being double crossed and whose name sparks a rage in Alice. This may be a reference to Safiyah Sohail - a pirate queen turned terrorist from the Batwoman Rebirth comics who was one Kate Kane's lover and who once abducted Beth Kane in an effort to reawaken her Alice persona.


Technobabble

A microspectrometer can track the unique electromagnetic radiation signature of the rail gun that can penetrate the Bat-Suit. The Crows have been loaned such a microspecrometer by ARGUS.


Dialogue Triumphs

Kate: So you lied and pretended that you had a thing for me.
Julia: Love, the only thing I lied about was why I was there.

Sophie: Was that necessary?!
Kate: Standing up for myself? Yeah. That's what it looks like when it comes out naturally.
Sophie: Don't even go there, Kate.
Kate: I have no intention of going there. There is some sad and lonely closet that I want nothing to do with.

(Kate is opening the entrance to the Batcave. Luke and Julia are about to follow after, when suddenly they hear a voice behind them. It is Mary.)
Mary: Oh, my God. You have a safe room?!
Kate: (awkwardly) Um, Mary.
Luke: How did you get past security?!
Mary: Carl at the front desk loves double-whipped frappuccinos.
Kate: Good. He'll be making them soon.

Julia: (To Kate) You know, apart from my father and Lucius of course, Bruce Wayne never trusted a soul. Now I'm not judging his choices. I wasn't in his shoes, but When you don't trust anyone, it means that you can disappear for 4 years without a single person on the planet having any idea where you are. Now, call me sentimental, but I don't think that's a good thing.

Kate: (voice-over) Batman was praised and revered, but Bruce Wayne not so much. No one knew the man beneath the cowl. You didn't let them in, Bruce, for good reason. Because even the people we love are still people at the end of the day...They act out of fear, pride, hope, pain, and sometimes, they let us down. But you know better than I do that no one can be a lone wolf forever.


Dialogue Disasters

Sophie: She did more for this school than anyone who's ever gone here, so you can scrub her name from every plaque and banner and roster, but you will never erase her or the effect she's had on the people here.


Continuity

Batwoman stops an assassination attempt by a gunman called The Rifle.

Sophie confronts Batwoman as she is leaving the crime scene. Again, Batwoman denies being Kate, but she says she will find Sophie later.

Sophie outright tells Batwoman that if she doesn't tell Jacob who she is, that she will.

Julia Pennyworth's Codename is Tuxedo-One.

According to Vesper Fairchild, The Rifle has already killed two people in Gotham City earlier that week.

Jacob Kane has filed for divorce from Catherine Hamilton.

Luke determines that both of the previous victims of The Rifle worked for Catherine Hamilton. One of the people at Alessandro's the night before, Derek Holcomb, also worked for Pyra Electrics - the company that makes all of Hamilton Dynamics' conductors.

Jacob Kane is apparently traveling upstate.

Tyler shows Sophie the video footage the Crows caught of Sophie talking to Batwoman. She lies to him about knowing who Batwoman is.

A coil accelerator at Hamilton Dynamics went missing, despite being under a Level 5 Security Protocol.

Dean Devereaux, whom Mouse impersonated in 106, has been found dead.

Batwoman goes to confront Derek Holcomb. She manages to save him from The Rifle, but is blocked by Julia Pennyworth, who was tracking The Rifle to capture him.

Julia Pennyworth recognizes Batwoman as Kate Kane after she uses a hammer strike that she taught her.

Mouse kills Derek Holcomb

It is revealed that Alice hired The Rifle to kill three scientists at Hamilton Dynamics, whose deaths would insure that no one could replicate the rail gun that can penetrate the Bat-Suit.

Alice has a bargain with The Rifle's employer to hand over the gun in exchange for an unspecified price.

Julia Pennyworth has been tracking The Rifle for 8 months on behalf of her agency.

Julia and Luke know each other.

When Julia and Kate first met, Kate had just left on her journey of self-discovery. Bruce asked Julia to check up on Kate and Julia did so posing as a Krav Maga teacher. The two honestly fell for each other, but Julia's cover was blown by an old enemy before she could tell Kate the truth. Kate has been holding a grudge ever since.

In the past, Kate tried to convince Sophie to refuse to lie about their relationship, saying that there was no way they'd expel the top two cadets a week before graduation.

Sophie broke Sean Azadi's obstacle course record by one second.

Kate broke the record for sharp-shooting. She was reportedly hungover when she did it.

Sophie ultimately betrayed Kate, despite saying she'd stand by her, fearful of her homophobic parents' reaction and her ability to move on afterward.

Kate asks to meet Sophie at Alessandro's.

Alessandro had the bullet from the assassination attempt at his restaurant framed.

Alessandro tries to kick Kate and Sophie out of the restaurant after he sees them holding hands. Kate makes a scene about it, much to Sophie's embarrassment.

Sophie tells Kate that she had planned to stand with her, until she talked with Jacob Kane. He convinced her to save herself, because he knew there was no way he could talk Kate out of standing up and honoring her oath to tell the truth.

Sophie finally tells Tyler about her relationship with Kate Kane and how she broke it off to avoid getting expelled.

Kate and Sophie were secretly involved for three years. This is longer than any relationship Tyler had apart from Sophie.

Sophie doesn't answer Tyler when he asks if she still has a thing for Kate.

Mary now knows about the Bat-cave entrance in Bruce Wayne's office, but she thinks it leads to a safe room.

Kate lies and says Julia is her new assistant. Mary asks why she has two assistants for a real estate company with no real estate.

Catherine Hamilton approaches Jacob Kane about her belief that The Rifle is targeting her employees that are responsible for designing an anti-Batwoman gun.

A microspectrometer can track the unique electromagnetic radiation signature of the rail gun that can penetrate the Bat-Suit. The Crows have been loaned such a microspecrometer by ARGUS.

Sophie tells Jacob Kane that Batwoman is Kate Kane.

The Rifle delivers what Alice wanted in exchange for the rail gun. It is contained in a small box.

When Kate was expelled, Sophie recovered her Sharpshooting record medal before it was thrown out.

Jacob does not tell Catherine Hamilton about Kate being Batwoman, even after she askes why Sophie wanted to meet with her.

Julia poses as Batwoman so that she and Kate Kane can appear in the same place at the same time in front of Sophie.

The Rifle shoots "Batwoman" but she survives the shot, thanks to Alice having sabotaged the gun.

Luke tracks the vehicle holding Julia to 5th and Grant in the Bowery.

The Rifle was hired to retrieve the rail gun for a woman named Safiyah, whose name Alice doesn't want to hear.

Kate and Julia make peace with their past.

Luke gets the police report on Derek Holcomb's murder. He was stabbed with a butterfly knife - Alice's preferred weapon.

Julia has to hit the road and track down the Rifle in Santorini, but she says she'll come back to Gotham to socialize someday.

Kate decides to call her new real estate company Gotham Pride Real Estate. Her first acquisition is an abandoned building across the street from Alessandro's, which she is thinking of turning into a gay bar.

Kate and Sophie agree to keep their distance from one another from now on.

Sophie gives Kate her sharpshooting medal.

Sophie tells Tyler that anything she felt for Kate went away the day she chose her future over Kate.

Kate invites Mary to help her with getting her first acquisition fixed up and promoted.

It is revealed that Jacob Kane is still upstate and that the "Jacob Kane" to whom Sophie revealed Batwoman's secret identity was Mouse in disguise.


The Bottom Line

A fantastic episode all around, even with the heavy emphasis on Sophie, who has somehow become the most annoying, least sympathetic love interest in Arrowverse history and I say that as someone who cheered when Laurel Lance was killed off in Arrow Season 4. Julia Pennyworth is a fantastic introduction to the guest cast and the Alice scenes are slowly building to something big. Save me a seat at the Mad Tea Party. This show is getting better with every passing episode.

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 4 - Who Are You?

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




Plot

Magpie, a costumed criminal with an eye for shiny things arrives in Gotham, but she may have more sinister plans that simple robbery. As Kate attempts to find a balance between her personal life and her new role as Gotham's guardian, Catherine has an uncomfortable encounter with Alice and Mary has a close-encounter with Batwoman, who needs a favor.


Influences

Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams.


Goofs

The small explosions for Magpies booby-trapped pearls are less than convincing.

Reagan is supposed to be an expert at reading people and proves to be a master detective, so why doesn't she put two and two together on Kate being Batwoman after she disappears just before Batwoman shows up?


Performances

The interactions between Ruby Rose and Camurus Johnson as Kate and Luke are much more solid in this episode, leading to some fantastic dialogues and interplay between them.

Nicole Kang is a delight as Mary, and her deciding to play Alice while talking to a doped-up Dodgson is a fantastic bit of comedy, yet it still works well as a dramatic moment that is important to the plot.


Artistry

This episode features the strongest cinematography of any episode yet, with some grand dramatic shots of Gotham City.

The fight between Magpie and Batwoman in the museum is well-choreographed.


Bat Trivia

Magpie first appeared in The Man of Steel #3 in November 1986 and was created by writer/artist John Byrne. A museum curator named Margaret Pye by day and a cat-burglar who specifically targeted jewels named after birds by night, she had no superpowers but was notable for leaving behind booby-trapped replicas of the items she stole.

Magpie is mostly remembered today as the first villain whom Superman and Batman teamed up to fight together. She was apprehended after Superman came to Gotham City, seeking Batman out thinking he was a criminal or a dangerous lunatic. The skills Batman showed in tracking Magpie convinced Superman that Gotham City needed a hero like him, though he still disagreed with some of Batman's methods.

Magpie was Poison Ivy's cellmate in Arkham Asylum, despite having no superpowers.

In the Rebirth era, Magpie has been seen fighting Batman, Catwoman, Batgirl and The Flash.

The Arrowverse version of Magpie is named Margot. No last name is given in the episode, but it is possible it is Pye. She is a photographer who used her work to case out museums before robbing them, but otherwise seems true to the original comics' character, particularly in how she utilizes explosive, 3-D printed jewelry replicas.

Kate makes reference to Killer Croc - aka Waylon Jones; one of the more infamous members of Batman's Rogues Gallery, confirming his existence in the Arrowverse.

Kate notes that Bruce's mother was killed over her pearl necklace and that he spent $1 million to recover it when it turned up at an auction years later. In some versions of Batman's origin story, particularly ever since The Dark Knight Returns, great play was made of how Joe Chill broke Martha Wayne's pearls during the robbery, even though real pearls are stringed in such a fashion as to prevent the whole necklace from falling apart if the string breaks.

According to the show's producers, this is the last episode set before the events of Elseworlds.


Technobabble

The Batarangs are coded to return to the gauntlets of the Bat-Suit. Unfortunately, Luke Fox used the pre-programmed length of Bruce Wayne's arms in building Kate's costume. This cause the returning Batrangs to go past her hand, breaking a priceless vase after her first fight with Magpie.

Kate uses a voice modulator to artificially lower her voice to hide her identity while talking to Mary.

Magpie makes use of 3-D printed explosives, disguised as charms which she hangs from her belt - both caltrops (to slow pursuing guards) and replicas of items she's stolen to act as distractions.

Magpie's explosives are created with a nano-thermite infused ink and are comparable to an M-67 fragmentation grenade in terms of power. The ink's sale is highly regulated and only a few companies sell it.

Depending on the complexity of the deformulation, it can take Luke up to 1.5 hours to analyze the chemical composition of an explosive.

The bomb which targeted Alice's convoy was an IED using high standard components. It was able to target the van carrying Alice in a 7-vehicle convoy with 99.9% accuracy and likely used an advanced sensor initiation to detect its target. The only sensor that strong, according to Sophie, is an unreleased technology unique to Hamilton Dynamics.

Magpie's lair is climate-rigged so that if anyone enters the lair the change in temperature from the additional heat will trigger an explosion. The same sensors also measure kinetic energy, making it impossible for a person to breathe around them without setting off the same trigger.

The Batsuit can temporarily lower the wearer's temperature to avoid setting off heat-based weapons or thermal scanners.


Dialogue Triumphs

Kate: (V/O) A wise woman once said, "Hurt me with the truth. Don't comfort me with a lie." Yes, Bruce - I'm quoting Rihanna because I'm not a liar. I have never hidden who I am. I came out when Brad Morrison told all the kids at school that I was gay. I said, "Yeah, and?" Then punched him. Ever since then, I've been out and proud as long as I can remember. So how the hell am I supposed to wake up every morning and hide who I am?

(Alice confronts Catherine, as she is excavating Beth Kane's grave.)
Catherine: What are you doing here?
Alice: (ponderously) The great existential question. What are we all doing here? You know the thing I love about bad guys? Is that despite ourselves we are all so tragically predictable. Of course, you'd follow the cards I left right back there to cover your tracks.
Catherine: What do you want?
Alice: Hmm. To keep this to myself, and in return, you are gonna give me something, a very powerful toy. I understand that Hamilton Dynamics is developing a very "top-secret" weapon.
Catherine: I own one of the largest defense companies in the country. I'm hardly privy to its day-to-day project management side.
Alice: Oh, but you are. You are the priviest because this particular project was your idea.
Catherine: How do you know that?
Alice: Well, I spent in an hour in your house, Catherine. What did you think I was just poking around your shoe closet? Which should be its own monument by the way. Yeah. You are gonna give it to me by 10 p. m. tomorrow, or Commander Kane will know that you're the one who convinced him his dear, darling daughter was dead.

(Reagan just caught Kate lying about where she was.)
Reagan: So here's why this sucks. I like you. You're funny, you're cool, but that's not really enough. I'm not a needy person, Kate, but if I'm gonna make an effort, miss a spin class or rearrange a work shift, all I ask for is a little honesty.
Kate: Here's why this sucks. I think you're fun and cool and seem to care about all the right things But I'm not in a place right now where I can share all of myself with someone else. I am sorry.
Reagan: I get it. You obviously have a lot going on. I just hope whatever it is makes you happy.

Kate: What do you know about real estate?
Luke: Um, everyone hates popcorn ceilings.
Kate: So more than me. I'm starting a real estate firm.
Luke: Okay.
Kate: So the last thing the city needs is another predatory developer cluttering the skyline.
Luke: I agree.
Kate: That's why I want to buy run-down buildings from outside the Crows districts, keep the rents low, and give them back to the community.
Luke: So Bruce was a billionaire playboy, and you're gonna be who... Joanna Gaines?
Kate: You can be Chip.
Luke: I just told you I don't know anything about real estate.
Kate: Well, you better learn quick because you're gonna be my assistant.
Luke: Associate.
Kate: Hmm. Up for debate.


Continuity

Magpie is said to have robbed three jewelry collections in the past week and nearly killed a guard at her latest heist. Batwoman has not been seen in that time, because Kate is spending her nights with Reagan the bartender, whom she met in 103 at Tommy Elliot's party.

Kate came out after a boy named Brad Morrison said she was gay. She said "Yeah, and?" before punching him.

Kate is temporarily loaning Martha Wayne's pearl necklace to the Gotham Museum of Antiquities for an exhibit of the jewelry of women of power.

Martha Wayne was a supporter of the museum when she was alive.

The curator of the Gotham Museum of Antiquities is named Roxanna. No last name is given for her in this episode. She is attended by a photographer named Margot, who is later revealed to be Magpie.

Luke called Kate because Dodgson, still held captive, is starting to go septic instead of being dehydrated, as Kate insists he is.

The playing cards left on Catherine's make-up table from 103 are revealed to be a reference to the cemetery lot where Beth Kane was meant to be buried - 283.

Alice threatens to tell Jacob that Catherine faked the evidence of Beth Kane's death unless she delivers a new top-secret weapon to her.

Batwoman takes Dodgson to Maty at her clinic and asks her to save his life. Mary agrees, despite having misgivings about treating the man who tried to kill her.

Mary's clinic is revealed to be on Bennett Ave.

The vase which Kate breaks by accident in her fight with Magpie belonged to Marie Antoinette.

Sophie reports to Jacob that the explosive that took out Alice's transport in 102 likely came from Hamilton Dynamics.

Reagan grew up in an apartment building which was later gentrified by The Crows.

Kate asks Reagan to be her date to the antiquities museum gala that evening.

Magpie steals Martha Wayne's necklace from Bruce Wayne's office, in broad daylight.

Sophie gives Kate a list of everyone within a 100 mile radius who bought the explosive ink used to make Magpie's explosives.

Alice captures several of Catherine's henchmen, who come looking for her. She cuts the finger off one of them and turns him loose to send a message to Catherine.

Magpie bought the ink through a PO Box, linked to an address at the Old Gotham Hotel.

According to Luke, Bruce was miserable leading a double life, unable to get close to anyone. He thinks Bruce was happier as Batman toward the end before he disappeared.

Kate poses for a selfie as Batwoman to get the address linked to the PO Box.

According to Luke, Batman never posed for selfies with civilians.

Magpie protects her lair with a climate-controlled rig that sets off an explosion if it detects a change in the temperature of the room or detects someone breathing.

Kate can hold her breath for just over 2 minutes.

Kate sets the sensor off accidentally by sneezing, but manages to escape with a copy of Magpie's hard drive.

Dodgson hallucinates that Mary is Alice. Mary plays along and learns that Alice has big plans for someone called Mouse.

Magpie had complete semantics for something important on her hard drive. It is later revealed to be a 3D-printed replica of Martha Wayne's necklace.

Sophie shows up at the gala opening for the jewelry exhibit, killing the mood of Kate's date with Reagan.

Security guards show up with the pearl necklace, despite Kate calling ahead to tell the museum it had been stolen. This tips her off to Magpie's plan even before Luke tells her what he printed off of Magpie's hard drive.

Kate stops Magpie from escaping by cutting her zipline, in full view of the crowd of gala attendees.

Reagan dumps Kate for not being honest with her..

Catherine tells Jacob about how Alice is trying to blackmail her for a weapon.

Catherine tells Jacob the truth about how she falsified the evidence of Beth's death.

Jacob kicks Catherine out of their apartment.

Mary tells Batwoman about Mouse.

Batwoman chips Dodgson so she can track him to Alice's lair.

Kate decides to start a real estate company to buy run-down buildings from outside the Crows districts, keep the rents low, and give them back to the community.


The Killing Jokes

There's a bit of slapstick with Kate not catching her Batarang on the rebound, destroying a priceless vase and sneezing in the middle of a room primed to explode if anyone breathes. It's made up for by the end, but it all is done to emphasize how green Kate is despite her combat training.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode that introduces a fun villain, pushes forward most of the subplots and establishes some fantastic interplay between Luke and Kate. The series is shaping up into something truly entertaining and doing so far faster than Arrow did relative to how many episodes have passed.