What to Watch Verdict
Turns out it's Alice who wins the night on this week's Batwoman.
Pros
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🦇A strong episode for Mary Hamilton (outside of just letting Ryan go).
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🦇Somehow the Batwoman writers keep adding more layers to Alice, and it's great!
Cons
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🦇The payoff on Ryan's murder plan is pretty bland.
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🦇The flashbacks kind of put you on Safiyah's side when it comes to the protection of Coryana and the Desert Rose.
This post contains spoilers for Batwoman.
Check out our last review here.
Kryptonite poisoning is no joke. Kryptonite poisoning that hits your brain? Turns out that’s an even worse experience. As Ryan’s situation worsens, Mary and Luke find themselves scrambling to save their friend. Their mission’s complicated further by Ryan’s insistence that she’s in control of her facilities. When she gets it in her head that it’s time to take on the woman who killed her mother, there’s no stopping her.
Ryan’s (Javicia Leslie) diminished health ends up being one of the least interesting aspects of the episode. But, what it leads to ends up being a solid enough question of conscience. With her time limited, Ryan wants to be sure that she’s not outlived by Alice. If she’s going down, then the woman who killed her mother is coming with her, and she doesn’t care what rules come with the symbol she wears on her chest. Mary (Nicole Kang) letting her go with barely even a fight is a pretty questionable narrative choice, but that’s drama for later.
While Batwoman rushes her way, Alice (Rachel Skarsten) is enjoying playing with her food. With Tatiana (Leah Gibson) captured, Gotham’s least favorite madwoman finally gets to the bottom of she and Ocean’s (Nathan Owens) little lobotomy situation. Turns out Safiyah (Shivaani Ghai) was in love with her, and wasn’t ready to deal with the fact that Alice was about to skip off with her surrogate brother to go grow the Desert Rose outside of her purview. Thing is, this episode kinda makes you side with Safiyah? Her tale of the origin of the rose makes you feel like maybe she’s doing the right thing and Alice and Ocean running off to grow the rose for profit sorta makes them giant tools who deserved what happened to them? Then again, Safiyah did basically create Alice as we know her today. The woman who was falling in love with Ocean was prepared to start a new life. She was almost willing to give it all up again, but her beau doesn’t remember enough from their past life to invite her along in his escape from Safiyah and her army.
Batwoman doesn’t know all of this when she kicks the door in to take on Alice for one final time. All she knows is that it’s time to avenge her mother. She’s so lost in her revenge and the idea that she’s about to die that she has absolutely no issue with whipping off her cowl and showing her face to the woman who, at present, serves as her arch enemy. On the one hand, there’s a nice balance to Alice constantly knowing the identity of the Batwoman. On the other, Ryan girl wyd? Her identity isn’t used against her immediately — there’s no need. Alice has zero issue besting the dying hero, Batsuit and all.
Ryan does manage to get the upper hand long enough to strangle Alice, but she sees a vision of her mother reminding her who she is. The lead-in to this moment was solid, but the payoff ended up being pretty anticlimactic given the circumstances. Instead, it’s Alice’s story that wins the night. The idea that there’s a part of her who’s remembering a time in her adult life where she wasn’t a murderous maniac adds a new level of intrigue to what was already one of Batwoman’s most engaging characters.
Before it’s all said and done, Ryan plants a tracker in Alice’s boot so she can lead her straight to Coryana and the captive Kate Kane. The preview heavily implies that Ryan is no longer dying come next episode, so we’ll have to wait and see how that little situation is resolved. In the meantime, looks like the Bat Family is going on a road trip!
