Batwoman Season 1 Episode 2 Review: The Rabbit Hole
Diana Keng
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First things first. I think riding a motorcycle while wearing a cape has to be a superpower in and of itself.
There are several moments on Batwoman Season 1 Episode 2 where I was SURE that floor-length cape was going take Gotham's newest defender down while she patrolled the city on the Batcycle.
Maybe the cape has gravity/wheel defying tech in it. Kate wouldn't know, after all. She didn't even realize her armor was bulletproof.
A running joke between Kate and Luke seems to be the fact neither has any idea what most of Bruce Wayne's tech does.
Luke: Did you get the suit wet?
Kate: Okay, so I couldn't find the auto-dry function?
Luke: Yeah, cause it's not a thing.
Kate: Ten point eight MILLION dollar suit. Kind of feels like an oversight. Just saying.
It's not even clear. at the end of the adventure. if Luke figures out the suit's remote defibrillator function (which technically shouldn't work on a person with a pulse).
Maybe it's Luke's persistant yelling at Kate through the helmet's audio receiver that brings her back to consciouness in time to escape the search party.
The relationship between Kate and Luke still feels contrived, but she's going to need some tech backup even if he doesn't claim to have inherited his father's innovative genius.
Kate: You know who you sound like?
Luke: I'm sure you'll tell me.
Kate: Lucius Fox.
Luke: Trust me, I am a far cry from my father.
Kate: Oh, I know. He was actually useful.
The episode focuses on exploring Kate's various relationships, both working and personal.
There's a lot of "showing to tell" exposition when it comes to Kate and Jacob -- mostly via the use of flashbacks -- and it slows down the action considerably.
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On the one hand, Alice makes it clear that her vendetta against Jacob has to do with him giving up the search for Beth years ago.
It's important to show WHY a grieving father would stop looking for his missing daughter.
On the other hand, it has already been stated that even Bruce Wayne's technology couldn't find Beth all those years ago.
It's pretty unreasonable for Alice to expect her mundane-by-comparison father to continue the impossible search.
(Of course, Alice is pretty much defined by being unreasonable. So yeah, okay, maybe that's on brand.)
The fact that he makes himself believe that Beth is dead in order to help Kate move on and live a real life seems to be lost on both daughters.
The fact that he never really fully convinced himself that Beth was dead is obviously lost on him.
Sadly, Kate's relationship with Sophie -- or non-relationship as it were -- is multiple degrees of awkward and increasingly unconvincing each time they interact.
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Kate: Anyone who knows me knows I hate Batman.
Sophie: So does your dad. Which would make putting on this suit an incredibly reckless move.
Kate: Wasn't me. Besides, if I were going to save you in a dramatic fashion, I would totally dress as Wonder Woman.
I like that Sophie's bright enough to suss out that it was Kate in the cowl who rescued her on Batwoman Season 1 Episode 1, but she's a frustrating character at every turn.
Look at all of the evidence. Sophie refused to test Alice's knife for DNA. She lost said knife to the fake henchmen. She ratted out Kate's location to Jacob. Kate's gotta be pretty naive if she thinks Sophie's really on her side.
Sophie: I would never lie to you. I won't ever lie to you.
Kate: Are you happy?
Sophie: Yes.
Kate: Yes or 'ish'?
Sophie's abduction got Kate back to town, but that's about the end of her usefulness at this point.
She and Kate are grown women now, far beyond their love affair at military college, and Sophie's happily(-ish?) married.
It seems unlikely that Kate's been pining for her all these years, so the sooner they introduce a new love interest won't be soon enough for me.
Meanwhile, Kate's relationship with her step-sister, Mary, has an as-yet undefined quality. Kate seems to harbor some genuine affection for the chatty med student, and yet they definitely aren't close or even all that familial.
Mary's near-miss with Dodgson was intense but doesn't really get the right focus being sandwiched between Alice's arrest and the attack on the transport.
It feels like a bit of a throwaway plot-point which might have been on purpose considering Mary's feeling of being very much on Kate's periphery.
Look, I get the whole needing to know with Alice because she's your sister and.. duh, sisters. But her boyfriend tried to kill me last night because apparently she sees me as her replacement. Which, under normal circumstances, could, y'know, maybe be borderline flattering. Except here, it's just ironic considering the most sisterly thing you've ever done for me is pretty much act like I don't exist.
Mary
And that segues naturally into a look at Kate and Alice/Beth, who are not only sisters but TWIN sisters.
Despite the many years spent apart, living very different lives, they still share a secret code. They still understand each other. #WAFFLES
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The fact that Alice harbors no ill will towards Kate indicates she knows that Kate never stopped looking or believing Beth would be found one day.
And Kate readily admits that she has never slept through the night without her twin. With Alice probing, she confesses that she felt they should've always been together.
There's guilt in that admission, a trauma that drives Kate as much as seeing their dead mother must've turned Beth into Alice.
So far, the dynamic between the Kane sisters feels the most genuine and balanced. Again, it has a lot to do with a symmetry that's been built into the production and scripting.
I hope that the next deluge of flashbacks reveals Alice's missing years.
Although she's clearly vibing the Joker/Jervis Tetch persona now, the evolution from Beth Kane to Alice exists only as unmapped speculation.
And the how and why of Catherine Hamilton's involvement keeping Beth dead still needs fleshing out.
It would be pretty horrifying if it turns out she had a hand in the accident that killed Gabi Kane.
As you watch Batwoman online, riddle me this: How is Kate able to just leave her own motorbike parked in the middle of the street in the middle of crime-infested Gotham?
Oh wait, it's the magic motorbike from the premiere that is always where she needs it, isn't it? Vehicles that come when you call must run in the family.
There's a lot of disbelief being suspended at the moment in the interests of letting The Powers That Be tell this story. I'm still trying to figure out how a Bat-Rebreather resuscitated Alice.
Where are you at in terms of buying into this Gotham?
With Batwoman's inclusion in the Crisis of Infinite Worlds crossover, will she meld with the rest of the DC-verse?
Share your thoughts, upvotes, and boo-urns in the comments!
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Diana Keng was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on X.
