In Review: Batwoman – How Queer Everything Is Today!

Synopsis: While Gotham busies itself reacting to Batwoman’s awkward encounter, with a handsome policeman Alice celebrates her ultimate act of vengeance with Mouse.

Review: Now back on her own Earth. Batwoman has to get back to her regular job of policing Gotham.

The Story

With their father in jail for having allegedly murdered their mother. Kate and Mary are going about trying to prove his innocence in their own ways. Kate as Batwoman is trying to locate Mouse while Mary is trying to find a plastic surgeon that will act as a witness in their father’s defense.  Neither is having much luck. Meanwhile, Alice and Mouse celebrate her ultimate act of revenge by defiling the Grave of Mary’s mother.

Things get really interesting when a hacker holds the entire city to ransom so she can raise funds to get out of Gotham and as far away from her parents as possible. Kate finds herself feeling empathy towards this hacker given that she has dealt with similar issues herself as a gay woman. However, the lovefest does not last for long thanks to an unwelcome visit from Alice, who wants the hacker to out Kate as Batwoman.

The Acting

Nicole Kang puts in an awesome performance as a grief-stricken Mary Hamilton who is determined to get Jacob Kane out of prison and prove him innocent so she can find justice for her mother. The scene early in the episode where Mary pretty much tells Kate where she can go is very strong and represents pretty much how most people would feel in that situation. Mary does not completely trust her halfsister but I am hoping that will change as the show progresses.

Ruby Rose also puts in a solid performance and the scenes between her and Malia Pyles who plays the Hacker Parker Torres are really well written and well performed. Although at certain points the writing fell back on a few of the old soap opera tropes that these CW shows can often be guilty of.

Overall

Not a terrible episode, but by no means the best we have seen of the show thus far. I liked the themes of us all wearing masks whether they be a metaphor or real, but it is a story trope that has been done better in many other shows and films. The scenes between Batwoman and the Hacker were nicely written and performed and I enjoyed the fact that we got a few continuity references to the events that took place in the recent Crisis storyline. Things such as Oliver Queen’s death and Batwoman having a bit of a crisis of identity about her role as the paragon of courage.

Overall. This was sort of a holding episode to re-establish things from where we left off before Crisis. But we do get a fantastic twist ending, which will keep us all guessing for a little while.