Batwoman season 1, episode 6 review: I’ll Be Judge, I’ll Be Jury

In this week’s Batwoman a terrifying masked vigilante “The Executioner” is wandering the streets executing evildoers using methods of capital punishment .

Batwoman has been improving each week after an underwhelming season start, and this episode continues that trend as Kate Kane must do battle with a villain named The Executioner.

The episode begins with a cold open that features the titular baddie exacting retribution on a lawyer who is electrocuted to death.

The Devil is in the details

This episode is very much a villain-of-the-week adventure, which was a strong point, as the Bat universe has one of the strongest rogues galleries in comic-book history.

The Executioner is a villain that allows to the show to continue to showcase the criminally insane of Gotham, and that is never a bad thing! While the saga narrative is important, standalone episodes can help us learn more about the heroes as we see them placed in unorthodox situations.

Masks? We don’t need no stinking Masks!

Kate Kane is seemingly the worst at being able to keep her secret identity just that: A secret.

The Executioner takes hostages and lures the Crows and the GCPD to a warehouse. It is, of course, a trap that kills a detective but Kate arrives as Batwoman and narrowly saves Sophie from death. However, right before passes out, the wounded Sophie tells the pointy-eared vigilante “Thanks Kate”. So now not only has Alice figured out Kate’s secret identity but her former lover also has.

More from Arrowverse

• The 9 best (and 8 worst) Arrowverse characters
• 27 best fighters in the Arrowverse, ranked
• All 8 Black Canary actresses ranked from worst to best
• 11 things nobody wants to admit about the Arrowverse
• The 7 best (and 6 worst) Arrowverse villains

One issue with most of the Arrowverse shows that they refuse to allow the heroes to stay masked for long and retain their secret identities from their friends and family. In fact, over the course of the shows’ runs, even many villains end up discovering their secret identity.

This is particularly annoying on Batwoman as secrecy is a staple of Batman and his family. And it’s beginning to feel like the writers are already moving us away from the solo adventures of Batwoman and wanting to create a “Team Batwoman” not unlike “Team Flash” or “Team Arrow“. Those teams. for the most part, work well on their respective shows, but Batwoman is better as a solitary hero.

The good the bad and the grey

“I’ll Be Judge, I’ll Be Jury” at its core had a message about how the law and justice aren’t always the same thing, as Kate and Luke discover that The Executioner is getting revenge because of the corruption that has infested Gotham – something that they both can empathize with as they themselves are fighting that very same corruption. However, they can’t agree with the violent methods of The Executioner. O

This is, no doubt, a complicated and thought-provoking issue and Batwoman did a decent job of addressing it, while also pulling off an entertaining standalone episode.

7/10 Batarangs

What did you think of Batwoman episode 6? Are you looking forward to seeing what comes next? Let us know in the comments below!