Batwoman season 1, episode 17 review: A Narrow Escape

Kate pulls off “A Narrow Escape” from a forced hiatus in Batwoman season 1’s first new episode in weeks.

It’s been a month since our last visit to Gotham and a brand-new adventure from Batwoman season 1, but it feels like it has been an eternity with everything locking down and the fate of several comic book-related productions uncertain.

So take a trip in the Wayback Machine and recollect on what transpired.

The Episode That Was

Kate finally outsmarted her sister and put her away in Arkham but not before taking the life of a bad guy (Alice’s captor and tormentor Cartwright). Come to find out making Kate into a less-than-heroic killer, no nobler than Gotham’s laundry list of wackos, was Alice’s plan all along. Instead of throwing down and putting an end to things the hard way, Kate took the methodical route — an idea sounding good-ish at the time.

Elsewhere, Lucas came face to face with his father Lucius’s accused killer — an innocent man finally granted parole. That guy is gunned down by a sniper and Lucas is brought back to square one for answers. His thread and Kate’s met head-on in Sunday’s episode, “A Narrow Escape.”

Past Trauma

The angle of Kate’s PTSD over her careless killing continues, providing an excuse for her to stay out of costume this time. Putting on the cowl becomes the trigger for a panic attack and tunnel vision. It makes a little sense; she thinks she’s betrayed everything the suit represents. The problem is she took Cartwright out while dressed in civilian clothes so there’s dissociation at play.

Then there is that other issue (harped on constantly here): the position that Batman does not kill as if he never has, is untenable. Read a few comics, watch some movies. It’s a trope broken out when convenient and this week is one of those times.

Kate has to admit what happened with Cartwright to clear or conscience and talk Lucas back from the edge when they find his dad’s real murderer. Circumstances of Lucius’s death were more complicated than first thought; what began as a search for information using intimidation resulted in a gun going off by accident and a Crow cover-up.

An Old Enemy Returns, It Says

An enemy returns — make that “enemies.” A few foes Batwoman fought over the past year show up in Arkham (including Magpie) but the important name is Tommy Elliot. Former blue blood, he is so far off his rocker Tommy looks well on his way to becoming Hush although that’s a path he was on the whole time. Connections he has to the assassination of Lucius Fox come to light and prove he’s been scheming for a while.

The villain of the week tries to live up to the theme of old enemies coming back to haunt. Mad bomber The Detonator is blowing up buildings after a seven-year absence no one cared about until now. He straps bombs to cops and leaves them a tape to play — the Jigsaw motif you’re very familiar with.

But, while The Detonator gives his victims an ultimatum, his motivation is less existential and more shallow. He is tying up loose ends as a hired gun for somebody bigger. If you read this far and have not seen the episode yet, you still probably can guess who; just keep it hush, hush around your friends.

In all, they deserve credit for finally addressing the tired old elephant of a Batman killing. Everything they can get out of how it affects Kate is sapped and that works. It’s unrealistic, though, to keep going back to this well.

They’re starting to get that. We even get a hint of why Bruce stepped away and how it relates to all this and his most diabolical rogue. Hopefully, that develops nicely.

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Come back next week, same Bat time and channel, to find out where else the Batwoman season 1 saga on The CW takes us. Leave a comment about this edition if so inclined.

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