Batwoman Season 2: Everything we learned from the DC FanDome panel

At DC FanDome Part 2, the cast and crew of Batwoman Season 2 came together to share some details about the show’s return.

A new villain for Batwoman Season 2 was announced recently, and at DC FanDome, more details about the upcoming season were shared by the cast and crew.

The new protector of Gotham, Javicia Leslie, will be stepping in to play Ryan Wilder, while most of the first season’s main cast will be returning.

At the panel, executive producers Caroline Dries and Sarah Schechter were joined by cast members Rachel Skarsten (Alice), Meagan Tandy (Sophie Moore), Camrus Johnson (Lucas Fox) Nicole Kang (Mary Hamilton) and Javicia Leslie.

Batwoman Season 2: What Did We Learn About Ryan Wilder?

On Batwoman Season 2, a new hero will rise in Gotham. Ryan Wilder has been a ‘statistic of injustice’ since she was born. She doesn’t follow the rules and is ‘a hot mess’, characteristics that Leslie sees in herself. Wilder has lived her life battling the system and will continue doing so as Batwoman.

As the real world battles with systemic racism and the consequences of it, so will Batwoman Season 2. Leslie hopes to bring that apt representation to the screen—many people are neglected by the system in Gotham, and those are the people that Wilder will be looking to save.

From the panel, it was obvious that the cast and crew enjoy working on the show and each other. More than anything, they appear to be very proud of what this show represents. Batwoman was the first Arrowverse show headlined by an out queer actor, who was playing a lesbian character.

And, with Batwoman Season 2, the show expands its representation with Leslie’s Ryan Wilder— a bisexual black woman playing a black superhero. As Schechter said, the showrunners are excited to create a world that looks more like the one we live in, even if it’s set in Gotham. Dries talked about how Leslie perfectly fits the role.

"‘She brings everything; intellect, emotion, heart athleticism… everything you want in a hero.’"

Leslie had sent in a montage of her kickboxing and pushing tires, and mentioned she is excited for all the action scenes awaiting her in the season. Leslie had also stated in an interview earlier this year that she’d wanted to play a superhero, and now here she is!

Leslie may be donning the Batwoman mantle, but she will not be wearing the same suit.

Dries and Leslie would like to highlight that a black woman is the new Scarlet Knight, so the silhouette of the outfit will change. Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane wore a red wig of long, wavy hair, but Ryan Wilder’s costume is intended to display the texture of a black woman’s hair. So far, Leslie has been sending Dries’ fan art for inspiration so that the suit doesn’t hide what she represents and what ‘makes her awesome’.

Jim Lee has shared a piece of art featuring all of DC’s characters, and it includes his vision for Javicia’s Batwoman.

It’s possible that Ryan Wilder may be featured in the comics someday as well. During the extended version of the Legacy of the Bat panel, DC publisher Jim Lee talked about wanting to introduce the character on the page. Here’s hoping.

Batwoman Season 2: What Will the Season Be About?

There are two main storylines on Batwoman Season 2. One is Ryan Wilder’s story, and the other is the disappearance of Kate Kane and its impact on all the characters. Each character has their own conspiracy theories about what happened to Kate. The characters’ disparate points of view of what happened to her are going to cause a lot of tension, drama and intrigue between them.

All the cast at the panel is excited for Javicia Leslie to join the show. But since their characters are connected to each other through Kate Kane, how will Ryan Wilder fit in?

Kang mentioned that Mary and Ryan have similar sensibilities—helping those left behind—and this will bring them closer. Mary is also desperately looking for family, after having watched her mother die in the first season and now losing her sister Kate. It’s possible for Wilder to step into that role if she can be accepted by the Kane family.

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It’s not like Commander Jacob Kane of the Crows was a fan of the first Batwoman, so he’s unlikely to back a new one especially as he mourns the loss of Kate. Dries hinted that Wilder may be the glue that brings the Kane family together again.

Sophie has ‘a lot on her plate’ as she processes the disappearance of Batwoman. She had formed a close relationship with the vigilante hero but grated against her secretive nature. With the new Batwoman, Tandy feels that Sophie will need to learn to accept that secrecy is part of the job.

Sophie and Batwoman 2.0 will not like each other at first, but the idea is that Wilder will bring Sophie out of her shell a little bit. It’s time for Sophie to colour outside the lines a little bit and bend some rules.

Alice is going to be ‘peeved’, Skarsten said. She had a perfect plan laid out to bring down Batwoman and Kate Kane (with the creation of Hush and turning him into Bruce Wayne), and now Kate’s disappeared. Alice is also going to have to deal with Safiyah, a character from her past.

We may see an evolution in Mary and Alice’s relationship as well. For the majority of the first season, the one thing keeping Alice alive was Kate. With Kate gone, where do Mary and Alice stand?

Luke Fox has trust issues, and Johnson believes he is going to struggle to hand over the Batsuit to Wilder. He didn’t even want Kate to have it, despite her army training, so how will he have the confidence to allow a streetkid like Wilder to handle it?

Seeing the cast warmly welcome Leslie and brimming with pride for their characters and the show cements the importance of Batwoman. The show proved to be entertaining, grounded in its portrayal of relationships and represented communities often forgotten by entertainment media. And from the sounds of it, Batwoman Season 2 is going to push even more boundaries when it returns.

Batwoman Season 2 is set to premiere on The CW in 2021.

What are you most looking forward to seeing on Batwoman Season 2? Let us know in the comments.