Batwoman season 2, episode 2 review: Prior Criminal History

“Twinkle, twinkle little bat. How I wonder where you’re at.” Spoilers for Batwoman season 2, episode 2 follow.

Just days after putting on the Batwoman suit for the first time, Ryan Wilder begins to think that her life is turning around for the better. Sadly, it’s not that simple – something she quickly finds out in the latest episode of the Arrowverse series.

Meanwhile, Alice is on the hunt for the woman who killed Kate Kane, Safiyah.

Wrong place, wrong time

Still recovering from being shot by Tommy Elliot – which will probably take longer than she thinks given her Kryptonite poisoning – Ryan heads to a little gas station to grab some ibuprofen. While there, she manages to stop a robbery, but instead of being praised by the Crows, she ends up arrested. This may seem simple, but it really gets at the heart of the introduction of Ryan into the show is going for. The show is attempting to talk about the racial disparities of use of force and blame.

The first episode of this season also attempted to bring this up, obviously using Ryan’s origin story, but this episode handles it a bit better. The dialogue isn’t as preachy or simply reading statistics (not that these are bad in real life, but it simply doesn’t work as dialogue) like the first episode. Instead, it’s something brought up relatively normally in conversation between Ryan and Sophie, who seemingly have history as well. However, this conversation seems to be more set-up for what will happen in the future regarding Batwoman and Alice’s interactions with the Crows rather than something that needs to be dwelled on in this episode. Hopefully, moving forward, it isn’t just lip service and remains meaningfully portrayed.

Regardless of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, eventually Ryan does end up at the right place. Batwoman is needed to protect protestors at a Batwoman Rally from the Crows and Alice – so, despite Luke’s heavy reluctance to allow her to wear the suit again, she does so anyway.

However, once face-to-face with Alice she is confronted with the moral dilemma that every Bat-family member has to face at some point: To kill or not to kill. It’s a really smart dilemma to thrown into the mix this early given Ryan’s past interactions with Alice, but introducing the “no-kill” rule to the next generation of Bats really worked. Ryan’s not fully indoctrinated in the “no-kill” zone yet though, so we’ll see where it goes.

It should be noted though that, once again, Javicia Leslie kills it in this episode.

Alice on the hunt

As for Alice, she really is on the hunt for Ryan – although she doesn’t know it yet. She just wants to draw the new Batwoman out and, in order to do that, she knows just what to do: She needs to threaten the protestors. Alice went full Joker in the season premiere, so it makes sense that she would pull a Jack Nicholson Joker move here and try to poison the entirety of Gotham all in one fell-swoop.

How Alice plans to poison the entirety of Gotham though is something familiar to any Batman fan. She uses an emitter to draw bats who have been infected with the same poison that killed Mouse, effectively using them to poison everyone near the emitter. It’s straight out of Batman: Year One and Batman Begins and it’s a really great use of the trope once again – one that doesn’t just repeat what has come before, but is still easily recognizable to long-time Bat-fans.

Realistically though, was an episode with a viral contagion needed right now? Absolutely not. It was a poor story decision that should’ve been weeded out right after being pitched. In an episode that read the room very well with the racial disparities presented (and produced a very meaningful character narrative as a result), it’s quite baffling how it managed to ignore the room regarding the pandemic.

Safiyah, Kate’s killer

While trying to pull Ryan out of hiding though, Alice has a completely separate agenda. She’s on the hunt for Safiyah, who she completely believes is Kate’s killer. So now, having lost everyone that she even semi-cares about in her life, Alice is on a warpath on all fronts, which brings her to Julia Pennyworth to try and help get her revenge on Safiyah.

However, by the end of the episode it shows everything about her actions in the episode were to draw out Safiyah, which is exactly what she does in the final moments of the episode. While this feels a little bit forced, it’s nice to at least see the attempt at tying Alice’s actions throughout the episode together.

Despite a questionable story choice, this second episode of Batwoman season 2 manages to do some really solid work with its characters, specifically Ryan and Alice.

What did you think of Batwoman season 2, episode 2? Are you enjoying Batwoman season 2? Let us know in the comments below!