Two weeks feels like a long time but Batwoman season 2 is back for the fifteenth episode of its second season.
It’s been a few weeks since zombies attacked Gotham but Batwoman moves on like nothing happened, and that’s good for anyone who’d care to forget they went full Danny Boyle and Romero to kinda remind us Zack Snyder has a new movie featuring the living dead on Netflix.
The street drug Snake Bite got as toxic as the Trioxin in Return of the Living Dead but law enforcement proved more toxic in the long term like Talia’s slow knife in The Dark Knight Rises. Ryan, Luke, and Sophie couldn’t do anything about the terror in the streets on account of sitting in a jail cell.
Bad Cops
This developing thread wouldn’t blossom until episode 14’s end where it would start to bleed into ep. 15 when a trigger was pulled on Luke Fox mistakenly. From there, we learn how corrupt and dangerous The Crows really are which offers intriguing potential for the rest of the season.
Cops have been feckless or on the take in previous incarnations of Batman and it might be interesting to see the Arrowverse explore that in their own way for a prolonged period, eventually, if they undo or add to this week’s big development: The Crows shut down.
Lucas Quest
Getting shot puts Luke in the hospital and square into that staple episode of superhero dramas – the one where a character goes dream-walking on a vision quest while they recover. This turn brings back Warren Christie in a welcome cameo as Bruce Wayne. He’s as underutilized as any cast member.
Christie is a fine Bruce and acts as Luke’s conscience on the threshold of death. They take a page out of Orpheus here with Luke’s father, Lucius, playing stand-in for the tragic hero. However, it’s really about his son; if he talks to his dad, Luke passes on and Bruce tries to prevent that.
The show really has something here although it doesn’t really follow the formula. Ryan still has plenty of Desert Rose and despite obstacles in their way, you know they’ll administer it to Luke, no problem, and he’ll be fine.
The good news is they milk it in such a way that should create a fertile and possibly profound conflict that Luke has to wrestle with when he becomes Batwing, something we know is in the cards.
Major Flaw in Batwoman season 2
Then again, there may not be the resolution viewers hope for in any of the above. Batwoman teases and approaches many solid ideas yet often manages to get only a few weeks out of them or they’re shuffled to the background.
Case in point, rogue Crows can be your main or secondary villain all season long, holding the city hostage while claiming to keep order. If the show is going to rip from the headlines, there are ways to get dead serious about it and build your tension without blowing a wad in a short span.
And meanwhile, Alice – who also scampered through her soap opera with Ocean in the background this week – could spend half the time trying to figure out who Circe is before discovering she is really Kate. Then this revelation could be what brings her love life crashing down around her.
Things wrap up so quickly on Batwoman so that they can move along. So much is going on, the most you can expect is a handy callback to things that were pivotal months ago.
On a related note, Wolf Spider is back in action so he’s still out there jumping off rooftops. No Crows SUV keeps him down for long.
Agree, disagree? How do you feel about Batwoman season 2’s plot progression? Excited for things to come? Share your thoughts in the comments below.