I only watched a couple of episodes (and not the finale yet)....just wanted to make some quick thoughts (most of my knowledge of the season comes from @TREK_GOD_1 's reviews). I think RUby ROse leaving REALLY screwed them up...not sure if they really had a season 2 arc, but her departure really screwed it up. I think forcing themselves to have an actress with identifies as LGBT, rather than having Sophie take over (which would have been LOGICAL, as she has the same training as Kate; she knows all the characters; she could have have a convincing schsm with the Crowes to make her switch to being Batwoman), really made them take a detour that messed up their flow. Also, with Kate gone, it's like they are forcing Alice to be a character, almost like Ward in Agents of Shield. And personally, i don't see Rachel as strong as a villain the way Krondon was on Black Lightning. Storywise, Tobias WHale should have died by season 2, but Krondon & the writers did such a masterful job, especially at the beginning of season 4, that his presence still made sense. Luke as Batwing -- just seems contrived. I didn't see the episode, but unless he has an exoskeleton, I have a hard time believing him as superhero (Vibe on Flash had superpowers). Also, wasn't Batwoman kinda supposed to be like Black Lighnting in terms of the social issues they were about? (LGBT and African AMerican issues , respectively). They had the "special episode" last season, where Batwoman "came out" (with an HD photo of her on a magazine cover!), instead of using an opportunity to hide her secret identity better. And this season, they had opporunity to have intersectionality...how well did they do? Did the LGBT community come out to support the show? I know with Black Lightning, at least in Chicago, MANY were unaware of it, and would have supported it if they knew.
You know this show a whole lot more than I do, so I defer to your judgment a lot when it comes to it. Though I think the season finale left Wilder in a better place character wise than where she had been. I only looked at a handful of episodes and to some extent it did look like she was learning the ropes, sometimes. Perhaps that was too rushed, and it needed to be a season-long arc than what they did, but the idea was there, perhaps not well or fully executed, which I think has been an issue with this show, and why it isn't must see viewing for me. Casting Leslie gave them an opportunity to really rebuild the series but they seemed to go half-way, and I get that because there were still fans of season one and it wouldn't have been fair to them to not keep some of the story threads and characters going. Alice has run out of story, but that doesn't mean they can't create new stories for her. Perhaps she will have some tie to Ryan's mother. Keeping her around has to be because of her fan favorite status and a fear that her leaving will really shred viewership. No dispute from me about what you said about Wilder's birth mother, though there's the potential there to make the character mean something to the series and the audience. That's why I was speculating that her mother might be a 'someone' from the comics or Bat family that many in the audience would know and perhaps get excited about, or at least curious to see how the reunion. Definitely feel what you're saying when it comes to how the Luke arc, or supposed arc, was fumbled. That's been an issue when it comes to the Arrowverse and it's a shame that such an important, socially resonant issue is poorly dealt with, but I wasn't expecting much to begin with. The show's conception of Luke Fox was weak from jump (nothing to do with Camrus Johnson as an actor), so much so that I didn't even think he would become Batwing, and definitely a believable one, and the jury is still out there. At least Johnson seems very excited to play Batwing. I hope he feels that way next season and beyond. Dougray Scott was a great addition to the cast and, it's no surprise this show didn't know how to make more of what they had with him.
Sophie as Batwoman is an inspired choice. I hadn't considered that. And she could have the whole thing about carrying on in Kate's name going for her. I don't think Alice is as good a villain as Tobias Whale. Sometimes I feel Skarsten, or I'm guessing more the writers and directors, try too hard to make the character Joker/Harley-lite. Admittedly though, within the context of this show, she has grown on me a little. Interesting that you feel that Whale should've been gone after two seasons. To me, I think how they approached him as being an old enemy of Jefferson's, as well as a super old dude, sped up what perhaps should've been a slower exposure of the insidious hold he has on the city. So making him the mastermind and having flunkies and others who take the fall for him might have been the way to keep him on the show without overexposure.
https://ew.com/tv/batwoman-season-2-finale-spoilers-javicia-leslie/ Camrus Johnson was live tweeting the episode and wrote "Find the case of Batman trophies sounds like Batwing’s first mission to me." That isn't explicity stating they can't use the villains but reading between the lines that was quite possibly the motivation for the plotline. EDIT: found this which says combo of villains and original characters, so not sure: https://www.cbr.com/batwoman-season-3-classic-batman-villains-new-versions/ He also dropped that Batwoman Season 3 starts shooting in a few weeks and airs Oct 13th.
It would not surprise me if some B or C list villain recovers their own weapons. The show has already had some. Black Mask. But the majority of those weapons will be found by newbies. The more interesting angle would be if someone stockpiles all those weapons and starts offering them for sale on the black market. Not just criminals would be interested but also civilians to use for self defense. This is Gotham! I do not think this show is clever enough for that. Instead we will likely get copycat super villains using the originals weapons.
The Mad Hatter is a B- or C-lister I'd like to see. I suppose Poison Ivy is more of an A-lister these days, but the emphasis on her vines in the final shot makes me wonder if they have plans to use her.
The very reason why there should not have been someone else becoming BW, but simply recast Kate and continue her then-running storylines. They could not do that (or feared they could not), since they had burned fans with the chaos leading to Rose's departure, so they simply put Leslie in the suit, instead of having a recast become a permanent replacement of Rose, who built a following during her lone season. The problem with the birth mother plot is that the tail end of season two was hammering the idea that Wilder sought revenge against Alice for her mother's death, and tried to figure out of she found a new "place" as BW. The showrunners beat that sub-plot into the ground, so Wilder is supposed to be settled in her new life and felt satisfied when Alice was committed to the asylum. That--in theory--would have allowed Wilder to start season three fresh and confident in her new life, instead of what we will likely see: a half or full season arc of Wilder acting as if she's does not have an identity, or that the mother she actually knew was not all that helped to build / inspire her. Well, fumbling would be a mistake--an accident in how a plot was developed, but Dries and the rest of that "writing" staff had an agenda to bandwagon on this sociopolitical crisis for "relevance points", and did not give a damn about the emotional or external social struggles as a victimized black man at the hands of American law enforcement. Clearly, Caroline Dries and her cronies have and speak of their hand-to-heart, caring about issues that earn all of their attention, and the black man's relationship to the criminal justice system is not one of them by any stretch of the imagination. Just get that subject's "relevance points". White Liberal racism at work. This--from a series with black male and female leads. Generations (of people) are usually said to be a period of every 30 years. If the story of the modern superhero production is written in terms of a similar block of time, it will begin at the dawn of this century, and obviously cover the next few years. In that time, it will say much that a series from a production house that prides itself on how progressive they (and their content) are had a series with--to reiterate--a black male and female lead, and used the black issue of the age (especially for black men) in such a self-serving, disrespectful manner, while in their own "house" the true creators and showrunners of Black Lightning brought the American black experience to the filmed superhero genre unlike anything before or--and I will bet--yet to come in such a mature, fearless manner. The behind-the-scenes differences are glaring beyond belief, exposing what Berlanti Productions concerns are /how they view the world. His Jacob character was only there to be a negative force, often getting the blame for things he did not do, such as Catherine's falsification of evidence to stop Jacob for looking for Beth (so Alice beat the hate drum against him), or Mary's insolent treatment of Jacob for correctly pointing out the serious problem of running an unlicensed clinic, and what serious legal issues she would face if she's caught, etc. The lis goes on and on, so its a good thing that a character with potential--but misused--has been written out of the show. More importantly, Scott no longer has portray a walking punching bag.
I've just wanted to see the Mad Hatter (or have him mentioned) so they can address him (or the public) seeing Alice as ripping off his gimmick or being an associated act. A throwaway line that the Wonderland gang stole their masks from Tetch's stockpile after he went to Arkham, something.
I was more or less happy with how they tied things up. The biggest misses for me were Luke finding the Batwing suit and the Venomed up Tavaroff. I was hoping that Luke was going to build the suit himself, so I was a little disappointed that he just randomly stumbled across it in the cave. The costume for Tavaroff on Venom looked really bad, doing it as a padded shirt with no effort to make any other part of his body look bigger was just horrible. I really think they would have been better off using CGI like they did for Fureza on The Flash, or just recasting with a bodybuilder type. I was pretty happy with the way they brought back Kate, using the Snake Bite was a nice way to tie that whole storyline together. Having her leave to search for Bruce was a nice way to give her a believable reason to leave town, and also gives her an opportunity to come back if they want to bring her back. They gave us a pretty solid ending for Jacob Kane's story, so I'm to disappointed Dougray Scott's leaving. I was pretty happy with how they tied things up with Black Mask. I do agree with the people who complained about the stuff with Ryan's mother. The whole back and forth with Alice first telling her she died and then doing a 180 and telling her she's alive, did feel kind of random. I think it would have at least worked better if two different characters telling her the different stories. As for the season overall, I enjoyed it. It wasn't anything amazing, and not quite as good as the first, but I still liked it. Honestly, I actually like Javicia Leslie and Ryan better than Ruby Rose and Kate. I always found Ruby as Kate a little stiff, and I thought Leslie as Ryan had more personality.
Oh, more than that! Let's have Alice and Jervis form a proper Wonderland Gang with the Tweedles and the Walrus and the Carpenter. Maybe Alice is struggling with the path to reform, but can't resist the lure of Lewis Carroll-themed crime and is drawn back into the life.
It looked as if Channel 4 might have dropped it mid-season. Turns out it just had a week out (unlike Fargo). But the 8pm tx has been dropped, retains only the midnight tx which was previously the repeat. Suggests they won't buy the next season, following the pattern they followed with Discovery (and earlier Gotham, where season three never got a terrestrial tx; C4 ran 1&2, Five ran 4&5).
Well, she made the role her own, but that near-fatal stunt's responsibility fell on the production. In short, she was not as protected as she was supposed to be, and contrary to the opinion of some, no responsible production would have ever allowed her to attempt that stunt at all. Ruby Rose has said while in Covid lockdown, she had time to think about her life, career, and ultimately, Batwoman was not how she wanted to continue, but one can read between the lines to see that her nearly losing her life on a series that regularly employs stunt-work frightened her to the point where she made a logical judgement call to protect herself. Batwoman was not worth the risk. Rose leaving the series was major, but again, if the showrunners simply owned up to their role in the near-lethal disaster and recast the role without calling attention to it with the pointless plane crash/burn/Roman plot, the series could have continued as intended. That was the only other rational choice outside of continuing the Kate story with a new actress, but Dries, et al.,were never going to take the best option. Moreover, since the introduction of Wilder, they have proven themselves to be incompetent and concerned with things that did not advance the series or title character at all. In terms of development, the most we were offered is others--from the "town crier" going on and on about how wonderful BW is, to supporting characters singing Wilder's praises for doing nothing. Batwoman is a stagnant character, but that could have been avoided with the original Kate plot continuing, or as you said, have Sophie the rained insider take over the BW identity. Agreed. He was already so intrinsically tied to Jefferson, business in Freeland, and the meta program, that he had more than few important reasons to be a central antagonist for the rest of the series. On the other hand, Alice--at the end of it all--is just a mass-murdering, rubber-room candidate, and where else can that go? Some viewers thought reconciling with Jacob & Kate and rekindling her relationship with Ocean was going to be part of the catalyst for her to repent for her life as Alice, but NuKate was shoved out of town, while the two men had to be imprisoned and murdered, respectively. That leaves...what reason for the TV version of Alice to even remain on the show as the Cut-Rate Quinn/Joker? The suit has some sort of protective material, but Luke is not a trained, experienced superhero. He only has a significant edge over Wilder in that he's the natural, knowledgeable inheritor of Wayne's Bat-world through his own relationship to Wayne and his father, but that does not make him ready for the streets. I imagine we will be treated to 3rd season scenes of Wilder trying to train Luke. The series was most assuredly about Kate, then Wilder's orientation playing a part in influencing their world views, but make no mistake: Caroline Dries did not give a damn about the black perspective / experience at all, hence the reason that was never explored in season one, and the unforgivably disrespectful way it was misused in season two. Her end of the White Liberal Universe clearly uses black people when standing on a soapbox, but never intending to incorporate / examine the black male experience (in relation to criminal justice), as its not theirs.
I could see this series being allowed to use Poison Ivy. Look how many crazy directions Gotham was able to do with her. I really hope they bring in Mad Hatter too. Been expecting that since the beginning.
I think the recast idea would’ve been fine. When I first saw that Wallis Day was being recast as Kate, I wished that had happened instead of going with the Wilder character (nothing against Leslie) because it wouldn’t have resulted in bending the story around the mystery of Kate, and they could’ve just built on the story they had already established. I do get that a long-running arc would be whether Wilder was good enough to be Batwoman, or just good enough period, but that didn’t necessarily have to be solved by a recast Kate giving her permission to be Batwoman or endorsing her. They could’ve written it where Wilder, more on her own, comes into her own, so to speak. I get why they did that with Alice and the birth mother, because it keeps Alice in the game, and gives her a reason to stay on the series. It also reminds me of how Fast & Furious have sought to rehabilitate or retcon the Shaw character. They can’t have him be an out-and-out villain, so they had to soften him in Fate of the Furious. I’m okay with the birth mother storyline because I’m assuming that not many questions were raised about her biological parents (has anything been said at all about her biological father?). Even if Wilder’s mother is still out there, that doesn’t erase that Alice murdered the woman she considered her mother or Alice’s many other crimes. It might have been better to just say that Alice didn’t murder Wilder’s adopted mother, to retcon that somehow, because I don’t see how Wilder’s biological mother being alive makes her change her opinion about Alice. Though I imagine there will be another team-up and some kind of sacrifice on Alice’s part that changes Ryan’s mind next season. If they were going to use Dougray Scott as a negative force, goes back to my belief that he should’ve been cast as a big bad. There’s quite a few DC villains he could’ve played well. Heck, they could’ve cast him as Bruce Wayne. As always, you’re very insightful when it comes to the depiction of black characters, especially in the Arrowverse. Your point about Black Lightning as a series is very well taken. I didn’t agree with all the creative decisions made, but still we’ve never seen a superhero series, or even that many traditional dramas, that explore an African American family in such depth and with such care. It’s almost a miracle if we can get one black character/superhero depicted/detailed that way, but several? And also a black villain too? When I was a kid, I couldn’t have imagined we would get a series like Black Lightning. I do hope the Batwoman writers look more to it for inspiration because it struck me while looking at the Batwoman series finale, how diverse that series suddenly is now, with for the moment, only diverse lead characters. In a way it might become the successor, by default, to Black Lightning. It also wouldn't hurt for them to take some notes from Marvel's Luke Cage.
Is the Illuminerdi credible in any way or is is another We Got it Covered? I haven’t paid attention to them so I don’t know their reputation. 3 new series regulars being cast including Renee Montoya: https://www.theilluminerdi.com/2021/07/01/batwoman-jada-jett-renee-montoya/
[SIZE=6]‘Batwoman’: Robin Givens Joins Season 3 Of CW Drama As Series Regular[/SIZE] https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/batwoman-robin-givens-joins-season-182726961.html I would like to think I sort of got my speculations/wishes right. "Jada" I'm guessing is a nod to Jada Pinkett-Smith and her Fish Mooney character and "Jet" I imagine is loosely based on the Grant Morrison Bat villain Jezebel Jet. Glad they did change her name from Jezebel, which was problematic. https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/jezebel/index.htm