Spoilers Batwoman season 3

You might be giving Lucas too much credit there, but thanks for shifting my view. I hadn't thought of that.

 

Note to self: I need to get Rose's pronouns correct. Going by THR and Variety reports, it's they/their/them.

 

^ She's good with both feminine and nonbinary pronouns.
https://www.instagram.com/rubyrose/

 

Fair enough. Moving on.

 

I really liked the second episode. One of the best episodes in a long time. I did like that they introduced Jada Jet the way they did, but I am skeptical of how that plot is going to play out.

 

Mary and Luke like each other.

Or they are such nerds that any degree of intimacy turns them into bumbling fool virgins.

Is Mary a drugged out alky socialite party girl screwing her way through Gotham's Elite, or is she a studious geek acing her way through medical school, while running an illegal clinic for 90 hours a week?

If she is both, then I'm thinking that Mary has secret superpowers, that are either about intellect or time, or she's a robot.

 

She has never had so much as 5 minutes of screen time showing her studying; she's spent most of her time in that clinic and chasing after other, whining for attention, so she would hardly have time to dedicate to her "studies."

 

Valedictorian.

I know, it doesn't make sense.

Unless...

How do the children of billionaires pass all the classes they don't attend?

...

Edit.

In 7th form, one of the smart kids did all the course work from the Physics text book in the first 3 weeks, and then spent the rest of the year fucking around like a burn out. Maybe Mary only has to read things once, and she did all her reading for medical school 3 years ago?

 

Batwoman
Season 3, Episode 3 - "Freeze"

Luke Fox/Batwing: Luke's still having issues with the suit, so the writers will suddenly have him recall an incident he--or rather, the showrunners--swept under the carpet as soon as the Very Special Episode ended.
SEE THE FREEZE ENTRY AND NOTES.

Alice/Mary: Alice--despite serving next to no purpose on the show--did lay out the truth about Mary's "relationship" to the others on the Bat-team (and her begging pursuit of Kate and Jacob). As predicted last week, I know this series will force the other main characters to validate Mary's "role" on a superhero team, or prove how much they care about her during the recuse attempt (SEE NOTES).

Mary tries to "pull rank" on Luke () for going into the field without addressing his alleged issues--in other words, accusing him of suffering from PTSD. Wilder admits she needs Luke and would not be standing there (in the cave) without his help. Somehow, Mary is so thick-skulled that the clear-as-day statement "...would not be standing here" do not sink in.

Luke denies suffering from PTSD, and says he's ready for more missions (SEE NOTES), and is justifiably pissed that Mary openly discussed his personal business with Wilder. He walks off, leaving Mary alone--supporting the very thing Alice observed about her relationship to the others.

Meanwhile, Alice--back at Arkham--is suffering from the effects of the nanobot-trackers, causing the appearance of insects crawling under her skin. Earlier, she tried to explain how the nanobots were affecting her, but her complaints were dismissed by the unobservant "doctor" named Mary....

Wilder/Jada Jet/Marquis Jet: The only notable thing about Wilder in this episode was that she was almost as much of a whiner as Mary, and that takes some doing. Jada threatening Wilder to back off was the most sensible character moment in this episode.

The Marquis sub-plot is convoluted, all to create more confusion with the mama-drama. Viewers are supposed to wonder:
"Will Marquis seek a real partnership with Wilder?"
"Is he a plant to destroy Wayne Enterprises and/or anyone standing in the way?"
"Will Marquis pretend to betray his mother, but end up trying to screw mama and THE illegitimate sister, too?"

Sigh. Soap opera shenanigans.

Sophie chastising BW about her loyalties while BW is close to death is the worst kind of limp-assed "writing" No adult would whine at someone on death's doorstep, and no, I'm not buying Wilder thinking Sophie did that to keep BW awake. Anyone nearing death would not give a damn about the ranting of anyone, but typical of this series , the showrunners have to force a relationship between Wilder and Sophie, the latter being as useless to the Bat-gang as Mary.

Not-Really-Freeze: Fries' elderly sister Nora--alive after emerging from cryogenic sleep (thanks to Fries' tech) is supported by Dee (sister-in-law) are robbed by a pack of annoying, hardly threatening thieves, who want to use the cryogenic chamber, but BW tries--and fails--to stop the criminals, ending up locked in the chamber, and without the freeze canister, activating the chamber will just subject BW to a lethal level of hypothermia (SEE NOTES). Needless to say, the criminals activate the chamber. She calls Luke for help,asking him to suit up, but he has to keep her awake, lest she dies from hypothermia. but he decides to become Batwing in any case...

Nora--having lived the equivalent of two lives--has no desire to live anymore, and after she's rescued, she tells Dee that she just wants to breathe the air until her natural lungs give out.

Batwing arrives, defeats the entire pack of annoying thieves, saves BW's life, and prevents the theft of the Fries canister.

Chasing the criminals in the Lowrentmobile, they are temporarily stopped by the criminals blowing a part of the bridge away--an obstacle overcome when Batwing--hovering over the bridge--uses the freeze formula to create a makeshift bridge, allowing BW catch up to, then to stop the criminals. Dee is released, as the criminals escape with Fries' notebook.

Nora--having lived the equivalent of two lives--has no desire to live anymore, and after she's rescued, she tells Dee that she just wants to breathe the air until her natural lungs give out.

Sophie: Yep, she's still not said a word about the GCPDs corruption issues, and there's no on-screen evidence that it was cleaned up with new leadership. My, how plots just fade into thin when they're no longer tied to an offensive plot to make the series seem relevant.

NOTES: Mary--dimwitted and gullible as ever--bought Alice's psychoanalysis.

In the finale, she's pulled away by Poison Ivy's vine. Oh, if only that was the last anyone sees of her on this show...

BW has a utility belt full of lethal gadgets and she cannot break out of the chamber? Oh well....

Luke saying he's not suffering from PTSD, only to collapse from some psychological break down the road will never clean-up the ignorant, disrespectful Very Special Episode from last season, where this series' White Liberal showrunners and writers shit all over the plight of black men and their relation to the criminal justice system in America. Any revisiting of that issue will be handled with as much "We Know Best" While Liberal arrogance (a trait shared by some of this series' audience) as one sees in most Berlanti/DC series.

GRADE: C.

 

"Freeze" was the best Batwoman episode in quite a while. Its handling of Nora Fries was quite moving and compelling.

Although the casual way in which Mary let a civilian know she's on Team Batwoman was implausible, as much as how last week had Ryan meeting Montoya in civilian clothes to talk about Bat-business while there were other officers in the room. Also, why did Batwoman have to break into the GCPD evidence locker to retrieve the canister for Montoya, who is also with the GCPD?

I hope we haven't seen the last of the head mercenary played by Jennifer Cheon Garcia (who's played multiple previous Arrowverse roles, notably Midnight on Supergirl). She's quite striking, and an effective antagonist.

 

I agree with Christopher, this was one of the best Batwoman episodes. I like that this one, unlike the first two, added layers to the original supervillain Mr Freeze, rather than focusing on a copycat.

The only thing I’m unsure about is Marquis Jet, but his character will probably get better once we get it know him more.

And Rachel Skarsten.. she might be the best actor in the Arrowverse. She doesn’t have the familial connection to Batwoman anymore, but I don’t blame them for finding reasons for Alice to be around.

 

I don't quite see how Nora had time to hobble to Mary and how Batwing had the time to get there but I thought the Batmobile ice bit on the bridge was fun.

This season's plotline drives home Batwoman being the next generation of the Bat family. It's always been there but now it's more tangible. Though there is a bit of a sense of Ryan getting Batman's sloppy seconds with cheap knock-offs of the real deal.

That was definitely conspicuous.

I thought she was one of the better one-off Batwoman foes, had some flair and was actually a threat. Writer Nancy Kiu also gave us the episode with Zsasz who I liked as well.

When I see his name written I keep wanting to think of him as Mar-kee Jet

It was good to move her from being the big bad though it's a big pill to swallow to think the characters could possibly stand to have her around given her murderous path of their closest loved ones. Maybe it will turn out her current problem is being caused by Mary spiking her drinks.

 

Ryan did say the clinic was close by, and they probably have taxicabs and Ubers in Gotham.

Rocket boots.

I found it pretty implausible, but I guess since it shares a universe with Killer Frost, the ice physics are at least consistently nonsensical.

What bugs me more is that all the plots are about lost Rogue artifacts. I could buy those situations arising in between conflicts with other criminals, an arc coming up every few episodes, but building every single episode around it is contrived.

 

That liquid nitrogen is amazing stuff! Probably no less plausible than the rocket boots.

 

If a series has to find a reason to keep a performer around, it means there's no strong direction for the series overall that would have naturally involved the character. Alice is not going to become a heroine (not in any realistic sense), and the public will not forget her life as a mass murderer, so where does she go that makes even an ounce of sense (yeah...) or justifies the character sticking around?

So far, her "help" in locating the weapons is not born of insight that Luke would not have, since he's been presented as not only knowing everything there is to know about the Bat-world, but he's repeatedly zeroed in on various criminal individuals and groups who commit and/or have an interest in certain crimes. In other words, Alice's "help" is not needed based on the past two seasons of seeing Luke do the same thing. So again, Alice is there for what reason? None, other than Skarsten being the best performer on this series, which is not character development.

 

What surprised me here, by the way, was that Jada Jet simply accepted that Ryan was her daughter rather than assuming she was a con artist trying to get an inheritance from her. That was my first thought after the final scene last week, that that was how she'd probably react.

 

While I doubt it will be mentioned in dialog, women tend to remember giving birth. It's the finale of a rather lengthy process. It would be safe to assume that she also knew the child was girl, and that she didn't keep her.

 

^ I'm sure she knows she had a daughter lol

 

Well, yes, obviously she knows she had a daughter, but that doesn't prove Ryan is that daughter. For all she knows, Ryan could have found out that she gave up a daughter for adoption and pretended to be that daughter as an inheritance scam. Surely you've seen plenty of stories in TV and film about con artists pretending to be rich people's long-lost relatives come back from the dead. I know I have.

 

Indeed, from the way Jada confronted Ryan in the first place, it seemed like she had found out that the hacker had found out about her secret baby, and assumed Ryan had been digging for blackmail material on her and learned about it from the hack, when it was the other way around.

The time jump to the following day (beyond giving Marquis an opening to crash the meeting) is a nice place to assume that off-screen, Ryan provided corroborating evidence or that Jada looked into it in the meantime and verified that the baby was named "Ryan Wilder" and that this Ryan Wilder wasn't some kind of imposter or substitute.