Spoilers Batwoman season 3

You've looked at a lot more of this series than I have, but from my limited perspective the storyline with Evil Mary is working right now, as a way for the writers to have her vent her frustrations, which they've been building up in preceding episodes this season.

I do think you hit on some things with Montoya. I like the actress, but her role on the show is strange. She is letting other people do her job, and she is way too obsessed with Poison Ivy. She's really in it just for Ivy, so that doesn't really make her a heroic character. It appears that the Batwoman writers are going for complicated characters this season.

Definitely see what you're saying about Luke, which is unfortunate. You're right about Wilder not having relationships with Dr. Stewart or some of the other characters. Though I would've been fine if there was something that happened off screen to establish connections there with Stewart, STAR Labs, ARGUS, etc. I could imagine Luke more easily having those connections with STAR Labs, and we know he has one with ARGUS through Diggle.

 

Say hello to the new Poison Ivy

 

Looks so much cooler than it's actually going to turn out.

It would all be worth it if they got JB Smoove as Frank the Plant.

 

Mary had Uma Thurman Hair.

A nod to the movie sure, but does it mean that that movie, or something very similar to that movie, happened on this Earth?

 

Good point. Perhaps Luke will think about that next episode, now that he's injured and can't go out in his dumb-looking suit.

It is! It's electric!

Alice has her own agenda (of course). I thought at first it was just "get away", but now I'm not so sure. IvyMary mentioned that Ivy is still alive and buried wherever Bats put her, so maybe Alice wants to find that location. Then she could use it as leverage to get the nanites out and her freedom.

THAT'S a scary thought!

I agree that anything that lets Rachel Skarsten play around is fun. I love watching Alice's reactions and expressions. I could practically see the light bulb go off over her head when she realized sunlight was IvyMary's trigger.

Day-um. And I thought the green trench coat with the black micro-shorts was hot. :fans self:

Similar, I think. Montoya said Pam was experimented on by a fellow student named Paul LeGrand. That's a nod to a 1978 comic story where her name was Lillian Rose (I think it's the only time that name was used) and she was poisoned by a guy named Marc LeGrand.

In looking all this up, I found the following interesting news: https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/batwoman-poison-ivy-bridget-regan-season-3-1235052276. Bridget is a lovely woman and a good actor. Some of you might remember her as the super-creepy first(?) Black Widow, Dottie, on Agent Carter. I first saw her even earlier than that on Legend of the Seeker.

Here's a photo that seems wonderfully prescient.

 

For some reason, I didn't quite warm to Bridget Regan in Legend of the Seeker, but I've quite liked her in her later roles in White Collar and Agent Carter. I don't know what changed, if anything.

 

Batwoman
Season 3, Episode 7 - "Pick Your Poison" - Mid-season finale

Luke Fox/Not-Batwing: Last week, it was Luke's shoulder...while wearing an armored suit, and this week, he's beaten to a pulp by Discount Joker Marquis. Oh, its been a self-esteem, black male pride bonanza for the Luke Fox character.

Alice & Ivy/Mary: In another city, Alice plays with Mary's mind, informing her of the crimes she committed as Ivy. Alice promises to keep Mary safe from her "friends" Ryan and Luke (who might lock her up in Arkham where she belongs), and help her control her powers...as long as she cannot be tracked with the nanobots in her blood, but that will require a full blood transfusion. Mary--gullible as ever--believes Alice's "sister" noise and plans to help Alice remove the nanobots....

Using Alice's blood to send BW on a series of wild goose chases, Mary has to find a donor with O-Negative blood--Alice's exact type, which triggers the Ivy side to mind-control several people into being walking blood banks for Alice.

A few murders later, Mary threatens to kill Alice so she would be free of the woman who has repeatedly hurt her, but Mary is such a co-dependent loon, that she she continues to help Alice just to have companionship & buy Alice's "help" song.

Wilder/Jada Jet/Marquis the Discount Joker: Setting Marquis up wirh the idea of a corporate merger, Wilder heps drug and apprehend Marquis, who is whisked away for help. Jada shows her thanks by promising to help Wilder with her own "family" by using her resources to analyze Mary's blood to find a cure for the Ivy infection...

Jada tearfully begins the freeze process on Marquis, promising to restore him to the boy she used to know, but Discount Joker is not having any of that, breaks loose, and attacks his mother (and the lab staff). He leaves, looking for Wilder, and ends up at Wayne Tower, murdering a security guard and beating Luke into unconsciousness (SEE LUKE's ENTRY).

Wilder soon arrives, finds Luke still laid out--and is confronted by Marquis. Wilder attempts the "sorry sister" routine, but Marquis laughs it off, finally letting her know that he played her with the sibling bond act all along. He also has Jada's antidote for Mary, but will only exchange that for Wilder resigning from Wayne and transferring the CEO position and her stock options to Marquis as part of his hostile takeover (SEE NOTES).

With no choices left to her, Wilder signs the resignation form.

Back on the road as BW, Wilder eventually finds Mary, and tries to appeal to her on a "friendship" level, only for Alice to goad her into doubting Wilder's honesty, and mind-controlling vines to tie Wilder to the street as she (and Alice) make their getaway.

Wilder believes Mary has "given up on us" (SEE NOTES).

Marquis harasses his mother into watching his televised debut as the CEO of Wayne--now with the corporate muscle to oppose her, and do anything else.

While Luke had time to lockdown the Batcave, the Bat-gang's security clearances have been revoked--locking them out of Wayne tower (SEE NOTES). As a result, they are forced to work from Mary's clinic.

Speaking of Mary, in some random motel, Alice watches the Marquis presser, and wondering why Mary is taking so long in the bathroom. Well, it was so Mary could don a wig and green shorts to cosplay as Ivy 2.0. She recognizes Marquis, and believing that he's "fun," plans to head back to Gotham.

Sophie: Thanks to Sophie being engaged in the only consistent thing about her character of late, she was not doing her job watching Alice. Wilder chastises Sophie for that, not telling her Montoya has kill orders on Ivy-Mary, or not being too concerned with the fact she's being blackmailed by Sophie's latest bed-mate.

Black Glove society: Still M.I.A.

NOTES:
Half of the season over, and Dries (along with the "writers" behind this series) cannot justify why Luke (or anyone else) blame themselves for the self-imposed insecurities and general lunacy of Mary. Not a single, rational reason. She suffers from--nothing (especially since she spent all of season two bitching at Jacob for existing and being "too" invested in the issues surrounding his biological daughters...oh gee, what a crime). That, and she has time to hound those who are actually trying to fight crime. I have to remind myself that in Berlanti-land, whining and needy characters are somehow in the right while characters who are dealing with serious issues have to bend over backward to acknowledge the whiners.

Sooo,,,Wayne Tower's offices have no security cameras, which would have caught Marquis murdering the security guard and blackmailing Wilder. That's all Wilder would need to put Marquis away forever, but hey--the idea that a multi-billion dollar corporation's offices lack any sort of security camera is just a-ok on a logic-deprived series run by Caroline Dries.

Wait a second...Luke is the freaking master of the Bat-tech, second only to Batman himself. He knows how to run everything Batman used to fight crime, and that includes the tech (and possessing the skills) necessary to override security clearances, yet Luke is left shrugging his one good shoulder, not at all being the legitimate inheritor of the Wayne/Bat legacy he--on paper--should have been since the pilot. In fact, if Luke was the CEO instead of the still-inexplicable choice of Wilder, this forced "hostile takeover" plot would not be possible, as Jada or Discount Joker had no way in through emotional / personal ties.

Way to handle the lone black male lead, Dries.

One cannot help feeling the series really suffered with the departure of Ruby Rose, and her character's intended purpose going forward.

Anyway, the series returns on 1/12/22, and one of its highlights is Discount Joker Marquis holding a gun to Luke's head....

GRADE: D.

 

Despite the obvious ridiculousness of Ryan being able to sign away her role as CEO to someone else, I enjoyed this episode. It was fun and nicely sets up the second half of the season. I guess Mary is going to be a supervillain from this point on. It’ll be difficult to redeem her in the future if that’s what their plan is.

 

It's going to be weird if it ends up that Alice's supervillian sisters thing actually does make Mary's petty, vengeance-driven Poison Ivy personal totally forgive that Alice murdered her mother. Heck, it's already weird that they aren't treating it as the inevitable end of their team-up.

 

This weird supervillain sister bonding between Alice and Mary is probably the best thing that's been done with either character. It's certainly more interesting than Alice's whole supervillain-advisor-slash-annoying-roommate schtick has been, and it's letting Rachel Skarsten play more nuances and show how good she is. It's actually pretty touching, these two women defined by feeling abandoned and ignored, finding connection at last in each other.

And full-fledged Poison Mary (please tell me we don't have to keep calling her that) is pretty hot. I love how fashionista Mary goes all in on embracing the supervillain look right off the bat. (And flared shoulders are back in? Had to happen eventually, I guess. I like the hot pants better, though.)

Speaking of villain looks, this episode confirmed what I'd suspected, that they're setting Marquis up as Ryan's Joker. They stressed here how his origin is tied to the Joker and had him express appreciation for the Joker's sense of fun, and his purple hair and orange jacket at the end was almost a negative of the Joker's traditional colors (though not quite, since that's green hair and a purple jacket).

I find it hard to believe that there isn't a secondary entrance to the Batcave. Batman would have prepared for every contingency. And surely the last place you'd want the Batmobile to be seen entering and exiting is the Wayne Tower garage, so the primary Batmobile access point should be somewhere well away from the building. For that matter, doesn't the original Batcave under Wayne Manor exist on Earth-Prime?

 

Though it occurs to me just now that this could be setting up Alice's rehabilitation. Mary turns on her, realizing Alice ingratiated herself to get herself off Poison Mary's revenge list, but Alice actually has a genuine affection for her by this point, and now she has to deal with the pain of a supervillain sister who wants to kill you and blames you for being a bad relative by not dying even though you're genuinely trying to help.

 

Looks like they gave this version of Poison Ivy a touch of Rose and Thorn with the split personality angle. The golden age version of the Thorn also had control over plants.

 

I hope this is a short arc. Poisoned/mind controlled hero goes bad is fun in short bursts, but gets old fast (there are only so many times you can have their tearful loved ones trying to get through to them in TV speeches) and she's already got plenty to atone for in the inevitable redemption arc (leaving the cop for dead, trying to kill Batwoman, injuring Luke and stealing his "dad", bee guy...).

 

Do not like the shoulder pads.

No cottons.

%100 synthetic costume.

 

On any other series, Mary would kill Alice for murdering her mother, but in Berlanti-land, characters such as Mary tolerate things and experiences no one else would...yet at the same time, she's also on a season-long arc of whining / committing murder because Luke and Wilder are too busy with real problems to feed into her needy personality. Yep, realistic reactions reign supreme in Berlanti-land

The "sister" sub-plot has no rational foundation whatsoever; if Dries, et al., ever watched any of their own episodes, they would not write Alice attempting to bond with Mary based on some "family neglect / togetherness" issues, because Alice--as of the end of season two--not only reconciled with Kate, but Jacob as well, with the latter affirming his care for his daughter to news cameras. Alice no longer has any sort of abandonment / family issues, thus she cannot act as if that's still a thing for her which could be used to relate to Mary.

Moreover, as habitually needy as Mary is, notice how the "writers" never have her talk about visiting Jacob--her father--while he's in the can, or even trying to learn if there's a way to help with his legal issues. Remember, she's said to believe in justice...until she does not. Again, Jacob is the one in trouble, yet the showrunners want to paint this picture that Mary is something other than what she is: self-obsessed and attention-seeking.

...and BW already informed Mary (and the viewers) that a kidnapper and murderer wont be sent to Arkham (or prison), so the showrunners are clearly telegraphing that Mary will never be held accountable for crimes which would send anyone else up the river.

 

Looked at the mid-season finale this morning. I thought it was a decent mid-season end, though I'm worried about how the second half of the season will turn out.

The things I liked best was Mary's turn. I liked that they didn't totally change her personality, that Mary is still in there, and she apparently has some agency in the choices she's making and that makes her a more interesting villain. It will also make it very hard for them to redeem her later, but will provide some good drama and guilt as Mary struggles to regain everyone's trust again. I do think they will redeem her, I don't see Mary becoming a villain from here on end, and it could turn out to be something like how Killer Frost is used on Flash. I could even see Mary retaining some Poison Ivy powers after she comes back to the light.

I thought there were some good scenes between Mary and Alice and I'm glad Mary at least floated the idea of killing Alice.

I enjoyed as well that the finale put Wilder in a real tough spot. She's lost Mary, she's lost Wayne, and right now her relationship with Sophie seems dead as well, so this is a good place to leave the protagonist, and gives her a lot of challenges. There's still Montoya and the missing Bat villain objects out there as well. And all Ryan has is her suit and the Batmobile, along with Luke and Sophie. Reminds me a bit of when Oliver lost his business on Arrow. I hope that Batwoman does a better job of showing how deprived that will make the Bat team. I thought Leslie really sold Wilder's heart breaking when Mary went full Poison Ivy on her.

There were things I didn't like. The promo for Mary's Poison Ivy outfit looked great, but the actual reveal looked cheap. The hair, contacts, and makeup looked fine, but the fabric looked cheap. I also wasn't a fan of Marquis taking this villainous turn. I was okay with him being shady, but not a fan of him being a violent sociopath. The actor is doing a good job with it, but I'm still not a fan.

Also not a fan of how Luke gets manhandled so easily on this series. This week he was only working with one arm, so I get that, and he did land a good punch, but he's depicted way too weak. I recall the actor being bulked up during the Infinite Earth crossover and I wonder what happened there. Perhaps he had to lose that to fit the suit. I wish they had built the suit instead to fit a more muscular frame.

 

Do not expect too much in that department; most of the main cast have assaulted and/or killed someone at some point, but you will never see them punished. In fact, the only character who was carted off to prison and remains there is Jacob. Go figure. Mary will likely have some weepy episode where she--unlike anyone else in society--will get to apologize (to Luke and Wilder), and everything will be A-OK. Further, while she's apologizing, its a good chance Luke and Wilder will trip over themselves begging Mary for "forgiveness".

So there would be yet another Bat-gang character with an advantage over Luke.

Not that a show run by Caroline Dries will ever orbit the planet of coherent, believable plotting, but if BW was scripted with any sense at all, BW would threaten to expose Montoya to the media for releasing a mass murderer, partnering her with a vigilante, blackmailing, etc., all to do what is her legal responsibility. Yes, Montoya could threaten to expose Wilder's true ID, but Wilder would appear the stronger of the two by calling Montoya's bluff and see where the legal / scandal chips fall--it would not be on Wilder. Montoya is self-serving, so its a good chance she would back down (dissolving the blackmail scheme), instead of face dire legal consequences....but again, a Dries series will never, ever orbit said planet of coherent, believable plotting.

Yep--Discount Cosplay Ivy, and frankly, the outfit was not flattering to Kang at all.

That was his intended purpose for this series. Luke will always be its weakest character, and of course, even the Batwing suit failed him (for a number of contradictory reasons since that sub-plot was introduced). The audience is never supposed to question why Luke's always possessed the resources to hire anyone to train him in any form of martial arts and/or weapons, but did not. Audiences are not supposed to question why Luke told Sophie the suit (on its last outing) failed because he--as Mary "diagnosed" it--was suffering from PTSD, when Ivy-Mary admitted she tampered with the suit so it would fail. Nope. Cannot question any of it.

Luke is the one black male on this series, and that means Dries, et al.,will never have him reach the point of asserting himself and his legal authority at Wayne (forever calling into question the nonsensical plot of Wilder being named CEO...based on what experience or knowledge of WE's inner workings?), and certainly where all Bat-things are concerned. He is made to take a back seat in the car signed in his name as intended by its previous owner. That, and he's the only character to have his ass kicked on a fairly consistent basis.

As always, you would never see this kind of mistreatment / misrepresentation of a black male character (particularly one of the protagonists) on Black Lightning.

 

What if Alice is trying to help?

She's giving the line some slack.

Allowing Mary to rampage with zero body count.

Also...

I think Alice brought up killing Mary's mum because she is trying to rattle the new personality and give original Mary a chance to reassume control.

 

You would have to wonder why Alice would help Mary; Alice is not reformed to any degree, but still being a threat, as seen with her running over the police officer, removing her nanobot tracking (by using Ivy-Mary's mind control over innocent victims), and other acts since the start of the season. If she wanted to help Mary, she would have encouraged Mary to take the antidote instead of raising suspicion about the drug and Wilder's motivations. From that point on, if Ivy-Mary commits any other crimes, Alice has to be named an accessory, as she only prodded Ivy-Mary to embrace the evil side.

Now that they're headed back to Gotham, if they're seen, Alice would be arrested on sight, while the GCPD has orders to shoot Ivy-Mary, so considering all of that--and Alice showing no signs of redemption--one would guess that Alice risking a return to Gotham does not mean she's going to help Mary out the kindness of her heart, but to aid in terror for as long as their arrangement lasts.

 

Alice is medicated.

Almost sane.

With sanity comes problems like guilt and empathy.