And doing the old standby of naming streets after comics creators, like Rucka Avenue or whatever it was this week. (And Robinson Park is clearly named after Jerry Robinson, co-creator of Robin and the Joker.)
Considering Greg's role as part of the team that got the latest comics version of Batwoman going, the TV series was doing a little bit of payback there. I liked it.
And we apparently have a "Kubert District". Is that in place of the Kubrick District in the 2000 post-"No Man's Land" map of Gotham?
I think the new Batwoman was pretty much Rucka's baby. True story: At the time I novelized the original "52" miniseries, I actually called Rucka to pick his brain about this new Batwoman character. He very graciously filled me in on Kate, even telling me her whole "kicked out of West Point" backstory, which hadn't been revealed in the comics yet. He also swore me to secrecy about that last part!
Ditto for me re: the Bertinelli Crime Family backstory material when I was working with Matt Brady on the Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. Great to work with, Greg is.
She's probably moved on by now. We're past the usual Batman time frame; Alfred is evidently gone, Lucius Fox is dead, and Gordon is no longer commissioner. Also, years ago when Oliver Queen gave Felicity her "Overwatch" code name, he indicated that the name Oracle was already taken, so maybe Barbara Gordon had already been paralyzed and become Oracle by that point. Though it would be odd that Oliver would be aware of Oracle yet consider Batman a myth. Well, maybe not, since Oracle in the comics became an information broker to the superhero community in general.
"The Bowery"..."5th and Grant"..."22nd Street Tunnel"? If that part of the story was on the North Island, you might be able to rationalize "5th" as an Avenue, but not "22nd Street".
Batwoman Season 1 - Episode 7 - "Tell Me the Truth" Kane/BW: Kate's outrage toward Sophie and Jacob (surprise, surprise) about Sophie's decision is worthy of a "F-U" from the latter. Not once did Kate get that being a graduate/having a chance to serve in the military (and the future that promised, like helping her family) would not be handed to her as it is for a white woman without the omnipresent problems of existing while black. No comparison whatsoever. This was partially addressed in the pilot ("I don't have the luxury of being offended by that"), and for all of Kate's self-righteous indignation, its only focused on her life...her identity, and the protections her race affords her to make political stands Luke Fox / Julia Pennyworth: Now that its established that she has a past with both Kate and Luke, here's hoping she's not a one-and-done character. There's so much to the Batman-era past that could explored with Julia and Luke. The second it was established she taught Kate some fight moves in the past, I thought she would be used to allow Kate to keep her secret identity. Jacob and Alice will be on the mistaken identity trail for some time.... Alice / Mouse: Alice keeping Kate alive goes where? Aside from some misguided notion of sisterhood that forgets little details like being a mass murderer, playing psychological games against Kate is not going to restore some bond. Yes, Kate is not the brightest bulb in the house when she's constantly not trying to stop and/or trust Alice, but even she has to know that Alice is so warped that more of her family will need to die before she's reclaimed what was "taken" from her. Jacob / Catherine: After all he's learned about Catherine's astounding level of criminality / deception in the lies about Beth being dead (interfering with an investigation, tampering with / falsifying evidence, etc.) he's finally divorcing her for causing his family decades of anguish. Took long enough. The series has him victimized / needlessly guilt-tripped (most often by Kate, who should know better once someone handed them medical examiner's evidence in the past--who would suspect anything at that time?). At this point, no matter how the writers want to make Catherine appear like an innocent party (including telling Jacob about the accelerator's function), she's a deeply immoral woman who belongs behind bars...not forgiveness. Despite the Pennyworth deception, I believe he's convinced that Kate is BW, I'm not sure he will become a Gordon to her Batman, and it might go to a darker place, where he will want to end the overall soiled family history he carries more than anyone else. Sophie: Once again, the showrunners prove they don't care about Sophie being married, as it appears it was just a means to an end that Sophie was living a sham life. Even now, she's defensive and lies to Tyler about her interactions with BW...until she just tosses the sham marriage in his face. A wee bit urprising that Kate finally woke up to even mention Tyler, but I do not see the showrunners keeping them apart for too log...or treating Tyler with any sort of respect. Sophie's "You're the only one I love" coda rang hollow, as if she's trying to convince herself that she did not wreck his life. NOTES: Two things: Jacob will be captured by Alice, while Mouse continues to pose as him to keep destroying the family from within, but the series never explains how a mask alters his entire physical form. Its not some holographic or cloning tech (e.g., Gambi's on Black Lightning). Anyone familiar with the person he's impersonating would know in an instant that he's simply a guy wearing a mask. GRADE: B.
I noticed that all of a sudden Batman has been gone for four years rather than three. I guess we just got that time jump that some people have been anticipating. I didn't think they would make that big of a deal over it, and it looks like they didn't. And was this the first mention of Earth 1 having a Metropolis?
Yeah, they've been pretty episodic lately so that there's room for time to pass between episodes. Although these last two are pretty close together, with the theft of the gun and the bit about Sophie deciding to tell Jake about Batwoman. And it turns out she didn't tell Jake, she told Mouse impersonating Jake. That's sure to be discovered once Jake gets back and learns he was supposedly in the office during his time away. Earth-1? Yeah, apparently, since the only mention of it in the Arrowverse Wiki is in reference to this episode. On the other hand, we got what may be our first reference to the wider Arrowverse in this episode, with Sophie mentioning that ARGUS lent them the tracking devices they used to find the gun.
I wondered about the "4 year" thing too and it seems to be a bit odd to jump a year while the ongoing plot seems not to have been impacted one iota. I guess it's possible that previously Bruce had been "gone" for "over three years" and we just recently hit the 4 year mark, so really it's only been a few months at most since the pilot? I mean what are the odds Kate becomes Batwoman on the anniversary of Bruce's departure? I don't know, it just seems unlikely they all the plot threads would just pause for a whole year with absolutely nothing changing.
There's a very plausible explanation for characters saying that Batman disappeared 4 years ago as of this episode: in-universe, we've turned the corner into 2019, which means that Kate and Beth will be turning 29.
Loved Julia, hope she comes back again, not sure if intentional hommage to Alfred dressing up as Batman on the 60s show or not, but a fun coincidence nonetheless. Having The Rifle on and the name drop of Safiyah suggests we might be seeing Spoiler: tiny comics spoiler kinda The Many Arms of Death storyline this season. Kate and Mary should totally hire someone with experience to run the new gay bar... like Thea Queen for example.
I figure they just needed a woman in the circle of secrecy who could give Kate an alibi. Barbara Gordon's probably not an option, and various other potential candidates from the comics wouldn't work because of their established Arrowverse roles (e.g. Huntress or Talia). So Julia fit the bill. And superheroes' allies dressing up as them to give them alibis is a perennial trope, one Arrow has used at least twice (and Supergirl sort of did a variant on, with J'onn shapeshifting into Supergirl to give Kara an alibi with Cat Grant).
I just chalk it up to the same dramatic license that allows Alexander Rozhenko, Molly O'Brien and Naomi Wildman, among many others, to age years in a short span of time. Sometimes you just have to squint and go with the flow.
I get what you're saying but that's really not the same thing. That's an old sitcom trope that stems from the real world practicalities of working with young children in episodic TV. This would be more like going from an Xmas episode to a Halloween episode without any comment on the passage of time AND having people still referring to the events of the Xmas episode like it really was just last week. Usually when there's a time skip there's some kind of comment on it. A line of dialogue or a title-card at the very least. Alternate possibility: there's no skip and Harbinger just pulls Kate from 6 months in the past because she doesn't exist in the present anymore because "death by Big Bad"? Not a great solution, I know, but one that doesn't interfere with the show overmuch. Obviously said death is implicitly averted by the events of Crisis and things carry on as normal.
^ I think you're overanalyzing this 'Batman disappeared 4 years ago' thing and making more of it than is warranted. It seems likely to me that the only thing going on is that the calendar has turned to 2019 and that's why there's been a change in reference to when Bruce and Batman vanished.
There's no new episode today and even though we have a two week break between episodes now, only a day will have passed in plot time because the story has to pick up from Jacob returning to Gotham and since the next one is also the winter finale I think it's a safe bet now to assume there won't be any sudden time jumps happening.
^ I don't think the next new episode is being promoted as the midseason finale, but I could be wrong.