Black Lightning established that Pre-Crisis Earth-1 had a Freeland.
Spoilers Batwoman - Season 1
- Thread starter dahj
- Start date
I don't believe that the "Earth-One" and "Earth-Two" seen in the BL pre-Crisis episode were the same Earth-1 and Earth-2 that we know from the other shows. They just seemed too different. After all, Oliver was supposed to be the first major, publicly known vigilante in Earth-1's history, but Black Lightning was publicly active as a vigilante for years before Ollie returned from Lian Yu, and his history in the alternate worlds seemed largely similar to that in the main BL continuity aside from recent divergences.
Yeah, I tend to agree, which is why I didn't mention BL's "Earth 1." (I just confirmed that's how it was styled in the onscreen graphics. Was it deliberate, I wonder, that they didn't use the Arrowverse's established hyphen for its system of multiversal Earths -- i.e., "Earth-1"? Probably not; if they were that conscious of and concerned with minutiae, it would have made more sense to avoid the confusion and just pick a previously unused number instead.)
Batwoman
Season 1 - Episode 12 - "Take Your Choice"
Kate/BW: She's far too conflicted: she has a sister back--pretty much the woman Beth would have become sans kidnapping. On the other hand, there's mass murdering Alice, who is...a mass murderer. If there's one important thing she needs to learn from Batman, is that redemption is not meant for everyone.
For once, Mary was correct: Kate seems to have some Pollyanna-esque fantasy about a killer who--as Mary should not need to remind her--killed her mother. The choice was rather simple, and if it was not, then any attempt to save Alice would have been a complete betrayal of her own father...but I feel she will get another chance to do just that.
Luke: As in the previous episode, he's not mentioning any awareness of other costumed people (or events) already existing in the world with an established history, when he should, according to the way Supergirl is playing this. His reference to Supergirl and Flash can only be based on what Kate told him about her experiences.
With Alt-Beth dying in his arms, this should trigger another side of him. Perhaps push him into wanting to leave the cave. Or perhaps he will blame Kate for the plan to leave the cave in the first place...
Alt-Beth: Good--the problem was laid out early on, so there's no need for open-mouthed exposition for 28 minutes. Alt-Beth said it best in pointing out that the worlds are separate for a reason. For a creative writer, that's a door wide open to correct this CW-COIE mess. As for Alt-Beth's fate, what a great, tragic twist. Kate gains nothing--except a vengeful Alice who knows Kate did not chose to save her, and if the series has guts, Sophie will admit she was going to shoot "Alice"...
Alice / Mouse Realistic reactions to the existence of Alt-Beth; she does not really care unless it saves her life, and allows her to continue her mind games with Kate. I did not expect anything more from her--including leading the police to Alt-Beth.
I suspected Ethan Campbell was Mouse' father--he was all too helpful to Jacob when anyone else would have eyerolled him back into his cell. What was unexpected was his twisted idea of fatherly love, and interest in killing the woman he created. I suppose he will stick around once he learns he killed the wrong woman.
Mary: At last, she admits she knows nothing about multiverses.
Putting up any sort of a fight with Alice? I'm calling BS on that. Alice has fought with people with real training & street skills, so a pampered woman with next to no life/fighting experience would not stand a chance--even against a weakened Alice.
Jacob: The poor guy cannot catch a break at all. With this latest attempt on his life (and his face forced into a prison toilet) it would only be satisfying if he's exonerated and goes on the warpath--starting with Alice.
Sophie: Sophie becoming aggressive about Alice should not cause conflict between bleeding heart Kate and her--after all, Kate did agree to Jacob's take-no-prisoners approach to Alice. We will see what happens when she tells Kate she almost shot "Alice."
NOTES: Arguably the darkest episode yet. Very serious, and not a plot (or character) wasted and that is great! Like Black Lightning, it so far apart in tone, language and heart from the other CW-DC shows. There's no natural fit.
GRADE: A.
Season 1 - Episode 12 - "Take Your Choice"
Kate/BW: She's far too conflicted: she has a sister back--pretty much the woman Beth would have become sans kidnapping. On the other hand, there's mass murdering Alice, who is...a mass murderer. If there's one important thing she needs to learn from Batman, is that redemption is not meant for everyone.
For once, Mary was correct: Kate seems to have some Pollyanna-esque fantasy about a killer who--as Mary should not need to remind her--killed her mother. The choice was rather simple, and if it was not, then any attempt to save Alice would have been a complete betrayal of her own father...but I feel she will get another chance to do just that.
Luke: As in the previous episode, he's not mentioning any awareness of other costumed people (or events) already existing in the world with an established history, when he should, according to the way Supergirl is playing this. His reference to Supergirl and Flash can only be based on what Kate told him about her experiences.
With Alt-Beth dying in his arms, this should trigger another side of him. Perhaps push him into wanting to leave the cave. Or perhaps he will blame Kate for the plan to leave the cave in the first place...
Alt-Beth: Good--the problem was laid out early on, so there's no need for open-mouthed exposition for 28 minutes. Alt-Beth said it best in pointing out that the worlds are separate for a reason. For a creative writer, that's a door wide open to correct this CW-COIE mess. As for Alt-Beth's fate, what a great, tragic twist. Kate gains nothing--except a vengeful Alice who knows Kate did not chose to save her, and if the series has guts, Sophie will admit she was going to shoot "Alice"...
Alice / Mouse Realistic reactions to the existence of Alt-Beth; she does not really care unless it saves her life, and allows her to continue her mind games with Kate. I did not expect anything more from her--including leading the police to Alt-Beth.
I suspected Ethan Campbell was Mouse' father--he was all too helpful to Jacob when anyone else would have eyerolled him back into his cell. What was unexpected was his twisted idea of fatherly love, and interest in killing the woman he created. I suppose he will stick around once he learns he killed the wrong woman.
Mary: At last, she admits she knows nothing about multiverses.
Putting up any sort of a fight with Alice? I'm calling BS on that. Alice has fought with people with real training & street skills, so a pampered woman with next to no life/fighting experience would not stand a chance--even against a weakened Alice.
Jacob: The poor guy cannot catch a break at all. With this latest attempt on his life (and his face forced into a prison toilet) it would only be satisfying if he's exonerated and goes on the warpath--starting with Alice.
Sophie: Sophie becoming aggressive about Alice should not cause conflict between bleeding heart Kate and her--after all, Kate did agree to Jacob's take-no-prisoners approach to Alice. We will see what happens when she tells Kate she almost shot "Alice."
NOTES: Arguably the darkest episode yet. Very serious, and not a plot (or character) wasted and that is great! Like Black Lightning, it so far apart in tone, language and heart from the other CW-DC shows. There's no natural fit.
GRADE: A.
Whew, that was indeed pretty dark. I was taken aback when Alice gasped for breath, having been caught up in the moment it caught me by surprise.
As much as I wanted Beth to live I knew there was NO WAY the main villain of the season was going to be done away with now.
Boring and predictable.
I fell asleep. Twice. Woke up just in time to see the cheap, hackneyed ending.
That's two episodes in a row this show has completely failed to give me anything to be excited about. Might have to bail soon. It's already getting dangerously close to Arrow middle-seasons bad.
I fell asleep. Twice. Woke up just in time to see the cheap, hackneyed ending.
That's two episodes in a row this show has completely failed to give me anything to be excited about. Might have to bail soon. It's already getting dangerously close to Arrow middle-seasons bad.
Actually, I think that the season's real Big Bad will be mouse's father.
I guess you didn't see last night's episode.
Anyway, the episode was effective at delving deep into the drama and emotion of Kate and Beth/Alice's history and Kate's guilt at failing to save Beth. These writers really know how to wrench the characters emotionally and hit them where it hurts the most. The outcome was predictable, but I was surprised at the way they went in leading up to it -- that Kate actually did have to make the choice, that she chose Beth over Alice and came to be with Alice at the end. At that point, I could predict what was sure to happen to Beth, although they kept me guessing about who would be responsible for her death. It might've been a bolder choice to have Sophie actually pull the trigger, but I'm glad she turned out better than that.
I still have major questions about the concept behind it, though. Why is it only Beth and Alice suffering multiversal rejection and not the doubles we saw on Supergirl? Or did one of the copies of Al the bartender die offscreen between episodes? And why would the universe be satisfied merely by the death of one of the copies? Dead or alive, the matter that makes up their bodies is still there, and would still be there even if you totally vaporized one of the bodies (it would just be in the form of vapor then).
It also seemed odd that the idea of explaining the Crisis to people would be a bad idea when Arrow showed that it was publicly discussed in the documentary about Oliver's life and death. But then, the finale said that the documentary came out at least a month after Crisis, and these episodes seem earlier than that.
I thought that might be where they were going before the reset.
And now we have an answer for why Sebastian Roche's character was acting so skeptical of lifelike skin masks as "science fiction" even though he now lives in a universe that has aliens and image inducers and shapeshifters and such. He had a vested interest in discouraging that line of questioning.
I've loved nearly every episode since this show began.
I hated this one.
Batwoman clears the way for Luke, Mary, and Beth to get out of the city -- so they give up and go back to Wayne Tower? The Crows identify Mary Hamilton, but don't follow up on that?
Kate's sat on Kara's couch and watched tv with her friends, but she can't contact her for help? (Sorry, show, you brought this on yourself by placing all the Arrowverse heroes on the same Earth.) Luke even namechecked Supergirl and the Flash, so...?
Mary wasn't able to disguise Beth with makeup, glasses, a wig, clothes, colored contacts so she wasn't so easily identifiable?
Bruce didn't have any safe houses Luke would have known about and kept up? Weren't Kate and Luke using a real estate agency as a front? They didn't set up any safe houses themselves, in case Kate needed cover?
Why didn't they put Beth in the Batsuit? It's bulletproof. And who would mistake her for Alice, then?
We never got to see Jacob react to Beth being alive. We didn't get to see how that might have affected Jacob's relationship with Sophie.
I think Beth's continued existence could have crossed over in a very interesting way with Mouse's father's vendetta against Alice. They killed Beth off way too early, for no good reason at all.
I hated this one.
Batwoman clears the way for Luke, Mary, and Beth to get out of the city -- so they give up and go back to Wayne Tower? The Crows identify Mary Hamilton, but don't follow up on that?
Kate's sat on Kara's couch and watched tv with her friends, but she can't contact her for help? (Sorry, show, you brought this on yourself by placing all the Arrowverse heroes on the same Earth.) Luke even namechecked Supergirl and the Flash, so...?
Mary wasn't able to disguise Beth with makeup, glasses, a wig, clothes, colored contacts so she wasn't so easily identifiable?
Bruce didn't have any safe houses Luke would have known about and kept up? Weren't Kate and Luke using a real estate agency as a front? They didn't set up any safe houses themselves, in case Kate needed cover?
Why didn't they put Beth in the Batsuit? It's bulletproof. And who would mistake her for Alice, then?
We never got to see Jacob react to Beth being alive. We didn't get to see how that might have affected Jacob's relationship with Sophie.
I think Beth's continued existence could have crossed over in a very interesting way with Mouse's father's vendetta against Alice. They killed Beth off way too early, for no good reason at all.
That is indeed disappointing.
The CW-COIE was a poorly constructed mess, and with each passing week, there's no indication that it will ever make sense, just as you see in other series where no one has any real awareness of characters from other shows...
...which he mentioned only because Kate must have informed him about her sideline adventure. He did not say the names as if they really existed at all (and if they did, why would he ever hesitate to contact them to help clean up the city?), and in episode 11, he is largely ismissive of the notion of a multiverse.
This assumes Wayne had safe houses. For all we know, Wayne sold off properties not long before he left the city.
This comments on the inherent flaws of Batman's mask: the mouth section is exposed, so bulletproof suit or not, a skilled marksman would aim for an exposed area, which means Beth still had a chance to die.
Now that was a letdown. I just hope Kate is not written to con herself that Alice has Alt-Beth hidden inside of her, because that is not the case.
You post that, but this is a problem with the ramshackled COIE sub-plots; they cannot manage to have consistency with the aftermath of that mess, so its probably better if the various series perform clean-up duties like the fate of Alt-Beth sooner than later.
Any one else annoyed by the two different hair styles Kate has in the episode? Started out parted on the side. Then back to the traditional style the parted again etc
I didn't notice the switching, but I did notice the new haircut (I liked the old one better). By the time I got to the end of the episode, it seemed kind of petty, though.
Though, wait a minute. Mouse, Sr seemed to use some kind of truth serum on Mouse to find out where Alice was, but... oh, wait, never mind, I figured it out. Mouse didn't tell him where Beth/Alice was, he told him Alice was Batwoman's sister, so he figured out where they were going from his police scanner catching all the dispatches about the Bat-bike.
OK, hands up who figured out the plastic surgeon guy was Mouse's dad literally in the first 60 seconds of the episode...just me? Really? You guys know this is a TV show right?
Seriously though; they could not have telegraphed that any harder if they tried and as a result I found the whole episode rather dull and lacking in any real tension. Obviously they're not about to kill off the main antagonist and showing her true nemesis in the opening scene just screams "mistaken identity revenge murder".
I know in these shows they can't call in the superfriends anytime there's a problem, but you'd think "my multiverse doppleganger sister is about to dissolve out of existence" should at least earn a throwaway line about calling STAR Labs, no? That's kind of their wheelhouse.
For what it's worth, the first Flash/Supergirl crossover established that Earth-38 had it's own Central City, and we know they both had a Gotham (and a Batman) so there's plenty of precedent for multiple versions of fictional cities...
Seriously though; they could not have telegraphed that any harder if they tried and as a result I found the whole episode rather dull and lacking in any real tension. Obviously they're not about to kill off the main antagonist and showing her true nemesis in the opening scene just screams "mistaken identity revenge murder".
I know in these shows they can't call in the superfriends anytime there's a problem, but you'd think "my multiverse doppleganger sister is about to dissolve out of existence" should at least earn a throwaway line about calling STAR Labs, no? That's kind of their wheelhouse.
For what it's worth, the first Flash/Supergirl crossover established that Earth-38 had it's own Central City, and we know they both had a Gotham (and a Batman) so there's plenty of precedent for multiple versions of fictional cities...
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