Batwoman
Season 1 - Episode 8 - "A Mad Tea-Party"
Kate/BW: BW brought to the brink of murdering Alice. Finally, she had enough of the lunatic...for the moment.
Kate having to put up with Mary's childish whining took superheroic restraint. The following exchange--
Mary: "It's important to me so why can't it be important to you?"
Kate: "Because you think if Gotham sees us as a family that we'll start to believe, and that's just not how it works, not after what Catherine did."
Mary: "You gave Alice a second chance...and a third...and a fourth. How can you just write off my mom as Satan? You don't seem to have any problem holding out hope for the actual most evil person in Gotham."
Kate: "She's my family."
Mary:"...and I'm not. Got it. I guess I'm the crazy one, you know? For thinking that you and I could still be sisters?"
Kate: "Of course you're my family--its just..."
Mary: "Different? Do yourself a favor--stop digging."
Kate: "Listen. Even if I wanted to go, I could never do that to my dad."
Mary is an immature fool and selfish. Somehow, she cannot understand the magnitude of what happened to Jacob and Kate's lives from the moment Beth "died" to learning Catherine committed a most heinous, string-pulling crime by faking a child's death, all to serve her needs, not help anyone "move on" from the death of a child, as if its that easy.
Kate using detective skills (brief as the scene was) to find out Mouse was posing as her father. Yes! The series needs more of that, and the always welcome back-and-forth with Luke.
Alice / Mouse: Fake Jacob's mask and performance is too accurate, and honestly, anyone wearing any sort of mask of the kind he uses would be spotted in an instant. Yes, the plot convenience demands it, but...
Yeah, it goes without saying that Alice belongs in a straight jacket for the rest of her life. Listening to Jacob say:
"Maybe believing you were dead was easier than waking up every morning with hope, or going to sleep every night with a broken heart--"
...and still ride her looney train proves there no redemption for her. Jacob was a grieving father conned by Catherine, yet he's to blame. Yep.
Jacob / Catherine: Poor Jacob; he was constantly being mistreated; blamed for not looking for Beth by this murderer and Kate, conned by Catherine for years...and yet he's the "bad guy" and framed for Catherine's murder. No good deed--or rational behavior--goes unpunished.
Catherine's explanation for her criminal acts is no excuse at all. No one with a soul would think it would help a tragedy-beaten father and daughter, or accept any excuse in the event they learned the truth.
Sophie: She's pretty clueless to think Tyler would not have serious issues with what has turned out to be her very duplicitous nature. The feeling that one of the most important days in a person's life was built on lies can just be "overcome" is either Sophie being naïve, or thoughtless. Probably both.
The showrunners should not (but appear to) endorse trampling all over a marriage and Tyler's feelings with some quickie separation and/or departure.
Sophie "figuring herself out" Eh. I can see where that will go.
NOTES: Okay, if Kate will not stand in the way of Jacob going after Alice. Great, but I would love to see father and daughter take that mission on together.
This is the kind of intensity and grounded drama (bracketed by fantasy) that makes this the second best DC TV series by far. In a class by itself.
Batwoman vs Alice's men at the gala: nice fight choreography.
GRADE: A+.