Spoilers Batwoman - Season 2

[Marc]

Anyone else think that they should have just paid her to be Batwoman and and then just give her some BS title at Wayne Enterprises? She's definitely going to have to skip out on her bar tending job to do crime fighting stuff from time to time.

I predict that instead of just letting her live rent free at one of the Wayne properties, there will be some unnecessary hurdle she'll have to deal with next week to find an apartment.

I think they are probably trying to distance her from Wayne Enterprises.

Kate could come in because she's family, by Ryan doesn't have those ties and beyond her martial skills doesn't really have any training or qualifications for a role at WE other than maybe a security guard.

Plus working as a bartender for Mary is probably a more plausibe story to feed a P.O than ooh look I'm working at Wayne Enterprises and living in a Wayne property.

Plus Mary and Luke have denied to the crows that they knew about Kate's nocturnal activities but if they get a wiff of Ryan anywhere near Wayne and they might actually put the pieces together for once.

 

[dahj]

there will be some unnecessary hurdle she'll have to deal with next week to find an apartment

So like regular apartment hunting then.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kate comes home to her apartment to find Ryan living there, banging Sophie, in her batwoman outfit.

Kate was a real estate mogul.

Luke was her assistant.

LUKE CONTROLS MAYBE THOUSANDS OF PROPERTIES IN GOTHAM UNTIL KATE IS DECLARED DEAD.

(Unless that was all a ruse, a clever ruse?)

Although....

Mary.

What if Mary's cheerleading is actually attraction?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

So it's been 5 years since Alice was on a mysterious island, eh?
Hmmm, when can we expect some Arrow style flashbacks then?

Oh no!

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Renewed for season 3

https://deadline.com/2021/02/the-cw-major-renewal-move-new-seasons-12-shows-walker-1234686788/

 

[dahj]

Yay!

 

[Dick Whitman]

Good news.

I am actually starting to like Ryan more than Kate. She has made the scenes with Luke much more interesting.

 

[dahj]

Early renewal means they can start planning crossovers again, pandemic permitting.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'm so glad that Alice is staying front and center. She was one of the highlights of S1. The Bat-team is coming together nicely, too.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I think they are probably trying to distance her from Wayne Enterprises.

Distanced from Wayne Enterprise or not, it does not help matters that some scatterbrained person publicized BW with that photo which appeared in the newspaper. Who on earth does that in the superhero business unless the identity is known to the public already (e.g. Iron Man), or in a world where facial recognition software is in common use? Anyone looking to expose and/or kill Wilder would now be assisted by a nice, big studio photo of her that anyone can reference when matching faces in the city.

 

[dahj]

some scatterbrained person publicized BW with that photo

That's no way to talk about Kara.

In case you forgot, Kate was on the cover of Catco Magazine, I even had the high def version of that on my phone lol.

In universe all of the Arrowverse heroes faces have been on TV or in print at one point or another, Ryan is as safe as all of them, so you can rest easy there sport.

 

[JD]

As I pointed out earlier, he should have been an A-level (main) villain; between his personality and abilities (he was a moment away from killing Wilder), he is the kind of threat this series needs, as the rubber-room voyage of Alice is wearing thin, unless she goes out in a season-ending blaze of glory with Safiyah, to protect someone.

Every other version of Zsasz that I have seen, in Gotham, Batman Begins, the Arkham games, and the Birds of Prey movie has always a B or C list villain, so it makes sense they'd stick with that for Batwoman.

This was a pretty good version of Zsasz, not quite as good as Anthony Carrigan on Gotham, but still a pretty good take on the character.
After all the build up and references to her history with Alice and Julia, it was nice to finally get to see Safiyah in person. Like a lot of you, I was surprised they revealed that Kate might be alive so early in the season, I expected to leave her fate vague for at least the first half of the season.
Love the new Batsuit.

 

[DEWLine]

Renewed for season 3
https://deadline.com/2021/02/the-cw-major-renewal-move-new-seasons-12-shows-walker-1234686788/

Pleasantly surprising in the speed of the announcement.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Batwoman
Season 2 - Episode 4 - "Fair Skin, Blue Eyes"

Luke Fox: He never gave up hope that Kate might be alive, so I hope the character is vindicated in the face of Mary's constant, depressive naysaying. With Sophie asking for Luke's help, it will be sort of a irritant/nightmare to be forced to tolerate Alice. I would like to see him plotting to have her committed again whenever the Safiyah matter ends.

Wilder/BW2: So, Wilder was also kidnapped as a kid by Angelique / The Candy-lady, who has a direct connection to the disappearance she's investigating. Like Alice and her gang conveniently living in the building where she and her mother were moving into, now we learn the missing girl "everyone" was looking for--when they never took notice of Wilder's disappearance--just so happened to be Beth. Plot Convenience 101, Part One, and the timelines--just as the Safiyah-as-Alice's-mentor timeline do not add up at all.

One sort of realistic moment was how easy it was for Angelique Martin's henchmen to get the jump on Wilder, proving she's no trained crimefighter.

Oh, her move of using the Bat-line to pull a palate into the back of an attacker was lifted from the same move used by Batman during the Martha Kent rescue scene in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Safiyah / Alice: So, "Ocean"--the man Safiyah has sent Alice to kill is a man Alice seems to have known (possibly to some intimate degree) when both were on Discount Themyscira. I'm almost sure he "wronged" her in some way, and she will give him a nutjob earful before she kills him, or tries to.

Jacob / Sophie: Jacob--desperate he might be to find clues leading to Kate--was painted as reckless in going to see his contact...oh, and guess what? The missing boy (Kevin) Wilder is searching for just so happens to have been recruited into the False Face Society. Plot Convenience 101, Part Two. The team-up with BW was a nice moment; you could see the wheels turning about her identity--and why she took such a special interest in one missing boy. It may not be long before he learns her true identity, but the question is what will he do with that information...

Now knowing--or believing--Alice only wants to locate Kate to kill her, in theory, this should lead to Sophie being pulled in two directions: one with Jacob, the other with Luke--both supposedly having ice / mistrust between them.

Angelique Martin aka The Candy-lady: After the passing of so many years (since Wilder was 13), she needed to be presented as a much older woman, based on her maturity in the flashbacks.

NOTES:
The episode's writer--Ebony Gilbert (perhaps best known for "Trayvon Martin: The Modern Day Emmett Till") should have steered clear of PSA-sounding dialogue such as "...no one caress. Do you care, Batwoman?' That did not sound like the words of a child. Unlike the writing on Black Lightning, where real world issues negatively impacting black Americans is believably interwoven with the fantasy, this episode's "neglected black child" plot was sloppy, preachy and was no more effective than an ABC Afterschool Special. Its intended effect was lost using Wilder as the vehicle through which the crimes were supposed to be personalized for the audience, for convenience. Not good.

Plot Convenience 101, Part Three: Wilder's childhood friend just so happened to be the woman who attacked Sophie in Ocean's apartment. Come on.

A spinner rack with comics (Kamandi, etc.) nearly 50 years old? Nerds/eBay sharks would have swiped the comics--and the rack--in the blink of an eye.

Mary has outlasted whatever usefulness she had (not much), now that she's fangirling / Scooby-Doo-ing around with Wilder; she has no detective skills and is not very knowledgeable about all things Bat, so she's there just to be there. ...and when will she have time to run a clinic and a bar?

Next week, Wilder says she is tired of "working" for Luke's approval. In the real world, a person in Luke's position as the keeper/coordinator of Wayne's secrets, he would inform her that yes, she needs his approval, and to show more respect in consideration of his position and history with Wayne and his dual identity.

GRADE: C.

 

[theenglish]

Nice backstory for Ryan this week. What they are doing with her is very Slumdog Millionaire--she doesn't have the money, privilege or any advantages that Kate had but she learned a lot on the streets. I like how Ryan is looking for cases that speak to her, but in story I also liked how this week's episode drew parallels to Beth's disappearance.

As for the story itself, it was pretty overconfident on Ryan's part to be taken like she was.

 

[Christopher]

It's good that the stories are tying into Ryan's past and revealing her distinct character, but there are still way too many coincidental convergences with the Kane family plotline, from young Ryan seeing the volunteers searching for Beth to her ex Angelique turning out to be the woman who ran into Sophie and Alice at Ocean's place.

Meanwhile, we now know that the Green Lantern Corps and Kamandi are comic-book characters on Earth-Prime, which raises questions if the Corps really exists there (as it was implied to with Diggle at the end of Arrow). We know the 2011 movie version of the Corps exists on Earth-12 in the Arrowmultiverse -- but then, Superman and Supergirl existed as comic-book characters on Black Lightning's original Earth.

 

[Marc]

Nice backstory for Ryan this week. What they are doing with her is very Slumdog Millionaire--she doesn't have the money, privilege or any advantages that Kate had but she learned a lot on the streets. I like how Ryan is looking for cases that speak to her, but in story I also liked how this week's episode drew parallels to Beth's disappearance.

As for the story itself, it was pretty overconfident on Ryan's part to be taken like she was.

She also seems to have been very busy practicing her fighting skills and repainting the Batmobile

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I guess I had interpreted when Ryan moved into the new apartment with her mother that was her also moving to Gotham but apparently she's lived there most of her life. It seems odd she wouldn't be more familiar with the club and Kate and the Waynes and so on but I admit I'd have to go back and watch the early ones again to say if that's just on me or not.

I get the point of how the media and society prioritize missing children on little white girls over others but it really seems damning to Jacob. With how his life has been destroyed by Beth being missing and now Kate it makes him really selfish and shallow to not be moved to action by other missing children cases. I don't necessarily like my shows to go that dark but to completely ignore the sexual abuse angle of so many of these cases didn't seem like being fully honest. Kidnapping kids for a crime gang does seem like an old-school comic book story though.

I'm still wondering where they're going with the Kate storyline, the whole is she/isn't she thing isn't a direction I expected them to take this season. I'm kind of rolling with the small universe setup and the Safiyah thing isn't as bad as I had been thinking. It's good that they've been opening up the scope because the first season was so insular in its focus.

She also seems to have been very busy practicing her fighting skills and repainting the Batmobile

The action was decent in this one and I think Luke gets stuck with the design changes and whims of the batladies.

 

[Christopher]

I guess I had interpreted when Ryan moved into the new apartment with her mother that was her also moving to Gotham but apparently she's lived there most of her life. It seems odd she wouldn't be more familiar with the club and Kate and the Waynes and so on but I admit I'd have to go back and watch the early ones again to say if that's just on me or not.

Why would she be familiar with the club? It's existed for less than a year.

And she's not that familiar with the Waynes and Kanes because she comes from a totally different social circle. That's kind of the point -- society is so stratified between rich and poor that they might as well come from different worlds entirely. Hard to care about celebrity gossip when you're struggling to survive day by day.

I get the point of how the media and society prioritize missing children on little white girls over others but it really seems damning to Jacob. With how his life has been destroyed by Beth being missing and now Kate it makes him really selfish and shallow to not be moved to action by other missing children cases.

It's not new for Jacob to be portrayed as having flawed priorities or perspectives. After all, the Crows have always been shown as prioritizing the protection of the rich and powerful over the common people. So this seems consistent to me.

I don't necessarily like my shows to go that dark but to completely ignore the sexual abuse angle of so many of these cases didn't seem like being fully honest. Kidnapping kids for a crime gang does seem like an old-school comic book story though.

Perhaps, but female protagonists being motivated by sexual-assault histories is a problematical trope that's been vastly overused in the past, so I understand why they didn't go there with Ryan's abductor.

 

[dahj]

Meanwhile, we now know that the Green Lantern Corps and Kamandi are comic-book characters on Earth-Prime, which raises questions if the Corps really exists there

"based on factual accounts from the files of..."

(as it was implied to with Diggle at the end of Arrow)

We should be hearing from Diggle sometime this season, which might offer some clarification on this point.