It’s episodes like this that give me a clue as to why this show gets an IMBD rating of 3.4/10 while also getting a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes and why the Google audience rating looks like this:
Honestly it is a show that you either love or hate. This is partly because it falls into a similar trap as Supergirl, where the writers feel the need to make social statements instead of just being a superhero show. I do not have a problem with this on the whole. Using the platforms we have to discuss the problems that we see in society is necessary to affect change, however if you are looking to these shows for simple escapism then these story lines, take that option away from you.
This episode opens following the events of crisis and everything seemingly is fine. Batwoman is chasing down a runaway train on her new “Batcycle”, which must be dang near indestructible as it is used to stop the train from crashing into a wall with the use of a grappling hook anchored to a rail plank(?).
Hunky cop saving Batwoman (CWTV)
This is not the biggest issue with this particular scene as we are not introduced to “hunky” cop who saves her from being hit by said grappling hook as the tension from stopping the train causes it to fly at her from behind.
This inevitability leads to speculation that the two are dating because, she cannot just be a superhero who happened to have needed saving herself without then falling hopelessly in love with the charming prince. Can you sense the sarcasm? I’m just not so sure this would have been a story line on Flash or Arrow, though maybe I missed it. Insert soapbox here.
Now Kate has a problem. As we learned during Crisis, Kate is the Paragon of Courage, so if she is not willing to “come out” and instead allow everyone to believe that she is straight and dating some “Chris Evans” want to be.
Mouse and Alice’s Tea Party (CWTV)
Meanwhile Alice and Mouse continue their sibling squabble over whether or not Kate, will ever join them over tea at Katherine’s grave. Mouse being the more sane of the insane pair, is convinced that Alice is deluding herself into believing she can pursued Kate to take off the cowl and join her cause.
As the episode unfolds, it’s revealed that he trained was hacked and the hacker threatens a cyber attack on the city, promising to reveal the secrets of every citizen of Gotham if they do not deposit money into an account. Question is if this hacker is so good, why not just take the money? At one point they display the mayor’s credit card number on the screen during his “there’s nothing to worry about” speech. Again the show has it’s flaws, besides if that happened we would not have the payoff.
Kate continues to struggle with whether not to come out and how not doing so somehow means she’s lying to the city (doesn’t the fact that you wear a mask and a red wig do that?). Luke finally traces the hacker to Gotham Prep where we discover the true reason for the writers giving Kate all this angst. She confronts our teen villain and discovers that she is just a hurt kid that was outed to her parents by and ex and has now been ostracized and nearly disowned by her parents. She makes a quip about not telling her “it gets better” and a wonderful line about the secondary and tertiary LGBT characters thrown into our favorite television shows.
Foreshadowing is one thing, but this felt quite heavy handed and unnecessary. Having Batwoman just be gay and dealing with the issues that come along with that in our society, I think could be enough for this show if the writers, write it well enough. This felt forced and over the top. I will not give any further spoilers for the episode, but needless to say Alice continues to be the only real villain in Gotham, so maybe Batman, left because he felt like his job was done.
I will also say the final scene of the episode shows how Crisis affected the show is a fantastic manner and bumps this episode up from 2.5 to 3 stars.
