BATWOMAN 2.8

 

RECAP - BATWOMAN  2.8:  "Survived Much Worse"  

The title of the latest installment of our Scarlet Knight certainly rings true.  This week's installment certainly gives way to that very premise with our cast of characters.  Survival is the name of the game, and it takes on many different shapes as this episode played out....and we got some shockers along the way.  

For starters, all the principal combatants made their way to Coryana, and a meeting with Safiyah at some juncture.  While Mary and Luke were back in Gotham, trying to run things from their end....at least from Batwoman's persepective.  We had Sophie and Jacob on Kate's trail, and Alice was on her way to meet with Safiyah personally, having "done the deed" to Ocean....or so Safiyah thinks.  Rescuing Kate is the main goal....at least for a few....and for Alice....a chance to gain revenge on her twin sister.  But let's see how events unfolded, and where we're gonna go next.  

Ryan and Alice were both writing in journals....to Kate.  Though the messages were VERY much different:  Ryan was looking to rescue her, and said to her that she was an inspiration, and made her want to be a better person....a hero.  Alice...just scorned from when Kate locked her up in Arkham, and thus wanted to find her---to finish her off.  Ryan is dead set on chasing after Alice....whom she planted a tracker on, and goes to take an adrenaline shot, only for Mary to stop her.  She and Ryan argue the point of her dying/not dying, but Ryan wins the argument.  She feels she's a dead woman, either way, so let her go after Kate, and get a Desert Rose from the island, and come back.  Meanwhile, Alice is already on her way to meet with Safiyah, Meanwhile, Sophie and Jacob...hot on Ocean's trail, are about to make their trip to Coryana as well, especially when Luke informs Sophie that Batwoman is dying and needs the Desert Rose to live.  However, the plan to track Jacob and Sophie goes awry, and they're captured, which prompts the previous argument between Mary and Ryan, and Ryan is suited up and ready to go....but not before she gives Mary her plant that she had gotten for her Mom, but never was able to give it to her.  Mary's reluctant to take it, but she does for Ryan as a last request.  Ryan wonders what will happen to her once she finds Kate....will that be the end of her as Batwoman?  She's started to get used to it, and now she'll feel that identity crisis once Kate returns.

Alice is the first to arrive, and meets with Safiyah.  She shows her the body of "Ocean" and wants Kate.  Alice also tells her that Tatiana told her the truth about her feelings for her.  However, it seems that Saifyah is still one step ahead, as she informs Alice that she had a tracer put on her, and is aware of it.  Batwoman is on her way to Coryana as Jacob and Sophie wake up in a cell on the island.  Tatiana informs Jacob that Alice wants him present when she kills Kate.  Sophie and Tatiana end up fighting, and they take her down, and the two escape.  Batwoman has arrived on the island, but ends up facing off against some of Safiyah's men, and is captured, due to her weakened state.  Safiyah has Sophie and Jacob recaputred, and takes a shine to Sophie...inviting her to join her army.  

Alice is losing patience, and wants Kate, so that she can finish her off, and Safiyah says she doesn't want to kill Kate...she has no idea what she wants with Kate.  Alice says she wants to kill Kate more than she wants to breathe air.  So, Safiyah agrees.  But before Kate is fetched, Batwoman is brought to Safiyah, and she tells her that the body of Ocean is a fake.  Once she's dragged off, Safiyah discovers the truth, and is pissed off.  She has Alice taken away and thrown in the cell with Batwoman.  It while locked up that they actually begin to hash things out:  Ryan calls out Alice for lying about wanting to kill Kate.  Because, unlike when Alice told Ryan it wasn't her fault that Ryan's mother got killed by her henchmen, it WILL be Alice's fault that Kate dies by her hand.  Just as Ryan calls Alice's bluff, Safiyah arrives, and thanks Batwoman for exposing the truth.  And she gives Batwoman a wish...which Batwoman says she wants the Desert Rose to heal herself....and Kate.  Safiyah says that she can only have one....and Batwoman chooses the Desert Rose.  That leaves Kate to Alice.  

However...before Alice can have Kate....she's gotta do ONE thing:  kill Ocean.  Safiyah managed to track him using Alice's phone, so she had him brought back to the island.  She gives Alice a choice - kill Ocean and have Kate...or don't and never get Kate.  As much as Ocean tries to convince Alice that his sister is unhinged, Alice does the dirty deed, and kills him.  With him dead, Safiyah takes her to Kate.  Back in Gotham, Luke and Mary are attacked by one of Safiyah's lackeys for spying on them, and they managed to knock her out....only for the assailant to land on Ryan's plant.  They go to pick it up, and the assassin has bled on it, but they grab the plant and run just as the assassin recovers.  The assassin is then killed by Julia Pennyworth, who just happened to show up in the proverbial nick of time. 

As Tatiana goes to give Batwoman the news about her cure, Safiyah goes to take Alice to Kate.  While Tatiana informs Ryan the reason why Alice won't kill Kate, Safiyah shows Alice a cell where there's dozens of necklaces like hers and Kate's handing from the ceiling.  It turns out, Safiyah had NEVER had Kate to begin with, and lured Alice here under false pretenses, in order for her to hunt down and kill Ocean.  As the truth unfolds, we now realize that Safiyah wanted to punish both her brother and Alice for them falling in love with each other and betraying her, and by having Alice do her bidding.  She now wants Alice taken off the island, and she's escorted away.  Back in Gotham, Julia delivers devastating news to Mary and Luke:  Julia said that authorities had found scattered body parts washed up on the shores in Bludhaven...and they were a positive match for Kate.  So...to the world at large...Kate Kane is dead.  

Turns out, Safiyah played more games, as she pulled the knife from Ocean, and he's alive!  She had coated the blade with the Desert Rose serum, and once she pulled the blade out of him, he revived.  When asked WHY she did that, it was that Safiyah wanted to teach him a lesson---that Alice didn't love him, and that no one should betray her.  That he's better served being there with him.  He calls her cruel, but she feels justified in her actions.  Alice, on the other hand....upset that she was lied to, and manipulated in regards to Kate....decides to give one last "screw you" to Safiyah, as she sets the Desert Rose fields on fire---saying to herself that now she and Safiyah have lost the things they love most.  Safiyah sees the fields burning, and knows Alice was the culprit.  But she also knows the TRUE perpetrator in this whole scenario:  Tatiana.  It was she who had set up Alice by giving her the note in the sewer, and had wanted to destroy her---for Safiyah.  Because SHE was in love with Safiyah, but it seemed that Safiyah NEVER got over Alice.  But because Tatiana set this whole series of events in motion, she's now going to pay the price.  Safiyah stabs her with the blade, and leaves it in her....saying she'll remove it later when she feels she's learned her lesson. 

Jacob and Sophie managed to find a plane, and Jacob looks to hotwire it, as Sophie says she's going back for Kate, and to give her an hour to find her.  As she goes to find her love, she stumbles across a dying Batwoman...who is watching the field of Desert Rose go up in flames.  Sophie apologizes, and Batwoman asks that she not leave her....if she could stay with her, as she dies.  Batwoman then tells Sophie that Kate was never here on the island, and that she was informed Kate was killed.  Luke, now with the signal back up and running on the island, gets ahold of Sophie, who tells them she's with Batwoman, who's dying.  They tell her that they need to get her back to Gotham quickly....they have the cure for her.  It turns out...Ryan's plant was actually a Desert Rose all along.  

Our show ends this week with us going down into the Gotham sewers where we see a short haired woman who's face is bandaged up...with a necklace just like Alice's....when then realize it's a VERY MUCH alive Kate Kane.  

Twists within turns within twists.  This episode gave us a few, and sets things up goigottng forward.  Almost 10 episodes in, and we got A LOT of movement on the Kate Kane front.  While the world...and her family believe her dead...she is alive and has been dispatched into the Gotham sewers.  But before you guys get all up about Ruby Rose returning....she's not.  This is Kate Kane recasted by the show runners with actress Wallis Day.  She'll be handling the role of Kate from here on out, which begs us to wonder:  if they had that in mind to BEGIN with....WHY create the role of Ryan Wilder to begin with?  Wouldn't it have just saved time to recast Kate, and go forward?  See....this is the problem with the CW sometimes...they goof up.  I have ideas on how they'll explain it away, but now it creates an issue for the series---if you have a new woman in the role of Kate Kane....what's the purpose of Ryan Wilder?  Why have her at all?  she now seems meaningless. By doing this, it now appears they've backed themselves into a corner.  I'm REAL curious to see how they write their way out of THIS pickle.

On the positive....with everyone believing Kate dead, it will allow Ryan to fit more comfortably into her role as Gotham's Scarlet Crusader.  She won't feel burdened by having to just be a fill-in for Kate....she IS Batwoman.  And once she's cured, she'll grow more confident in her role.  But there will still be grieving for all those in Kate's life:  Luke and Julia....but moreso....the three people who truly loved her:  Jacob, Mary, and Sohpie.  This will hit them the hardest.  For Jacob...losing another daughter (because he feels Alice is a lost cause), for Mary...her sister...the person she grew up admiring.  And Sophie...the love of her life.  This will effect them going forward.  

And then there's Alice.  This is a woman with absolutely NOTHING to lose now.  It's been one thing for Alice to live life on the edge, and tiptoe on the border between insanity and pure madness....but now having lost her sister---whom we NEVER believed she ever would've killed---because she always wanted Kate to save her.  Now that isn't possible.  And though she destroyed the Desert Rose on the island to get back at Safiyah....I'm pretty sure this means that those two are not done yet.  

And will Ocean ever find a way to destroy his sister?  It seems that she wants him back into the fold, and manipulated him as such...but I feel he'll stay....if only to plot against her again, and possibly take her down once and for all. 

This was probably one of THE most solid episodes of the entire series.  We've got some interesting subplots moving forward...plus Black Mask on the way!  So, I'm REAL interested in hearing YOUR thoughts on this episode, but on what's to come.  So, don't be afraid to drop me a line after subscribing....will you?  

Until next time....the Signal is OFF!