BATWOMAN 2.10

 

RECAP - BATWOMAN  2.10:  "Time Off For Good Behavior"  

Most of the time---memories can be long.  Black Mask's memory certainly is.  And he's been VERY unhappy as of late with the lack of Snake Bite hitting the street.  And knowing that his favorite chemist--Angelique--took the fall for a murder, is now in prison, and of no use to him there.  On top of that, Batwoman has increased HER efforts to take him down, and get the drug off the streets.  But sometimes....memories are taken from us.  Just ask Julia, who has been pursuing a paper trail that has had her spanning the globe, and she can't figure out WHY.  And for Alice---she KNOWS what memories she LOST---she's just now looking for the perpetrator who wiped them:  Enigma.  

We had a lot of the chess pieces on the board have some bit of movement this week, as the backdrop of this episode was on a new community center that Wayne Enterprises opens up for the youths of Gotham.  Mary and Ryan are there for the opening, not long after Batwoman had made the TV news by taking down some of the False Face Society members, then took to the camera the news crew had to officially declare war on Black Mask...calling him out right on television.  But their happiness about the center opening up is short lived as a reporter from the Gazette named Horton Spence crashes the party, and asks about the security of the center, it's only moments later when he leaves that the center is attacked by a man with a lightning gun.  With the damage done, it puts Batwoman on the case as to who attacked the center...and several others...over the last few months.  The Bat Team theorizes that Spence has some deep connection with it.  And when confronted by the Scarlet Knight, he says he's been trying to figure out himself who's behind the attacks, and both are attacked themselves.  Spence is injured, but survives.  

The team then starts piecing the puzzle together, and it discovers that the CEO of the prison--and Ellis O'Brien--has been giving hardened criminals time off for good behavior, if they attack the centers, because they cut into his business:  criminals.  The more kids slip through the cracks, the more they become criminals, the fuller his prisons get.  Batwoman confronts him about his crimes, but he ends up having other plans:  namely, more bad guys with lightning guns.  Batwoman tries to hold off as many as possible, but she's at gunpoint when the bad guys get blasted.  Luke uses one of the guns to save her.  Because of Batwoman's heroics, O'Brien is exposed, and the Editor in Chief of the Gazette...who had fired Spence....was exposed as an accomplice, and Spence becomes the new EIC of the paper.  Ryan will also pull duty at the center with the center's supervisor, Imani, as the teacher of their self-defense class.  Not everything went Ryan's way this week, as she managed to reach Angelique while visiting her in prison, to fess up to those responsible for the Snake Bite, and then turned to Sophie to help get her into protective custody.  Foolishly, Ryan promised to protect her, and not let anything happen.  But as Angelique was being taken into protective custody by The Crows, Black Mask's men intercept the car, take out the guards, and kidnap Angelique, as she is talking to Ryan on a burner phone.  

Alice has been on a mission, as has Julia:  to discover WHY they have missing bits of memory.  Well, for Julia, anyway, as she is retracing her steps since she was on the search for Kate.  Apparently, she'd been spending some money, and doing some globetrotting, but can't recall ANY of it.  Alice, on the other hand, KNOWS what happened to her, but she wants answers...and a way to restore WHO she was before Safiyah got ahold of her.  So, when their paths cross, they form an uneasy alliance, but Alice DOES provide Julia with a clue:  Dr. Evelyn Rhyme.  She's worked with Safiyah as Enigma, and wiped Alice's mind, and Julia DID have a run in with her prior to her trip abroad.  So, Alice goes to visit Evelyn's office while Julia confronts her personally.  Evelyn herself is busy this episode, as she continues to not only do Safiyah's  dirty work, but Black Mask's as well.  When Julia confronts her about who she is, Julia is instantly drugged, and when next we see her, she's telling Sophie she's leaving town, because it "feels right".  So....safe to say....Enigma wiped Julia's memory yet again, and it looks like Julia is leaving Gotham for a little while longer.  Alice, meanwhile, enters Evelyn's office, and finds a recorder....where she listens to a session between Evelyn and her father.  She hears his guilt and confession about how NOT saving her has weighed his mind, and given him guilt.  Alice says that as much as she'd love to forgive him, forgetting seems easier, and she erases the session.  

Jacob is getting worse, and Kate's "death" has sent him spiraling down.  So much so, that he's taken by surprise in his vehicle, and drugged with Snake Bite.  It's here, be begins hallucinating about saving Beth from Augustus.  He begins talking to Evelyn about it, and she knows he's been on the drug (since SHE, no doubt, administered it to him), and she tells him that he needs to try and forget what he COULDN'T do for his other two daughters...and try to reconnect with the one he has left.  So, when he tries to do his best to be there for Mary...who re-opened her clinic, despite what he did about shutting it down, he offered to help her make it legit---with real doctors.  But she doesn't want that.  She's still pissed that he took the ONE thing that gave Mary ANY life in the wake of losing Kate....it's helping the people at the clinic.  So, she doesn't want anything to do with him.  So, his relationship with HER further strained, he sinks lower.  He's then visited by Roman Sionis, who brings him a bag that has two syringes of Snake Bite, saying he "found" it in an employee's locker.  He asked for Jacob to "dispose of it", knowing full well that he wanted Jacob to take it.  So, Black Mask making his OWN personal move on the head of The Crows.  And with Jacob at a REAL low, he ends up taking the Snake Bite...just so he can go back into his fantasy world.  

This episode gave us a smarmy villain of the week, but it also provided more intrigue, as we now have a few new plotlines going on.  Jacob's continued deterioration with the help of Black Mask and Enigma, Julia's sudden departure thanks to Enigma's mind-wiping, and Alice's quest to get what SHE lost back from Enigma...her old memories, and possibly be rid of this evil that consumes her.  And all the while, we have Batwoman formally declaring war on Black Mask...but paying the price for that, as Angelique has been kidnapped by him in order to get his Snake Bite back on the street.  Things have heated up, and the Bat Team is going to have to work overtime to try and take Black Mask down.  And with Enigma pulling double duty between Black Mask and Safiyah, it makes me wonder just how connected these two are, and if they're collaborating.  And how nasty and desperate will Ryan be in her search for Angelique, and when will the final showdown between Black Mask and Batwoman happen?  We've still got quite a ride ahead of us, but I am liking this season MUCH better than the last---and then there's still the Kate issue to deal with down the road.  

Either way, we're getting MUCH better storytelling from this show, and they're doing a MUCH better balancing act between the characters.  But I am curious as to what YOU think?  What are YOUR thoughts on what's going on in Gotham City?  Subscribe and let me know below...

Until next time...the Signal is OFF.