I Watch TV: Batwoman
At the end of the last season of Batwoman various villain implements (Mad-Hatter's hat, Penguin's umbrella etc) were taken from their hiding place in the batcaves and ended up floating down the river. Inevitably people have got hold of them and are now copy-catting all these old villains (who haven’t appeared in Batwoman, but we’re supposed to be familiar with them, or maybe not, I don’t know). Renee Montoya, detective and sole member of the mayor’s moribund Rogues taskforce blackmails Alice and Batwoman to round up these dangerous things.
Meanwhile, Ryan Wilder, now CEO of Wayne Enterprises, discovers her mother isn’t dead, but is Jada Jett, CEO of Jeturian Enterprises, a rival company, and one who has secrets of her own. She tries to push Ryan away, and especially away from her son Marquis who has plans of his own.
Luke Fox discovered the Batwing suit in the climax of last season, when they discovered secrets in the Batcave. It has an AI of his father, Lucius Fox (also dead) that keeps shutting it down at inconvenient moments because he has Post-Traumatic Stress from being shot. And Mary Hamilton, team doctor, finds herself ignored by Luke when she tries to get him to have treatment (he instead unplugs the AI causing other problems) and also ignored by everyone else. In fact the only person who listens to her is Alice, who points out that they are actually family (step-sisters).
The show decides it’s about family again. But it doesn’t seem to have anything coherent to say about it. When the team ignore Mary and [SPOILERS] she goes full Poison Ivy on them, Alice decides to enable her, in part because Mary is the only one who has taken Alice’s increasingly debilitating hallucinations seriously. Alice continues to hurt everyone, though she is less murderous towards the bat-team, who (with the demise of the Wonderland gang, her foster-brother, her former lover and her various mentor/abusers, and also her father locked up) are the only ones who understand her. So she’s snarky, rude, and tries to escape at every opportunity.
Every now and then there’s a good twist or clever revelation. The second half of the season revolves around Poison Ivy (with AND without actual Poison Ivy) and The Joker (without the actual Joker) with some success and some failure; these iconic villains casting a shadow over Gotham with minimal appearance, and the fragile inadequate legacy of the Batman. I might be wrong but there’s less fights and stunts, and more cold-blooded murder which is not quite the vibe I’m hoping for. Everyone on the bat-team makes a sacrifice in the end, which is nice, and also the climax involves the Bat-blimp. What more could I ask for?
Another, better season? Apparently not! They cancelled it.
Watch This: Queer superhero shenanigans, focussing on black
women
Don’t Watch This: It never manages to rise above it’s basic
bat-soap-operaness
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