S02.E01: What Happened to Kate Kane?

[TiffanyNichelle]

19 minutes ago, Trini said:

The narration of Kate's letter to Sophie didn't sound like Ruby Rose to me.

I kept wondering if that was her at all. I don't think it was.

[UnoAgain]

1 hour ago, Trini said:

, I don't think it was clear how Ryan found out that Kate Kane was Batwoman. She seemed to kind of know when she met Luke and Mary? I wonder if a scene was cut.

I believe she put two and two together... As batwoman's suit happened to be on the flight of the missing young rich lady.. With kate and batwoman both being out lesbians she made a leap.. And then it was confirmed when Luke and Mary ran up on her screaming Kates name

1 hour ago, TiffanyNichelle said:

I kept wondering if that was her at all. I don't think it was.

Wasn't... Twas Sophie's voice

[Trini]

7 minutes ago, UnoAgain said:

I believe she put two and two together... As batwoman's suit happened to be on the flight of the missing young rich lady.. With kate and batwoman both being out lesbians she made a leap.. And then it was confirmed when Luke and Mary ran up on her screaming Kates name

Yeah, on re-watch it was clearer.

[Trini]

Couple more things:

Obviously, their relationship was toxic, but I thought it was interesting that Alice was the first (only?) one to accept that Kate was dead. I wonder if they're doing that so when it's revealed that Kate is alive (end of season, I assume?) we get the irony and parallels to Beth's "death".

I don't know how long Ryan's kryptonite infection(??) will last, but it seems like it would put a damper on any potential new Batwoman/Supergirl relationship.

[Ugh - sucks that the only character from here to actually crossover to the other shows and be friends with the other heroes is just gone.]

[Chyromaniac]

On 1/17/2021 at 9:39 PM, tennisgurl said:

I cant lie, Ryan Wilder still sounds like the kind of name you put in your fake ID to sneak into a bar in high school, but this was a pretty good introduction to her character.

I still contend that she’s named after Ryan Reynolds and his eponymous film character, Van Wilder.

But, I agree this was a solid start for her character, and she’s much more interesting than the casting notice suggested (even though a lot of the details made it in).  I think a lot of that is due to Javicia.  Apart from the numbers speech (which I doubt many actors could pull off), she did a great job fleshing out the personal moments.

[thuganomics85]

Batwoman has finally returned and kicked off the return of the D.C. CW shows in the time of COVID!  Oh, and a few other things have changed, to put it mildly.

Not actually seeing Kate's body definitely has a feeling of them hedging their bets in case they somehow bring her back in some form down the line, but considering Ruby Rose's exit and all the drama surrounding it, I can only ever see that happening if they do an actual recast.  The fact that they couldn't even get her to do one final voiceover for the letter is pretty damn telling.  I don't think she wants anything to do with this show, anymore.

But, hey, we've got a new Batwoman in the form of... Ryan Wilder?  Name sounds more like an 80s action hero than a potential Batwoman.  And, of course, she also has a dead parent as well, because apparently no one in Gotham is allowed to have both parents still around.  Still, her introduction was solid all things considering, and they've seemed to have done a decent job with connecting the character to everyone else.  Javicia Leslie was good as well, and seems more natural than Ruby Rose was at first (I still maintain that Ruby got better the more the show went on.)  But I think the biggest test (for me, at least) is to see what kind of rapport she has with the rest of the cast (especially Camrus Johnson and Nicole Kang.)

Surprised they already wrapped up the Tommy Elliot as Bruce Wayne deal.  I wonder if it would have been longer had all of the shutdowns not happened.  Warren Christie had fun at least.

Alice is still the psychopath I can't help but to love.  Especially when Tommy asked why she didn't just shoot Kate and her response was basically "For fuck sakes, Tommy, I don't want to just shoot her like some Average Joe Villain!"  I wanted to do a big, elaborate plan where she dies in our dad's arms, and his soul is crushed when he realizes what he has done!  Don't you have any vision, dude?!"  And, of course, she apparently is still keeping poor Mouse's dead body around and talks to it, along with some light cuddling.  I would say she and Cheryl from Riverdale would get along, but at least Cheryl wasn't the one who actually killed her own brother.

Everyone's reactions to Kate likely being dead were well done, but no surprise that Mary's was the hardest for me.  Poor Mary!

Looks like Julie Pennyworth is sticking around for a little bit longer, but I have to imagine that she and Sophie are destined to cross paths with this mysterious Safiyah at some point.

Curious to see how this season goes!

[Primal Slayer]

Julia Pennyworth should be a series regular tbh. We need some more connections to the Batfam apart from Luke.

[quarks]

22 minutes ago, Primal Slayer said:

Julia Pennyworth should be a series regular tbh. We need some more connections to the Batfam apart from Luke.

As of right now, at least, Julia seems to have more in-show connections than Sophie does.

Hoping that's something the show can address soon. Not really knowing what to do with Sophie was one of last season's weaker parts, and not something this season needs to repeat.

 

[Trini]

3 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

Julia Pennyworth should be a series regular tbh. We need some more connections to the Batfam apart from Luke.

Batman has so many adjacent characters! I wish they'd bring in a Robin. Or a Catwoman.

[Proteus]

5 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

Julia Pennyworth should be a series regular tbh. We need some more connections to the Batfam apart from Luke.

I love Julia. I wish they'd make her a regular.

[opus]

2 hours ago, Trini said:

Batman has so many adjacent characters! I wish they'd bring in a Robin. Or a Catwoman.

Gotham had a Catwoman. It gets so confusing to me as to who can what and who can't do what.

[Primal Slayer]

29 minutes ago, opus said:

Gotham had a Catwoman. It gets so confusing to me as to who can what and who can't do what.

Gotham had Selina Kyle but she as never officially Catwoman if memory serves correctly?

[opus]

33 minutes ago, Primal Slayer said:

Gotham had Selina Kyle but she as never officially Catwoman if memory serves correctly?

Hmm, now you got me thinking if they ever used the term or not. I thought they had, but......?

[appositival]

On 1/17/2021 at 10:11 PM, bmoore4026 said:

Beth telling her father that Kate was Batwoman and that she (more than likely) died thinking her father hated her was delicious.

Beth has had so many lemons in her life that she doesn't just make lemonade. She makes a lemon pie and throws it in Jacob's face.

Personally, I'm hoping that the Crows become occasional guest villains rather than a major plot point.

Have they mentioned where Ryan learned to fight yet?

[Loandbehold]

28 minutes ago, appositival said:

Have they mentioned where Ryan learned to fight yet?

I think the social worker (parole officer?) said that she had taught martial arts prior to her arrest and conviction for a crime she didn't commit (b/c we must always use the full sentence). 

[scarynikki12]

1 hour ago, opus said:

Hmm, now you got me thinking if they ever used the term or not. I thought they had, but......?

Taking to speculation.

[CletusMusashi]

Unless you actually own the dojo you aren't going to pay your bills by teaching martial arts anyway. As I recall, the secondary instructors are given perks such as free membership, but little or no actual money. Every single one them that I can remember had at least one full time job in addition to teaching classes there.

[Trini]

On 1/18/2021 at 5:40 PM, Primal Slayer said:

...

Can someone remind me why The Crows are front and center of all the crimes that go on in Gotham as opposed to the GCPD? Ive already forgotten. 

LOL! They've never been clear about this. They just act like another police force. Supposedly for the 'extra-special' Gotham crime that the regular GCPD can't handle, but they seem to overlap in a lot of territory.

[tennisgurl]

23 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

Julia Pennyworth should be a series regular tbh. We need some more connections to the Batfam apart from Luke.

So we have Julia, daughter of Alfred, Luke, son of Lucius, and previously we had Kate, younger cousin of Bruce. This is starting to seem like Batman: The Next Generation. 

[UnoAgain]

1 hour ago, DarkHorse said:

rather than check for survivors, call for help etc? Not very hero like. 

Well she saved the life of the survivor that was on land.. And we don't know if she did or didn't call for help... We just know it arrived.. But yeah she saved the old man

[joanne3482]

I thought when Alice used a face the person ended up looking like the face she took. Is that not the case? Has she gotten so talented with her face masks she can make one look like someone else entirely? 

[Rushmoras]

Colour me unsurprised that they decided to go down the route that Kate was killed in a catastrophe. Overall episode was meh. Some notes about it:

1) Tommy Elliot going for the Batwoman's suit to be Batman. Yeah, more like to be a drag queen, because clearly the suit was modified for a woman's body. I don't think it would fit him. Although, judging from R. Rose physique and the new actress physique the suit can adapt to its wearer's form, so what the hell do I know.

2) Alice keeping Mouce's dead body. And here's the question of the timeline, just how much time has passed, hmm? Couple of days? The body should be decomposing, rotting and stinking-up the place, but she cuddles with him as if he's a teddy bear.

3) What did Tommy do with the dead body in Wayne's manor? How did he explain it to his other sex partner? Find out... never!

4) Who the fuck was narrating the letter to Sophie? Definitely not Kate. And if they chose a new voice for Kate - again, why no simple recast of an actress. YOU MAKING ME SO ANGERY.

As a personal side note: "oh, no, someone other is wearing the batwoman's suite. What should we do?" Eh, call Supergirl to fly-buy and detach the wearer of it. Problem solved.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Rushmoras

[Trini]

On 1/21/2021 at 12:43 PM, joanne3482 said:

I thought when Alice used a face the person ended up looking like the face she took. Is that not the case? Has she gotten so talented with her face masks she can make one look like someone else entirely? 

It defies reality (but this is a comic book show), but yes. She did it one or two times last season.

Edited January 22, 2021 by Trini

[Josh371982]

On 1/17/2021 at 9:18 PM, sonyab said:

I can't watch this show. It's painful now. I can't get past Alice killing her brother. 😭 And then Alice had to lay next to him at the end. 😭

Except he wasn't her brother. He helped keep her from her real family and is a part of why she's like she is. No sympathy for him or her. Its not Kates fault she couldn't magically know Beth/Alice was on the other side of the door and that Beth didn't call out to her. Mouse got what he deserved 

[Stardancer Supreme]

On 1/19/2021 at 6:49 PM, Loandbehold said:

I think the social worker (parole officer?) said that she had taught martial arts prior to her arrest and conviction for a crime she didn't commit (b/c we must always use the full sentence). 

Plus she had asked Ryan if she found a dojo to work at yet.  I thought that was an odd question considering you just can't walk into a dojo and ask for a job without a relationship of some type to the dojo owner.

I shook my head at Luke being so accepting of "Bruce Wayne".  I would have surprised if he didn't know how to access his own Batcave entrance...

I like the way they introduced Ryan and hated that she had 3 dead parents for the life tragedy quotient.  Wow, Mother died in childbirth, never know father, and adoptive mother gets killed. Yuck!

I'm going to ride this season out. It can only get better from here, right?

[sonyab]

On 1/21/2021 at 8:44 PM, Josh371982 said:

Except he wasn't her brother. He helped keep her from her real family and is a part of why she's like she is. No sympathy for him or her. Its not Kates fault she couldn't magically know Beth/Alice was on the other side of the door and that Beth didn't call out to her. Mouse got what he deserved 

Well, with everything they went through growing up, they became siblings. I never said it was Kate's fault. It wasn't Mouse's fault either. It was that guy who kidnapped her. It's his fault. What a sick man that guy was! Yuck!

[Katsullivan]

I also could have done without the Numbers speech. But the new season premiere wasn't bad. I like that the fake!Bruce is out of the picture because without Kate, that storyline won't have had the same impact.

So who else thinks that Ryan Wilder has some superpowers now?

[possibilities]

I'm pretty sure it was the Batman suit dude was looking for, not the Batwoman suit. 

Ryan saved the life of the man she found at the crash site, and only fled the scene when the rescue crews showed up. I'm not defending her choice to steal the suit, but I don't think she was going to be any more help once real help arrived, and would probably be in the way if she had stayed. Plus, once you've been convicted of something you didn't do, you are probably not looking to deal with any more police than you have to.

[Delphi]

I gave it a try,  but I'm not sure it's really my show anymore.   Fake Batwoman did fine and so did the actress but it all fell hollow, like their leading into something that won't ever occur. 

This fake Bruce storyline got utterly wasted,  just as well because Kate isn't here for it. 

Honestly the only things I enjoyed were Alice , great come back Rachel,  pointing out how absurd the whole thing is and killing the random girl because... why not?

I don't dislike Ryan but they really should have found a way to drop Stephanie Brown into the cowl,  dc queen of taking other titles without permission.  Then they could have included cluemaster since they clearly can't use riddler.  And that would've provided a better back story.   Her dad worked for Alice,  Alice killed Tim or her mom.   Stephanie is always getting screwed over in potential.   Fuck,  we could've had the first black Spoiler!

I'm gonna stay on the forum,  but don't think I'm watching the show. 

 

Eta: I'm also going to need this production company to step away from blm, gun control and pretty much all issues.   I think they mean well but it's always ham fisted and never will written. 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Delphi

[immortalfrieza]

On 1/18/2021 at 3:45 PM, Primal Slayer said:

But who doesnt have a vendetta against Alice? lol. Sophie knows first hand about how terrible Alice can be and since it is her bosses/Kates sister she would also have that struggle of trying to redeem her. Not to mention the struggle between being a Crow and now a vigilante.

I spent the whole episode wondering why they didn't just take one of the three already established female characters and have them be Batwoman. Julia and Sophie already have the training and combat experience, and with some training sequences and the actress beefing herself up even Mary could've done it. 2 of them are even already established lesbian characters to boot if for some ridiculous reason that's really such a necessity. Any of them could've stepped into the role fairly easily and already have a history with all characters involved, particularly Alice. Just cut out the middleman already!

Salary? Schedule conflicts? Or was it just as simple as nobody thought of it?

Edited January 24, 2021 by immortalfrieza

[Katsullivan]

17 hours ago, possibilities said:

I'm pretty sure it was the Batman suit dude was looking for, not the Batwoman suit. 

In the Pilot, I think Kate asked Luke to modify the Batman suit to fit her so it’s really the same suit.

[Primal Slayer]

9 hours ago, immortalfrieza said:

I spent the whole episode wondering why they didn't just take one of the three already established female characters and have them be Batwoman. Julia and Sophie already have the training and combat experience, and with some training sequences and the actress beefing herself up even Mary could've done it. 2 of them are even already established lesbian characters to boot if for some ridiculous reason that's really such a necessity. Any of them could've stepped into the role fairly easily and already have a history with all characters involved, particularly Alice. Just cut out the middleman already!

Salary? Schedule conflicts? Or was it just as simple as nobody thought of it?

I think simply put...they want more original characters to make their lives easier than comic characters and for some reason didnt deem Sophie (who is their own original character) "interesting" enough to base the show around. 

[possibilities]

6 hours ago, Katsullivan said:

In the Pilot, I think Kate asked Luke to modify the Batman suit to fit her so it’s really the same suit.

But fakeBruce didn't know that.

[immortalfrieza]

On 1/17/2021 at 8:08 PM, cambridgeguy said:

And apparently the fuss about the kryptonite was pointless since the suit still seemed to do a pretty good job of minimizing the damage from the shot. 

It actually seemed to have worked pretty well, considering that Tommy apparently just jammed the Kyptonite into a shotgun without even making any attempt to make it ballistically sound and yet it still managed to pierce the batsuit.

On 1/17/2021 at 8:08 PM, cambridgeguy said:

It sure sounds like Luke knows Kara is Supergirl  - maybe call her and ask her to help search?

It's because of 2 things. 1, if they brought Kaka and/or Barry into Gotham for any real length of time they'd clean the city up in a week tops. And 2 with Kara's abilities she'd be able to confirm pretty decisively in about 5 minutes whether Kate was alive or dead and then we wouldn't spend an entire season or so having everybody go "is Kate dead?" false drama.

This has been a problem for the entirety of DC comics in particular for as long as it has existed. You can't have a real plot when much much more powerful and effective characters exist in the same universe as other much weaker and less effective characters so the former are just kept out of the latter's stuff for no good reason.

Edited January 25, 2021 by immortalfrieza

[John Potts]

Hmmm. So having had "Batman is missing, presumed dead" and now we have "Batwoman is missing, presumed dead." I get they probably wanted to leave the door open to Kate being still alive, but maybe come up with a different excuse?

Glad it didn't take too long for Team Bats to realise Bruce was a fake. Long term such an impersonation can only succeed if everyone's an idiot (and it makes sense that Luke would be too upset to think clearly).

Is Ryan gay? It seemed a big part of Kate's story, so I'm wondering if they're keeping that.

On 1/18/2021 at 2:06 AM, scarynikki12 said:

Kryptonite didn’t kill Ryan but does seem to be poisoning her. Intriguing.

Canonically, Kryptonite is radioactive (wearing a Kryptonite ring resulted in Lex Luthor losing his hand). It's probably not that healthy having a slug of it inside you.

On 1/18/2021 at 2:18 AM, sonyab said:

I can't get past Alice killing her brother. 😭 And then Alice had to lay next to him at the end. 😭

Well I liked it! It really underlined how Cuckoo for Coco Puffs she is.

On 1/18/2021 at 10:32 PM, Trini said:

So, did we know that Jacob hates(?) his nephew Bruce Wayne?

I don't know if we knew it, but I can see him not liking Bruce's public playboy wastrel persona (or his Bat-persona, come to that).

On 1/18/2021 at 10:40 PM, Primal Slayer said:

Can someone remind me why The Crows are front and center of all the crimes that go on in Gotham as opposed to the GCPD

As I understand it, the GCPD still exists. The Crows are a private force covering the rich areas while the GCPD officially covers all Gotham (and presumably even more starved of funding, since the rich don't depend on them).

On 1/18/2021 at 3:39 AM, tennisgurl said:

 I cant lie, Ryan Wilder still sounds like the kind of name you put in your fake ID to sneak into a bar in high school

What, Real(wo)man NotFakename wasn't good enough for you?

Edited May 18, 2021 by John Potts

[possibilities]

 

On 5/18/2021 at 11:57 AM, John Potts said:

Is Ryan gay? It seemed a big part of Kate's story, so I'm wondering if they're keeping that.

On 1/17/2021 at 9:06 PM, scarynikki12 said:

Yes.

She has female love interests and I can't remember how soon in season 2 we meet them, but there's no ambiguity about whether she's a lesbian or not.

[BeautifulFlower]

On 1/24/2021 at 10:11 AM, immortalfrieza said:

I spent the whole episode wondering why they didn't just take one of the three already established female characters and have them be Batwoman. Julia and Sophie already have the training and combat experience, and with some training sequences and the actress beefing herself up even Mary could've done it. 2 of them are even already established lesbian characters to boot if for some ridiculous reason that's really such a necessity. Any of them could've stepped into the role fairly easily and already have a history with all characters involved, particularly Alice. Just cut out the middleman already!

Salary? Schedule conflicts? Or was it just as simple as nobody thought of it?

I think they wanted another confirmed LGBT+ actress to play the role.