S03.E02: Loose Tooth

[Trini]

When a new incarnation of Gotham's swamp slumming Killer Croc surfaces and starts racking up a body count, the inaugural team-up of Batwoman and Alice is put to the test. But Alice isn't the only unwanted intrusion into Ryan's life when Jada Jet (Robin Givens) shows up at Wayne Enterprises, insisting on meeting the company's new CEO. Luke and Mary's relationship is strained under the weight of a secret Luke is keeping, while Sophie finds herself becoming part of Ryan's inner circle.

Jeff Hunt directed the episode written by Chad Fiveash and James Stoteraux.

Airdate: 10/20/2021

[Trini]

HamilFox, rise!! It may finally be happening this season! Thanks for shirtless Luke, show.

I hope they find a cure for Croc 2.0, but I'm sure we'll never hear about him again.

Of course Alice would try to escape the first chance she got; but I didn't think she'd be back in Arkham already. I doubt she'll be staying there for long, though.

Nice intro for Jada Jet; but I question the choice to make Ryan's mother a billionaire business tycoon.

I guess we'll be seeing Poison Ivy sooner than later?

A little ridiculous that the Batwing suit can detect psychological wounds, but it makes as much sense as anything else on this show, so I guess I'll have to go with it.

[Jediknight]

Bruce and Jada had some "heated interactions"?  It's gonna be revealed that Ryan is Bruce's daughter, right?  They dropped anvils to that.

I guess Luke and Mary are back to being a possible couple.  Mary better watch out for Stephanie, she might not take this well.  They hinted at Luke and Stephanie last season, after hinting at Luke and Mary in season 1.

No way in hell does Alice stay in Arkham.

And hey, Aquaman is confirmed to exist in this universe.

[UnoAgain]

As others have stated since season one... Mary&Luke.... Yes.... Good episode... Glad we got the mom reveal out the way... Now maybe we find out why

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 hours ago, Jediknight said:

Bruce and Jada had some "heated interactions"?  It's gonna be revealed that Ryan is Bruce's daughter, right?  They dropped anvils to that.

I really, really hope not. 

Ryan does not appear biracial.

This show's Bruce appears too young to have a daughter Ryan's age. (Assuming Jada is about the same age as Robin Givens, she'd be about 56, which is well in the wheelhouse to have a 20-something kid.)

But more than that, I already hate the notion that Ryan is a billionaire through Jada. One of the most refreshing things about her character is that she was a rare example of a superhero from a non-privileged background. For her to be a billionaire by birth who is only belatedly discovering her wealth is annoying. But for her to be a billionaire by birth twice over...ugh.

[Primal Slayer]

16 hours ago, Jediknight said:

Bruce and Jada had some "heated interactions"?  It's gonna be revealed that Ryan is Bruce's daughter, right?  They dropped anvils to that.

Anything to ensure that Ryan is as legitimate as possible...

Apart from Ryan laughably being made CEO (acting or otherwise) of Wayne Enterprises....it was a pretty enjoyable episode. 

If they are going to keep using the Wayne Enterprises set and act like it is up and running....at least put some bodies in there and make it seem like there is work to be done. 

I'm already tired of this Alice dynamic. She went from a top tier villain to always losing and being locked up every episode. Either lock her up permanently and move on or find something for her to do.

Wish we got to see more of Croc 2.0 but from what little we did see, he looked great. 

[Trini]

16 hours ago, Jediknight said:

Bruce and Jada had some "heated interactions"?  It's gonna be revealed that Ryan is Bruce's daughter, right?  They dropped anvils to that.

Did they?  I don't think they're giving Ryan two billionaire parents.
 

43 minutes ago, Primal Slayer said:

Apart from Ryan laughably being made CEO (acting or otherwise) of Wayne Enterprises....it was a pretty enjoyable episode. 

If they are going to keep using the Wayne Enterprises set and act like it is up and running....at least put some bodies in there and make it seem like there is work to be done. 

On the other hand, if Bruce's top priority was being Batman, I could see him structuring the company so that the CEO is literally just a title and face with no actual work involved. But yeah; we've never seen any Wayne employees (other than Luke?) three seasons in.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Trini

[UnoAgain]

I also don't believe they'd go and make Ryan Bruce's kid.. Tho the timeline is all over the place.. Renee Montoya said batman was doing his thing over two decades ago... So like when he was a teenager?...  But if they did go that route she'd be what..  Beth and Kate's second/ third cousin.. And Wayne enterprises.. Well she'd be the heir

[Chicago Redshirt]

22 minutes ago, Trini said:

On the other hand, if Bruce's top priority was being Batman, I could see him structuring the company so that the CEO is literally just a title and face with no actual work involved. But yeah; we've never seen any Wayne employees (other than Luke?) three seasons in.

No matter how fast and loose the Bruce persona might be, at the end of the day he's still Batman and he would have had contingency plan within contingency plan for who took over Wayne Enterprises if anything happened to him. Even in the world where Bruce spectacularly fell down on the job, there would be a bunch of corporate types who would line up for the job, and a bunch of stockholders who would stand in the way of someone like Ryan taking the job. 

She has (as far as we know) no education past high school, no relevant experience in corporate America or holding any other job (I think the one job we know that she has held is the bartender gig that the Bat Fam set up for her), she is a convicted felon who is still seeing her parole officer. That's putting aside the argument that racism/sexism/homophobia would stand in the way of what is presumably a multi-million/billion dollar corporation just filling a top spot with a black lesbian out of the blue.

Literally, Alice is the only regular who has a worse claim to be acting CEO of Wayne Enterprises than Ryan. And even she could maybe claim that as a cousin to the Waynes she is owed some number of shares or something. 

It is true that Wayne Enterprises doesn't seem to actually produce anything or have any employees, so maybe it is just a hollow shell that happens to have an expensive building with a secret lair but no employees and nothing else going on.

8 minutes ago, UnoAgain said:

Tho the timeline is all over the place.. Renee Montoya said batman was doing his thing over two decades ago... So like when he was a teenager?... 

I think we're supposed to think that Batman has been operating for two decades. After all, he tried and failed to save Kate and her family when Kate was a young teen, and I assume in the timeline of the show, Kate is now in her late 20s or early 30s. 

[Lantern7]

We learned lots of important life lessons. I think the one that might be forgotten is that Killer Croc is a werewolf. Werecroc?  I mean, some dumbass kid found his tooth, made a necklace, got cut by it, and then transformed into Croc 2.0. And now he's in Arkham, where I'm assuming he's going to be tortured without mercy until we see him again.

Great scene with Luke and Mary. Also nice to get confirmation that Luke might not be cut out for life as Batwing. He did inject Alice with the trackable nanites (or whatever), but I think he got lucky.

I don't think it'll be revealed that Ryan's father is Bruce Wayne. Having her mother be "Take the Helicopter Twelve Blocks" rich is more than enough. Great tension between Ryan and Jada. I'm also thinking Jada knew who Ryan was. Having her be unaware that Ryan was the baby she dumped off seems too convenient.

6 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

I'm already tired of this Alice dynamic. She went from a top tier villain to always losing and being locked up every episode. Either lock her up permanently and move on or find something for her to do.

I think she's still viable as a villain, even as she is slowly nudged towards the force of good. Having her forced on Ryan is a good dynamic, and she can make me laugh . . . . though I usually feel guilty about it afterward.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Lantern7

[Primal Slayer]

Why would Kate grant Ryan the kings to the kingdom? She didnt even know her longer than 5 mins. Why wouldnt she put Luke or even Mary in charge? 

[sugarbaker design]

19 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

I'm already tired of this Alice dynamic. She went from a top tier villain to always losing and being locked up every episode. Either lock her up permanently and move on or find something for her to do.

The writers could start with paying for her crimes of murdering innocent people.

[Trini]

Forgot to mention Alice abandoning that girl in the sewer. Yikes, Alice! Sharing your trauma is NOT help. And I had the tiniest shred of hope for you.

[thuganomics85]

I know why they did it, but it really doesn't make that much sense to me for Kate to make Ryan the new C.E.O., since they barely knew each other.  If the writers really wanted it to be Ryan, I would have found it more believable for Kate to have make Luke or Mary the C.E.O. (hell, even Sophie), and then have them decided to give it to Ryan.  Either way, you would think that it would be a huge deal in Gotham for the new C.E.O. of Wayne Enterprises to be a relative unknown like Ryan.

Heh, Alice can't even make it through on mission without a inevitable betrayal.  I actually did find it refreshing that she also abandoned the girl in the sewer despite seeing some of "herself" in her, because Alice never struck me as someone who would suddenly develop a heart over a kid being in peril.  But know she's back in Arkham, but I doubt for long because if anyone seems to have the ability to fall upwards, its Alice.

Looks like another attempt at making Luke/Mary a thing.  All it took was Mary finding out that Luke has been hitting the gym lately!  Not surprised though that the issues with the Batwing suit might be due to psychological/mental issues instead of physical.

Seems like they might be building up the Poison Ivy plants as one of the bigger threats here.

Killer Croc 2.0. was good, although it was weird they mentioned something about Bruce trying to develop a cure for the OG one, but it wasn't brought back up again here.

Robin Givens is already so much fun as Jada Jet.

[legaleagle53]

Did that opening scene with the two doomed coeds give anyone else flashbacks to the original "Jaws," or just me?  I mean, seriously, I could almost hear the first notes of the theme from that movie!

[CletusMusashi]

They should have just given Killer Croc some Viagra.

Number one way to clear up a reptile dysfunction.

 

Edited October 26, 2021 by CletusMusashi

[tennisgurl]

I am sure the board of directors at Wayne Enterprises is going to be thrilled that their company is now being run by a random twenty something martial arts instructor. Ryan becoming CEO is pretty ridiculous, even by this show standards, if Kate wanted someone in the know to be running the company she really should have left it to Luke or Mary, at least they have some understanding of how the company works. Pretty good episode, I like them using reworked versions of the classic rogues, I hope that we can check in on Killer Croc 2.0 and find out that he got cured, but given how that always worked out for Killer Croc 1.0, that does not seem likely. 

They really need to give us a break from Alice, she went from being a dangerous and compelling villain to wacky comic relief who the show is still trying to head towards her becoming a good guy who get foiled every week like its 60s Batman. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal and all that, no shock that Alice tried to make a break for it, or that she is right back where she started. Also, her abandoning the little girl was a seriously nasty move, even if she thought she was apparently doing something good for her.

Looks like they are heading back towards Mary/Luke, which I would be alright with, but I would be disappointed if we never saw Stephanie Brown again, she and Luke were cute together. 

I am glad that the secret of Ryan's mom is out already, her mom is super extra, I like it.

Edited October 26, 2021 by tennisgurl

[Trini]

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Looks like they are heading back towards Mary/Luke, which I would be alright with, but I would be disappointed if we never saw Stephanie Brown again, she and Luke were cute together. 

Calling it now:

Oh, Steph will be back, but mainly to cause tension/jealousy with Mary & Luke.

It'd be nice if it was more than that, but I doubt the producers are willing to pay for her to be recurring.

[Josh371982]

13 hours ago, Trini said:

Calling it now:

Oh, Steph will be back, but mainly to cause tension/jealousy with Mary & Luke.

It'd be nice if it was more than that, but I doubt the producers are willing to pay for her to be recurring.

I can see that. And as we saw for next week Jada's son shows up. Any Bets he takes an interest in Mary? I have no problem with a Luke/Mary pairing but I found him and Stephanie cute last season and I hate Love Triangles/Quadrangles. Don't need to see Luke and Mary like each other AND Son of Jada/Stephanie Brown be in the mix as well

[Trini]

8 hours ago, Josh371982 said:

I can see that. And as we saw for next week Jada's son shows up. Any Bets he takes an interest in Mary? I have no problem with a Luke/Mary pairing but I found him and Stephanie cute last season and I hate Love Triangles/Quadrangles. Don't need to see Luke and Mary like each other AND Son of Jada/Stephanie Brown be in the mix as well

[Speculation:]

Spoiler

Mary/Jada's son is definitely possible; because I feel like the show isn't going to do two love triangles in the same season.  It's already been reported that Sophie will be in one. So I'm thinking that they might just keep Mary/Luke at the 'mostly unspoken crush' level; and they may both date other people, not each other yet. So yeah, Mary/Marquis.

 

[Josh371982]

7 hours ago, Trini said:

[Speculation:]

  Hide contents

Mary/Jada's son is definitely possible; because I feel like the show isn't going to do two love triangles in the same season.  It's already been reported that Sophie will be in one. So I'm thinking that they might just keep Mary/Luke at the 'mostly unspoken crush' level; and they may both date other people, not each other yet. So yeah, Mary/Marquis.

 

If so I hope Stephanie comes back. 

[Josh371982]

Also I'll give a huge NO THANKS to a Ryan/Sophie pairing. Sophie doesn't have to fuck both Batwomen Writers! 

[yellowfred]

So, not that this was my main takeaway from the episode, but I can't stop thinking about the fact that the Bat Suit apparently has no safeguards against electricity.  Have none of the criminals of Gotham every tried using a taser?