S03.E04: Antifreeze

[Trini]

When Ryan makes Gotham's "30 Under 30" list, Luke worries about how Marquis's (Nick Creegan) involvement in Ryan's rising popularity as Wayne Enterprises' acting CEO will land with Jada (Robin Givens). Mary returns from a late night out not feeling quite herself, while Alice's hallucinations grow stronger. And when Sophie's sister, Jordan (guest star Keeya King), goes missing, she and the Bat Team quickly realize that Freeze's missing weapon hasn't been fully contained.

Holly Dale directed the episode written by Daniel Thomsen.

Airdate: 11/3/2021

[Primal Slayer]

If i knew nothing but this season, id say...pretty good episode but if i take into account s1&2 this was such a bad episode.

The writers have done nothing to build up Wayne Enterprises and Ryans role in the company. It's been an absolute zombie land since 1x01 but all of a sudden its "active"? Where are the board members? Any employees outside of Luke? 

Ryan knows nothing about the company, running the day2day, has now interacted with 1 person outside of Luke who works there.

I have zero interest in Ryan/Sophie. Sophie already was into the previous Batwoman, don't need that again and dont need her back to just pining for Batwoman.

Didn't we already have an episode last season with Sophies sister in danger?

[Trini]

Wow, already at the 'having dreams about each other' stage with Sophie & Ryan -- kinda fast considering they were almost enemies last season, and Sophie and the previous Batwoman were a thing. Nice to see Sophie's sister again, though.

Did not like Luke and Mary being snippy with each other; it seems out of character. Also out of character: nobody caring about Mary's night in the park. I know weird stuff happens in Gotham all the time, but come on, she's your friend and a part of the Bat Team!

Alice is a good antagonist, but I'm just not into her being out and about, and part of the Bat Team. And it feels like she's losing the little bit of development she got last season.

Aw, man! How long is Batwing going to be on 'pause'? Because I don't want Luke stuck in the cave again.

The Black Glove Society -- I assume that's something from the comics? Never heard of it. It wasn't clear to me; was Jada part of BGS, or just using them to get the cryo-tech? Either way, she seems to hate her kids! I didn't want her to be villainous; but I knew it was a strong possibility.

I was happy for a minute when it looked like Ryan would have to give up being acting CEO, since that plot point is still dumb; but no, the only W.E. employee we've ever met and Luke managed a cover-up. Also, is Marquis telling everyone he's Ryan's brother? That would be a huge scandal, and something he'd want to keep quiet, even if he does want a relationship with her.

Dang - Bruce Wayne seems to have a crappy reputation outside of people who know his Secret, according to this show.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Trini

[Diapason Untuned]

First Mary's graduation and now this party- why are all events in Gotham cursed with cheap free bars?! Is there some sort of liquor shortage in Gotham?!

The PR guy must have had a hell of a time dealing with Bruce, he really came for him at the end there. Poor Luke could only sit there and take it.

Ryan/Sophie is moving at breakneck speeds, Sophie's dreaming about soup now! With a flower!

I know Marcus is too old to be grounded, but you don't need to freeze the kid alive, Jada!

They're no Court of Owls, but it's cool seeing the Black Glove Society on screen.

Sophie got tied to a chair again. She's got to hold the CW record at this point.

[Quark]

Sophie's comment about Alice living in a sewer had me laughing my head off.

I'm slightly baffled by Wayne Enterprises. It never looked like anyone has been there for Seasons 1 and 2, but now it's this massive organisation?

[tennisgurl]

When they started talking about a shady group of Gotham's elite I was sure that we would be getting the Court of Owls, possibly with Jada as a member, this seems like some real Court of owls shit, so I was surprised that its the Black Glove Society, who are a bit more obscure, but they still fit pretty well. This was a pretty good episode, even if I hope that Sophie's sister isn't in danger every single time she shows up, and they are still keeping up this ridiculous "Ryan is the CEO" story. 

So after Wayne Enterprises has been a ghost town and without a CEO for three seasons, they are suddenly a huge busy company with a Board of Directors, a CFO, and Bruce's very long suffering PR person who is very over his millionaire playboy hijinks. I am not shocked at all that the board is asking Ryan to resign, considering she has apparently never even met them and has zero experience in anything involving running a company, but now Ryan apparently wants to keep her seat as CEO, a job that, again, she is not qualified for in the slightest. I do like that Jada found out about Wayne Enterprises using money for Batman utilities, that seems like something that could really happen. Like in the famous attempted blackmail scene in The Dark Knight. "Good luck." 

AI Lucius makes a good point, not only is Luke still suffering from PTSD, he has very little fighting prowess or experience in the field, he just isn't ready to go out there to fight supervillains, even with a cool super suite. I hope that he and Mary make up soon, and that Mary can finally just spit out what happened to her instead of just angrily muttering about it. 

Alice on the team as some kind of house arrest just feels weird, its obvious the show has no idea what to do without without Kate but doesn't want to get rid of her. Its not like I would want her gone forever, but they either need to give her a break or give her something different to do, she just seems to be backsliding from her development last season, which really complicated a lot of her backstory in ways that it didn't need. So she really is unstable, or was it the hypnosis? 

[MissLucas]

The whole 'Ryan as CEO' plot feels like a badly sewn on patch to cover a plot hole yet it's already fraying at the seams. The sooner they find a halfway decent solution to keep the money for the batcave flowing without forcing the audience think too hard about the logistics of Wayne Enterprises the better.

I love the Mary-Alice scenes. I wish Mary had talked to Alice about her weird night. Alice would probably have paid attention to some weirdness that sure won't come up again to bite the whole team in the derrière. Both Ryan and Luke were not on their best in that opening scene.

[Quark]

Forgot to add, it was funny seeing one of Buffy's arch-nemeses in this episode.

[tennisgurl]

22 hours ago, MissLucas said:

I love the Mary-Alice scenes.

Those are the Alice scenes that work the best, if they focused more on their twisted "sisterly" bond then I could get behind Alice still being around a lot more. I find them very interesting and enjoyable.

[thuganomics85]

I'm glad they're at least finally addressing that Ryan being the new CEO would be a huge deal in the media and getting pressure because of it, but I still wish it was developed better and came about more naturally.  It still feels like they toss all of this together to cover-up some plot holes and also have a way to really make her issues with Jada "personal."  Not surprise that Jada is likely dirty as hell since she apparently wants to freeze her own son for reasons not yet explained, but she's at least pretty effective when it comes to playing the dirty corporate game.

I'm guessing The Black Glove Society is another comic thing.  Kind of reminds me of The Court of Owls.  To be fair, Gotham certainly wouldn't have a shortage of sinister rich people...

At least Luke is finally acknowledging that he likely does have some form of PTSD and that's why the Batwing failsafe keeps kicking in.  Hopefully he will address this and peace with Mary.  Meanwhile, hopefully Mary will eventually tell everyone about the whole "Might have gotten infected by Poison Ivy's vines" thing.

Sophie is already acting like a teenager with a high school crush with Ryan.  I wonder when she'll get to the passing "I love you!" notes phase?  Maybe prom will be in the future!

Alice has been upgraded from Arkham to house arrest with Sophie now.  Not going to really bother with how flimsy this all is since it's clearly just a case of the show wanting to keep Rachel Skarsten around and they don't care how they do it!

I kind of hope the PR guy comes back.  Heck, I want him to find out the truth and spend his days finding new ways to cover for all of the Bat-antics.  He would probably be all "That explains so much!" if he ever finds out the truth about Bruce.

[Lantern7]

Mary: Hi, guys! Listen, something weir-

Ryan: Can't talk. Getting involved in business drama with my biological mother, who is the absolute worst. Also, my half-brother, who's doing everything short of wearing a "I HEART MATRICIDE" t-shirt.

Alice: Yeah, I can't talk, you lovely run-on sentence, you. I'm dealing with going out of my mind. Well, going out of my mind in a way that's not fun to watch.

Sophie: My recurring character sister just got turned into a Popsicle. I really can't talk.

Luke: I'm still mad you from last episode!!

Mary: (shrugging) Good talk, guys!

On 11/4/2021 at 12:13 AM, Primal Slayer said:

The writers have done nothing to build up Wayne Enterprises and Ryans role in the company. It's been an absolute zombie land since 1x01 but all of a sudden its "active"? Where are the board members? Any employees outside of Luke?

Who has been running the show after Kate initially vanished? Yeah, there should have been an episode where Ryan was publicly installed as the boss, and the press eating it up because Bruce Wayne is nine kinds of coked-out and would put someone with no business experience in charge.

On 11/5/2021 at 4:05 PM, thuganomics85 said:

Alice has been upgraded from Arkham to house arrest with Sophie now.  Not going to really bother with how flimsy this all is since it's clearly just a case of the show wanting to keep Rachel Skarsten around and they don't care how they do it!

Is it wrong that I'm not going to complain? "Oh, dear. Why are you so cross?" "Lets start with you killing my mother!" "Okay, yes, that is valid . . . but I poisoned you and her, and I gave both of you one dose of antidote. So if you look at it in a certain way, your mother's death could be considered a suicide."

On 11/5/2021 at 4:03 PM, tennisgurl said:

Those are the Alice scenes that work the best, if they focused more on their twisted "sisterly" bond then I could get behind Alice still being around a lot more. I find them very interesting and enjoyable.

Rachel and Nicole are the best parts of this series.

[paulvdb]

On 11/4/2021 at 10:10 PM, tennisgurl said:

AI Lucius makes a good point, not only is Luke still suffering from PTSD, he has very little fighting prowess or experience in the field, he just isn't ready to go out there to fight supervillains, even with a cool super suite.

Which reminds me: why does every tech support person in the Arrowverse feel the need to go out in the field. From the shows that I watched long enough to have an opinion about them: Curtis. Cisco, Gambi and now Luke. At least Cisco had a power. And Gambi had some experience in the area and didn't go out in the field often. Which I guess makes Curtis and Luke the ones that seemed least qualified to go out on missions. And Felicity was the only one that never went out in the field except when her expertise was needed on location. Which is one of the reasons why she (and Gambi) are my favorite Arrowverse tech support.

[Josh371982]

God it's so gross and Lazy WHYYYY does Sophie have to like the second Batwoman? WHYYYY? I'm not rooting for it. It's lazy ass writing Apparently Sophie can't like any other women. Of Course Luke and Mary have to start getting.snippy at each other. They like each other now 🙄🙄