Batwoman, A Review

Her time is now.

First introduced in the 2018 Elseworlds crossover, the first season of Batwoman follows Kate Kane (Ruby Rose), Bruce Wayne’s cousin who returns home to Gotham after a lengthly stay away training in martial arts and combat skills. Whilst she has been away, Batman has fled Gotham and The Crows, a security firm ran by Kate’s Father Jacob (Dougray Scott) has taken over as Gotham’s protector. Gotham’s safety however is threathened by Alice (Rachel Skarsten, Reign) the leader of The Wonderland Gang, who enjoys terrorising Gotham and disturbing order.

Kate’s return to Gotham is brought on after step-sister Mary (Nicole Kang, You) informs her that ex-girlfriend Sophie (Meagan Tandy), who is the Crow’s head of security, has been kidnapped by Alice’s gang. After The Crows prove unhelpful, Kate sets out to save Sophie herself and heads to Wayne Enterprises to check cousin Bruce’s security cameras. Whilst there she meets Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson)- who looks after the company in Bruce’s absence. She also learns that her cousin was in fact Batman but he has since fled Gotham and hasn’t been seen for 3 years. Needing to save Sophie, Kate decides to take on the bat mantle herself, entrusting Luke with costume design and tech support. Now acting as Gotham’s new hero, Kate is tasked with keeping the streets of Gotham safe and defeating a villian who is closer to home than she might have thought. Can Kate step up and be the hero Gotham needs?

It was great to see a new arrowverse show, following the beginning of another hero’s jouney. Now that The Flash, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow are all on their sixth and fifth seasons it’s been a while since we saw a new hero suit up. Seeing Kate’s journey from the beginning reminded me of why I love the arrowverse because I think with the exception of Legends of Tomorrow (which keeps gets progressicely better) the earlier seasons of the shows have always been the best. There’s something great about seeing a new hero suit up with new characters and new villians that reminded me of the better, earlier seasons and I really enjoyed watching

It’s something I’ve talked about before, particularly in my Birds of Prey review, but I really enjoy Gotham as a setting. Compared to other arrowverse locations, it is a lot darker and grittier- both visually and metaphorically. Gotham just has a much more dangerous feel to it, meaning the show overall feels darker and more mature. The villians here aren’t super-powered or meta-humans, they are mostly just dangerous people, often with psychotic issues, meaning even though they’re not physically as dangerous they feel somewhat scarier. The Arkham Asylum setting seen towards the end of the season housed many recurring villians such as Hush (Gabriel Mann, Revenge) and Magpie (Rachel Matthews, Happy Death Day)– both of whom I hope we continue to see- with the Asylum setting really amplifing just how mentally disturbed and dangerous these bad guys really were.

Alice was definitely the best part of Batwoman, not only was she was my favourite character but I also think she is one of the best arrowverse villians to date. I remember being so happy when Skarsten was first cast, having loved her performance in Reign, so many people were watching Batwoman for Ruby Rose or the connection to Batman but I was watching purely for her. Her performance as Alice was nothing short of amazing, she managed to portray the unhinged villian so well and each week I was blown away by her performance. Perfection.

Alice as a character was a very interesting one. Going into the show I was aware that Alice was actually Beth, because after Skarsten was first cast I had done some googling on the character. I think revealing the twist so early was a good idea because it meant the show really got to exolore the relationship between the two characters and go more into Alice’s backstory. Alice really is a tragic character with such an interesting origin story and I just love her.

One of the things I really loved about Batwoman was her suit. In so many other superhero shows (The Flash and Supergirl in particular), the characters wear these costumes that barely or in no way cover the wearers identity. In Batwoman however, with the red wig, fully covered face and voice modulator it makes sense that Kate’s friends and family don’t immediately recognise her as Batwoman. It makes a refreshing change when superhero shows expect us to believe that characters don’t recognise each other because they’re wearing their hair differently or have the tiniest of masks on. Kate’s suit was great and it did a very realistic job if covering up her identity.

This made it all the more satisfying when Mary actually figured out Kate was Batwoman. I think aside from Cat Grant, Mary might be one of the only characters to actually work out a superhero’s identity and it just speaks to how great of a character she is. Beneath her party girl facade, she is actually a really smart and caring character, running her underground medical clinic. Mary was a brilliantly layered character who brought some comedy to the show and was easily my second favourite after Alice.

Catherine’s (Elizabeth Anweis) death half way through the season I felt was a somewhat wasted oppurtunity. Whilst Catherine was hardly the most developed character, I always felt like there was something off about her. I just got the feeling her character was hiding something and I half expected her to end up as one of the show’s big bads. I’d seen rumours floating around that she was actually Batman villian Lady Shiva and I think this would have been a brilliant twist. I think the show could have and should have done more with Catherine’s character and I wish she hadn’t have been killed off so early.

I enjoyed the Vespa Fairchild narration throughout each episode, it was different and something we haven’t seen before in the arrowverse. Fairchild’s weekly gossip updates gave context to what was going on in Gotham and how the public were reacting to Kate as Batwoman, also telling of people’s reliance on social media. The narration was snarky and comical and I thought it was a good way to introduce or close each episode. I don’t know much about the Vespa Fairchild character from the gossips so have no idea whether she is likeky to ever make a physical performance but at the moment I enjoy the almost gossip girl like voice and hope we hear more in future seasons.

This year’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover had massive repercussions across the whole of the arrowverse, effecting each show in different ways. Batwoman wasn’t effected too severely, with the only major changes seeming to be Alice’s doppelgänger and making it so kryptonite can cut through Kate’s suit. In terms of the changes I actually liked how both effected the show. Alice’s doppelgänger gave Rachel Skarsten a chance to show off her brilliant acting abilities and the kryptonite change suggested a future Batwoman/Supergirl crossover, both of which reflected well on the show overall.

Literally as I am writing this review I have just seen the news that Ruby Rose will not be returning to season 2 as Kate and I am shocked to say the least. Obviously I’m glad the show is still going ahead with its second season and not just ending all together, but Rose was just perfect as Kate and it’s hard to imagine who could replace her- I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Overall, I loved the first season of Batwoman. The characters were all great and I loved watching a new hero’s origin story. Gotham was a darker setting with darker villians and I enjoyed the more mature tone of the show. Alice was a fantastic villian and I eagerly await season 2 for more madness and terror.