We did it, Joe! We made it to the season finale of Batwoman! And what a ride it’s been. I’ll save all of my mushy fee fees until later, so let’s get started!
Previously on Batwoman, we learned that the Joker’s buzzer turned Marquis into a sociopath and maybe another buzz would fix him, Alice’s hallucinations returned, Jada found out Ryan is Batwoman, and Alice gave Marquis the keys to the kingdom/Batcave.
We open on an abandoned carnival and Marquis is heading to the House of Mirrors because of course he is. The music is perfectly haunting and I kept waiting for a Marquis twin to jump out of one of the mirrors a la Us. Eventually, Marquis finds the secret doors hiding some things that are exactly where Joker said they would be, and then he laughs and laughs his creepy Joker laugh. Real quick, is this the same abandoned carnival that Ryan parked her van outside of last season and where Kiki and Joker’s workshop was? Feels like yes because more than one of these locations would be excessive, and a carnival as homebase is Joker’s whole thing, right?
Cut to the halls of Arkham where Mary Hamilton is strutting for her liiiiife, bitch! Mary comes nothing but correct and she slays this entire episode. She notices wires leading to Alice’s cell, where Alice is trying to jolt her own self with a makeshift joy buzzer. Homegirl is hysterical and sobbing and all she wants is to get out of her own head. On a much less intense level, I understand the feeling of wanting to claw your brain out of your body (anxiety and depression hive what upppp), and in this moment my heart absolutely broke for Alice. Mary tells her that she’s been working on helping her and found a sanatorium specializing in childhood trauma. Alice is so tired of cells and institutions though, and pleads with Mary to just get her out of there.
Back at the loft, the rest of the crew is deciding how to handle the buzzer situation and how they can get close enough to Marquis to zap him, when Mary walks in with an alternative solution: give it to Alice. The other three can think of nothing they want less. Even the blocking of this scene has Luke, Sophie, and Ryan on one side of the screen and Mary by herself on the other; at least until Ryan steps forward in the middle as mediator to reason with Mary. It’s genius positioning.
They argue that sure, Joker begat Marquis, but technically he also begat Alice, and round and round they go until Luke reminds Mary that Alice literally killed her mother. Mary might not have forgotten that little fact, but I’m not going to lie, I forget it on the regular. The thing is, Mary remembers every single thing that Alice has done to them (including throwing Sophie off a building), but she believes that Alice can change. After Mary shook off the Poison Mary vines, her friends promised her that she would have a voice on the team and this is her using that voice.
Before they can continue arguing, they all get one of those terrifying cell phone alerts because Marquis and his face have somehow commandeered every single cell phone and TV in Gotham. He instructs all of the town to go outside because in 5 hours, he’s going to reveal Batwoman’s true identity. To the 5 people who don’t already know, I guess.
It doesn’t take long for the streets and The Hold Up to fill with Gotham citizens eager to learn the identity of the newest caped crusader. The Bat Team is up in the loft watching absolute icon Dana Dewitt cover the story when Jada struts in like she owns the place. There are two things Wildmoore will never let us forget: that Sophie slept with Renee Montoya, and that Jada Jet has zero concept of knocking. Thankfully, Luke explains that Marquis was able to access all of the cell towers thanks to Wayne tech in the Batcave.
Speaking of Wayne tech, Jada reminds Luke and us that she and Lucius Fox were hella tight back in the day. I can’t remember if I said this in a recap or a group text, but I am very much Team Lucius is Ryan’s Father. Luke looks on in shock as Jada jumps into action and contacts her own tech team to help as if she hasn’t been antagonizing the Bat Team all season. She asks where her daughter is, and the team lies VERY badly about her whereabouts.
Turns out, Ryan went to Arkham to see Alice and hear directly from her why she needs the joy buzzer. She makes sure to tell Alice that Mary’s the only reason Ryan is even there talking to her. Alice appeals to Ryan’s need for a family and asks what if they go through all this and the Marquis that comes back doesn’t care about Ryan and leaves her like everyone else? Alice is the safe bet because Ryan doesn’t need her love like she so desperately needs the love of her mother and brother. Whew! I know you’re also desperate Alice, but damn!
As this is happening, we cut back to The Hold Up where Jada has fully transformed the bar into a top of the line command center. It’s actually kind of adorable how proud of herself she is and how much she’s enjoying being part of the team.
Ryan starts to get up to leave, but Alice stops her in her tracks and admits that while she doesn’t deserve the buzzer, she does have information to trade. Remember how Joker whispered his evil plan to tiny Marquis that day on the bus? Well, before he could go through with it, Batman threw him in Arkham where Joker ran his mouth about it to any inmate who would listen. As Alice reveals that Joker’s plan was to lure the Gotham citizens into the streets to punish them for worshiping the Bat symbol, we see Marquis next to a bomb attached to several barrels of acid.
The rest of the team manages to ping Marquis’ location, but it’s showing up in a massive area and moving hella slowly. It is at that moment that Luke realizes Marquis must have found coordinates to the secret airstrip where THE BATBLIMP was being held?!?! Because of COURSE a billionaire white man just has a blimp at the ready. For why? In case the Lakehawks are in town for a championship game and need to showcase sponsors? In case someone wants to propose to their partner and the city skywriter is busy? Why, Bruce?! We have questions!!
Back at The Hold Up, Ryan tells the team that Marquis’ plan has nothing to do with her identity and everything to do with Marquis carrying out the plan Joker was never able to. Ryan is in full leadership mode as she insists that no is going to die today. I remember a time when Ryan struggled with the idea of leading this team, so seeing her take charge like this is just another sign of how much our girl has grown (not literally; she’s still a smol).
Ryan asks Luke if he can hack the blimp’s navigation system, and while he can’t land it, he can get it close. Which is great, because Ryan wants it near a rooftop for a plan that she refuses to elaborate on, despite Sophie’s insistence. And Sophie knows that the fact that Ryan won’t share means the plan is absolutely batshit (lol), and look at them knowing how the other works, my heart is UNWELL!
Ryan tasks Mary and Sophie with getting everyone to safety without causing a panic, but Sophie isn’t sure how they’re going to do that when she has such a measly social following. I love that Sophie jumped right to assuming her sex appeal was the thing that would convince everyone to listen to her and look, it would work on me, is all I’m saying. This also reminded me that Mary was a whole ass influencer in season 1! Dust off that IG, girl!
Mary suggests they investigate the Bat trophies in case there’s something there that could help. They still need a way to get into the Batcave though. So Ryan goes to talk to her mother, even though Jada is upset with her for claiming to want their family back together yet getting rid of the joy buzzer. Ryan reminds her that the buzzer isn’t going to fix their little acid bomb in a blimp situation, and what she actually needs is her mom’s help and connections to get Wayne back. Jada realizes that while she can’t expose a financial vulnerability like she did to Ryan, there is something that Marquis is hiding. The catch is, it will also implicate Jada. She’s willing to risk that to put the city first.
Up in the blimp (I still can’t believe this, y’all), Marquis’ CFO calls to fire him, but he just laughs it off and turns on the TV to see what could have prompted that call. See, at this point I should have known something was up, because a reporter other than Dana Dewitt breaks the story that Jada threw her own son under the bus about a family secret surrounding her husband’s death and that the board has reinstated Ryan as CEO of Wayne. Apparently Marquis isn’t familiar with classic blimp lore, because he shoots his gun all willy nilly AS IF HE ISN’T IN A DAMN BLIMP. (I’m aware that this is a tricked out Wayne blimp, but let me have this one.)
Mary and Sophie are able to get back into the Batcave, so they do a strut about it. As Sophie goes to look through the trophies, Luke walks Mary through the computer setup and it’s just like HamilFox times of yore. I don’t know what kind of sorcery these writers are practicing that has me caring about a het couple, but dammit if I’m not on board.
Mary manages to get control of the satellites and Sophie grabs Penguin’s umbrella to hypnotize the citizens. Luke hits Ryan with the “Bat bar to Batwoman” (LOL) to update her as she gets eyes on the blimp. Related to absolutely nothing, shout out to the Gothamites who brought pizza to the blimp watch. Y’all are my kind of people.
The blimp drops suddenly, thanks to Mary’s sweet satellite hacking, so naturally, Marquis kills the pilot for being locked out of the navigation system and shoots the computer. Unfortunately, this means Luke is also locked out of the system, so Ryan ziplines up to the blimp instead of waiting for it to get closer. See, Sophie knew her girl was gonna do something reckless.
Ryan makes it to the cargo hold and finds the bomb set up and hopes that Sophie learned something about defusing a bomb in between all those makeout sessions at Point Rock. Sophie doesn’t disappoint and is like “lemme see dem wires, girl.”
