Hello readers, new and old! Welcome to another ice cold (I’m so sorry) Batwoman recap!
Previously on Batwoman, Sophie helped Ryan stave off hypothermia by whispering sweet nothings into her ear, Mary made the difficult decision to tell the team about Luke’s PTSD, Jada threatened Ryan, Alice’s delusions increased, and Mary got DRAGGED INTO SOME HEDGES by sentient ivy?!
For reasons unknown, we open on a very zoomed in and terrified looking eyeball and I hate it so so much. Zooming out doesn’t help much because the eyeball belongs to a very frozen person who’s part of some kind of reanimation project. A strange man in a hat instructs the person to stand, and they immediately and quite literally crumble. I’m sure that’s fine.
Speaking of things that are definitely fine and not at all concerning, Mary is alone on a bench in the park, looking quite angelic, and surrounded by vines slowly unfurling from her body. When she wakes up, she finds a thorn in her arm, and pulls it out before going to find her friends.
“Angel of miiiiiiine.”
At the loft, Ryan is showing Luke a framed article showcasing her inclusion in Gotham’s 30 under 30 list thanks to her very involved brother, Marquis. The photo is hella cute plus Ryan IS a rising star, so she’s gonna roll with this one since ghosting Marquis hasn’t worked. Luke is worried Jada will find out the two are friendly and come after Wayne Enterprises, but Ryan assures him that she plans to give Marquis the cold shoulder at the media event. PLUS ANYWAY SOPHIE WILL BE THERE TOO WITH JORDAN SO IT’S ALL FINE.
When your friends question how fly you are, and you have to set them straight.
Mary comes in looking as frazzled as you would expect someone who unknowingly spent the night among magic vines to look. Ryan asks if her “sweet girl” (!!!) spent the night with a guy, but Mary tells them she spent the night in the park and for some reason, neither Ryan nor Luke have a real reaction to this?! Luke’s still upset about Mary blowing up his spot, so he leaves, but Mary just wants someone to listen to her. Ryan offers a “walk and talk” but Mary’s drama requires more active listening, so the two agree to debrief over happy hour drinks. Mary Hamilton deserves so much better, y’all. I don’t think Alice is right about the Bat Team only acknowledging Mary when they need something, but come on, your friend just told you she spent the night in the park and you didn’t think to ask follow up questions?!
If my friend came to me looking like this, I would have some QUESTIONS.
Meanwhile, Alice is in Arkham imagining nanobots crawling in her skin, when a guard comes in and makes a “you’ve got mail” reference that sends both Alice and me into a “wow I’m that old, huh?” spiral. As soon as the guard says he has letters for her from her dad, she knows she’s hallucinating him. So naturally, she snaps his neck, gets the attention of another guard, and asks to speak to Montoya. Spoiler alert: they invoke Montoya’s name SO MANY times in this episode and we don’t get to see her face not one time, and I’m not saying that’s a hate crime, but.
“Back to life, back to reality.”
At the Gotham Expo Hotel, the 30 under 30 media event is in full swing, and our girl Ryan is looking fly as hell in a red dress. Homegirl can flawlessly go from converses and flannel to heels and a freakum dress and it is an inspiration. Ryan is strategizing with Wayne’s PR guy and absolutely killing the step and repeat when Marquis shows up and throws her off her game. A photographer manages to snap their picture together, and Marquis claims he was just doing a nice thing by getting Ryan on this list, but Ryan doesn’t buy it.
Is this Javicia or Ryan though?
Across the exhibit hall, Sophie is with her sister Jordan complaining about how she can’t get free champagne unless she’s an honoree and their sibling banter is all very cute. Even though this whole scene is off-brand for Jordan, she claims she’s only here to use her speech to get a larger budget for the community center. Sophie’s proud of her sister for keeping her eyes on the prize, but the only prize Sophie has her eyes on at the moment is Ryan Wilder. The two catch each other’s eyes and they smirk and it’s all so angsty and I am LIVING.
“‘Cause all I know is we said, “Hello” and your eyes look like comin’ home”
Sophie tells Jordan about a dream she had where Ryan brought her soup in bed, but she woke up before even trying the soup. Jordan is like, “ah yes, classic longing, I know her well.” Sophie insists that it wasn’t a sexual dream, until she remembers Ryan brought a flower with the soup and oh no, mayhaps the dream meant a little more than maybe Ryan is just really good at taking care of her friends.
That moment you realize your dream meant what you hoped it didn’t.
Poor Sophie laments about everyone in her life killing it, while she’s 31 with an uncertain career and all she wants is a girlfriend. I don’t have the energy today to get into the depths to which I relate to Sophie in this moment, so all I’ll say is… GIRL, YOU’RE DOING AMAZING. She’s doing so amazing that she can’t stop staring at Ryan and Jordan calls her out HARD. As Sophie walks away, the same hat guy from the opening grabs Jordan, tranqs her, and drags her away.
At the Jeturian offices, Jada’s checking out the CW version of Getty images and sees the photo of her children together at the event. This would please some parents, but not Miss Jada! She decides to give Vesper Fairchild a scoop that will help the radio host’s falling ratings.
I know she’s the worst, but I can’t get enough of Jada Jet.
Back at the clinic, Mary’s tending to some plants which probably definitely doesn’t have anything to do with night in the park. Nope. Alice rolls in and y’all, I’m convinced this writers’ room just has a list of “Potential Alice Entrances” and they’re ticking them off one by one, because this is comedic GOLD. Anyway, Alice claims Montoya (yet another mention) let her out because she has information about another Batman trophy, but JK, that trophy doesn’t exist; apparently Montoya will believe anything if you say it in a low enough octave and honestly, same.
Mary knows there’s got to be a reason Alice is playing hooky, but Alice deflects by threatening to tell Montoya that Batwoman is doing a media tour instead of fulfilling her end of their deal to get back all of the Batman trophies.
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“You hurt her, you die.”–Sophie Moore, probably.”
I’m wheezing.
I’m gay and Sophie is so pretty it hurts.
Yeah. WHY IS NO ONE LISTENING TO MARY ??? (I appreciated Mary sassing Luke)
“HANG THIS IN THE LOURVE” Sophie’s face. I cheered. This is going to be phenomenal xD They were already comedy gold last season. I’m still not over Alice eating a plant to be honest.
Oh god, how did I forget Alice eating a plant?! ❤️
I wanted to throw everyone in the trash can for how they were treating Mary this episode. SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM?!?!?? Ugh!
If you live long enough, you can live to see Andrew taking off his glasses like Giles.
(I only realized Charlie is played by the same actor who played Andrew in Buffy when my partner pointed it out to me though.)
While I am living for this WildMoore slowburn, and Ryan and Sophie becoming more amd more devoted to each other, I’m gonna need Ryan to divert about 20% of her energy into asking Mary about waking up on a bench. On a good day, Gotham parks are beset by killer crocs and swarming deadly bats, and Ryan and Luke just took it in stride.
I love this specific super show because even though the whole team is aware of the wild, amoral shit Alice has done and might do again, Sophie and Mary have really stepped up to advocate for Alice, and Ryan only grumbled a little bit.
They literally don’t have to, but they’re aware enough of her trauma and her crumbling mental health and the broken system trying to keep her sick, and they can’t just leave her to her madness. Love a super team with some clear moral lines and empathy.
I love when the writers make their flagship diegetic. It’s a simple but effective way to acknowledge the fans.
I’m still mostly confident we’re gonna get our Wildmooore endgame, but I think it’s also safe to say we got queerbaited this week. That promo reeeeealy leaned into teasing the romance, and yet they didn’t get together. Not saying that can’t be redeemed soon, but I think it should also be called what it is for now
Also, is there a section missing from this? It seems like a chunk got skipped in between the photos captioned “It’s like she’s trying to speak to us…” and “Wow, I didn’t think ‘mommy issues’ included ALL THIS.”
It’s not queerbait as they gave us exactly what was in the promo lol. No promises were made to give us any more than that. We already knew Wildmoore was gonna be slow burn and they already confirmed the love triangle. I’m just very excited for how it will all play out.
They don’t necessarily have to have promised it specifically for that promo to count as queerbaiting. It leaned heavily into the potential Wildmoore romance, teasing that we’d get more when we ultimately got pretty much only what was shown in the teaser. The writers certainly aren’t queerbaiting, but I still say the promo team was unfortunately dabbling in that area
Queerbaiting to me is when queerness is implied and teased to draw queer viewers in but never acknowledged as anything more than subtext. Batwoman is too gay of a show for queerbaiting to be possible.
This is just classic drawing out a will-they-won’t-they, and every show with a straight pairing does it! I’d be annoyed if this level of tension were happening between two characters the show insisted were straight, but Ryan and Sophie are both lesbians, and I for one am here for the slow burn.
This season is so good so far!!
I have never really gotten the whole damsel swooning when the hero rescues her thing until the books froze and Sophie looked at Ryan like that and Batwoman looked at Sophie and I about passed out from all the hotness.
I’m usually mad about the team being jerks to Alice, but poor Mary these last couple episodes!
If anyone reads this, The episode is 304 but the title shows 404. Just a correction.
Alice continues to be the queen of physical comedy with that rolly chair exit from the room with Mary. Had to replay it a couple times!
Can’t wait to see Sophie as Ryan’s plus one next week, and Alice and Sophie as roommates!
i did not expect “alice as comedic relief” this season but i am NOT MAD ABOUT IT. i’m literally in love with this episode. i mean, for god’s sake, everyone block the next five days on your calendar to pay undivided attention to mary, and then ryan and sophie can spend the next five days staring at each other across a variety of rooms.
but i cannot possibly overstate how excited i am for these four women to be teaming up like this. sophie and alice ROOMIES?? more of mary and ryan roomies?? alice and mary SISTERS?? alice and ryan PARTNERS??? sophie and ryan GIRLFRIENDS??? literally this is the future liberals want.