Hello and welcome to another Batwoman recap! How are we all doing after last week’s Wildmoore kiss? I hope you’re moisturized and hydrated because we’ve got double the Ivys to talk about this week.

Previously on Batwoman, Jada vowed to fix what Joker did to Marquis, Renee freed Pam from her ashy prison, Mary killed a guy, Pam and Mary found each other, oh and Sophie kissed Ryan, nbd.

Our two Ivys waste no time getting back to dealing with Gotham corruption, and their first victim is the CEO of Gotham United Healthcare. They string him up with their vines as Pam uses this opportunity to give Mary some pointers on her villain monologuing; talk less, smile more…or…maybe that’s the other Hamilton. Either way, learning from Pam hasn’t completely erased the Mary we know and love, because even though she’s torturing a man, she makes sure to tell him and us that it’s to get justice for every person he’s denied claims.

“I don’t know if you know this, but Sophie and Renee had sex”

If you thought I was going to condemn Mary for torturing a white man, you are sorely mistaken. She realizes that maybe these powers could be used for Good; to level the playing field she used to watch from the sidelines. Before she can explore that further, Pam gets a nose bleed from helping with the torture, so Mary offers to give mommi (I’m so sorry) some of her sweet sweet energy.

At The Hold Up, Alice makes one Heck of an entrance and it’s just the first of many times Rachel Skarsten Showed Up in this episode. Whew! Alice gives Ryan and Luke the Sparknotes version of what went down with Pam and Mary, including the fact that Mary pheromoned Alice, resulting in the best sleep she’s had in ages.

“Y’all are not ready for the fire I bring this episode.”

As Alice snarks and makes herself a drink, she suggests the only way to take down two Ivys is by getting rid of the sun; and by “sun”, she means Renee Montoya. Ryan doesn’t quite buy that that’s all there is to it, and says as much, but Alice is trés offended by the idea that she could possess a deep feeling.

In the woods, Pam gives Mary her villain origin story. You see, her family didn’t have much money growing up, and they couldn’t afford her brother’s asthma medication, so their mom relied on mostly herbal remedies. At some point, one of the Gotham factories poisoned their drinking water, and her already immunocompromised brother died before his 13th birthday. By the time Pam finishes her story, they’ve reached their destination, but it’s not Renee’s car like Mary assumed.

And speaking of Renee, she’s heading to her car after picking up tickets for her and Pam to presumably get the heck out of dodge. As gets into her car, she’s leaving Pam a voicemail (when did Pam get a phone?!) and breaks the cardinal rule of getting into a car on a TV show. She doesn’t check the backseat!! If she had, she would have noticed Ryan and Alice waiting to remind Renee of their deal. Not the worst of backseat surprises, but come on, Renee!

“Yup, I fucked up.”

The Ivys arrive at Gotham Dam, where Pam reveals her evil plan to drown Gotham’s industry. Literally. Mary admittedly didn’t pay much attention on her school trips to the dam, so Pam enlightens her to the truth: the dam is responsible for eradicating fish species, eroding farmlands, and other really terrible environmental effects. The dam feeds into one of the factories responsible for Pam’s brother’s death, so in Pam’s eyes, destroying it will bring him justice.

“Behold! I am Pam and I have a Dam Plan!”

Back at The Hold Up, Alice and Ryan bring in Renee and handcuff her to the railing. A sentence that should be hot, but…you know what, yes, it’s still hot. Renee won’t betray Pam again by sharing where she took Mary but no worries, Sophie is here to save the day! And the look Ryan gives Luke when she realizes he’s the one who called her?? Whew, homegirl is in major Avoidance Mode. Meanwhile, Sophie is riding high on top energy and is ready to impress Ryan with her skills.

“Okay be real with me, was it good?”

For the first time in awhile, Alice doesn’t know all the Bat tea and assumes Sophie can help because I don’t know if you heard, but Renee and Sophie slept together. I can’t wait until Alice officially finds out that Wildmoore smooched. Unless I missed it, she wasn’t explicitly told in the episode, though she may have overheard Ryan and Sophie talking later on. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Luke tells Ryan that someone lit up the Batsignal and as she goes to leave, Sophie grabs both of her hands (!!) and reassures her that they’re going to save Mary. Javicia does this thing with her face when Ryan’s trying not to feel something; it’s sort of deer in the headlights, almost like she’s physically trying to force her feelings down. I mention this because later, the opposite happens.

“Turn it off, like a light switch.”

Apparently Ry Ry still has access to the roof of Wayne Tower, because she lands there flawlessly to see that Jada is the one who beckoned for her. Jada needs the buzzer fixed in order to give Marquis another jolt, but she won’t just turn it over to Batwoman without getting something in return. They make a deal that Jada will turn over the buzzer to Batwoman as long as she brings Marquis to her by midnight. So Batwoman “Yelena”s off the roof, presumably to find a way to fix the joy buzzer.

“Yelena Belova ain’t got nothin’ on me!”

Back at the dam, Mary (and I, frankly) isn’t so sure about Pam’s dam plan because if it works, it’ll wipe out half of Gotham, including innocent people. Pam tells Mary that she’s acting like Renee and Mary quite literally says, “not trying to be a Renee-sayer” and reader, I laughed and laughed and laughed. Pam is being all “needs of the many” about this, but Mary stands up for herself now that she’s finally figured out how to use her powers for good. Pam seemingly respects Mary’s decision and won’t make her do this (yay!), but she does need her power so she siphons almost all of it and leaves Mary in the middle of the road (boo!). Remember when I said it’s going to be hard to convince me that Pam is a villain. Well, it’s still complicated, but hurting Mary is another point in the villain column!

“Okay you got me. ‘Renee-sayer’ was real good.”

Meanwhile, Sophie is working on Renee, playing good cop? Bad cop? Sexy cop? One can never be sure, but before Sophie can get anything out of Renee, Alice sidles up next to her as if she’s helping even a little bit with the interrogation. For my D&D nerds, it’s like if Sophie is rolling an intimidation check and Alice tries to convince the DM that she’s “helping” so Sophie can get advantage. As Rachel Skarsten absolutely owns the scene, Sophie manages to ask Renee if Pam would do the same thing for her. I genuinely cannot articulate the beauty of Rachel, Meagan, and Victoria in this bit so please go back and watch it again.

“She said what she said.”

While this is going on, Luke is on the scanner listening for clues to Mary’s whereabouts. He asks Sophie what Ryan’s deal is, and Soph realizes that Ryan didn’t kiss and tell. Luke prods, but Sophie just walks away with a “doesn’t matter” and there’s this little giggle at the end of “matter” that is SO STINKIN’ CUTE! Ugh, Sophie is smitten and I’m here for it. That feeling doesn’t last though, because they hear on the scanner that some workers found Mary in the street and she’s being transported to the hospital via ambulance.

LOOK AT HER FACE

As Ryan speeds away in the Batmobile, she updates Luke and Sophie on the Jada situation and in turn, Luke tells Ryan about Mary. Ryan realizes that she can’t do both, so she decides to go after Mary. Sophie is ready to jump in and help (okay, maybe have a smidge more chill, girl), but Ryan asks for Alice’s help instead. Their faces, y’all!! Sophie is so eager to help Ryan, and Ryan looks like she’d rather do anything than face Sophie and thus, her feelings. I am positively GIDDY over this development if only because I’m hoping it will lead to a soft confession of feelings before the season is over.

Alice joins Ryan in the Batmobile and yet again, Rachel Skarsten understood the assignment. She’s messing around with the controls as Ryan disables the rockets and demands she keep her hands at 10-2. They compromise on putting on music but instead of the sounds of Fletcher blasting from the speaker, they tap into comms at The Hold Up, and hear every bit of Renee and Sophie’s conversation.

Comedy gold, I swear.

Ryan tries to turn it off, but Alice is so into it and slaps Ry Ry’s hands away. Renee and Sophie talk about that night and Renee admits that she knows she wasn’t Sophie’s first choice because she wouldn’t stop talking about Ryan the whole night. Alice pipes in with a “hey, that’s you!” and Ryan replies with a “shut up” that felt so much like Rachel and Javicia just clowning around. Alice starts to turn off the comms, but this time Ryan stops her.

Alice is delighted that Sophie likes Ryan back, but Ryan is still in the land of delusion where she denies liking Sophie at all. Alice reads Ryan for filth and informs her that every person with eyeballs can see what’s going on with the two of them, but she also understands why Ryan’s keeping her cards close. It’s the same thing Sophie said last week; Ryan is so afraid of losing anything good that comes along, she acts like it means nothing to her. Not one to be alone in a read, Ryan asks Alice if that’s what’s going on with her and Mary.

Before they can get into that conversation, they spot Mary’s ambulance, that refuses to pull over despite literal Batwoman asking them to. Ryan jumps onto the ambulance and ends up getting Mary out of the back. Good news: she’s not dead. Bad news: she’s in a coma and also, she killed a guy. Alice covers Mary’s coma ears as she tells Ryan about the murder and it’s honestly hilarious and very sweet. She knows that once their Mary is back, this information will destroy her.

“Shhhh! She still hasn’t seen the Yellowjackets finale!”

Somehow, they get Mary from the gurney to the Batmobile and then to The Hold Up (I’ve seen some discussions on Twitter about the logistics of this and y’all are hilarious). As they lay Mary down, Renee tells them about Mary becoming Pam’s sporeling and despite how it sounds, Pam isn’t actually a parasite; she cares about Mary. Sophie puts two and two together and realizes that if Mary is this tapped out, it means Pam is hella strong right now. Renee, suddenly a wealth of information, tells them Pam is at the dam to finish what she’s started, and that if they want a chance to take her on, they’re going to need Mary. I resent the idea that just because Batman needed help, that Batwoman will also need help, but I also love a teamup, so FINE.

“Bitch, do you know who I am?!”

Meanwhile, Pam and her vines are getting to work to take down the dam.

Back at The Hold Up, Mary comes to and is confused about why she’s with her former friends. They (quite ironically) tell her that Pam’s been using her, but Mary doesn’t believe them. She goes off about how they can’t fathom the idea that someone might actually value her, and then Alice chimes in, sounding so broken, as she tells Mary that she’s basically a battery. She gives her my own remedy for sadness which is to listen to a Kelly Clarkson song and move on. (Fun fact about me, I’ve seen Kelly in concert 7 times and I’m obsessed with watching the rest of the world fall in love with her too.)

Keeping true to the cliche that hurt people hurt people, Mary goes in on Alice, on Ryan, on Luke, and even on Sophie despite the fact that she has said nothing during this entire exchange. This is the second week in a row Sophie has been roasted while minding her business and it honestly might be my new favorite bit.

“Literally just standing here, y’all.”

Before Mary leaves, Ryan tells her that she killed a guy. At first, Mary doesn’t believe her because she would obviously remember something like that, but one look at Alice’s face tells her that it’s the truth.

Things are starting to look very very bad at the dam; Pam’s killed a worker, cracks are forming, and there’s not a child in sight to plug them with their finger. (Yes, I know this analogy is broken, leave me alone.)

This is just the power of Bridget Regan.

It’s too much power for Pam on her own, and to her surprise, Mary shows up to offer a boost. We then learn that this is all part of the Bat Team’s plan to defeat Pam. Renee fills them in about the pheromone blocker she’d been ingesting, which Alice finds incredibly sweet, and figures that if Mary drinks it before Pam siphons her, it’ll weaken the OG and she won’t see it coming.

The better news is that doing this should also bring back the old Mary. That is, if it doesn’t kill her first. But Mary knows she’s stronger than Pam and will be able to pull away before Pam kills her.

Turns out, the Kelly Clarkson song Mary listened to was “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)”

Back at the dam, we see that the plan works! Pam stumbles as she realizes what’s happening, Batwoman shows up, and the two fight in a match up I, for one, have been waiting for! It’s very Step Up 2 (the streets) meets that one scene in Birds of Prey, and what can I say? Every choreo sequence is better with water; it’s just science.

“Let’s dance.”

Luke drops in as Batwing, and as the vines start to squeeze the air and life out of him, he flashes back to getting shot and the events that followed. He realizes that the only voice he needs to hear is his own, which is enough to get the suit operating again. While Luke gets the dam stable, Ryan takes down Pam, and they carry a barely breathing Mary home.

For the second time in this episode, Mary wakes up at The Hold Up, but this time she realizes that she’s back to being herself. The team is so happy to see her and the first thing Ryan does is apologize for sidelining her in the past. I swear, I could feel the hug that Ryan gave Mary. Now, when I invoked Emily Fields’ name last week, I had no idea that we’d practically get one of her quotes this week, but Mary confesses that she remembers everything that happened, including the fact that she killed a guy.

Big Danvers sister energy.

Ryan tries to get Mary to see that it wasn’t her who did that, and while I see Ryan’s point, it might not be the healthiest thing for Mary to just brush this away as a thing that happened when she wasn’t herself. That kind of trauma can have long reaching effects and there’s got to be ONE (1) therapist left in Gotham, right? LOL what am I saying, Ryan doesn’t do Feelings, this reaction makes perfect sense for her.

Meanwhile, Alice is sipping on a blue drink, probably wondering if she and Mary will still have a relationship now that she’s back to herself, when Ryan comes over and returns the favor of a read. She knows Alice cares about Mary and feels bad for attempting to make her more like herself. It’s Alice’s turn to avoid feelings though, because she reminds Ryan that they missed Jada’s deadline (like Ryan, I completely forgot about that).

“As if you were getting away without a read of your own.”

And now, the most dramatic lesbian scene I maybe have ever witnessed? Pam wakes up on a military-style plane and she is furious that Renee sold her out yet again. She’s tired of explaining and fighting and is ready to be done with the relationship. So in a completely sane move, Renee opens the airplane door and is like, well, if you’d rather destroy Gotham and everyone in it, feel free to jump; or you can stay here and make this work. Pam looks at Renee and goes, “I’ll 100% die” and sorry not sorry, I will absolutely be using this moment every single time I want to be dramatic.

“They didn’t even get this drama on ‘The L Word’!”

Listen, it’s very sweet that Renee negotiated a deal for Pam’s freedom, and even Pamela is impressed with Renee. But the lesbian urge to give your girlfriend the choice between you and jumping out of a plane?!?! Absolutely incredible, show. 10/10 for drama.

Not only did Renee negotiate for Pam’s freedom, but the two are headed on an all-expenses paid trip to the Isle of Lesbos! Just kidding, kinda. Sophie told them about Coryana, a magical land where plants are worshiped and there’s nary a factory in sight. I don’t know who’s reading this, but if it’s someone with TV power…GIMME THE SPINOFF PLEASE!

Okay, I’d stay too if Renee gave me this face.

Back at The Hold Up, Mary is looking at articles about the man she killed (see, Ryan…therapy!), and Sophie offers her help to Ryan for the Jada situation. And Sophie does something here that feels important to call out. She can tell that Ryan isn’t ready to talk about what happened with them, but rather than push the issue, she simply makes sure Ryan knows she’s there for her, and walks away to give her space.

“Wait…is this happening?”

Ryan doesn’t let her get far though. She thanks her for getting Renee to talk and informs her that kissing her didn’t work to get her out of her head. It just got her more in it. Ryan quips “no, you’re not” to Sophie’s “I’m sorry” and dammit this is exactly how I flirt. Read me, show. READ ME. Ugh, I’m obsessed.

“Yes, Moore. I’m FEELING. Just let it happen.”

The team tunes in to a news report where Jada blames Batwoman for all of the Batman villains resurfacing. She demands Batwoman turn herself in…or else?? We see the results of the flooding in Gotham, including in the clinic where a desiccated Marquis has been chillin’. Not for long though, because a drop of water is enough to awaken Joker 2.0 and that can’t be good for anyone.

Next week, Sophie’s hair is half up in a high pony!

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