As Marquis gives his own speech about family and loyalty, the remaining dinner guests cheers, drink their wine, and slowly start to feel the effects of a paralytic kick in. The chef reveals himself as Professor Pyg aka Lazlo Valentin aka the former chef at Jeturian. He intends to get revenge on Jada for firing him and causing him to lose his family by making her watch him slowly kill hers. Ryan stabs Lazlo and goes to look for Zoey while the others attempt to escape. I didn’t know I needed a horror-themed Batwoman episode in my life, but my word am I glad we got it. I don’t think I breathed from this point in the episode until the very end.
Ryan finds Zoey dead while the others realize Lazlo locked them in the house and blocked all cell service. As they struggle up the stairs, Lazlo grabs Sophie and Ryan channels Mrs. Weasley with some “not my girl, you bitch!” energy, and whacks him in the head. They make it to Jada’s panic room (casual) and Marquis starts seizing.
Oh, was your adrenaline already high from that scene? Well strap in because now it’s time for MONTOYA / POISON IVY WERE IN LOVE BACKSTORY. This show really said, “sorry, did you think we were done with the casual queerness? You are very incorrect.” Montoya tells Alice, who is enraptured and sitting criss-cross applesauce, how she and Pamela met at school and neither saw a future without the other. At least until a competitive classmate of Pamela’s injected her with a deadly combination of herbs and greenery that changed her entire physiology. She was a different person and that shift tore Renee and Pamela apart. Alice accuses Montoya of putting her career before her girl, but Montoya defends her choice based on her mindset at the time. She thinks Batman hid Ivy under the city because she asked him to, but before Alice can dig any further into that, she starts to hallucinate again.
Back in the panic room, Marquis’s blood pressure is rapidly decreasing (thanks, Apple Watch) and they realize he needs adrenaline. Good news: there are Epipens in the house! Bad news: they’re in the basement and the only way down there is right past Professor Pyg who’s currently building a bomb. Jada attempts to distract Pyg on the intercom as Ryan sneaks by, but homegirl is still paralyzed and her body betrays her as she slams into a pile of very loud pots and pans. Pyg attacks her, but she manages to make it to the basement.
Meanwhile, Jada asks Sophie if she’s actually Ryan’s girlfriend AND SHE DOESN’T SAY NO. Ahem. She tells Jada that she’s Jordan Moore’s sister, and Jada doesn’t seem to know anything about the freeze serum experiments on Jordan and her friends. Sophie doesn’t buy it and frankly, neither do I. Jada does seem to be genuinely concerned about Marquis though…
At the clinic, Mary’s examining the victim and explaining to Alice exactly how she saved Jordan using methods inspired by plants because they’re so much smarter than humans. This is one of those times when nothing I say will capture the brilliance of Nicole and Rachel’s performances in this scene. Alice’s little thumbs up!! Ugh, genius.
Alice opens up to Mary and asks for her help because the delusions are back. Unlike when she was convincing herself that sewing face masks was a tea party, she’s no longer in control of what’s happening to her and she’s so clearly terrified by it. Mary, or whatever is inhabiting her body, has little to no sympathy for Alice. She tells her that all of the pain she’s caused were the seeds she planted for the garden she’ll be buried in. WHEW! Way harsh, Tai. Mary’s still scratching at her arms though and Alice finally asks what the deal is. It doesn’t take much for her to realize Mary got into some poison ivy. It’s not lost on me that Alice is both the one who planted the “the Bat team doesn’t care about you” seed with Mary and the only one who actually notices that there’s something off with her.
Back at Jet Manor, Pyg uses Ryan to bait Jada out of the panic room, and it works. Jada even refers to Ryan as “my daughter.” Ryan uses an Epipen on herself, throws the rest to Sophie, and attacks Pyg. Once Sophie and Marquis are up, a fight ensues, and y’all no joke, Sophie and Ryan stop MID FIGHT to just stare into each other’s eyes on the floor. Have I mentioned I love this show? And then, Marquis appears behind Pyg, bludgeoning him to death, much to the horror of his mother.
Alice is back at City Hall, tells Montoya that the actual killer is Flamingo, and also waves around the dead ivy and calls it Renee’s girlfriend. Montoya is stressed though, because those vines only die when Ivy infects someone new and me thinks this doesn’t bode well for ole Dr. Hamilton. Can we just, can we let Mary be happy for like 30 seconds? Please?
Back at the house, cops have arrived at the scene and Sophie casually walks up to Ryan and asks what she’s thinking about (?!?!?!). She tells Ryan that her gut is saying Jada is hiding something, so Ryan decides to go find out what it is. But before that, she carefully wraps up Sophie in her blanket as the latter becomes the literal heart eyes emoji. Sophie takes a beat, and you can almost see her decide to risk it all by saying this next part: “Great first date, huh?” She says it semi-jokingly, in that way you do to protect your heart in case the response isn’t what you hoped. But Sophie has nothing to fear, because Ryan turns around with the biggest smile on her face and agrees that it was definitely memorable. MY HEART CANNOT HANDLE THIS BUT ALSO BURY ME IN THE ANGST PLEASE!
Anyway, Jada’s in her study and Ryan comes in to ask what’s wrong. Jada tells her about Sophie’s bug and reiterates that she had no idea about Jordan or the human experiments. Everything she’s done is because Marquis is sick. She gives Ryan a bunch of tapes from Marquis’s childhood, and we learn that the Joker used the joy buzzer on Marquis when he was younger and it turned him dark. We watch video after video of sociopathic tendencies beginning to bloom in him.
Jada tried and failed to get help for Marquis, until she found out about cryostasis. She planned to sideline him for a bit until she found a permanent solution. The last video Ryan and we watch is of Marquis filming his dad eating a burger that Marquis spread peanut butter on, knowing that his father was deathly allergic. Jada claims to have been protecting Ryan this whole time and she needs her help to stop Marquis. We end on Marquis staring at his reflection and painting a frown on his face with Lazlo’s blood.
Every single time I think this show is going to zig, it zags, and I love it so so much. What did y’all think of the episode? Hit up the comments below and I’ll see ya next week!
