Batwoman S01E07 Review: Love Interest Origin Story

Batwoman, Season 1, Episode 7: Tell Me The Truth

So a huge theme of this episode, as the title tells us, is yet another superhero-secrets-are-painful one, and it's one that arguably the Bat-family ended up exploring the most especially amongst DC characters. The problem is that Kate isn't the best at making excuses, and this ends up wedging a fair amount of distance with everyone. Poor Mary thinks Kate's avoiding her because of what Catherine did, Sophie's still in turmoil over the whole Kate-is-Batwoman thing. Incidentally, secrecy is a huge part of Kate's backstory not as a superhero, but as a lesbian.

Sophie and Kate's former relationship take center stage in this episode via a bunch of flashbacks to the military academy they enlisted in, and unlike what Kate is doing now in regards to her Batwoman identity, she's waving around the flag of "I'm gaaaay" as loudly as possible, whereas Sophie, under some advice from Jacob, ended up picking the safe way out, refusing to sign the papers or to admit to Kate that she loves her. We get more scenes of this unresolved romantic tension at numerous parts of the episode, with Kate calling Sophie out to dinner (which ended up being interrupted when Kate ends up in an argument with a homophobic and sneakerphobic restaurant manager) and sort of dodging around the Batwoman thing. The episodic conflict ends with an Arrow-style 'get someone else to wear the super-suit and throw the suspicious investigators off' sequence, so... eh. It's just a good thing that Julia didn't get herself killed by the Rifle's anti-batsuit railgun.

That particular leg of the conflict ends with Kate and Sophie basically setting a boundary for themselves, moving onward as friends. Sophie did give Kate that medal she stole from the academy back to her, which is neat. What Sophie does not know, of course, is the fact that the whole last leg of the episode is Kate setting up an even bigger boundary by actively making a little skit to have Kate and Batwoman appear in the same place at the same time -- distinctly different from the evasiveness that Kate throws around in front of Mary or Jacob. Speaking of Mary, how adorable is Kate enlisting the help of bubbly ol' Mary to help her set up her new gay bar? Mary just looks so happy to be included, after deling with all this divorce nonsense throughout the episode and being miserable for being ignored by Kate last episode.

Also, it's pretty neat to have another friendly face. Our guest star of the week is Julia Pennyworth, daughter of Batman's esteemed butler Alfred Pennyworth, and throughout various bits of conversation we quickly learn that Julia is in the loop of the whole Bat-family vigilante thing, and also has had a fling with Kate when she was masquerading as a martial arts instructor under Bruce's orders. Of course, it's this same sort of 'betrayal of trust' and 'secret identity' that ended up driving a little wedge between Kate and Julia in the past, so that's thematically relevant at least.

The trio work together to fight against a new threat, some knockoff Deadshot called the Rifle, who isn't particularly impressive or memorable. Rifle ends up sort of working alongside and/or competing with Alice and Mouse to get their hands on the Coil-gun that can punch a hole through the Batsuit. It's a bit confusing just how Alice and Rifle's working relationship is meant to be -- there's mentions of an employer called Safiyah, and by the end of the episode Alice has sabotaged the anti-Batsuit cannon by stealing one of the parts, and everyone who can fix it is dead. Also, with all the faces and voice mimicry going around, Mouse seems to b set up to be mimicking Jacob, isn't he? They are setting up some insane 'tea party', and it's going to be interesting to see what's going on with that -- next week is the pre-Crisis mid-season finale thing, so yeah.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Julia Pennyworth is an interesting character. First published in the pages of Detective Comics as Alfred's daughter with a French WWII heroine Mademoiselle Marie, Julia was unaware of who her true father is until a conflict to avenge her mother brought her into contact with Alfred and the Bat-family. Julia then disappeared from the pages of the comics and was basically ignored for multiple decades until finally showing up again in 2014, reconciling with her father and eventually serving as mission control for Batwoman. 
• The Rifle is original to this show. 
• The little dinosaur in the Batcave, of course, is a neat (low-budget!) homage to the gigantic robotic Tyrannosaurus rex, that, alongside a similarly large penny, is one of the two staple giant trophies in the comics' version of the Batcave.
• Briefly mentioned is another criminal overlord called Safiyah, a likely reference to Safiyah Sohail, a pirate adversary of Batwoman's. 
• Both Metropolis and ARGUS are mentioned at various points in the episode.