Batman Beyond S01E12 Review: League of Shadows

Batman Beyond, Season 1, Episode 12: A Touch of Curaré

A pretty interesting episode! Don't let the title fool you, Curaré honestly isn't that interesting of a villain. Sure, she's this assassin straight out of Prince of Persia with blue skin for some reason, and that does lead to some neat action scenes, but the real guest star in this episode is Barbara Gordon. Curaré herself only really exists as a plot device as an opponent, and the titular Curaré herself really doesn't leave much of an impression other than to sort of build up to the Society of Assassins, which may or may not figure in future episodes. 

Instead, it's Curaré's target... Barbara Gordon's husband, the district attorney Sam Young (because it's been a while between B:TAS and Beyond, so I guess the relationships between old characters can feasibly change). And Barbara's brief interactions with Terry (particularly the previous episode) shows that she doesn't really approve all that much of the new Batman. After Barbara's valiant defense-slash-escape, Batman shows off to rescue Sam from Curaré, and Barbara ends up calling the police off from shooting at Batman. 

But that's about it, because Barbara just straight-up shows up in the Batcave, nonchalantly reveals her previous identity as Batgirl to a very surprised Terry... before telling them that she has relinquished any superheroics, and tells Bruce and Terry to essentially stay away from police business. Barbara is polite and grateful, but honestly, after her echoing some choice lines from TNBA's "Old Wounds", it is interesting to speculate on just what sort of bad blood was spilled between Barbara and Bruce. After all, there had to be a fallout for this version of Bruce Wayne to not have any of his sidekicks become his successor, right? 

Curaré is persistent, and Bruce instructs Terry to keep an eye out, which leads to Action Scene #2, happening in a police-protected safe house. Batman and Curaré manage to duke it out, but other than sort of interrupting a sting operation involving a dummy, Curaré manages to escape again. Apparently, her face is super-scarred under that mask, which is just kind of a tired trope shoehorned in without any real relevance.

Terry's actually careful enough to not have himself seen by any of the police, but Barbara recovers a Batarang and quickly confronts Terry, leading to perhaps one of the best scenes in this season, which is Old Lady Barbara meeting Terry in some diner. Barbara tells Terry -- not unkindly -- to stay out of her business once more, while Terry asks Barbara the reasonable question why Barbara hates Bruce so much. After noting how well they worked together in the past, Barbara notes just how much of a self-destructive lonely recluse Bruce ended up becoming, pushing away everyone and anyone, and that Barbara ended up giving up the crime-fighting life when she realized that Bruce will never do so. 

Of course, the title is called "Batman Beyond", and not "Brucie Boy is a Friendless Recluse and he Sucks", so Old Man Bruce gets to kinda-sorta redeem himself, continuing to insist that Terry continue to protect Barbara and Sam. This leads to a far more exciting train battle, first with Curaré just slicing and dicing and Assassin's Creed-ing her way through the train's defenders, while Barbara, again, proves to be a badass grandma by managing to hold off the assassin long enough to seal themselves inside a meat locker. Batman, of course, arrives to fight Curaré, leading to a pretty interesting fight above what I think is supposed to be a meat grinder, but looks more like something out of a supervillain's lair. We get a badass moment where Barbara actually throws one of Terry's discarded batarangs during the climax to knock Curaré's sword out and force her to flee. 

Sadly, other than the brief team-up between Barbara and Terry, we really don't get any sort of resolute conclusion for the Bruce/Barbara or even Terry/Barbara interaction. No grudging respect between the former Batman and the former Batgirl. No "well, you ain't bad" moment between the former Batgirl and the new greenhorn Batman. Hell, I would've been fine with Terry just egging Bruce on how he's a good friend even after all the bad blood. But no, instead we get a rather pointless epilogue about how oh, Sam Young gave his testimony, and thanks to the League of Assassin's rules, now Curaré is fleeing her life as other assassins go after her because she failed to take her target's life. Which is interesting and all, I suppose, but we didn't get any real emotional payoff to the whole "Terry finally befriends Commissioner Barbara Gordon" storyline. Not even a token line, and that's kind of a shame since the rest of the episode is pretty great. It just fails to stick the landing. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Barbara mentions that she and Dick Grayson used to date, which was mentioned a couple of times throughout Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures. She also very strongly hints at a subsequent romance with Batman, which the DCAU writing team seems to treat as canon but honestly, considering the age gap between Bruce and Barbara, ewwwwwwww what
• Ironically, Barbara accusing Bruce of manipulating Terry into becoming the second Batman mirorrs Dick accusing Bruce of manipulating Barbara herself into becoming Batgirl in The New Batman Adventures episode "Old Wounds". 
• The "Society of Assassins" that Curare hails from is presumably an adaptation of Ra's al Ghul's organization, the League of Assassins. In Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, the organization is referred to by a far more censor-friendly name, the Society of Shadows. Whether the Society of Assassins and the Society of Shadows are connected is never explored, I believe.