Batwoman S01E16 Review: An Unexpected Team-Up

Batwoman, Season 1, Episode 16: Through the Looking Glass

Okay, this was the last episode of Batwoman prior to the whole delay in all CW shows prior to the pandemic, and it sure is a pretty decent episode to end on, actually feeling like a huge mid-season finale that ends the huge Alice storyline that has such a massive focus throughout these sixteen episodes of Batwoman's first season. The question is, of course, whether it's a good finale and where we go from here. And... episode 15 gave us a huge, bombastic "wait, what?" moment when Kate Kane, in a fit of anger, ends up strangling August Cartwright to death. And while there are factors regarding that killing -- August Cartwright certainly is a scumbag deserving of death, and the cause of death was the wound being reopened instead of just Kate's strangling -- it's still Kate Kane having to deal with the fact that she killed someone. And questionable live-action adaptations aside, Batman has a strict no-killing policy, which I assume Kate knows about and, considering her stance in the past couple of episode, evidently shares.

And while the episode starts off with the rather gruesome scene of the reunited Kane family hanging out and digging a grave and filling it in with the dead corpse of Kate's murder, and it's interesting how there are definitely some nice, tender, almost familial scenes between Alice and Kate, as well as Alice and Jacob... which is immediately underscored by Alice making use of their distraction to escape. Alice is delighted, above all, that Kate has finally 'awaken' from the 'insanity' of being a superhero, noting that without the moral high ground of not being a murderer, surely Kate will come over to their side since they're both similar and are brought together by both being murderers, right?

And understandably, this episode is very Kate/Alice-centric, and Kate just grapples really heavily with this surprise murder. Kate tries her best to jump straight into being a vigilante, but as she later confides, the fact that she doesn't really feel bad about it is really nagging a hole in her consciousness. As she goes out as Batwoman, this goes into aggression towards some of the criminals she's beating up, and she ends up being consumed by guilt, and it's so, so interesting to see. Batwoman gets a lot of flak for some of the writing decisions it does, but if nothing else, the acting part of the show is certainly very much on-point.

Alice, however, ends up realizing that her luck has ran out. Her base full of evil henchman has been all murdered to the last man by a person called Safiyah, who Alice mentioned a couple of episodes ago, and Alice is desperate and even scare, wanting to rescue Mouse and leave Gotham. Except she doesn't have any friends (other than Mouse), so all she can do is to turn to Kate and strike a deal, banking on their sisterhood (and their shared status as murderers) that Kate will help her out. And, well, Alice actually showing a fair amount of vulnerability and clear fear for whoever this 'Safiyah' is, honestly underlines why Alice is so entertaining as an antagonist. Skirting the line of 'crazy psycho mofo' and 'she's still my sister, right?' comes so naturally to this woman that I can totally buy what Kate did afterwards.

And Kate does agree to do so, under the stipulation of no killing (Alice actually following suit with this throughout the episode is one of the highlights of the raid), and it does lead to a very interesting sequence where Batwoman agrees with a villain, making a deal with the devil, to break a prisoner out. While last episode's killing was certainly one that the audience is far more likely to shrug and go "sucks that her moral compass is compromised, but he had it coming", breaking Mouse out, no matter how clearly terrible and horrifying Arkham Asylum is, is a big no-no.

And while the actual raid in Arkham Asylum is extremely entertaining (particularly with all of Alice's one-liners), it does come with the unease that our hero is doing something that's clearly illegal and villainous, especially when she maimed that one Arkham Asylum guard. Of course, it all turns out to be a glorious, glorious feint, and when Alice jumps into the maximum security chamber to break Mouse out, Kate ends up closing the door to the cell, and it turns out that the whole thing is a sting operation between Kate and Jacob. And while Alice certainly is a villain and a psychopath that deserves to be locked up, you can't help but feel sorry for poor, poor Alice when she's just crying in betrayal and sobbing for Kate and Jacob to not leave her ever again. She does deserve to be locked up, but dang, the show does a great job at making us feel bad for Alice, huh?

The B-plot of this episode is interesting, focusing on Luke Fox in a storyline divorced from him being Kate Kane's sidekick. It's a combination of a bunch of things that took place in the Jacob Kane storyline in the past couple of episodes, which I had mostly acknowledged or ignored, but I really do like how it all comes down together here. So the prisoner that saved Jacob's life in the prison, Reggie Harris, turns out to be the man that was thought to have murdered Luke's dad Lucius Fox, and thanks to a deal between Reggie and Jacob, Reggie's case gets brought up in court once more and Reggie ends up walking free, because Jacob realizes that thanks to the whole corrupt judge system in the Executioner episode, there is a loophole surrounding the Reggie case.

Luke ends up confronting Reggie Harris in a very emotional bit, and I think it does relate thematically with Kate confronting and killing someone who was so responsible for a lot of tragedies in her family. Luke ends up finding out that Reggie... is actually a decent guy, and claims to have been framed for the murder of Lucius Fox. Supporting this, of course, is the fact that Reggie gets fucking gunned down by an assassin just as he's trying to explain that, no, he's not a bad man to Luke. It's all amazingly well-done, and it allows actor Camrus Johnson to really show off more than just being a supporting dude in the Batcave.

Supporting this whole conspiracy storyline is the fact that Sophie and Jacob, at various points in the episode, also get targeted by assassins who want to close anything related to this case, and Jacob ends up bringing Sophie into the loop because hey, maybe firing the only competent person in the Crows because she helps out a vigilante one time isn't the smartest thing to do in Gotham City. I really don't care all that much about Sophie or Jacob at all, but this is an interesting enough storyline for them. And, hey, we get the return of Julia Pennyworth, and that's fun.

The episode ends with a pretty neat scene of Kate confiding with Julia about how she doesn't want to be like Alice before making out, while Alice and Mouse plan their escape. There's also the mystery regarding whoever is trying to kill all the loose ends with the Reggie case, as well as Safiyah, but ultimately, this was actually a pretty solid mid-season finale.