WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Hey again, Batwoman lesbians! AfterEllen is here to save the day with your weekly recap. Season 2 Episode 1 started off with a bang, and episode 2 is no different.
Without further ado, let’s jump into it.
We open to see Alice walking around the sewer, just where we left her. She is holding a rat in her arms, and suddenly has a flashback. Alice had met her brother, Mouse, down in the sewer before (a long time before) and snaps back to chat with her rat. While sort of swaying, she cautions the rat not to wake up Mouse, and proceeds to tape the rat to Mouse’s dead body’s chest. Yuck. As soon as she does so, a swarm of bats comes out of nowhere and congregates around Mouse’s body. All the while, Alice is singing twinkle twinkle little star.
[intro music plays]Next, we flashback to two months ago. It’s Halloween, and Ryan is walking down an alleyway dressed as a cat. Two men are following her, and they attack her trying to steal her money (which she literally does not have.) Batwoman shows up and saves Ryan, who looks up at her fondly and says thank you.
Back to the present, Ryan is at a job interview. The man interviewing her rejects her, because of her time spend in prison. FOR A CRIME SHE DIDN’T COMMIT, but we digress.
Cut to Kane watching the news about Batwoman, when Batwoman was Kate, being shot at by police. Oof. Sophie and Kane bring in Mary and Luke and literally interrogate the sh*t out of them. Both Kane and Sophie are rather aggressive, as they don’t believe anything Luke and Mary say. To be fair, Luke and Mary are lying; they say they never knew Kate was Batwoman. However, it’s important to note that Sophie and Kane are acting out of a painful place, treating Mary and Luke unfairly.
As Sophie leaves interrogation, she runs into Julia. Julia asks if Sophie is still upset, and she says of course. Julia kept huge secrets from Sophie, especially that Kate was Batwoman. How can Sophie trust her? …And our little gay hearts are breaking.
Cut to Ryan at the drugstore, trying to purchase some painkillers for her gnarly Kryptonite injury. The drugstore itself gets robbed, and Ryan springs into action, taking down the gunman. As Ryan goes to help out the cashier, the cops show up, thinking she had done it. Naturally, Ryan is brought in for questioning.
Who should Ryan meet in interrogation but Sophie. Sophie isn’t surprised to see Ryan, where she brings up Ryan’s prior offenses. Sophie asks Ryan if she’s still covering for her drug dealer “lady friend” which Ryan quickly corrects to “ex-lady friend.” *cries in lesbian* Sophie comes on strong with Ryan, but ultimately lets her go after the security footage comes back. Although it’s not before Sophie lets it slip that Alice is Kate’s sister, of course.
(Side note: we LOVE to see two confident, intelligent, Black lesbians going at it! Here for this representation.)
Ryan goes to see Mary and calls Mary out about Alice being her sister. Mary fires back, telling Ryan that Alice poisoned her mother and gave only one antidote, causing her mom to die in her arms. At that moment, they bring in a body for Mary to examine, and it turns out to be Mouse’s.
Meanwhile, Julia is heading to her car. Once inside, Alice jumps from the back seat and holds a knife to Julia’s throat. Alice tells Julia that they have a common enemy, Safiyah, and proposes that they work together to take her down. Julia refuses, and Alice stabs her in the stomach. Ouch!
As Ryan and Luke look at Mouse’s body, Mary tells them he was poisoned by the same poison as her mother, which means that Alice killed her own brother. Out of nowhere, a bat bursts out of Mouse’s body and we cut to commercial. WHAT.
The news about Batwoman in playing in the background as Mary and Luke examine the bat they just caught. Luke then tells Mary and Ryan about Alice stabbing Julia, and how Alice is planning something big, to kill a lot of people. Ryan points out that there is a Batwoman rally happening on the news, and that’s probably where Alice is going to attack. Ryan offers to become Batwoman to save the city, again, and Luke protests because she’s Black. However, Mary is all for it and Ryan heads to the top of the tallest building.
At the rally, Kane shows up and tells Sophie to arrest all the protesters. Sophie protests this, saying they are there for Kate. Kane softens.
As Ryan enters the building, Mary directs her on how to be more hero-like. Kane looks up and sees that Batwoman is not Kate, and sends people to arrest her. Ryan tries to warn the people that they are in danger, and instead they all cheer.
At that moment, Alice shows up to attack Ryan. Luke is quick to tell Ryan that Batwoman does not kill, which Ryan tries to ignore. The two women duke it out, but Alice pulls out a secret weapon. She presses a button, and suddenly thousands of bats are attacking all of Gotham.
Ryan heads to the ground to try to help with relief efforts. Sophie sees Ryan wearing the suit and is shocked, knowing it’s not Kate. Ryan doesn’t tell Sophie who she is, but continues to help save everyone from the bats. Meanwhile, people who are suffering from the bat attacks are being brought in to Mary for examination. Mary notices that their eyes are turning yellow from the bat poison.
Mary leaves to go into her office and Alice is waiting for her. Alice gives Mary a bag of Mary’s blood (!!!) and says that it’s the antidote for the bat poison. Mary cannot figure out why Alice would do this, and says that Alice must be missing Kate. Alice leaves, but doesn’t go before saying she’s met the new girl, and knows Ryan wants to kill her.
Sophie walks in and Mary tells her she’s got the antidote, and she’s going to take it to Hamilton Dynamics to see if they can help create enough to save the city from it.
At the same, Ryan is zooming down the streets of Gotham in the Batmobile. Why? The bats are following her out of the city. Ryan cuts off a bus transit, kicks everyone out, and traps the bats inside. Then she places a small bomb on the bus, blowing up the entire vehicle (and also the bats.) A homeless girl looks up at Ryan, as Batwoman, and thanks her, saying that Ryan is Batwoman to her. Awww.
It turns out that Hamilton Dynamics took the credit for saving the city, much to Mary’s dismay. Sophie leaves Mary online to find that Julia has news for her.
Julia tells Sophie that she’s tracked Alice based on the dirt from her shoes; Sophie asks that Alice’s location stay between them. Julia looks back at Sophie and asks why they ended; was it because Sophie doesn’t trust her, or because she’s still in love with Kate? Sophie says, “both.” Please excuse us while we cry forever.
Briefly we flash to Kane, who apologizes to Mary for how he treated her in the interrogation. Thank goodness! Mary accepts the apology and says they need to work together, yet seems to be overcome with guilt.
Now we head to the Bat Cave. Ryan is longingly looking at the Batsuit, and Luke and Mary come up behind her. Luke is adamant that Ryan cannot be Batwoman, while Mary thinks Batwoman is incredibly needed. Luke concedes, but only until Kate comes back (which we know, she won’t.) The only rule is that Batwoman never kills.
Ryan explores the bat cave, and finds a journal that Kate would write letters to Bruce in. Ryan pulls out a pen and starts a letter saying “Dear Kate,”…
Flash to Alice walking in a dark alley, as she does. Sophie stops Alice and throws handcuffs at her, to which Alice actually locks her wrists in. However, Tatiana shows up behind Sophie and holds a sword to her neck. Sophie drops her weapon, Tatiana knocks her out, and then proceeds to let Alice know that Safiyah is not pleased with her performance. We see now that Alice gave Mary the antidote for a reason – to piss off Safiyah. Tatiana knocks Alice out, and the episode fades.
