Catch up on the first recap here, or lasts week’s sexy back here.
The episode starts with pasty cadavers of old white men. Rectangles of skin cut off the thigh. Alice puts these flesh slices into a cooler and saunters away mischievously. Whatever she’s up to, the papers are attributing this chain of morgue break-ins to the “Skin Pirate, because they take skin from the booty.” Weirdest opening so far, gyns.
So naturally, Kate is disgusted and goes to SHUT IT DOWN. She follows the tracker that was inserted into Alice’s scummy BF and busts up the party- she easily takes on a lair of masked baddies and chains up Alice to demand the truth. Kate offers to get Beth into a rehabilitation facility to get real help. The sound of her name catches Alice off guard, but she refuses. With few cards to play, and their dad Jacob slowly tracking their whereabouts, Alice agrees to show Kate what happened to her as a kid. Roadtrip!
Both in the front seat, the two drive out of the city. Alice is being so infuriating, whining, “you’re not asking the right questions, Kate… When you really need to be asking, why am I like this.” Kate, in sibling style, is over it- “OKAY, WHY???” Then Alice cheerfully, “Oh you don’t wanna know that.”
Oh but we do, and in a deeply-sepia flashback (in case you don’t know it’s the past), we see young Beth wake up after the accident in a 50s-style house where a well-dressed man calmly talks to her. She frantically asks about her mom and dad, but the guy just smiles, says the police are coming, and makes her a sandwich, which is sure to taste like big, fat lies. A boy ‘Mouse’ of similar age looks down. His ratty hair covers the part of his face that’s burned. Eventually Beth sees through the man’s facade, and he throws her in the basement dungeon, where she sees a vat of water and a flesh mask. The man is doing experiments for his son to fix his disfigured face, but like, his face is legit fine looking???? Why are men like this.
Downtown Gotham, Catherine tells her daughter Mary that she made up evidence of Beth’s death to give the family closure, saying “I want you to hear it from me first.” Both are crying and trying to be honest. Mary is hurt and has to walk away, but I adored how earnestly this scene was portrayed. Catherine is such a nuanced, gray character, and by far the most chilling so far.
Catherine’s moves are calculated, logical, for the long game (she blew up Alice’s transport van). She really thinks she’s doing the right thing. She’s twice the villain Alice is, who’s a messy and predictable doll, slinging riddles around like, “down, down, down the rabbit hole,” as if that means something.
At a diner, Alice drugs Kate who falls asleep, only to wake up in the dungeon Alice was trapped in as a kid. Alice tells Kate the rest of the story. Once, she escaped her room and called for help. The man tells Beth that he’ll kill whoever comes. Kate and their dad arrived within the hour, looking all over, but in the end were convinced by the man that it was a mistake. Beth is too afraid to make a noise. They got so close.
Luckily, her dad Jacob and hot, capable honeyboo Sophie track the phone to the diner. A gunfight ensues with Alice’s bunnymen, but they can’t get any info. Suddenly, Jacob remembers that he’s been out in this area before, and hurries over to that creepy farmhouse.
Meanwhile, a drunk Mary demands her way into the Wayne building, where she and Luke hit it off. I’m living for their natural banter and can’t wait until they’re Batwoman’s besties and a well-oiled backup team. After processing Mary’s sisterly feels, the two realize a recent skin-related Arkham prison breakout is probably related to Alice, and start digging.
At the farmhouse, Beth throws a tantrum while Jacob tries to be a good dad, until whoops, she stabs him! Honestly, I cannot with her. In the basement, Mouse attacks Sophie, but she literally rips his face off like cheese off a pizza (OMGGG) and then kicks him so hard in the nuts my speaker’s bass bottomed out.
Kate breaks out of the room herself in the most lesbian way possible (via a nail in her trusty butch boots). Her and Sophie have a a nice moment in the dark, and then a standoff with Alice who lowers her gun to walk out of the house.
I was expecting them to arrest her, since Sophie still had a shotgun trained on Alice, but suddenly the show cuts to Alice and Mouse having escaped and chillin’ in their candle-lit pad scheming their next move. What in sweet sappho?
Y’all, I’m mad. We saw Batwoman for like 2 seconds this episode, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we need some major ass-kicking and plot wrap-up. And, more importantly, give our friends Sophie, Mary, and Luke more screen time!
