Batwoman (1×05) Mine Is a Long and Sad Tale Review

For our review of the last episode of Batwoman, click here.

Synopsis: Alice takes Kate down the sad, winding road of her life in the days after the accident; Mary has an argument with Catherine that sends her looking for Kate at Wayne Tower, but she becomes unwelcome company for Luke. (TVGuide)

We finally know Alice/Beth’s origin story, and it’s definitely a reason to be a bit more optimistic about Batwoman. The jury may still be out but we are definitely on our way there. Alice/Beth’s tale is sadder than most of us could have imagined and started almost immediately after the accident.

A man and his son found young Beth and gave her shelter. Sounds pretty nice, right? WRONG! It turns out the man was anything but and kept Beth under lock and key. His son, Johnny, seems to have a soft spot for Beth but it doesn’t really mean much when it matters. The man tells Beth that the police are on their way, but, as she comes to learn from the news, she is still considered missing.

The man ends up locking Beth away in the basement–where she finds the skin of a human face. Who is this guy?! After weeks of being locked up, Beth finds a way out of the basement and manages to call her father. Unfortunately, the call is cut short when the man finds her, but it’s enough to lead her father and Kate to the house.

Alas, despite them being inches away from Beth, the horrible man convinces them it was all a mistake. That his son Johnny has the unique ability to mimic people’s voices and it was he who made the call. The worse part? Kate was standing right outside the door that Beth was standing right behind–with nothing but an Alice in Wonderland book.

Fast forward to the present, Alice and Kate are on a little road trip which takes them to a diner. And as Alice is telling her the story of her kidnapping, she drugs Kate and proceeds to lock her up. You would think Batwoman would be a bit more cautious around her evil sister, but then again, she did just hear her very tragic story.

Kate wakes up to find herself in the same house Beth was locked up all those years. And unfortunately, Alice found the tracker Kate had on her. Luckily, Sophie and Jacob are already on their way and once Jacob realizes he had been in the area before, he drove straight to that house.

Upon his first interaction with Alice/Beth, Jacob asks about Kate, and as you can imagine, that doesn’t go over well with Alice/Beth. And can we really blame her? After all this time, her father refuses to acknowledge her after failing to save her. It’s a pretty crappy situation. Jacob and Sophie’s arrival ends in a fistfight between everyone and with Alice/Beth and Johnny (yes, the same kid from before all grown up) walking away scot-free.

Side note: Johnny was in Arkham Asylum until he broke out during last year’s crossover. And he was the reason that Alice/Beth has been stealing the faces of corpses. Apparently, skin face masks were his family’s thing.

We are ready to learn more about Beth’s past as we definitely have way more to dig into here. Hopefully Batwoman does its due diligence and continues to explore this storyline, which quite honestly, Kate Kane’s has been way more interesting thus far.

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