Batwoman (1×08) A Mad-Tea Party Review

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

Synopsis: Kate and Alice continue their sister/nemesis dance; Alice and Mouse construct their most evil plan yet; Mary invites Kate to a special event honoring Catherine; Jacob makes a decision that leaves Kate perplexed. (TVGuide)

This week’s episode Batwoman was disappointing in one major way. At no point in the episode did the Crisis crossover come up. Now whatever is going to happen in the crossover isn’t necessarily going to pop up and be in our faces ahead of the event, but still. Couldn’t we have had something? Luckily, right after the episode ended, we got a tiny teaser of Nash being sucked into the secret entrance he found, from The Flash. At least that’s something.

As mentioned before, the series, in general, has no momentum. It’s so all over the place, and this episode continues that trend. It’s almost painful to talk about the episode in general but let’s get into it.

There is a lot of friction and hate from Kate’s end towards Alice/Beth, and it all comes to a head by the episode’s end. As you’ll recall, Mouse has been disguising himself as Jacob while the real Jacob is being held captive by Alice and her motley crew of goons.

There’s a big gala event in this episode of Batwoman and during it, we see fake Jacob, Catherine, and Mary head there. Of course, it’s becoming glaringly obvious that this isn’t the real Jacob, but it takes some of the others a bit longer to figure it out.

During Catherine’s speech, she’s forced to read the words on the teleprompter that Alice has written out. Of course, it’s not the best thing to happen to her because while doing so she ends up fainting. It turns out Alice drugged Catherine (as well as Mary), but there is only enough antidote for one of them. This entire plot point didn’t really matter as it was tough to ever get attached to her character. Which is why the intense focus on it was so boring and unnecessary. We’ve basically been told she’s not the best person so I’m not sure what emotions they were trying to invoke here. In any case, Mary ends up taking the antidote and Catherine passes away.

When Kate learns of what Alice has done, she goes to confront her but fake Jacob shows up to stop her from hurting Alice. Eventually, Kate speaks to her actual father but things take a turn when he’s arrested for the murder of his wife, Catherine. We know this isn’t the case, but whenever Alice is involved, things are bound to get out of hand.

With everything that Alice has done, Kate no longer respects her and no longer wants to try. This is why she goes to visit her father in prison and promises him that she will no longer be an obstacle in his fight against Alice.

Oh, and side note, Sophie and her fiance broke up. But honestly, I don’t really care for that storyline either.

Here’s to hoping we can put this episode behind us as we head into the Crisis of Infinite Earths crossover next week.

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Ariba Bhuvad