Batwoman (2×04) Fair Skin, Blue Eyes Review

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

Synopsis: As Batwoman attempts to fight the proliferation of Snake Bite through Gotham, a random encounter forces her to revisit her painful past; Ryan Wilder is determined to ensure others like her don’t go unnoticed. (TVGuide)

This week’s episode of Batwoman opens to the reveal that yet another drug has made its round in Gotham City, this time in the form of something called “snake bite”. It essentially gives the user a boost of mixed feelings between fantasy and fright (doesn’t exactly sound that appealing, to be honest). Batwoman, er Ryan Wilder, is on the case, and in the hopes of tracking down the source of the problem. It’s taken a while to get used to Leslie in the role of Batwoman but things are starting to go in the right direction. Although she’s been better as Ryan Wilder, she’s just more charismatic and personable in that role. But over time, both will merge together in a more exciting, appealing way.

The episode takes an interesting turn when it begins to focus on the case of a missing child. A young boy comes up to Ryan with a flyer for a missing young boy. He’s been MIA for three months and is the young boy’s brother. Unfortunately, he feels no one cares which triggers something inside of Ryan.

As a child, she was in a foster home and kept to herself for the most part. She did strike up a friendship with another girl at the home, who would go onto become her girlfriend in later years. While looking into the case of this missing boy, Ryan is reminded that she too was abducted as a child by a woman who we come to know as “The Candy Lady” (Linda Kash). She suspects that the same woman may still be abducting children, and might be behind the disappearance of this young boy.

A flashback reveals Ryan’s time locked up in this woman’s attic. This lady preyed on feelings of children who were alone in the world and would have no one looking for them. Ryan clung to hope that one day someone would come looking, and one day when a group of volunteers did, she realized they were looking for a young, White female, and not her. It was a sad realization in young Ryan’s life that no one was looking for the missing Black kids, and such is still the case in the present day. It’s nice to see how Batwoman incorporates such important topics into its storyline. It sheds light on something many don’t think about and it’s great to see that it’s becoming a central topic of discussion. Eventually, Ryan’s young foster home friend comes to rescue her, reminding her that she is not alone in this world. Together, the two break out of the home and never look back again. But with the recent abduction, Ryan must now face the terrors of her past and see if this woman is still up to the horrible crimes she has been guilty of all these years.

When Ryan shows up at her house, she gets less than a pleasant welcome as she is tased by two men that work for the woman and once again finds herself locked up in the attic. It turns out the young boy isn’t there after all but was there for at least 60 days (according to this weird jellybean thing the woman would do). With all these new skills, Ryan finds a way out of the attic and takes down the lady. As it turns out, the young boy has been brainwashed to join a group that the lady was running.

Everything more or less connects as we see Jacob holding a press conference revealing to the world that he has intel that Kate is alive, and he intends on finding her. He’s offering a million-dollar prize in exchange for solid information, and so when he gets a call regarding it, he shows up at this warehouse. It’s actually part of a trap to lure him in and lo and behold, it’s the same group run by the Candy Lady–and Kevin is there too! All the brainwashing almost leads him to shooting Jacob but Ryan shows up dressed up in her Batsuit just in the nick of time to talk him down from making a grave mistake. She’s starting to get the hang of this superhero thing, isn’t she?

Meanwhile, in other parts of the episode, Alice forces Sophie to team up with her to help find Kate by doing Safiyah’s bidding. There isn’t a lot of trust between them, but Sophie doesn’t have much of a choice and will do anything to get Kate back. Eventually, Luke gets caught up in their duo when he shows up at Sophie’s to speak with her. What he got was Alice holding a gun in his face, but eventually, they convince Alice to let him join the efforts.

Luke manages to obtain an address for the man named “Ocean” that Safiyah asked Alice to kill but he and Sophie keep it a secret from Alice and look into it themselves. Sophie arrives at one of four addresses only to be ambushed by a woman that was already inside of the apartment. Alice being Alice was already on Sophie’s tail and shows up in time to save her from the woman beating her up, and then proceeds to knock her out. She finds a note from Ocean pinned on the wall along with a hotel room key card and it’s rather obvious where things are going to go from here.

Not all was gloom and doom in this week’s episode as Ryan decides she is going to move in with Mary in Kate’s old apartment. I’m so here for this female friendship and can’t wait to see what they get up to together! It’s going to be instrumental for Mary as she copes with the loss of Kate and whether or not she should give up hope for her sister. The episode ends with Ryan reaching out to her ex-girlfriend/savior from her childhood, and the two make a truce and decide to be friends once again, despite their complicated past.

And that’s it for this week’s episode of Batwoman! See ya next week!

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