BATWOMAN - SEASON 1.1

REVIEW:  BATWOMAN - SEASON 1, EP. 1:  "Pilot"


Welcome back, gang!  I KNOW, I KNOW....it's been a LOOONG time since I've posted anything new on this blog...but let's just chock it up to a Summer Vacation.  But Fall is here, and that means a brand new season of our favorite place to be:  The Arrowverse!

This season, we are going to see things change at a fast pace, and we'll be bidding a fond farewell to the show that got the ball rolling,...ARROW.  We have Crisis On Infinite Earths coming up as the crossover event of the year---and this will change the entire Arrowverse FOREVER.  But, for now, we are going to introduce our newest edition to the Arrowverse....BATWOMAN.

This premiere episode of the series gives us a breakdown of just who and what Kate Kane is, as we see the show open up with her underwater, cuffed, and looking to escape an icy water trap.  As we see her try and perform her escape act, she narrates the beginning of the show, telling us what happened 3 years ago, as Batman had taken a powder from Gotham City, and left it suffer its own fate.  We see Kate and her sister in the back seat of a car, while their mother is driving.  They are going over a bridge, when an explosion happens, and the car veers off to the ledge of the bridge.  Bats arrives, and tries to save them, and halts the car enough, then vanishes to go after the culprit who put the bomb on the bridge to explode.  Kate and her sister escape, but their Mom does not, and the car drops off the bridge, and Mom is killed.

After her escape, she's chatting with some Eskimo guy, who apparently has been training her.  Not sure what HIS importance will be in this series, but he's in the show briefly, as we move back to Gotham, where her stepmother and father, who runs a security organization called Crows Security, are having a public ceremony where they are turning off the Batsignal, and Mrs. Kane informs the crowd that Batman abandoned them, and they don't need him anymore.  The Crows are there for the event, including Sophie, whom we find out is the ex-girlfriend of Kate, and works for her father.  Suddenly, the team gets attacked on the roof of a building, and taken out by a gang of thugs led by a blonde haired woman dressed like Alice In Wonderland.  She then informs the Crows and the public that they can't stop her, and she's going to destroy them, and anyone else that gets in her way.  She especially takes aim at Kane.  More on that, later.

Sophie does her thing, and she tries to capture the gang, but ends up getting nabbed herself.  We then see Kate get a call from her stepsister about Sophie's disappearance, and off Kate goes back home,.  She meets up with dear old Dad, but you can tell the relationship is cold, and there's some hard feelings going on there---mostly on Kate's side.  We also get flashbacks from Kate's memory of her relationship with Sophie, and how it ended because they violated the code of conduct for the military school they attended.  Kate wanted Sophie to take off with her after getting kicked out, but Sophie reneged, and said she needed this, and they broke up.

Kate wants in on the rescue operation, but Dad turns her down.  So, she heads to the one place where there's plenty of security cameras:  Wayne Enterprises.  She enters the building clandestine like, and is caught by a man named Luke.  She ends up reversing the capture and cuffing him to a wall, while she gets footage of Sophie's kidnapping.  She's got an idea on where to go to get her.  She shares the info with her Dad, but he won't let her in on the rescue.  She's gone...gonna do it herself.

Kate arrives at this rundown looking house in a dumpy neighborhood, and she enters, fends off some of the gang, whom--I might add--wear some silly animal masks.  Though she takes out her fair share of the bad guys, she's eventually knocked out and captured.  She wakes up face to face with Alice---who seems to know QUITE a bit about Kate.  Kate will gladly take the place of Sophie in order to rescue Sophie, but Alice goads Kate about how Sophie is the daughter Kate's father REALLY wanted, and not her. She says she wants to destroy the Crows, and run Gotham. Kate is then knocked out once more.  

The Crows arrive at the hideout of Alice...but she's since bailed.  Kate wakes up being stitched up by her stepsister, who runs an underground clinic, which is privately funded, under the table like.  We see Kate and her father once again having a heavy conversation about her life, and WHY he didn't want her joining the Crows.  He wanted to protect her, and keep her out of the action.  It doesn't end well, and Kate bails.

Once again, we see Kate with Luke, and she talks about her and Bruce Wayne being cousins, and that she used to be in this building a lot, and thought there was a secret passage there.  She finds the passage, and discovers a HUGE secret that Bruce had kept from her:  He's Batman.  Luke explains that Bruce did all he could to rescue her and her family, and thought he had secured the car well enough for them to escape.  He ended up chasing The Joker that day.  He says that criminals have no fear anymore, and that was the whole point of Batman.  Kate gets it.

Alice makes contact with Kane, who is running security for an outdoor movie night in the town square.  She says there's a bomb in one of the Crows' vehicles.  She threatens him to shut down, or Sophie dies.

Kate arrives in the Batsuit, and begins to battle Alice and her thugs, while Sophie is hanging on the ledge with a barrel of water on the other end of a plank, keeping her stable on it.  Kate defeats Alice, but Alice shoots the barrel, releasing the water, and Sophie falls.  Kate leaps out to nab her, and makes the safe.  We have a brief moment between the two, and then Kate is off.

We later see the news story, and people talking about the "return" of "Batman".  Crow Security is now on the hunt for the Alice In Wonderland Gang, and Sophie makes mention of Batman.  Kane dismisses the idea of Batman, and tells the team to get to work.  Sophie spots Kate, and they have a chat, where Kate realizes that Sophie got married...to a man that's part of the team.  Kate takes off back to the Batcave, where we see her writing in a journal, telling Bruce her story.  She decides to take up the family mantle and defend Gotham City.  She looks at the knife she procured from Alice, and it has a red gem in it.  Turns out, Kate has that same gem.  She flashes back to when her and her sister had them.  We then see Alice----plotting once more.  Alice is Kate's sister.

For a pilot episode, Batwoman sets the stage for a various cast of characters we're going to be seeing a lot of over the course of this season.  While the show does a good job of setting the stage, not a whole lot of action until the final act, when we see Kate don the Batsuit, and wasn't a "wow" episode for me, but it was fine.  It laid the pieces out for what will be a very interesting inagural season of the Female Caped Crusader.  Kate is badass enough, and she comes with bagge--mostly from her perceived lack of approval from her father, and the loss of Sophie.  As the season goes on, we will see just HOW those relationships progress...especially when Kate's out and about as Batwoman.  I feel that her and her father will be quite at odds in regards to dealing with the Gotham Underworld.  

Alice is an interesting twist---a daughter, a sister, NOT able to be saved by Batman, yet manages to survive...only to be twisted by how the world works in regards to the safety of others.  She's got a mad on, and I'm curious to see just how devious she gets.

Luke will be a huge part of Team Batwoman, where he will supply her with the needs necessary for her war on crime.  I like that they bring in a young Lucius Fox.  He'll add the balance and guidance Kate will need as she gets used to the role as protector of Gotham.  She knows she has HUGE shoes to fill, and from what we saw from the Elseworlds crossover last season, she's holding her own.  But right now, we get to see Kate's journey, much like we saw Oliver's in a way.  I also dig the narration...it will give the fans just new to the show a jumping off point, so that they can grab on early.  

There will probably be bumps in the road as Batwoman progresses, but look forward to seeing what happens---especially after CRISIS.



Okay, gang! It feels SOOOOOO good to be back at it, and share my thoughts and ideas with the Arrowverse with you.  If YOU have any comments, ideas, or suggestions...please feel free to leave a comment below, and I'll be only too happy to chat with ya!  It's going to be QUITE the ride this season, so hold onto your hats!  I promise I'll be with you the whole way!

...and please pass this little blog along to everyone, will ya?  I'd appreciate the love!  Thanks so much for hanging with me---I'm eternally grateful.

Until next week---the signal is off!