BATWOMAN - SEASON 1.15

REVIEW:  BATWOMAN - SEASON 1.15:  "Off With Her Head"


Oh, we are most certainly MAD for entering into dark territory with Alice.  Her life has been a trainwreck, followed by creepiness, followed by pure bouts of insanity.  The woman can't seem to catch much of a break, and she isn't giving anyone ELSE one, either.  She is desperate to find her dear "brother" Mouse, and now has to face her tumultulous past as she now has to face off with the Caterpillar---Augustus Cartwright---AKA Dr. Campbell---to find her long, lost companion and co-conspiritor.  Meanwhile, Kate is trying to deal with Alice's maniacal plans, as well as heat from the Crows again, now that Jacob is back in charge after his release.  Batwoman is STILL in his crosshairs, and it's now put Sophie at a crossroads.  Does she stay with the Crows, or follow her heart and believing in Batwoman's crusade?  She was a bit heartbroken at the end of last week, as her and Batwoman parted ways after a couple of huge kisses.  Sophie has things to work out before she can commit to being her true self.  She must come to terms with everything before moving forward.  And Mary....awesome Mary.  She's figured it all out, put the pieces together---and she wants in on the action!  Mary is nobody's fool, and she is doing all SHE can to goad and coax the truth about Kate being Batwoman out of not only Kate herself, but Luke as well.  And she's getting closer  But for now...let's peek in on Gotham City THIS week, to see what happened to Mouse, what effect it has on Alice, and how will Kate, Jacob, Mary, and Luke react?  

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We open up, going back in time, to the day that both Beth and Kate were sent off to boarding school by their parents.  Their mother gave them their birthstones...the necklaces we see them both wear.  Trust me...it's and important part of the episode down the road.

We see a young lady leaving a club in the WRONG part of town, looking to hitch a ride, when a creepy guy comes up on her.  He does the usual creep guy things, and Batwoman shows up to beat him down.  She saves the gal, and the young lady sees the Batsignal, and our heroine is off.  She lands on the roof of the GCPD, and sees that Augustus Cartwright is all bound and unconsicous, with a note in his mouth.  A gift from Alice...with the note saying "Ask Mommy Dearest".  

Kate has August all locked up in her bar, and Jacob has paid a visit.  He does admit that he shot Alice, but Kate breaks it to him that Alice is still alive.  While Alice herself has been on the hunt for dear Mouse, trying to figure out just where August stashed him away.  She does find him suffering from a HEAVY dose of the fear toxin that he's been breathing for awhile.  She breaks him free, and he says that his father killed her, but she says it's her.  Once she confirms it's her, and that the other woman was made up like her to fool him.  She then finds out that where they're at is the "Queen's Home"...Alice's "Queen of Hearts".  

We backtrack in time to a snowy day, when the "Queen" arrives, and August makes sure that Alice and Johnathan are cleaned and tidied up for his mother.  She is an elderly lady with an oxygen tank in tow.  She looks upon her son, and scolds him for having a pipe in her presence.  She then gets greeted by her grandson, and then meets Alice.  She admires Alice's necklace.  Wonders where she got it from, and Alice replies that she can't remember.

Jacob and Kate discuss August, and his connection with Beth.  She then reveals to her father that Cartwright has been masquerading as Dr. Campbell.  She thinks they should drop him off at the GCPD, but he shoots back that who would believe them?  August awakes again, and he wonders where Alice is.  Kate asks him who's "Mommy".  And August says that Alice is trying to play games against the master of games.  He's not going to let her win, and said that he managed to fool everyone in Gotham for six years.

Alice asks Mouse why he is there.  Mouse says that he was put there, and given a dose of the fear toxin to make him live out his biggest fear....and his fear....is HER.  He then jumps at her and tackles her.  Takes her, straps her to the chair, and feeds her the gas that HE had been breathing.  He then bolts, leaving her to her fate.  Alice then begins to relieve her fear about the "Queen of Hearts", and her cruelty to young Alice.  

Luke drops by Mary's underground clinic, and she informs him that she found a possible lead to Beth's killer.  She introduces Luke to a guy that gives them a lead with a license plate to a car that was possibly driven by Beth's killer.  They're on the hunt for it.  

August reveales his plan to Kate and Jacob---using the fear toxin he got from an old colleague, Dr. Johnathan Crane.  He wanted to reunite his family, but felt Alice was the cause for breaking it apart.  He made sure that Mouse's greatest fear was Alice herself.  And he would snap, and attack her.  He surmises that Alice at that moment would be breathing the heavy vapors of the fear toxin, and that if she doesn't get an adreanaline shot soon, she'll die.  He's willing to make a deal with Kate:  he'll reveal the location where Alice is right now, and they let him walk.  Longer they wait, if they don't give him his freedom...Alice will lose what sanity she has left, and COMPLETELY snap.  As calculating as Alice is, she will be totally unhinged.  Jacob starts choking him, and Kate tries to restrain him.  August comments that Alice should be getting a visit from "Mommy Dearest" right about now.

Alice is having nightmares...bad ones.  Reliving the times the "Queen" verbally abused her, and also physically abused her, such as when she gave Augustus' mom cold tea, she's beaten.  We see her at one point going to the outside shed to find extra cream, when she comes across another fridge that's got a lock on it.  Augustus asks her what she's doing in the shed, and she says she's looking for cream.  No cream there, and she comments how his mother hates her.  He feels differently.  She says she hates her because she's young and pretty, and his mother is old and haggard....and Augustus beats her.  

Augustus recalls what his mother did to Alice...that he took away her happiness.  After awhile, Alice got numb...learn to lock away the pain.  While Alice is reliving her least favorite nightmares, Augustus tries to pass the buck of the blame onto his mother.  Kate calls him on it, and says that while HE kidnapped Beth, threw her into the basement, it's his MOTHER that's the bad guy.  Kate isn't buying into it.  Jacob's had enough, and he says that he will find her, and then he will skin Augustus alive.  Jacob takes off to find her, and Kate works on trying to pump more info out of him.  He says he needs some water.  While he rattles on, Kate tells him that he has NO idea who the real Beth is---kind, sweet, good hearted.  She gave EVERYONE a chance--even when she didn't deserve it.  He managed to loosen his bonds before getting his water.  But he managed to break free, grab the glass, and break it.  He then looks at Kate, says he will never find her, and slits his throat.  

Mary and Luke work their way to the junkyard, and while searching for the car, she tries to lure more info about fessing up to knowing and working with Kate when she's Batwoman.  But her little quips go unnoticed, and they managed to find the car, and it's a match.  Luke pops open up the trunk, and finds the weapon that killed Beth, with the bullets a match.  Right then, Mary gets a call from "Batwoman", and she says she needs help stopping someone from bleeding to death.  While Augustus managed to slit his throat, he didn't hit the corrotted artery. So, Mary instructs her to find something to stitch him up to stop the bleeding.  Kate has nothing else but a staple gun, so she uses it.  It seems to work, as a temporary solution, and she needs to get this person to a hospital.  She hangs up, and when Luke asks what that was, Mary responds slyly that it was "Doctor/Vigilante" confidentiality.  

Alice has a nightmare about her father and sister fighting over her, then giving up on her completely and leaving.  Back at her club, Kate has bound up Augustus a lot tighter this time.  He's alive, but lost a lot of blood.  She ponies up a deal with him:  If he tells her where Alice is, he gets a free walk out the door.  He seems to think that Kate will eventually kill him, and she says she's not a killer.  He says "not yet".  She says hope, honor, integrity...things that HE stripped away from Alice.  We then see Jacob on the road, when Kate calls him, and informs him of the address to Alice's location.  Kate tells Augustus he goes free once Jacob confirms that Alice is arrive.  

Mary and Luke are in Kate's office, running down the owner of the car.  While he's working away on his laptop, Mary is searching for the secret opening to the Batcave.  He almost catches her, and she plays coy.  He says he finally got a hit:  the car was owned by Maple Cartwright---Augustus' mother.  

Alice finally musters up the strength to break the chair by pushing herself over.  The gas mask comes off, and she manages to get herself free.  She goes to a window, and smashes it to get some fresh air.  She had tried the door, but can't get out.  She then takes one of the shards of glass, and goes to slit her throat, but Jacob breaks the door down, and manages to deliver the adrenaline shot, and saves her.  She asks where Kate is, he said she's with Cartwright.  Alice says that he came running.  He said that he came because he cares...and wanted to save what sanity she had left.  Apparently, according to Alice, Augustus didn't finish the story about "Mommy Dearest".  Jacob says that he heard all he needed to...she was a piece of work.  Alice comments "HIS Mother?"  

Augustus comments that his mother died some time ago.  Kate reminds him that he shot Beth...who looks just like Alice.  He could've swore it was Alice.  She was wearing the necklace and earrings that his mother coveted.  Kate asks about the earrings, and he said that they were a gift to his mother, because she coveted them.  He says they were a gift from THEIR mother.  We flash back to Beth picking the lock on the door of the freezer in the shed, and she finds their mother's head inside.  Augustus says that his mother coveted their mother's face, especially after he fished it out of the river.  But as she got older, he kept putting it off.  After all, he says it would be a bit of trouble wearing the face of a dead woman.  We then see Beth walking into Maple's room, cutting her oxygen mask, and then procees to light the compressed air on fire, and Maple gets burned alive by Beth.  Kate finally loses it, and begins choking Augustus.  She's enraged when she finally realizes what she's doing, and she hops off him in shock.  She then freaks out, and is desperate to try and save him.  Jacob and Alice arrive, but it's too late.  Alice congrats her father...she says that he now has TWO daughters that are killers.  Alice closes Augustus' eyes, as she recites more of Alice in Wonderland---the end of the book, I do believe.  She then walks off.  

Luke and Mary discover about the death of Cartwright's mother.  They believe that Kate won't rest until they find Beth's killer.  

Kate is shaken up, and the voiceover says that she gave in, and apologized to Bruce---she crossed the line.  She doesn't know about herself anymore.  She's drinking to try and numb herself.  She then whips out her phone to text Sophie, asking what she's doing.  Sophie says it's late.  Kate was going to type more, but gave up as Alice walks out, and she puts the phone away.  Alice asks for a drink on the house.  Kate gives her the bottle, and Alice looks at her, and says it's going to be a long night---bodies don't bury themselves.


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This episode was part creepy, part cathartic, part depressing, and part surprising.  We got a little dose of psychological candy delivered to us on this show.  While Batwoman was pretty much just a spot appearance at the beginning, it was Kate that held down the fort with Augustus as he revealed his little manic tale of his mother, and of his plans for Alice.  Meanwhile, Alice was reliving all of her awful experiences with Maple Cartwright in her head, courtesy of the Scarecrow's fear toxin, WHOM--we discover--was an old colleague of Dr. Cartwright.  Nice way of tying Dr. Johnathan Crane into things, and explain the fear toxin away.  It DID do the desired effect, however---it got Mouse to turn on Alice, and put HER through the emotional ringer with HER past in the Cartwright household.  And the truly creepy part wasn't so much Augustus himself---it was his MOTHER.  Her desire to have a new face---and that face to be that of Kate and Alice's mother just gave me that awful Ed Gien feel.  This almost bordered on Texas Chainsaw Massacre creepy.  Now I can understand, and practically sympathize with Mouse because of what HE went through, but this also kind of turns Alice into not so much a psycho villain...but a tragic character of Shakespearan proportion.  While it was bad enough Beth was kidnapped and held against her will by Augustus, but her will was broken by his mother.  She HAD to hide in a new identity to survive.  But once she found her mother's head in the freezer in the shed---boy did she come out of her shell.  Burning Maple alive was just flat out vicious driven revenge.  And the look in her eyes---it was like an arsonist amdiring their handiwork.  

Kate also became a tragic figure by the end of this episode, because she BROKE the Bat-Code:  YOU NEVER KILL.  Now, the blood is on her hands, and there's NO AMOUNT of hand washing she can do to clean them.  She will now spend the rest of her days questioning herself in her role as Gotham's Protector, knowing she crossed a line that Bruce Wayne was tempted with soooooo many times as Batman.  Especially with the crazies HE dealt with (The Joker ALONE can fill a tome).  But Bruce---no matter HOW personal ANY of his enemies made it---NEVER crossed that line.  Kate---for all the strength, honor, and courage she has had thus far as the Lady Crusader...she fell victim to anger and hate because of what Augustus had planned for her mother's face.  She lost it...quite simply.  Sha gave in.  And thus, she proved Augustus right by the end of the episode, when he said beforehand that she'd be a killer...despite her denying it.  So...where does Kate go from here?  And what will Luke have to say?  Mary even?  

Speaking of Mary and Luke---they have a great rapport with each other.  I LIKE seeing these two work together.  Both bring intelligent qualities, while both being awkward in their own sense.  They also provide some bit of lighthearted brevity in an otherwise VERY dark episode.  And the fact that Mary kept pressing both Kate AND Luke in her own subliminal way about the fact she KNOWS their secret in regards to Batwoman just makes it a tad comical.  The fact that NEITHER Kate nor Luke have picked up on it amazes me.  But then again---Kate Kane is NOT the World's Greatest Detective.  So, she's a little slow on the uptake.  Luke may figure it out before Kate does at this juncture.  But I'm kind of hoping Mary finds her way into the Batcave and shocks the hell out of them both...that would be a nice twist.  

Jacob---for all the faults the man has---was the reasonable one in this episode.  Sure, he was pissed off at the beginning, but he kept a level head for the most part.  And the fact that he saved his daughter from totally losing her marbles, shows the man still has a soft spot for his kid---despite her being unhinged.  It's NOT going to fix anything between the two, but at least he showed he still DOES love his daughter...regardless of what and who she is.  And I felt it was interesting that, in her time of need, Alice was actually glad he was there.  Maybe there WAS something to what Alice said when Kate said she was giving up on her---that she didn't WANT them to give up on her.  It makes you wonder that---deep down---she's still looking to be saved.  I doubt she will at this point---I think that we passed that exit a few offramps ago...but it's something to think about.

Now...far as Mouse goes...WHERE did he run off to?  Is he going to be searching for his father before he gets caught and put back into Arkham?  And what will happen when he DOES find out that his father is dead, and that Kate was the culprit?  How will that play out with Alice?  It's making things intereresting as we begin to enter the homestretch of this first season.  

Okay,  batties...that's all for this round.  Please subscribe, leave a comment, and spread the good word of this little place in cyberspace!

Until next time....The Signal Is OFF!