BATWOMAN - SEASON 1.16

REVIEW:  BATWOMAN - SEASON 1.16:  "Through the Looking-Glass"


Maaan, has the crap hit the fan!  Just when we thought Kate had a grip on this whole being Batwoman thing...she went and slayed the Caterpillar.  Due to the machinations of Dr. August Cartwright, what with his mother, his abuse of Mouse, his keeping Alice hostage being bad enough...he had gone and beheaded their mother, so that HIS mother could have HER face.  That was the last straw for Kate, as she choked the man out.  Now mind you, he'd ALREADY tried to off himself during last week's episode, but he managed to goad Kate into doing the thing she had sworn she'd NOT do:  take a life.  Now, she has blood on her hands.  Her father knows it, and now Alice knows it.  The Kane family is in dire straits, and those three don't even KNOW that Mary is aware of Kate's double ID, and Jacob is clueless as well.  Plus, Mouse is out of it, due to the heavy dose of Scarecrow's Fear Toxin, and who knows what he's up to since he left Alice for dead.  So...what happens next?  Let's once again peek in upon Gotham City, and find out....


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Oh, what a tangled web that has been woven...we got a man murdered at the hands of our heroine, and she's feelin' the guilt.  We have her father, who's going to try and cover it up, and the psycho sister, who isn't going to let EITHER of them forget the blood on their hands.  Kate goes through a bit of the emotional wringer in this episode, as she tries to come to grips with the fact that she killed August Cartwright...and thus, violating the ONE rule Batman always imposed on himself---no killing.  But see...UNLIKE Bruce Wayne, who spent his entire crimefighting career as Batman keeping allies and, to a certain extent, loved ones at arm's length, never allowing himself to get too emotionally attatched.  That's the difference with Kate Kane---her whole PURPOSE this season wasn't JUST to take over as Gotham City's vigilante protector, but to try and find and rehabilitate her sister.  Also, mend fences with her father, form a sisterly bond with her step-sister Mary, AND figure out her relationship with Sophie.  Kate is emotionally attatched all over the place.  She ISN'T Bruce...and, therefore, is susceptible to the usual human foibles we all are.

We got some tiny "family bonding" of sorts as Jacob, Kate, and Alice bury the body of Cartwright, all the while Alice egging Kate on about how she's a killer now, too.  In fact, we pretty much spend a good chunk of the episode watching Alice take every shot she can to dig into Kate about being a killer.  She's NOT going to let her forget it, and USES that as a way to manipulate her into finding Mouse.  Jacob wants to find him as well, but he wants to put him away.  While Jacob goes onto talking to Sophie about the Lucius Fox case, Alice manipulates Kate into once again losing her temper, and convincing her to look for Mouse, even going to far as to visit one of the nurses that cared for him while he was in Arkham.  He seems to be targeting them.  However, the nurse calls upon the Crows anyway, and before Alice and Kate can nab him, Jacob's got him, and he's shipped to Arkham in the deepest part of the clinic.  Alice wants to break him out, and needs Kate's help, because they need to get to two master keys to open the cell he's in.  Kate eventually finds out that Alice set this whole thing in motion...she set up Kate to hear her story, get enraged, and take Cartwright's life---so that Kate would be just like her.  Kate has had enough doubts the last 2 episodes about who she is, but hearing this nearly sends her over the edge to where she starts choking out  Alice herself.  However, she manages to get control of herself.  She's fighting  so hard to NOT become Alice.  But she agrees to help her get Mouse out of Arkham on the condition that Alice and Mouse leave Gotham, and never come back.  

Alice and Kate break into Arkham, and, after Alice gets the key from the good Dr. Burton (nice play there to pay homage to Tim Burton), and Kate fights her way through the guards to get the other key, they go find Mouse, and as Alice goes to let Mouse loose, the cell door closes, and Kate is the one who closed it.  Jacob shows up, and it was all a ruse to get Alice into Arkham.  Alice feels betrayed (Honestly?  She SHOULD'VE seen that coming!  After all, who's to say she wouldn't have stabbed Kate in the back?), and Jacob says she can't hurt anyone anymore.  She begs Kate and her father to let her loose, but, once again, she is trapped in a cage.  We see Alice at the end of the episode, in isolation, quoting more of Alice in Wonderland, saying that she wants to be Queen.  Kate, on the other hand, manages to finally let it out with her dad, and he tries to  tell her to put it behind her.  He's relocated the body so that Alice can't go blabbing to anyone about where it's at (not that anyone would believe her anyway...she's nuts), and tells Kate that it's time to put Alice behind them.

We also had Reggie Harris' hearing this episode, and due to the corrupt way both the cop who busted him and the judge who tried him came to light, he was released, much to Luke's dismay.  Thankfully, Mary was there as moral support.  Meanwhile, Jacob had tasked Sophie with looking into the missing footage from the convenience store where Fox was killed that night, and she found out that someone internally had given money to the proprieter of the store, possibly to misplace or destroy the security tapes.  This ends up becoming even MORE interesting by the fact that, when Sophie goes to visit the lady who owned the store, she finds her murdered on the floor of her home, executed with a bullet to the head.  Seems that someone didn't want her to talk.  And, apparently, they KNEW Sophie was looking into it, because SHE became a target, only to be saved by the returning Julia Pennyworth!  Julia said she got wind of a contract out on Sophie, so she came to assist, but got shot herself in the process.  They get her checked out and sewn up at Mary's clinic, while Luke goes to confront Reggie himself.  Reggie says that night, he heard nothing from Lucius about Luke, and about all the praise he was giving him, how proud he was of him.  Reggie says that all he did was go in for a snack, and the next thing HE knew, he woke up with a gun in his hand, and that he was charged with killing his father.  Luke was going to get more, but then Reggie got targeted with a laser sight, and before Luke could react, Reggie was assassinated right in front of him.  He returned to Mary's clinic, and both he and her discovered that someone's covering up who killed his father, and they're still out there.  

Julia left Sophie in a secret location to check on Luke, and Sophie calls Jacob about what she found out:  that it goes deeper than the Crows.  Just as she's about to fill him in more, HE becomes a target!  But, Jacob's quick on his feet, and he avoids getting shot.  He then shoots his attacker, and when he goes to ask who hired him...the man dies.  So, the mystery continues.  We end the episode with Kate drinking atop Wayne Tower, and Julia ends up finding her.  As much as Kate wants to be alone, Julia refuses.  Kate says she doesn't know who she is anymore, and feels like she almost became Alice.  Julia says she's nothing like Alice,and the two start making out as the episode ends.

So...what we've seen as this series has progressed, is just how psychologically manipulating Alice can be...and how crafty a villain she is.  She set Kate up perfectly, and wanted to prove to Kate that she was no different than her.  And while Kate has feared that for the last two episodes, she's becoming Alice...that she actually stops to THINK about it---makes her different.  And though she had ZERO remorse in killing August Cartwright for the heinous crimes he did to not only Alice, but to Mouse himself...she's going to quesiton herself for days to come.  I honestly feel that IF it had been Jacob in that position instead of Kate...I think he would've done the same thing...if not moreso, considering what HE lost personally...his other daughter.  HE could actually kill, and not have remorse, and actually feel justified in doing it.  Kate can't, and that is the crux of her issue right now.  

Sophie digging deep into Lucius' case, and finding some discrepancies..aside from the corrupt way Harris' case was handled...now has painted a target on Jacob, her, AND they just dispatched the owner of the store.  So, no one's talking.  Plus, the assailant Jacob took out is dead, so no answers there.  Whomever killed Lucius Fox DEFINITELY has some pull enough to stage THIS big a plan.  Whomever this is, I seriously DOUBT stops with just Jacob and Sophie---Kate, Mary, AND Luke will now become targets.  It was great to see the return of Julia Pennyworth...how long she sticks around will be anyone's guess, but she COULD factor into this other story going on right now that seems to be taking center stage, now that Alice and Mouse are tucked away in Arkham for the time being.  But don't get me wrong...I STILL feel Alice has one more card to play up her sleeve before the season ends.  Speaking of which---WHO in the hell left that note at her hideout, with all the dead Wonderland Gang members?  WHO is Coryana?!  And just what IS it that Alice supposedly DID to piss them off?!!

Overall...I truly enjoyed this week's episode.  We got another mystery, and we got to see Alice take one more twist of the psychological knife into Kate, but paid for it afterwards.  The return of Julia Pennyworth, and something big brewing for the end of the season.  This show has found it's legs, and I'm loving it!  The fight scenes are even improving...Kate's fight with the guards was excellent!  

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