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Batwoman: The Rabbit Hole

"The little girl just could not sleep, because her thoughts were way too deep. Her mind had gone out for a stroll and fallen down a rabbit hole."

I struggled for a week with this review, partially because I wasn't sure I was on board, and partially because I wasn't sure what to say.

When I found a quote from Alice in Wonderland involving the rabbit hole, I made an interesting connection. While this episode could be taken purely on a surface level, I think there might be some subtle literary connections with this story and Alice. Namely, Kate has been thrown into a deep hole and she has no idea how to climb out. Now instead of trying to fight the insanity, she is beginning to embrace it.

Donning a suit and going out to fight crime is kind of nuts. Arrow originally just put on a hood to keep his identity a secret; it took years for him to become the Green Arrow. Barry had a role model in Oliver as a template for his own transition into a costumed hero, and Cisco to make it for him. All Kara had to do was copy her cousin because her legacy was with family.

For Kate, discovering Bruce’s secret and going out as a copy-cat Batman is problematic at best. She is subverting his legacy and giving the city a sense of false hope that their icon has suddenly returned. Luke is right; she needs to really think about what she wants to do here. She cannot pretend to be the Bat, but she clearly has a calling. Something is drawing her to put on the suit, but she isn’t Batwoman yet.

Which brings me to the overarching plot, Alice. Or Beth. At this point, do we know if Alice is Beth? We are clearly supposed to believe it, but there's a nagging sense of disconnect between the facts and Alice’s story. It lines up, but she herself is giving us reason to suspect she isn’t entirely on the level. There must be more story here, and it is entirely possible that Alice is in fact Kate’s sister. I’ll say that I’m moderately intrigued by this and look forward to finding out more. It is interesting that Alice already knows about Kate’s alter-ego; that could prove to be an interesting plot point later on.



Unfortunately, while I think this episode was a marked improvement in almost every respect from the first episode, I still don’t feel like the show has found its footing yet. The acting was better all around, with Dougray Scott giving us a grieving father with some actual pathos. There was a bit of chemistry between Kate and Sophie, and Ruby Rose is already starting to grow on me. My favorite character so far is Mary, and I’m happy they are setting up some actual sibling stuff between her and Kate.

Bits:

There are some major visual parallels with Nolan’s Batman trilogy, with the street Wayne Enterprises sits on being one of the biggest.

Alice and Kate don’t look like twins. Maybe fraternal twins?

Catherine, Kate’s stepmother, was responsible for stealing the knife from Kate. I don’t know what to make of this.

The scene in the lake with Kate and Alice was the most interesting part of the episode, and showed Kate’s depth of feelings and Alice’s conflict with just a look.

While an improvement over the first episode, this wasn’t a great episode.

Let’s start off with a 2.5 out of 4 Strained Sibling Relationships

Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.

2 comments:

  1. I adore Alice. Loving the performance. Don't think the show is good but there is potential.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Speaking of Catherine, she's the one who found "Beth's" skull fragments. This gives her desire to find the DNA wielding knife a whole new context.

    Overall, I'm curious enough about what will happen next to keep watching. At least for now.

    ReplyDelete

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