Gotham vet Victoria Cartagena cast as Renee Montoya (again!) in Batwoman season 3

Chancellor Agard
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Victoria Cartagena has gotten another shot at playing a fan-favorite DC Comics cop.

The actress has been cast as Renee Montoya in Batwoman season 3, EW has confirmed. If that news sounds familiar, it's because Cartagena played the same comic book character on Fox's Gotham before being written off the show after the first season. However, the Gotham universe isn't connected to the Arrowverse, so she's not playing exactly the same version of Montoya.

"I guess #Reneemontoya and I have some unfinished business," Cartagena tweeted after news of her casting broke on Tuesday. "So very excited to join this new group of talented artists, writers & crew who are doing their thing over here! They have welcomed me wholeheartedly! Grateful, humbled, hype AF…"

"A former GCPD officer, she left the force when she could no longer stomach the corruption inside the GCPD," the official description for the CW super-drama's take on Renee Montoya reads. "She now runs the 'freaks division,' which hasn't seen a lot of action… until now. Righteous and pragmatic, and LGBTQ+, she's a woman with a very personal (and mysterious) mission to help clean the streets of Gotham in the right way, by whatever means necessary."

Montoya is a fairly popular character in the DC Comics canon. She was originally created for Batman: The Animated Series but actually made her debut in the comics first because the publishers liked her so much.

Andrew Toth/FilmMagic; DC Comics Victoria Cartagena has been cast as comic book character Renee Montoya in 'Batwoman' season 3.

Enlisting her for Batwoman makes even more sense because she's intimately connected to Scarlet Knight's mythology: She is one of original Batwoman Kate Kane's main love interests in the comics. But it's doubtful we'll see that relationship play out on screen because, at least as of June, the show has no plans to bring Kate (Wallis Day) back. Thankfully, there's a lot going down in Gotham even without Kate's presence.

In season 3, Batwoman/ Ryan Wilder (Javicia Leslie) and her new partner Batwing/Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson) will have their hands full cleaning up the mess from the season 2 finale: All of the weapons Batman confiscated from his rogues are now floating around and available to the world — which also explains why Montoya's "freaks division" is seeing more action than usual.

"The tease we're [giving] the audience is, 'These are loose out in the wild.' So anyone can literally come and pick them up," showrunner Caroline Dries told EW in June. "So it will be a combination of people who come and pick them up and the villains themselves, and derivatives of those villains. So Batwoman definitely has a huge problem next season."

Cartagena isn't the show's only new cast member. As EW reported earlier this month, Robin Givens has been cast as Jada Jet, the powerful CEO of Jet Industries. Nothing is confirmed yet, but many fans suspect Jada will turn out to be Ryan's birth mom.

Batwoman returns to the CW on Wednesday, Oct. 13, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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