New Batwoman photo reveals Stephanie Brown's debut in girls' night episode
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Batwoman is introducing another member of the extended Bat-family from the pages of DC Comics.
In this Sunday's episode, Ryan (Javicia Leslie), Mary (Nicole Kang), and Sophie (Meagan Tandy) go up against the villain Cluemaster (Rick Miller), a foe from Sophie's rookie days. And now EW can confirm that the hour will also feature Cluemaster's clever daughter, Stephanie Brown (played by Morgan Kohan, of When Hope Calls), who is primarily known as the Gotham vigilante Spoiler in the comics.
Check out an exclusive new look at Stephanie's live-action debut below:
The CW Morgan Kohan as Stephanie Brown and Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox on 'Batwoman'
In comics canon, Cluemaster, a.k.a. Arthur Brown, is a failed game show host turned supervillain who leaves clues at his crimes. (Big The Snowman energy with this one.) In turn, Stephanie becomes Spoiler to, you guessed it, spoil his nefarious plots. During her 29-year history, Stephanie has been romantically linked to Tim Drake, a.k.a. Batman's third Robin, and has suited up as Robin and Batgirl at different points in time. When DC's Rebirth initiative arrived in 2016, she joined Batman's Batwoman-led super-team as Spoiler alongside Cassandra Cain, Clayface, and Tim as Red Robin.
"We try to anchor the characters in what we know of them from the comics, but make them personal to our heroes — specifically Sophie and Luke," says showrunner Caroline Dries about the show's take on both Cluemaster and Stephanie, the latter of whom develops a connection with Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson).
DC Comics (2) Stephanie Brown, a.k.a. Spoiler, and her father, Cluemaster, in the pages of DC Comics
In Sunday's episode, "I'll Give You a Clue," Ryan, Mary, and Sophie — who recently learned Ryan is Batwoman and protected her identity from the Crows — have an impromptu, tequila-filled girls' night. Unfortunately, the fun gets derailed when Cluemaster escapes from prison and starts terrorizing Sophie with deadly clues, one of which involves his daughter. As they pursue Cluemaster, Sophie tries to convince Ryan to trust her with the Bat-secret.
"Episode 13 is all about Sophie proving herself to Ryan," Dries says. "Our starting point to this Cluemaster story was: What sort of story can we tell wherein Sophie is pressed to reveal to Ryan that she knows her identity? [Episode 12] was a really dark episode and we wanted something more fun, so girls' night became our high concept, and then to give it conflict we thought, 'Well, they can't have fun for too long, so let's spoil it,' and the Stephanie-Arthur story line popped out of [writer Natalie Abrams'] head and we wove it together."
She adds: "Well, we tried to make it full-blown girls' night when we were originally breaking it, where it's intentionally people gathering to drink and have fun, but because of the hostility and the tense dynamics among the women on our show, it wasn't natural for them to gather that way, so it's more of an organic, 'we are thrown together in a situation where we all have a common goal' type of thing. So it feels more authentic, and it's not like there's balloons and pillow fights, but there's definitely tequila."
The CW
While Stephanie doesn't suit up this time around, there's a chance we'll see her again down the line. "We'd love to bring them back in season 3, as they are rich, interesting characters," Dries says, "and from the looks of things, Luke and Stephanie have some unresolved business!"
Meanwhile, Alice (Rachel Skarsten) finds herself at the mercy of Black Mask (Peter Outerbridge) and Circe (Wallis Day), who captured her in last week's episode.
"Episode 13 is going to [contain] one of our most gruesome sequences we've seen on the show, and we've seen quite a few," Dries teases about Alice's predicament. "Even just in prep, I was like, 'I can't even look at the prep pictures.' So that will be fun to watch and to watch Alice go through. But it will lead to one of the biggest revelations on our show thus far."
Batwoman airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CW.
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