Batwoman Recap: 'I Am Not Batman — But Maybe I'm Better'

Matt Webb Mitovich

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This Sunday on The CW, Batwoman had her coming out party — but what exactly pushed Kate to officially introduce Gotham to (as Vesper Fairchild put it) the “curvier, sexier” Batman?

What was by far the best of the freshman series’ nascent season had several different elements going on, each quite entertaining in its own right. For example, Sophie was assigned as Mary’s bodyguard, which led to all kinds of eyerolls from the social media maven by day/secret clinic boss by night. It also set the stage for Sophie to finally appear as conflicted about the years-ago split as Kate has been, as she peppered Mary with question upon question about her step-sister.

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Episode 3 also introduced us to Tommy Elliot (played by Revenge‘s Gabriel Mann), Bruce’s childhood pal who when we first see him hushes Kate so that he can commemorate the fact that he now owns a building taller than Wayne Enterprises. Tommy is convinced that Bruce is back in town (…seeing as Batman apparently is), but Kate insists her cousin is still AWOL. Later, a break-in at a Wayne R&D facility reveals that a high-tech railgun that Bruce designed to penetrate the otherwise impervious batsuit — in case it fell into the wrong hands — has been stolen, and many signs point to Tommy being the thief.

At a lavish party thrown by Tommy at his new building, Kate runs into Sophie’s husband, who has been told nothing about how the two ladies know each other. Kate, crestfallen anew by her ex’s secrecy/denial, offers up that they… attended the same Point Rock military academy. Yeah, that’s how they know each other. Afterward, bartender Regan instantly deduces that Sophie’s husband has no idea his wife is Kate’s ex — and with that said, the ladies strike a certain spark to be revisited later….

Jacob is at the same party when he gets a call from someone — Alice — who is playing on cello a Bach song that he once taught Beth. Learning that Alice is inside his home, where she had just been fiddling with Catherine’s vanity, Jacob grabs his wife and makes a beeline for the elevator.

Seeing Tommy, Kate — in the context of just making small talk — plants the seed that the tech stolen from Wayne has a hidden GPS tracker, so it’s just a matter of time until the culprit is caught. Minutes later, Kate catches Tommy in private searching the stolen railgun for the nonexistent tracker. Tommy explains that his beef is with Batman, who, yes, years ago saved his mother from a car accident. But in doing so, the Dark Knight “saddled” Tommy with a drooling madwoman instead of his rich inheritance.

Before Kate can sic the cops or Crows on Tommy, he reveals a remote trigger with which he can send any of his building’s elevators plummeting down to the ground — and he does just that, with one cab carrying a buncha cater waiters. (In separate elevators, Catherine urges Jacob not to get baited by Alice’s claims of being Beth, while Mary bites her tongue again and again as she listens to Sophie dance around her non-disclosure to the husband about her and Kate’s past… as cadets.)

In the aftermath of the first elevator crash, Kate scurries across the street to the Batcave to suit up — after Luke gives the outfit some distinct updates. The wigged and caped crusader then finds and slugs it out with Tommy on the rooftop, after which she uses assorted Bat-toys to make sure the remaining elevators don’t crash. But after doing so, Kate finds herself dangling above the tall elevator shaft, with Tommy ready to stomp on her clinging fingers. Until, that is, Tommy gets cracked on the head from behind… by Alice.

With Tommy KO’d, the twins share some quips over Kate’s new costume. Kate again appeals for the sister she knows/knew to return to her, but Alice refuses. Worse, Alice reveals that she reneged on a “deal” they had made, for her to stop killing for 24 hours, in trade for boyfriend Dodgson’s return. Kate makes clear that if Alice keeps killing, she will be forced to forget that she is her sister.

But that, Alice, makes quite clear, is her entire point.

In the aftermath of all the above insanity, the professionally intuitive Regan observes that Kate is into her, so she will call her sometime; Catherine comes home to find three playing cards (2, 3, 8) on her vanity, which she quickly hides before Jacob sees them; and in a final sequence narrated by Kate, as the media catches sight of and reports on “Batwoman” (as Sophie dubs her), she “writes” to Bruce that she wasn’t afraid of letting down the city by picking up the Bat-mantle, but letting down him. But giving it the old college try, she has decided, “is worth it.”

What did you think of Batwoman Episode 3, “Down Down Down”?

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