Batwoman Recap: Two's a Crowd

Matt Webb Mitovich
·4 min read

This week on The CW’s Batwoman, rampant speculation was confirmed — Earth Prime simply isn’t big enough for two Beths — and thus one of them had to go. But which one, and how, and at whose hand?

Off of the previous episode’s big win, in which Beth posed as Alice to save Kate from Mouse and the Wonderland Gang, Kate & Co. had been celebrating when Beth doubled over from a blinding headache — as did, unbeknownst to them, Alice herself, elsewhere in Gotham. This episode picked up not long after, at Wayne Enterprises with physician Mary scrutinizing Beth’s rapidly deteriorating red blood cells. Beth herself chimed in as an astrophysics major familiar with MWI, to support the theory that both Beths cannot co-exist on one Earth — and that for either to live, the other must die.

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Alice, too, got looped in on the collapsed multiverse bombshell when she showed up looking for Kate, but also met her other self — and in turn learned the heartbreaking truth about why this Beth survived the bat mitzvah car crash. Alice was ready to remedy the “Which one shall live?” dilemma by flinging her butterfly knife at Beth, but Kate snatched it out of the air. Alice fled, and later showed up at Mary’s secret clinic in seek of help from the headaches and ear bleeds. But in quarreling with Mary, who brought up her mother’s death, Alice surmised that the antidote she gave Mary for the poisoned champagne that fateful night is still lingering in her veins. Alice promptly KO’d Mary and drew some of her blood, thinking it could save her. But Mary came to and got the drop on Alice, eventually handcuffing her to a bed. Mary then dashed to meet up with Kate and deliver the possibly Beth-saving syringe of her blood.

Kate at this point had ushered Beth to safety inside the Batcave, after Alice tipped off the Crows that their most wanted fugitive had been spotted at Wayne Enterprises — and acting commander Sophie had given her team the OK to shoot-to-kill. After Kate met up with Mary, we saw her visit a dying Alice at the clinic, as well as rush to ailing Beth’s side in the Batcave. Beth theorized that Kate wasn’t about to not save Alice a second time and thus had chose to give her the serum. But by way of some confusing/”clever” editing, we realized that Kate in fact visited Alice to say good-bye, after injecting Beth with Mary’s blood. And as a hurt Alice expired, Kate wept over the supervillain’s body.

But you know what they say about the Beth laid plans….

With the Crows swarming Wayne Tower, Kate had told Luke to speed Beth to safety, through the tunnels on the Batcycle. Once Luke and Beth came to a stop outside at a motel, we saw that the latter was in Sophie’s cross hairs. Sophie, though, couldn’t bring herself to take the shot and instead ordered her team to close in for an arrest. But just then, someone else shot Beth dead from afar! It was renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Campbell, whom we and Mouse earlier had learned was really August Cartwright aka Alice’s abductor. (After faking his death a long time ago, August investing a decade in reinventing himself, while wearing one of his handmade skin masks. He wanted Alice dead, he told his son, because she had betrayed their family by escaping.)

With Beth shot dead, Alice sprung back to life, cradled in a spooked Kate’s arms. But the look on Alice’s face was not one of happy relief but revitalized vengeance, against the sister who had moments earlier decided to let her perish. “You thought I died. Well, I didn’t,” Alice huffed, before clobbering Kate with a surgical tray.

What did you think of the episode “Take Your Choice” and what had to feel like the unavoidable decision to kill off the other Earth’s Beth?

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