Here’s one social engagement that socialite (and underground clinician) Mary Hamilton (Nicole Kang) will definitely want to skip.
In Batwoman‘s aptly titled fall finale “A Mad Tea Party,” Gotham City throws a special event honoring Mary’s mom, Catherine (Elizabeth Anweis). If there’s one thing we know about Gotham parties, it’s that there will be at least one supervillain in attendance, whether they were invited or not. So you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Alice (Rachel Skarsten) crashes the gala and hijacks it for her mad tea party, which has repercussions on the rest of the season.
“It’s going to have major fallout, and I think it’ll shift Mary’s Gotham forever,” Nicole Kang tells EW. “It’ll shift everybody in the cast’s view of how dangerous Alice is.”
Before the midseason finale’s big shindig, though, Mary has a heartbreaking exchange with her sister Kate (Ruby Rose), as the exclusive clip above reveals. In the sneak peek, Mary begs Kate to attend the gala because she hopes that will help reunite the family, which fractured in the wake of Catherine’s deceit coming to light. Unfortunately, Kate isn’t ready to forgive Catherine for lying about Beth’s death, and Mary doesn’t understand that since Kate keeps giving Alice so many chances. “Because she’s my family,” says Kate.
“I think that really hurts Mary,” says Kang. “Even to the bitter end, Mary is so optimistic about her and Kate’s relationship. I think it was one of those language slips, which is why we have to be careful about what words we use and how we’re labeling people and defining relationships. ‘Well, we’re sisters, but we’re not blood, and what does that mean when you said that we’re sisters?’ It’s all very confusing to Mary. To Mary, there’s no difference. She’s put Kate’s well-being and interests at the forefront of her life.”
Kang also notes that Mary shares some responsibility for the sister’s falling out in the scene. “Kate has that line, ‘If you think the public and your social media fans thinks we’re all a family, that we’ll all start to believe it.’ That’s kind of a strong read on Mary. No, there’s some serious damage that’s been done. Mary also kind of doesn’t want to face that as well. I think there’s a little bit on both sides of missing the mark,” says Kang.
Even though this was a sad scene for Mary, shooting it wasn’t a complete bummer thanks to the fact that Kang didn’t know how to pronounce “haute couture.”
“When I come in for this scene, I read it as ‘hot couture.’ I thought it was just French Canadian spelling. I don’t know, we’re in British Columbia,” she recalls. “They were like, ‘Nicole, it’s haute couture.’ I was like, ‘What?’ So they get a French TAD, Elise, to come. They’re like, ‘How do you say this?’ She’s like, ‘It’s [in a French accent] couture.’ My eyes go wide and I burst into tears. Our DP [Mark Berlet] was just crying laughing. He was like, ‘She’s not going to say it like that. There’s no way. Nicole can’t do that.’ [Laughs] I was like, ‘Oh my god I’m so embarrassed! I can’t believe I didn’t know what this was. I’m not as cultured!’ It’s just been wild being educated by [Mary].”
Watch the exclusive clip above.
Batwoman airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
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