After months of delays related to covid-19, a new CW season Bat Woman is here with a new watchman in charge. Glad to confirm this Javicia Leslie it’s absolutely fantastic how Ryan Wilder, the new Batwoman. If you skipped this show because of Ruby Rose, or just because you have a lot of TV on your plate, it’s time to go back for a second look, because with Leslie in charge, this program finally looks like the Bat-versse CW you want.
Or at least I want to. I’m not here for a deadly serious Bat Man. The presumption is inherently wild and stupid and I want my Bat-related programs to be inherently wild and stupid. First season of Bat Woman tried that and had totally ridiculous things like heads in freezers, clashes in the middle of well-lit stadiums and Rachel Skarsten’s villain Alice.
But Rose was terribly uneven as a protagonist, and despite what some (I suppose mainly entertainment producers) think, you really need a really good actor as the titular protagonist of a TV show. Leslie is so good that it makes everyone around her better. There is a real energy in the scenes that she shares with the actors from the first season, and over the course of the two episodes I watched, I could see the cast really coming together and clicking.
However, the biggest improvement for the superhero series could be having Ryan as the protagonist instead of Kate Kane. While Kate had a powerful reason to wear the hood of Greg Rucka and JH Williams III Bat Woman restart at DC Comics, the same could not be said for the show. She seemed to almost fall on paper; she took on the cover and hood because the show needed it, instead of for any real reason of character.
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Ryan is different.
This new hero the story is also, perhaps unsurprisingly, completely intertwined with Kate’s. But let’s get back to that. First, we need to discuss the most triumphant moment of the episode. Ryan has much understandable and believable anger that manifests itself in the premiere of the second season (“What happened to Kate Kane?”) when Hush tries to murder her with a kryptonite bullet. She shoots like a champion, jumps up, and then PUSHES BRUCE WAYNE’S FACE OUT OF HUSH’S BODY.
Amazing. Amazing. Do you think the series would make Hush mess around for half a season pretending to be Bruce Wayne? Why not! Batwoman ended this story in more than 40 minutes. But let’s go back to how we got to Batwoman by punching a man in the face.
At the top of the premiere, Kate’s plane crosses the sky before crashing close to where Ryan is sleeping in a van. She immediately runs to look for survivors because she is a good person, and instead of finding a green ring, she finds the Batwoman suit – and no sign of Kate herself. The show makes it clear that there is no trace of Kate’s body and that means that she may return at some later time (perhaps with a little bit of the facial reconstruction surgery that soap operas like to use when they do the actors’ makeover). But the story also treats Kate as if she were dead.
Her family and friends are mourning her. Sophie steps back from a relationship with Alfred’s daughter, Julia, because of your pain. Kate’s father Jacob and her sister Alice both become more vicious. Half-sister Mary and close friend Luke Fox cry in the Batcave when they realize what the plane crash means. And then … Ryan is suddenly wearing the cape and killing the bad guys and having a lot of fun doing it.
The Batsuit in Bat Woman it’s almost more like the Iron Man suit than comic book Batsuits. Rather than Kevlar and silkyour kevlar and a few million dollars in sophisticated technology that Ryan needs to understand while using it to eliminate bad guys. Throughout the debut, we recovered Ryanhistory too; she was a orphan who found a loving foster mother, and when the two tried to move into the apartment she was paying for her new job, they found Alice’s gang crouched there. Her mother was killed, Ryan almost died and all the great momentum she was developing in life disappeared. Sophie and the rest of Jacob’s paramilitary police force, the Crows, cannot stand her because she had some disagreements with the law previously, but even so – a situation involved an ex-girlfriend – it seems a little overzealous, considering who else is running for Gotham.
But it works for Ryan. Kate, and really any billionaire who chooses to fight crime with a suit instead of his considerable wealth and influence, has always felt a bit silly as a thorn in the side of the Ravens. The first season wanted to show how utterly terrible it was for Gotham to outsource his policing to a private, unsupervised company, but it rarely worked when everyone Kate cared about worked there and she had no desire to encourage them to find another job.
Ryan knows Ravens well and how bad they are, and he has no personal attachment to stop him from facing them. She also has a bone to choose from with Alice that looks deserved – and hard to get over. Furthermore, it is not loaded! And it looks very smart! Kate often felt like an idiot athlete who decided to take on the world because she didn’t. Ryan feels like an intelligent woman who genuinely wants to help make the world better, and not just for herself. She has that sense of duty that makes Kate’s comic version so attractive. After a year of wondering where the hell Kate Kane is, Bat Woman finally found her, and her name is Ryan Wilder.
Various reflections:
- Oh yeah! Remember how Hush took on Bruce Wayne’s face so he could steal kryptonite and do other bad things? Julia Pennyworth IMMEDIATELY considers it a scam and Ryan then PUNCHES HIS REAL FACE at the climax of the episode. They wasted zero time putting the story to rest. I’m still in shock. Amazing.
- Also, Hush shoots Ryan with kryptonite and she is quite well despite the show repeatedly saying it would be a fatal shot. So … is there a chance that she is meta-human?
- Seriously, Leslie is having as much fun as Ryan that his joy is contagious. You will absolutely smile when she faces her first outlaws.
- The Batmobile finally makes its appearance. Sucks.
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