After months of delays related to covid-19, a new CW season Batwoman he is here with a new watchman at the head. I am delighted to confirm this Javicia Leslie it’s absolutely fantastic Ryan Wilder, the new Batwoman. If you skipped this program due to Ruby Rose, or just because you have too much TV on the plate, it’s time to take a second look back, as with Leslie at the helm, this show finally feels like the Bat-verse CW you want.
Or at least I want to. I’m not here for one seriously deadly Batman. The presumption is intrinsically wild and creepy and I want my bat-related shows to be intrinsically wild and wild. First season of Batwoman he tried and had absolutely ridiculous things like heads to the freezers, clashes in the middle of brightly lit stadiums and Alice, Rachel Skarsten’s villain.
But Rose was terribly uneven as a protagonist and, despite what some think (I guess mostly entertainment producers), you really need a really good actor as the protagonist of a TV show. Leslie is so good that it makes everyone around her better. There’s a real energy to the scenes that I share with the actors from the first season, and in the two episodes I watched, I was able to see the cast really coming together and clicking.
However, the biggest improvement over the superhero series may be having Ryan as the protagonist instead of Kate Kane. While Kate had a powerful reason to put on the hood to Greg Rucka and JH Williams III Batwoman restart in DC Comics, the same could not be said for the show. It almost seemed to fall on paper; took in the cloak and hood because the show needed it, more than for any real character-based reason.
G / O Media may receive a commission
Ryan is different.
This new hero the story is also, perhaps surprisingly, completely intertwined with Kate’s. But we will be back. First, we need to talk about the most triumphant moment of the episode. Ryan has done it a lot of very understandable and believable rage that finally manifests itself in the premiere of the second season (“What happened to Kate Kane?”) when Hush tries to kill her with a kryptonite bullet. Take the shot like a champion, jump and then PUNCHES BRUCE WAYNE’S FACE OFF HUSH’S BODY.
Amazing. Amazing. Do you think the show would have Hush messed up for half a season pretending to be Bruce Wayne? Why not! Batwoman left this story to rest for over 40 years minutes. But back to the way we got to Batwoman taking a look at a man’s face.
At the top of the premiere, Kate’s plane soars into the sky before crashing near where Ryan sleeps in a van. He immediately rushes to look for survivors because he is a good person and instead of doing so find a green ring, finds Batwoman’s dress and no trace of Kate herself. The show makes it clear that there is no trace of Kate’s body and that means she can absolutely return at some later time (perhaps with a bit of facial reconstruction surgery that soap operas like to use when actors are remade) . But the story also treats her as if Kate were dead.
Her family and friends mourn her. Sophie moves away from a relationship with Alfred’s daughter, Julia, for his pain. Jacob, Kate’s father and his sister Alice both become more cruel. Sister Mary and close friend Luke Fox cry in the Batcave as they realize what the plane crash means. And then … Ryan suddenly puts on his cloak and takes out the bad guys and has a great time doing it.
The Batsuit on Batwoman it’s almost more like the Iron Man costume than the comic book Batsuits. Instead of Kevlar and silk, is Kevlar and a few million dollars in luxury technology that Ryan has to stumble upon understanding as he uses it to get the bad guys out. Throughout the premiere, we recapture Ryan’s returnhistory too; it was one orphan who found a loving adoptive mother, and when the two tried to move into the apartment he was paying for with his new job, they found Alice’s gang squatting there. His mother died, Ryan almost died and all the great upward momentum that was increasing in life disappeared. Sophie and the rest of Jacob’s paramilitary police, the Crows, can’t stand her because she’s had some attacks on the law before, but even then — a situation involved an ex-girlfriend — it seems a bit exaggerated considering who else runs around Gotham.
But it works for Ryan. Kate, and really any billionaire who chooses to fight crime with a suit instead of her considerable wealth and influence, always felt nonsense like a thorn next to the Crows. The first season wanted to point out how absolutely terrible it was for Gotham to outsource its policing to an unsupervised private company, but one that rarely worked when everyone who cared about Kate worked there and didn’t feel like encouraging them to find another job. .
Ryan is aware of the Crows and the evil they are and has no personal file to stop him from taking them on. He also has a bone to choose from that Alice feels won over and hard to beat. Plus, it’s not loaded! And he looks pretty smart! Kate often felt like a silly mocker who decided to take over the world because why not? Ryan feels like a smart woman who really wants to help make the world a better place and not just for herself. She has this sense of duty that makes Kate’s comic version so damn convincing. After a year of wondering where the hell Kate Kane is, Batwoman he has finally found her, and his name is Ryan Wilder.
Various reflections:
- Ah, yes! Remember how Hush grabbed Bruce Wayne’s face so he could steal kryptonite and do other bad things? Julia Pennyworth IMMEDIATELY makes him look like a fake and Ryan then PUNCHES HIS REAL FACE at the climax of the episode. They wasted zero time pausing this story. I’m still in shock. Amazing.
- Also, Hush shoots Ryan with the kryptonite and is largely fine although the program repeatedly said it would be a fatal shot. So … is there any chance it will be metahuman?
- Seriously, Leslie has as much fun as Ryan that her joy is contagious. You will be absolutely smiling as you face your first bad guys.
- The Batmobile finally makes its appearance. It sucks.
For more information, be sure to follow us on our Instagram @io9dotcom.