Episode 16, "Rebirth"

[SPOILERS ahead, I recommend that you watch the episode before you continue!]
[SPOILERS ahead, I recommend that you watch the episode before you continue!]
[SPOILERS ahead, I recommend that you watch the episode before you continue!]

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“General”:
My highlights from this episode (without particular order):

1 – Roman and Safiyah! Safiyah is finally back in the show and she is working with Black Mask/Roman. I am thrilled to finally get to know what their endgame is? Safiyah wants her flower back and also wants to get revenge on Alice, but these are only the short-term goals ;-). It was interesting to see how Roman was doing everything to cover up Circe's evil deeds by killing off witnesses to her crimes with the help of Tatiana who he borrowed from Safiyah. Also letting his PR team making up a whole cover drug-rehab story of why she was "away" for so long (prison) was interesting. And the AD with Circe-Kate posing for his new cosmetic line "Rebirth" (episode title) was well done.  Wallis sold it well. But what evil plans does he have besides getting his revenge on the Kane family?

2 – Jacob, Alice, and Ocean! Quite an odd team. But it was fun seeing them team up to get Kate back! As they tried to trigger her memories with key items of her past we get some interesting flashbacks as Kate starts to remember. But her programmed Circe personality is fighting against these memories, so it's Kate VS Circe in her mind! It was totally new for Jacob to see his daughter introducing a boyfriend to him. He realized that Enigma has altered her mind but Alice is capable of loving someone. That revelation gets important later on...

3 – Tavaroff, Luke, and a poker game! Quite some interesting scenes happen in that law enforcement club/bar! Luke wants to confront Tavaroff and he is as evil as usual as he doesn't seem to feel any guilt about wrongfully shooting Luke and then making up "evidence" to justify it. Luke found out that Tavaroff has won a Crows poker tournament 2 times in a row and just wants to beat him there to get back at him, even it's just a little victory. But it's surely not the last time these two have seen each other! It was so great that Luke won even Tavaroff was cheating, he knew it, but managed to beat him nonetheless.

4 – Diggle! It wasn't a surprise that he was back as pictures and the trailer gave that away, but it was certainly great to see him back on screen after the ending of the Arrow TV show. It was speculated that Diggle and Luke would already know each other, but that wasn't the case. Diggle helped Luke out as he was down and beaten by Tavaroff in the alley later on. Also, he provided Luke with some perspective after Luke doesn't want to come back into life as he was shot. But Diggle showed him that Luke has a perspective in life and that he can use his anger as a motivation for his future role. And we all know by now what that future holds in place for Luke.
It starts with "Bat" ....and ends with "wing" ;-)

5 – Jacob gets arrested (again)! We find out that Black Mask/Roman has the GCPD in his pocket. Law enforcement in Gotham is really highly problematic :lol: ! It was rather odd that Roman decided to confront Jacob as Roman and not as Black Mask. With that move, he screwed his secret identity and Jacob now knows that Roman is Black Mask. Vital information that he should pass onto Mary! --- Ironically Jacob gets arrested for helping Alice/Beth. He manages to get the trial moved to Metropolis to get a fair(er) process. I am wondering what will happen to him and his future in the show. The Crows are disbanded and the showrunners will have to find a new role for his character in season 3. I wouldn't be surprised if he would heroically sacrifice himself to save Kate or Alice/Beth in the grand finale of this season.....

6 - Alice, Safiyah and Batwoman! Safiyah managed to capture Alice and wants to have a little chat with her (and to get her away from Ocean, but more on that later). Batwoman shows up with the Desert Rose and is willing to give it to Safiyah to thereby get Alice back in order to have Alice bring back Kate fully. But for now, that hasn't paid off as Alice runs after Ocean instead of going back to Kate. But I like the fact that the Desert Rose is back with Safiyah now. As I mentioned in the last review....it would be really bad in the long run if they could just get back everyone to life each time someone gets shot, stabbed, or whatever. That safety net is now gone and that's good. It was so typical for Alice that after she already was freed she still verbally attacked Safiyah and teased her with how good things were going for her (Alice). But well, that didn't last long....

7 - Two deaths in a minute! It was kind of fitting that Tatiana and Ocean deaths were only some seconds away. Ok, Ocean was already dead for some minutes, but both characters were announced in the same press release before the season...and now they are both dead. I'm 100% sure that Tatiana is dead, the actress already said goodbye and thanked all involved that she enjoyed being on the show big time. But I'm "only" 90% sure that Ocean is dead. Perhaps Safiyah can still get him back to life with the Desert Rose and then heads with him to Coryana? But I guess Safiyah has given up on him and most likely the Desert Rose won't work on him.... and at the end, he was already saved once by it, that should be enough ;-). Tatiana's death was a little ... "rushed"... for me. She was an important character and was killed off really quickly after Alice defeated her instantly. Guess Tatiana's assassin skills weren't so good after all.

 

Aspects I didn't like in this episode:

>>> In some parts it seemed as they had a little "too much" script for this episode as some parts felt rushed. Tatiana's exit felt odd as I mentioned above. And the scene where Batwoman found Kate was really weird and rushed. After all, it was the first scene where both Batwomen met for the first time (if you don't count masked Circe). Batwoman asked Kate if she would be Kate but there wasn't any reaction from Kate towards Batwoman. I mean the bat symbol should trigger Kate and seeing this new Batwoman should result in a LOT of questions. Even in Wayne Tower, there wasn't any interaction between the two in terms of Batwoman 1.0 seeing Batwoman 2.0. I guess we will get that in the next episode(s), but a minute or two with them talking about the role as Batwoman would have been cool, even Kate doesn't fully remember that. Ryan trusted Kate/Circe immediately and unmasked herself off-screen. I hope that won't bite her in the behind in the future as Circe seems to win the mind-fight over Kate...for now.

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More interesting aspects for me:

--- The fights between Tatiana and Batwoman were really good, even a little short. I liked that Batwoman unmasked the assassin and thereby found out that it is Tatiana. Ok, the unmasking was very quick and pretty much in the darkness but it was good to see that they took this "direct" route to let her find out who the masked assassin is.

--- In this show, the characters really have a "thing" for sitting on the ledge of Wayne Tower, a very high building. :lol: . Damn, I wouldn't sit there until you would pay me really BIG money....

--- The justice system doesn't really work in Gotham, that's not a new thing to find out. So it was very fitting that Tavaroff was out on bail for now, even with these serious charges against him.

--- Again, so signs of Julia! I really hope she comes back for the last two episodes of the season. But at least she was mentioned in this one. She did confirm that the skull fragment they found after the plane crash was from Kate. But Roman placed it there to make it appear that Kate is actually dead.

--- Kate did recognize Sophie and hugged her passionately, but she didn't know who Mary was. That must have been quite a low blow for Mary who already had to fight to get Kate's attention. I'm pretty sure they will come very close in the future though.

--- It was an important and emotional scene as Alice witnessed her father defending her in the interview. He realized that she was the victim of Cartwright, Safiyah, and Enigma. That doesn't mean she isn't responsible for her evil actions....but he knows now that others created Alice out of the innocent Beth. Alice was heavily touched by that and it was a strong father-daughter moment. By the way: It's a little convenient that always a TV is on when important news for an episode are shown, but ok, no real problem. ;-)

--- Again, the writers provided (as mostly) some great lines in the episode:
"Last I heard, she was running around with a tree stapled to her face" ....Safiyah about Circe.
"Last I checked, your occupation was unemployed haircut".....Luke to Tavaroff.
"If you are wearing yoga pants it's so much worse than I thought!"....Alice to Circe-Kate.

--- The ending provided another fine cliffhanger. Circe-Kate is confused and attacked her father. Safiyah showed up and mentioned that she now has the chance to decide who she is gonna be. Pretty sure her Circe part will take control and she will be a villainess for the final episodes of this season....until the other find a way to fully bring back Kate.

--- About the trailer for the next episode: Kate returns to the Batcave and Mary is offering her the Bat costume as Ryan steps back from her role. I'm sure that Circe-Kate plays the Kate role to get her hand on the suit. Pretty sure that her father and Safiyah are influencing her big time! I'm sure she will do evil things with the suit.... and team Bat have to fight her in the last two episodes of the season. But as Circe Kate goes to the Batcave....does that mean that Roman and Safiyah then know who is in team Batwoman??? Ryan gets attacked by the GCPD, pretty sure that Roman and Safiyah are behind that, why else would the GCPD attack Ryan with a SWAT team? --- And we still don't know why these two knew that Kate Kane is/was Batwoman! I hope that gets answered now!


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>>> Rating “General:” <<<
4 out of 5
A slightly rushed episode, but again, a really good one! Great lines, strong emotional scenes, and some nice twists!
Can't wait for the next one!