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“General”:
My highlights from this episode (without particular order):
1 – Black Mask's master plan! Finally, we could witness what Black Mask is actually up to as he revealed his plan throughout the episode. I liked his speech and how he addressed the people in Gotham. Also, it was a good idea to have an average family in several scenes that reacted to his speech. Also, we see Circe dressing up for battle with a stylish skull mask. Of course, Black Mask only reveals the part of his plan that the people need to hear in order to carry it out. I very much liked the principal idea of having Roman kill "Black Mask" and then being the big savior of Gotham. But he clearly overestimated the people's wish to overthrow the government :lol: ...a speech, a power outage, and some plastic masks...just weren't enough to motivate the big masses. Seeing all those people using his masks as lanterns that looked like the Batwoman symbol...was really cool.
2 – Another ...short-lived... team-up with Ryan and Alice! Ryan knew she would need her help to take down Black Mask and Circe, so she agreed to team-up with Alice. On their way to Black Mask Alice already starts to tease Ryan about how she would live in Kate's apartment and using her costume and so on. Then she suddenly tries to excuse the murder of Ryan's foster mom. Not surprisingly Ryan doesn't accept it. I was quite shocked how Alice then tried to make Ryan responsible for killing her mother at childbirth! Wow, that was a quite deranged attack. Especially as Alice knew that her mother is actually very much alive as we get to know at the very end of the episode! I was quite mad at Alice and her behavior. More on that later as there are some more scenes with both of them.
3 – Luke finds the Batwing suit! They surely need to explore the whole Batcave (-system) better :lol: . As Luke stumbles upon his own child drawings of his own Batman version he also finds technical notes on them. He then finds the Batwing suit that his father designed after Luke's drawings.
4 - Tavaroff, Mary and the Snakebite solution! Tavaroff is mad enough to let Black Mask pump his body full with that Venom stuff. After Tavaroff seemingly died and was thrown into a dumpster (very fitting!) he lands in Mary's clinic. Smart Mary discovers the special Snakebite delivery system on him and realizes that it would be a solution to restore Kate's memories fully. I was surprised by this as I thought that someone would have the password to restore her memories...but it was interesting how bastard Tavaroff now delivered the solution to bring back Kate. He was good for something after all. Black Mask's animal testing comment was pretty funny :-)
5 – Mary and her motivation speech! A short one, but very effective! Ryan has big doubts that she can defeat Circe without her Batsuit, but Mary comes up with a key sentence "you don't need the suit to be Batwoman". Well, technically she does....but yeah, the message behind that is the important part. The suit doesn't make the hero.
6 - Black Mask VS Alice! It was a rather....crazy....way to win the fight, but well, it fits to Alice. Using the Joker toy flower to spray acid in Roman's face....I didn't see that coming :lol: . And to even top that she forced the skull mask onto his head...which thereby is seemingly now blended(?) onto his face! Wow, that's a pretty extreme move....even for Alice. Love the introductory comment before she sprays his face: "You know who was a great villain? The Joker!".
7 - The final battle on the bridge and the aftermath! The dramatic finale of the episode happens right around the midpoint of the episode. There are some aspects I really love about it and some that I don't like, more on that later on. I really enjoyed the Snakebite visions that Kate and Alice had! Alice said goodbye to Ocean (didn't think he would "appear" again) who pushed her towards continuing to look for....well basically...the Beth inside her. The other scene was great, as young Kate now finally found Beth in that basement. That basement that separated them for so long. Also, I liked that it was in a way a little reference to episode 2 in season 1 as both sisters were also underwater, even the situation was different. One last time Ryan and Alice worked together as they revived Kate in a dramatic scene. It was a great moment as Kate saw her sister and called her Beth. But as always when something good is happening to Alice/Beth the next low blow isn't far away....
8 - Kate gives Ryan her blessing to continue as Batwoman! It was pretty awesome to see Mary, Luke, and Kate at the beginning of that scene. They are happy and finally together again after all that drama of this season. But soon the episode drops quite a big shocker..... Kate already told both of them about her plans to leave the City to search for Bruce Wayne which we don't see in the episode (a deleted scene on the Bluray set?) and they now tell her that they are fine with it. My eyes widened big time as I thought that Kate would stay in the show and be one of the regulars in season 3. But Caroline Dries decided to go another route. I have very mixed feelings about it, more on that later on.
Ryan entered the room and had a one on one chat with Kate. It was great to see both of them finally together. Kate then told Ryan that she would remain in her role as Batwoman, as protector of Gotham as she was sure the suit was in good hands. Thereby Ryan is now officially "fully" Batwoman. Oh, I loved how Luke and Mary told Kate about the story with the Cluemaster incl. Luke meeting Stephanie.
9 - Sophie kissing Kate! Due to Covid restrictions, this was actually the first real lesbian kiss in the whole season. It was so great seeing Sophie finally kissing Kate after all this time! Last season she kissed Batwoman several times not knowing that Kate was under the cowl, but now we finally get a Sophie-Kate kiss scene that isn't from a flashback. It was quite an emotional scene for the viewers, especially with Sophie now knowing as well that Kate will leave Gotham quickly.
Aspects I didn't like in this episode:
>>> A Batwoman finale .....without.....Batwoman!!! Yeah, I know...it was part of the story that Ryan wouldn't need a suit to be a hero, a good point/idea. However, I wanna see Batwoman in action! That means someone wearing the cowl and costume! This was actually the very first episode without any Batwoman scene whatsoever. And that after the previous episode which had around tiny 2 minutes of Batwoman screentime.
>>> Too much content for 42 minutes! Yeah, I know it's the target length of the Arrowverse episodes. But it would be so great to have a season finale episode that is a little longer. The bridge fight which was the climax of the episode was starting at around the midpoint of the episode. All the time after it was needed to tie up some of the loose ends. How about a 2 part season finale? Or perhaps they could think about making a longer version of such a season finale that would exclusively be released on their streaming site? A version that is 10-20 minutes longer perhaps? There was so much stuff going on...it was a little too much. Will be interesting if there are deleted scenes of this episode on the DVD/Bluray set of the season.
>>> Two aspects of the bridge fight and the following underwater scene were quite weird to me. As we can see the bridge isn't very high above the water, so I find it quite weird that both were knocked out as they hit the water. And why did Alice end up falling into the water with Kate in the first place? Why didn't she spray that stuff into Kate's face and then keep her distance until Kate's memories are coming back? Ok, maybe it was her weird plan to inhale that stuff herself?
>>> Luke, Ryan, Sophie, Jacob, and Mary had an emotional rollercoaster and worked their asses off to get Kate back after they first thought she was dead and then found that she was very much alive! Now, Kate is finally back, but decides to leave Gotham for good, and what is the reaction? I would have expected Luke, Mary, and Sophie to be MUCH more emotional about it! Ah well, there you go, goodbye. All this drama over a whole season, then Kates immediately decides to leave them and that is their reaction? Quite odd. Yes, in the show the character may think that she may return whenever she has found Bruce .....but that might take quite a long time, after all, he isn't gone since yesterday.
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More interesting aspects for me:
--- Batwoman writes a letter to the people of Gotham! I liked that idea and especially the reaction from the people of Gotham to it. They showed their support for Batwoman and inspired Ryan (alongside Mary) to fight on, even she didn't have her suit or any gadgets.
--- The scene where Mary makes a plan on what they all have to accomplish...while sitting there in candlelight without power, was really funny. The odds were very much against them...but they managed to "win" nonetheless.
--- The fight with Ryan, Alice, Black Mask and Circe at their hideout was well made! It was a little weird how Ryan and Alice were seeking cover from Black Mask's bullets behind a thin table (#not bulletproof). I mean for them it was the logical step as nothing else was available in a short distance. But I didn't get why Black Mask not simply was shooting at the table. But ok, a small issue. Circe in her skull mask looked really awesome!
--- Batwing saves Mary! It was a good first appearance as Batwing saved Mary in her biggest action scene so far. And it was a great moment as they fell to the ground and Mary was laying in top of Batwing ;-) . I just wished the fight with Tavaroff would have been longer, it felt rushed.
--- It was a rather short sequence as well but I enjoyed how Ryan in the Batmobile battled Circe on her Batbike! They fired some weapons systems and gadgets at each other and tested their reactions. A fun scene.
--- The parole hearing finally ended Ryan's time as a parolee and was an important milestone for her. It was a classic Ryan move as she answered "No, I haven't changed" to the parole board. Most certainly not the routine answer they would normally expect and get from a parolee. But Ryan could convince them that she deserved to be paroled.
--- Alice in Arkham...again. Well, even with her tragic background Alice deserves to be locked up in Arkham in my opinion. I like the character a lot and I LOVE how Rachel Skarsten plays her...but damn, she is a dangerous person and has killed dozens of people. Ryan was enjoying the moment as she wanted to put her behind bars the second half of the season and it was a payoff moment for her as she got a little justice.... with the woman responsible for her foster mom's death now finally in prison. Moments before the end we get to know that Ryan's real mom is actually very much alive! That leads to quite some questions....
--- Batman's trophies in the river! Some of the tools and gadgets that Batman got by locking away the big villains in Gotham are now there for everyone to catch them. The scene where Poison Ivy's vines started to come to life very a cool reference and mini-cliffhanger.
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>>> Rating “General:” <<<
3,5 out of 5 - A good season finale! I am not happy with every aspect (#Kate, #NoBatwoman) and it felt overall a bit rushed. But it also had strong emotional scenes and good action parts!