“Shiny, shiny,” says a sexy, platinum-wigged burglar. It’s a jewel heist, baybee. A woman in a latex suit trapezes down to hover over a laser-protected vitrine. Suddenly the alarm sounds, and literally 0.1 seconds later a guard thumps in. With her 3 inch (!!!) black nails, mystery woman tosses mini explosives at him and zips away though the glass roof. I never thought I’d say this, but thank god there’s another villain!
We hear the local news talk about the third “bling” robbery and why wasn’t Batwoman there? We pan over to Kate’s bed and see her snuggled up with Reagan, the bartender she met last episode. That’s why! They make sugary sweet pillow talk, but all I could focus on is the way Ruby’s tattoos are slightly but not all the way covered up: a weird 50% opacity airbrushing. Rebel Lite.
Cue Lesbian Back. This is the best acting by Ruby so far. Our famous Futch gracefully tops her honey and makes all the gays in the stands proud. That is, until her phones buzzes. Bat business.
As she motorcycles over to the Wayne building aka Bat Lair, her voiceover talks about coming out, and I remembered that maybe 5% of viewers weren’t eagerly expecting girls to smoosh like we were and might need to unpack what they just saw. Kate says,
“I’m not a liar. I’ve never hidden who I am. I came out when Brad Morrison told all the kids at school I was gay. I said, ‘Yeah, and?‘ Then punched him. Ever since then, I’ve been out and proud as long as I can remember. So how am I supposed to wake up every morning and hide who I am?”She walks in to a museum curator thanking her for letting them borrow her family’s necklace as her assistant takes photos of it. It will be on display the next day. Hmmm, right on time for Magpie to steal it.
Catherine, Kate’s step mom, somewhat ominously oversees the digging up of Beth’s grave. Alice interrupts. “Does your husband know what’s in plot 283?” Alice blackmails her to get a secret weapon developed at Hamilton, Catherine’s defense company, or else she’ll tell Jacob that it was Catherine who convinced him Beth/Alice was dead.
Batwoman visits Mary at her underground clinic, and asks for help to keep Alice’s boyfriend alive-who’s she’s been torturing for information. Despite being the man who almost killed her, Mary agrees.
Next, in perhaps the coolest moment of the show, Magpie seamlessly rappels from a museum roof. Where the show’s acting and writing falls short, the action scenes hold up really well, and are surprisingly artistic. Magpie, with greedy eyes, reaches out to grab a crystal egg, only to fall awkwardly as Batwoman breaks her cord.
And now I have no choice but to say-GIRL FIGHT!!!! They trade snappy lines and Batwoman snags a weapon of her belt before she slips away. Batwoman’s boomerang weapon accidentally breaks a ceramic vase in a big Oopsie. I like these moments of comic relief which show that Batwoman honestly has no idea what she’s doing.
At the Crows HQ, Jacob is having a terrible, no good, very bad day. It seems like he’s coming around to the reality that Beth is Alice. Sophie walks in to give him more bad news-the bomb that exploded Alice’s transport van was technology that could have only come from Hamilton. Dang, man, you’re wife’s DIRTY. But more importantly, Sophie is SO smart and good and definitely my favorite character. Keep up the amazing detective work, bb!
Luke works to learn more about Magpie in the Bat Lair until an alarm sounds. He runs out and gets ambushed by our feathered friend. She steals Bruce’s mom’s necklace.
Kate reluctantly asks Sophie for help looking up recent buyers of exploding ink, the feature of Magpie’s weapons. The two share extended, unfiltered eye contact as Sophie’s face says I know you’re Batwoman, and then remarks, “I’m glad you came to me. I know things between us have been a little tense, but we always make a good team.”
With Luke’s help, Batwoman find’s Magpie’s tech lair-a frozen room. It’s climate controlled and sensors will go off if even a body’s warmth enters. The Bat Suit lowers her temperature and Kate holds her breath for 2 minutes to dig around, until some feathers make her sneeze! She escapes just in time with the necklace!
Mary cleverly pretends to be Alice and take advantage of the bad guy’s loopy state. Drugged, he mentions that a man named Mouse has a role to play.
At the museum gala, Batwoman waits for Magpie, AND remembers she has to double as Reagan’s date. Mrs. Doubtfire time! To further complicate it, she bumps into Sophie and the three of them have a nice lil’ chat-and by that I mean Kate says nothing and looks like she swallowed a bug. Reagan and Sophie politely eye each other up.
Luke and Kate realize at the last minute that Magpie 3D printed a replica of the Wayne pearl necklace and now a crowd of people are staring at a bomb. As they evacuate, Kate kickflips over each fallen bead as they explode, shielding others from the blast with her lithe, androgynous, skatergirl bod. With no one to stop her, Magpie gleefully steals lots of shiny things.
But as Magpie zips away VERY conspicuously over the buildings, Batwoman snags her with a rappel-gun. With the attitude of a woman whose date has been totally ruined, Kate whips her down into the public fountain. Thwarted! This bad bird’s been CAGED.
In Scooby-Doo fashion, the unmasked villain is no other than the museum director’s photographer! Somehow her mascara isn’t smudged at all as she blames Kate and other privileged and powerful Gothamites. Later, this inspires Kate to start a real estate firm to make housing affordable for the most marginalized parts of town. Bruce Wayne had a playboy persona. Who will Kate be?
And remember what I said earlier about Ruby’s best acting? She outdoes herself when Reagan and Kate break up in a mature, amicable way. Kate can’t tell her why she keeps disappearing, and Reagan just hopes that whatever she has going on makes her happy. They’re both teary eyed, jaws clenched, but don’t overdo it. More of this nuance, please! Although, I lost a bet that Reagan was evil. Guess she was just ye olde normie lesbian after all.
