Tag Archives: Batwoman

If We Controlled Your Remote… 1/24/21

Posted on January 24, 2021 by

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Phoebe’s Choice

Last year’s debut season of Batwoman did not impress me. They chose Kate’s psycho but decidedly non-superpowered sister Beth, who personifies herself as Alice, leader of the Wonderland gang, as the Big Bad. Batwoman barely battled any actual super villains the entire season. When CoV19 caused the season to be truncated by two episodes, I didn’t even care. I was like “you can just not do any other episodes ever and that’d be OK.” I saw Ruby Rose, who played Kate, left the show between seasons and that she was being replaced by Javicia Leslie, who would take over as Batwoman. I was just befuddled on that, not realizing Leslie was playing a different woman who would become Batwoman. I thought that Kate was suddenly gonna turn into a black woman. Last week’s season two premiere cleared it all up for me, and I actually look forward to this season now.

The episode opened with Ryan Wilder (Javicia Leslie) witnessing a plane wreck just outside the van she lives in (down by the river). She rescued a man and found the Batwoman suit. She decided to keep it and fled the scene. Meanwhile, Alice followed through on planting Arkham escapee Tommy Elliot into present-day Gotham posing as Bruce Wayne, as he now wears Bruce’s face. He was basically able to walk right into his house, get Luke Fox to open the Batcave for him, and then walk out with the Kryptonite bullet that can penetrate the Batsuit (for some reason).

Luke & Mary soon tracked down Ryan, who told them the Wonderland gang killed her mom and left her to be framed with drugs that put her in jail. So she’ll be keeping the suit until she brings down Alice. Elliot, deciding he likes the Bruce Wayne identity, betrayed Alice’s location to the chief of police/her dad. When Elliot ran into Julia Pennyworth at the precinct, she immediately sussed that he was an impostor, got his fingerprints off a glass, and then IDed him. She told Luke & Mary, but by that time Elliot had already stolen the Batmobile and was homing in on Ryan to steal the suit from her. There was a delightfully ridiculous car chase through an amusement park at night that ended in a hand-to-hand confrontation. Elliot managed to shoot Ryan with the Kryotonite bullet, but she literally beat his face off despite the wound. She decided to give the suit back to Luke & Mary.

In a series of closure scenes, both Jacob (Kate’s dad) and Sophie (Kate’s lover) were told she was Batwoman. A note from Safiyah, international criminal and super villain, indicated that she killed Kate, giving Alice a reason to live again. She curled up with Mouse’s corpse and starts to plan her revenge on the woman who killed Kate before she could. In the very last scene, we saw that the Kryptonite bullet wound in Ryan’s chest was glowing, indicating she’ll either be infected or empowered by it. Who knows, who cares? I like this show for the first time, and that’s what matters.

Best moment of the S2 premiere was when the new Batwoman was shaking down two hoodlums for leads on Alice’s location, she accidentally launched a bolas attack that incapacitated the one guy. She went on to threaten the other guy, “I don’t even know what this button does. Wanna find out together?”

On tonight’s episode, “Prior Criminal History,” after her quick spin in the Batgear, Ryan is back to facing the daily challenges of life as herself. Meanwhile, Alice has a new, devious plan to get the attention of both Gotham and Safiyah. With Kate still missing and the city in an uprising, Luke and Mary are desperate to find a stand in. In a pinch, Ryan dons the suit again and comes face-to-face with Alice for the first time. Back at Crows Headquarters, Sophie and Commander Kane try to uncover who may have had a vendetta against Kate.

To see how Ryan fares once again as Batwoman, tune in to The CW at 8/7c.
I’ll also be tuning in for American Gods, which is doing good things with the slowest part of the book, and Shameless.

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If We Controlled Your Remote… 4/26/20

Posted on April 26, 2020 by

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Phoebe’s Choice

The idea of a Batwoman show was a lot more exciting than the show itself, as it turns out. Actual Gotham in the Arrowverse with a queer super heroine, heck yeah! Or so we hoped. I don’t hate the show, but they’ve lost a lot of potential in the way they’ve paced their season, the fact that Kate’s sister Alice is the perennial Big Bad, almost no cool villains, and an at-best-adequate set of supporting characters. But yeah, I still watch it. I’m just not sure we need a season two or three.

Last week started with Kate burying the body of Augustus after she had killed him last episode for how he treated both Beth & her mom. Kate’s dad Jacob & Alice were there as well. Alice blackmailed them into letting her go. Jacob, being the chief of police, and their special squad, The Crows, tasked Sofie to track down Mouse. Alice also was tracking down Mouse, and she convinced Kate to help her. Since he had been attacking other nurses from Arkham Asylum, they staked out the house of one of the nurses he had not yet attacked. Mouse did turn up, but The Crows nabbed him first and they sent him back to Arkham.

Meanwhile, Lucious Fox’s supposed killer was let free after he got a retrial scheduled. Luke Fox later confronted the accused killer, Reggie, who swore he was set up. An assassin then sniped him from across the street. Sophia was also targeted by a hitman but was rescued by one of Kate’s other exes: Julia, the British special agent. Despite learning that Alice set her up to kill Augustus, Kate still agreed to “reunite Alice with Mouse,” who was locked in the basement at Arkham. Kate betrayed Alice though, locking her crazed sister into the basement of the asylum as well. We learned that the Quick Store owner who was there the night Lucious was killed had also been taken out by a professional hit. Jacob was almost taken out by an assassin as well but managed to kill him instead.

I just feel so much of the plot has been ripped from a police procedural, a genre I don’t watch. The Cov19 outbreak cut the series short, but apparently there will still be a few more episodes that air this spring. Let’s hope for some cool villains at least, but don’t hold your breath.

On tonight’s episode, “A Narrow Escape,” Batwoman encounters a new challenge when an old villain resurfaces, testing the heroics of Gotham’s most stand-up citizens. Alice’s limits are tested.

See how everyone stands up to the tests this week on The CW at 8/7c.

I’ll also be watching Westworld & Bob’s Burgers.

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If We Controlled Your Remote… 12/9/19

Posted on December 9, 2019 by and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Phoebe’s Choice

I have no idea how to encapsulate the start of Batwoman season one better than “nah to ish.” It is OK sometimes, derivative mostly, but with Alice and Mouse revenging on estranged sister Kate not Bats v. Madhatter. The Kate Kane vs. her sister the psycho Alice scenes leads us eventually to one more of those Harrison Wells (the Indiana Jones styled version named “Nash”) “unlocking the Monitor’s secret room after finally surrendering allegiance to him” scenes. We have seen this scene in four shows now.

Unifying moment that ties the crossover together, acknowledged. Right, moving on.

Last night, CoIE as I will henceforth call it, actually launched with an episode of Supergirl.

On Earth-38, there were earthquakes at all points of the globe caused by an external force. They determined that it was an enormous antimatter wave that would soon destroy the planet. Further, the planet Argo 139, where Superman & Lois Lane had discreetly retired to raise their son John, would be destroyed by the wave momentarily. The antimatter wave soon arrived to destroy that world, and Clark & Lois sent their son in an escape pod like Dad went through so long ago. Let redundancy be redundant.

Harbinger, the newly appointed herald of the Monitor, then fetched the proverbial Fellowship. She snatched Oliver Queen and his time displaced daughter, Batwoman, Flash, and surprise surprise Supes & Lois. So they launched their son who could have been rescued, but nah, hey whatever. The Monitor told his assembled team that they were needed to guard the Quantum Tower he was activating to stop the antimatter wave. The Tower would disrupt the wave, but the Antimonitor’s forces would then show up to try to disable the power of the building.

When Oliver found out that Barry also had committed to die in this CoIE event, he called for a conference with the Monitor. Monitor revealed how many earths were at stake but did not promise Barry would live. The bulk of the team united, including a few Legends of Tomorrow, to secure the Quantum Tower. Brainiac, Lois Lane, & Sarah Lance teamed up to rescue the lost Superman baby from an alt Earth future where a Green Arrow protected him.

On Earth-38, it seemed that time wraiths were the forces of the Antimonitor, as that was who swarmed the heroes. The Tower succeeded in its function only partially: it bounced the wave back but only temporarily. When this timeline was seen to have been lost, the Monitor started pulling his heroes back from Earth-38. Oliver Queen refused and even stopped Monitor for a moment with an arrow, but in the aftermath, Arrow died. This felt fitting. The end of the Arrowverse’s birth – of an extension of itself.

We have come full circle. We are still doing the damn thing!

Finding out that Nash was the one who released the Antimoniter is #predictable in hindsight, but here we are, locked in for an EPIC four more episodes that will change DCU TV forever. No really, I mean it. The first two or three Earths that they showed in the opening of this crossover featured Titans characters and actors. This alludes to a possibility I had pointed out before. CoIE offers a chance to merge the Arrowverse & DCU. #JustSaying.

The crossover continues on tonight’s episode of Batwoman, “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two,” the group uses Ray’s invention to track new recruits to help save the universe. The Monitor sends Iris, Clark, and Lois in search of a mysterious Kryptonian, while Kate and Kara head out to find Bruce Wayne. In addition, Mia challenges Sara, Rory discovers a hidden talent, and Lex Luthor returns.

Follow along with the CoIE tonight on The CW at 8/7c.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 10/6/19

Posted on October 6, 2019 by , and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

Tonight, Supergirl returns to The CW to kick off its fifth season. As the fourth season came to close, Supergirl was up against Lex Luthor, who had made himself look like the hero, “saving” the country from an alien attack, and using Red Daughter to try to kill Supergirl. For his heroism, the president had named Lex the new Director of Alien Affairs. However, it turned out that Lex was harnessing the aliens’ powers to create batteries, which he planned to utilize to blow up the planet Argus, along with Superman. It was up to Supergirl to expose Lex’s evil plan, which she did as Kara via a written expose. However, Lex was still moving forward with his plan, and the group gathered to stop him from launching his weapon. Meanwhile, Ben Lockwood also showed up, looking to fight Supergirl. During the commotion, Red Daughter took a blast of Kryptonite while trying to protect Supergirl and was killed. Supergirl reabsorbed her clone, and this extra burst of power allowed her to blast Lex and his Lexosuit, sending him hurdling toward Earth. He managed to create a portal into his lap before he exploded into the Earth. However, Lena showed up and shot Lex. As he lay dying, Lex revealed Kara’s big secret to Lena, who was shocked and felt betrayed. In the final moments of the episode, The Monitor arrived through a portal, greeting a Green Martian, who was plotting revenge on his brother, J’onn J’onzz. We then saw The Monitor hovering over Lex’s cold body… It looks like this will not be the end for Lex!

So how will learning Kara’s secret change Lena? Will she turn to the dark side with her brother? Will she plot some kind of revenge against Supergirl? When will she tell Kara that she knows? What new villains and threats await Supergirl and her DEO/superhero crew this season?

At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I got the chance to talk about the series with some of the executive producers and cast members. You can watch my interview videos from the press room at NoReruns.net.

On tonight’s premiere, “Event Horizon,” Kara is surprised to find that CatCo has a new owner who has brought in a star reporter; new couples emerge and explore their budding relationships; J’onn J’onzz receives an unexpected visitor.

Find out who now owns CatCo and who visits J’onn J’onzz tonight on The CW at 9/8c.

I’ll also be watching/recording The Rookie, The Simpsons, Bless the Harts, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, Batwoman, The Walking Dead, Mr. Robot, and Succession.
 
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