‘Batwoman 3×08: Trust Destiny’ Review
Stars: Javicia Leslie, Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Nicole Kang, Camrus Johnson, Dougray Scott | Created by Caroline Dries
Batwoman is back after a two-month break and while the returning episode didn’t break new ground, it did place all the characters, good and bad, in a much better place. Team Batwoman is without the luxury of the Batcave anymore and is now more of a “street-level” vigilante team, Marquis is Gotham’s new version of the Joker and Mary and Alice are in a budding friendship that I never knew I wanted until now.
What Happened This Week?
A Change in the Status Quo
Since Marquis took over as CEO of Wayne Enterprises (just go with it), Team Batwoman is locked out of the Batcave and without their gadgets, they are back to square one of being a street-level vigilante team. Luke is not happy about their new lair, Renee’s office that looks like it’s in an underground subway tunnel, as he cannot get wi-fi or any other perks of technology. Renee lets Team Batwoman in on a secret: Batman created a serum to reverse the effects on Poison Ivy, which caused the original Poison Ivy to basically turn into a dirt corpse. Luke and Sophie agree to this new plan to help Mary, but Ryan is still hesitant.
The issue trying to find the serum that Batman buried with Poison Ivy, but in order to find it, they need Batman’s journals, which are in the now locked-down Batcave. After some sleuthing and an inappropriate phone call from Marquis, Ryan discovers they can crash a masquerade party at Wayne Tower and get the security protocols they need to sneak into the Batcave. This leads to a funny scene where Luke, Sophie, and Ryan are putting on their masquerade masks in an elevator at Wayne Tower and must all learn their new identities they stole from real party guests. Right before Ryan exits the elevator, Luke tells her that she is French and must use a French accent for the rest of the party, much to Ryan’s dismay.
One of the best parts of the third season of Batwoman is the journey of Mary and Alice, who started off as enemies because of that whole Alice killing Mary’s mom issue and are now turning into best friends. And what do best friends do? They pamper themselves with pedicures, strippers, champagne, and unlimited food in the penthouse of a 5-star hotel! Unfortunately, they must pay for those splurges so it’s nice that Mary can use her hypnotic powers to tell the hotel manager that they can pay the outstanding invoices at a later time. After all, these best friends need to find and make a deal with another new villain in Gotham, Marquis, and what better way to do that than to crash the same masquerade party our heroes are crashing.
Each guest at the party is given a playing card, which leads to Marquis calling out a specific card and interrogating the person that holds that card to determine their loyalty to Marquis. Ryan and her French persona eventually get called and stand face-to-face with Marquis. Using the technology Luke implanted in her mask, Ryan must stand as close to possible to Marquis in order to scan his eye in order to get past the retinal scan in his office. Ryan’s impression of a French woman must be good because Marquis doesn’t suspect a thing and Ryan, Luke and Sophie are able to get everything they need to get past the security system.
Inside Marquis’ office, the fight scene of the season takes place as Sophie, Ryan, and Renee, who pops in for backup, take down a group of Marquis bodyguards. Renee picking up the random baseball bat is reminiscent of her look in comics and movies and is a wonderful Easter egg for the fans. The action scene is well shot and overall, just makes these three heroes look like the toughest SOBs on the block. Well done.
Luke finds out Mary is at the party as she is dancing with Marquis on the dance floor and attempting to sway him to join Mary and Alice’s team. Marquis is reluctant until Mary reveals the biggest/worst secret in Gotham…. Ryan is Batwoman. At this point, who doesn’t know Ryan is Batwoman? Luke attempts to interrupt the dance between the villains but that goes as well as you think it would.
After dispensing the guards, Team Batwoman is in the Batcave and after looking through Batman’s journals, they realize Poison Ivy is buried in the Batcave. Ryan suits up as Batwoman and using the tech in the suit, she can pinpoint Ivy’s heartbeat. The team finds a sleeping and possibly dead Poison Ivy wrapped in vines and are able to pull the syringe with the serum from her body. Just then Batwoman gets the call from Luke that Mary is conversing with Marquis, so she takes off to deal with them, which leaves Renee alone with the body of her ex-girlfriend. After kissing her, Poison Ivy’s eyes open and she becomes reanimated! Later, Sophie is doing some investigating at Renee’s office, thanks to a tip from Alice, and realizes that Renee was only using Team Batwoman to find out the location of Pamela in order to bring her back to life!
On the balcony of Wayne Tower, Batwoman confronts Marquis and Mary but before Mary can be injected with the serum, Marquis puts a gun to Luke’s head. Poor Luke, he’s been threatened more times than Batwoman at this point. After Marquis reveals he knows Batwoman’s identity, a small scuffle occurs which ends with Batwoman stabbing Marquis with the serum that cured Poison Ivy, which is a big enough distraction to allow Mary to escape. Batwoman brings Marquis back to Mary’s old clinic and while Luke is not a doctor, he does his best to make sure Marquis doesn’t die. The bad news is that Marquis is in a coma. The good news is that he can’t tell anyone about the identities of Team Batwoman. Look at that silver lining.
A Love Story
The episode finally focuses on Renee and Pamela’s, the original Poison Ivy, relationship from 10 years ago and what caused Renee to turn over her girlfriend to Batman. Renee was a police officer, not a detective, and she and her partner confront Poison Ivy as she is attacking other police officers. Renee is hesitant to shoot Ivy as it’s her girlfriend, but the rest of the police force doesn’t know that bit of information. Due to Renee’s hesitancy, Ivy is able to stab Renee’s partner with a piece of hardened ivy. The Gotham police force must have trouble filling their ranks because the life expectancy is approximately one year on the job.
Back at their apartment, Pamela tries to make up with Renee with a bouquet of white tulips, but Renee is upset that Pamela could have killed her partner. Oh good, the officer isn’t dead so that should increase the average longevity of the police force. Renee tells Pamela that she still loves her but Pam’s mission to save Earth and go green is too extreme for her. Pamela refuses to back down on her mission and states that as Poison Ivy, she can do more good for nature than she ever could as a scientist.
Eventually, Renee has had enough of Pamela’s bioterrorism, so Pamela makes an ultimatum to Renee: either she stays with her and is “all in” or they are no more. Renee goes to kiss Pamela but it’s just a ploy to inject her with a serum that “dries her out” so Batman can take her away to a secret location. Renee is heartbroken over her choice, but she couldn’t let the love of her life be captured and sent to Arkham, but she also couldn’t let Ivy continue to murder innocent lives. Such is life in Gotham.
Episode Grade: B- (Good)
The first episode of Batwoman in 2022 is a mixed bag as it did accomplish its task of setting up alliances for the second half of the season but the lack of Batwoman was an issue. While this isn’t a reoccurring theme, the series is much better when Ryan/Batwoman is more involved in the main story and bouncing quips off her teammates. The series seems to be moving towards a more ensemble/Birds of Prey type of television show and while I’m excited to see more of Team Batwoman have a physical and more meaningful role, the writers need to be careful not to push the main star, Batwoman, into the background.
Overall, the returning episode of Batwoman was strong as it made Poison Ivy and Alice into a formidable villain team that revels in outsmarting our heroes and the twist with Marquis knowing all of our heroes’ secrets is a surprise. The issue is that after spending several episodes building him up to be the new Joker, it will seem to be such a waste if the shot of the Poison Ivy cure stops his progression into Gotham’s most fearsome villain. We have a long way to go before the season finale so I’m sure there will be many twists before then but here’s hoping they are able to provide enough time and storylines to everyone in the ever-growing cast of characters.
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