‘Batwoman 3×09: Meet Your Maker’ Review
Stars: Javicia Leslie, Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Nicole Kang, Camrus Johnson, Dougray Scott | Created by Caroline Dries
Batwoman delivers a more focused episode this week and while a hike in the creepy woods is not usually a good idea for a cast of characters, it did make for an enjoyable episode. Let’s get to it!
What Happened This Week?
Back to Her Roots
Even though Renee Montoya brought Pamela Isley, aka the original Poison Ivy, back to life last episode, Pamela has no desire to become a “good guy” and walk off into the sunset with Renee. Pamela is back to murdering citizens of Gotham that she feels are harming the environment including murdering workers on an oil tanker as well as two fishermen that did not properly “catch and release” fish at a lake. Renee tries to talk Pamela back (again!) from the edge of being a murderer, but Pamela has no interest if people continue to harm the environment. What did Renee think was going to happen?
The issue for Pamela is that she is still weak from being in a comatose state for several years and none of her usual methods, sunlight and water, are able to allow her to regain her strength. Pamela tells Renee the only thing that will heal her is receiving energy from Mary as she is similar to herself with both having the power of Poison Ivy in them.
Mary is still on a road trip with her new best friend, Alice, when she gets a “call from nature” asking Mary to meet Pamela at a creepy place in the woods. Alice has reservations about this as she knows the original Poison Ivy cannot be trusted and worries that it will end badly for Mary. Eventually our villains reach the woods where Pamela is waiting. Mary admits she cares for Alice too much to let her join her, so Mary wraps Alice up in vines, preventing her from following her. I love this relationship so much this season.
To be honest, this storyline falters in the latter half of the episode as we continue more back and forth with Pamela and Renee having issues and deciding if they truly love each other. Mary eventually meets up with Pamela, after Mary impales a hunter to a tree, and despite Renee’s insistence not to, Pamela and Mary kiss, which I guess means Pamela is back to full strength? Oddly, nothing seems to happen to Mary, so I guess we now have two people running around in Gotham as Poison Ivy.
Cabin in the Woods
Tensions are high on Team Batwoman as Ryan and Sophie are not on friendly terms due to their lack of trust in each other since Renee proved to be a traitor. Not only that, but Luke is also having feelings of inadequacies as he no longer feels he is a hero. Luke blames himself for not stopping Mary from becoming Poison Ivy and feels responsible for anyone that Mary/Poison Ivy has murdered since he let her get away. The team must put their personal feelings aside though when they realize Poison Ivy is causing more and more deaths in Gotham and they must find a way to stop her.
Luke creates darts that will incapacitate Pamela, which should buy the team enough time to complete the formula we saw last week that leads to putting Pamela back into a comatose state. The team drives to a local park to investigate the site of Pamela’s last victim, but don’t get far into the woods before tree branches and vines grab Sophie’s car, causing Team Batwoman to run off into the woods (don’t they watch horror films?) and end up in a cabin…yes, literally a cabin in the woods.
Inside the cabin, Ryan and Sophie argue more about how they are not as close as they would like and part of it is due to Sophie always thinking of Ryan as a criminal. Luke joins in on the argument by stating he continues to doubt himself as a hero and if his father would be proud of who he has become. Before the team gets any resolution, tree vines come crashing through the window and attempts to drag Sophie away, but Luke saves her by using a combination of salt and vinegar that he just happened to make in the cabin. I guess trees don’t like salt and vinegar.
After the vine attack, Team Batwoman decide it’s time to end their hike in the woods and make a run for the truck. Ryan, now suited up as Batwoman, reaches the truck but before they can leave, a child yells for help because he just witnessed Mary (see above) murder his dad while out in the woods hunting. More vines are unleashed on our heroes but it’s nothing more than an exploding truck can handle. With the vines destroyed, Sophie confronts Ryan again but this time it ends with Sophie kissing Ryan and telling her to figure that out. Yes, we are revisiting this relationship again but both characters have grown since the last time it happened and I’m looking forward to it.
Guess Who’s Back?
There’s much rejoicing as John Diggle (David Ramsey) from the Arrowverse guests on Batwoman this week! Unfortunately, he’s not in Gotham for pleasure but to visit Jada Jet about a job offer on rejoining and leading her security team, especially since her son, Marquis, decided to become the Joker. Diggle declines the offer but since they are old friends, he volunteers to help her as he has deciphered that Renee Montoya might have the Joker’s Joy Buzzer, which could be the key to healing Marquis.
Jada agrees to join Diggle on a stealth mission of breaking into Renee’s office and to the surprise of no one, she is more than capable of holding her own with Diggle. While in Renee’s office, Diggle, and Jada reminiscent a little more until Diggle asks why Jada cannot treat Ryan like the daughter she is to her. Dang Diggle! Jada tries to justify her treatment of Ryan as stating she is only protecting her, but Diggle doesn’t believe it. The conversation doesn’t go any further though because Jada is successful in finding Joker’s Joy Buzzer. If you told me in the season premiere that Jada would become one of my favourite characters and she would team up with Diggle, I would never have believed you, but here we are!
Jada isn’t the only one that Diggle visits while on his trip to Gotham. Luke is at his father’s grave, having a moment and discussing his insecurities of being Batwing when Diggle arrives. He asks Luke if he had any success in opening the Trans-Matter Cube he gave him a while back, but Luke states he couldn’t find a way to open it. Diggle isn’t upset but he does take the cube back in order for S.T.A.R. Labs to do more research on it. The cube, for those that may not remember, allows people to visit other universes, so basically, it’s a super-charged transporter.
Episode Grade: B (Good)
This episode of Batwoman was much more focused than last week’s mid-season premiere and not only provided some much-needed character development for Jada and Pamela, but it was also just enjoyable to watch. The only downside was the Poison Ivy storyline faltering at the end of the episode and the lack of Marquis. Yes, Marquis is in a coma still, but his character has so much charisma that the series suffers when the main villain is not included in the weekly storylines. Overall, episode 9 was a fun episode and seemed to get the series back on track after an average episode last week.
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