‘Batwoman 3×11: Broken Toys’ Review
Stars: Javicia Leslie, Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Nicole Kang, Camrus Johnson, Dougray Scott | Created by Caroline Dries
The city of Gotham is again in the “hate” stage of their love/hate relationship with Batwoman as they blame her for the recent upswing in crime. I mean, it’s Gotham; isn’t there always an upswing in crime? After using the high-end toys from Bruce Wayne’s company for 2½ years, Team Batwoman is back to being a gritty, street-level organization. Let’s see if it works out for them as well as it did for Black Lightning.
What Happened This Week?
Marquis Makes His Move
Batwoman, Sophie and Mary stop by the clinic to check on a coma-induced Marquis but are surprised to see a creepy Saw-like doll on the bed where Marquis was supposed to be located. The doll threatens our heroes and it’s enough of a warning that Team Batwoman regroups at The Hold Up to discuss their next move. Mary is still struggling with the thought that she murdered someone, but Team Batwoman tries to justify it by stating Mary has saved many more people when she was a doctor. Um, yeah, that’s not how things work. Mary may have been under the Poison Ivy spell but that doesn’t give her a free pass.
Meanwhile, Marquis is following in his mother’s footsteps by holding a press conference with the mayor of Gotham at the steps of Arkham Asylum and blaming Batwoman for the crime in the city. Marquis, after teasing Batwoman’s secret identity, reveals Wayne Enterprises has entered into an agreement with the City of Gotham to fix Arkham Asylum, including a work-release program. While the mayor is hesitant on this idea, the amount of donation money Marquis gives to fund this program is enough for the mayor to step aside.
After watching the press conference, Ryan realizes that Batwoman is Marquis’ only target as he cannot take a chance of exposing his own mother and her shady ways to the people of Gotham. Marquis knows that if he goes after Jada, she’ll release the home videos of Marquis killing his own father and that will only end up bad for him so instead, he’ll go after his other enemy, Batwoman. Ryan decides a visit to her biological mother is in order.
The mother-daughter reunion doesn’t last long though as Batwoman’s best-written villain appears, Victor Zsasz! It appears the first criminal in Marquis’ new work-release program is Gotham’s most prolific serial killer. Victor requests the home videos of Marquis from Jada, and she complies but in an unusual move, Victor doesn’t kill Jada and Ryan as he doesn’t want Marquis to inherit all of Jada’s money. This leads to Jada accidentally revealing she is Ryan’s biological mother, much to Victor’s delight.
Victor has ulterior motives as to why he took this latest hit job; he has unresolved issues with Batwoman and wants to confront her, especially after their last fight. Victor knows Ryan has a connection to Batwoman and tells her that Batwoman has one hour to show up at Jada’s office or else he will kill both Ryan and Jada.
While waiting for Batwoman to appear, Ryan and Jada begin to discuss several of their unresolved issues, including Jada paying a doctor $2 million dollars to cover up Ryan’s birth. Victor is gleeful at the family drama unfolding in front of him as Jada reveals she couldn’t keep Ryan due to the extra-marital affair she was having and wanted to give Jada to a couple that couldn’t have a child on their own. She gave the doctor the $2 million to give to the couple to take care of Ryan but instead, the doctor kept the money and dropped Ryan off at a firehouse.
Just as Jada reveals the truth about Ryan’s birth, the one-hour deadline has passed, and Victor is chomping at the bit to kill Jada now that Marquis isn’t the only heir to inherit Jada’s fortune. Ryan has other plans and stabs Victor, giving her the chance to knock his gun away and take him down…again. Poor Victor, you must learn to master hand-to-hand fighting if you want to survive in Gotham. The takedown of Victor reveals to Jada that she is Batwoman and a hero…thanks Mom!
After handcuffing Victor and security taking him back to Arkham, Jada asks Ryan where they go from here. Ryan is worried that Jada will reveal her secret but that doesn’t stop her from unleashing all the pain and sadness of not having her biological mom onto Jada. After listening to Ryan, Jada admits that she made mistakes and is sorry, but she is also proud of Ryan for coming from nothing to making a name for herself.
The heart-to-heart is interrupted by a phone call from Sophie stating that Marquis is unleashing inmates at Arkham onto the city as part of his work-release program. Sophie and Luke also discover, after breaking into Wayne Enterprises and hacking into Marquis’ computer, that Marquis has been in contact with Kiki all along (see below) and that isn’t good for Alice and Mary.
Girls Trip
Alice and Mary join forces to hunt down the inventor of the Joker’s original joy buzzer and hope the inventor can fix the broken weapon in order to save Marquis. The team-up gives a chance for Alice to provide tips to Mary on how to “get past” and move forward after killing an innocent person but it only makes Mary sadder as she tells Alice that she isn’t a psychopath like her. Alice realizes that she cannot provide any sane advice since she doesn’t have any feelings and decides to leave Mary alone in the car with her thoughts. I love Alice.
The investigation leads Alice and Mary to the New Beginnings house, a halfway house in search of their target, Kiki Roulette. To quote the holiday film Elf, “That’s a fun name to say!” The caretaker tells our duo that Kiki left a while ago and she doesn’t know where she went. Alice doesn’t believe the caretaker and confronts her, revealing that the caretaker is actually Kiki but has changed her name to Catherine.
After showing the joy buzzer to Kiki/Catherine, she reveals she made the buzzer and in theory, if the buzzer is fixed and is put to Marquis’ head again and pressed, it could fix his broken mental state. I don’t think that is how science/biology works but we’ll go with it. Catherine reveals she has spent the last 15 years trying to atone for her sins as Joker’s toy inventor and agrees to take Alice and Mary to the Joker’s workshop to fix the buzzer and save Marquis.
At the Joker’s workshop, which is of course in an abandoned amusement park, Catherine gets to work on fixing the buzzer. Mary and Alice both ask Catherine how she moved on from the guilt she feels from supplying the Joker with all his deadly toys and she reveals that you don’t move on. You just have to keep going and try to help as many people as possible you can move forward. After fixing the buzzer, Catherine begins to laugh maniacally as inmates from Arkham surround Alice and Mary. It was a trap all along!
Catherine and the inmates are escorting Alice and Mary across the amusement park when Batwoman shows up to save the day. Catherine takes a phone call from her boss, Marquis, and he advises Batwoman that he has her friends, Luke and Sophie, at his office and is ready to kill them. Unfortunately for Marquis, all of Team Batwoman can fight and Sophie creates a distraction, allowing our heroes to take down the Arkham inmates and escape. At the amusement park, Batwoman and Alice can take down the inmates, but Catherine gets away with the joy buzzer and rejoins Marquis at Joker’s hideout.
The episode ends with our villains laughing at the prospect of having a room full of Joker’s laughing gas and one buzz left on the joy buzzer. The question is, who gets the last buzz from the buzzer?
On the hero side, Mary tells Alice that she is leaving to attend the hunter’s funeral to make amends for murdering him and Alice reveals she is staying around Gotham. Alice wants the joy buzzer as she feels this is the only way to make her normal again. Science! Oh, and Sophie and Ryan are back together again. Wait, what?
Episode Grade: B (Good)
Batwoman continues to have their strongest episodes of the season when all the characters are involved in one main storyline and interact with each other, and this week’s episode proves it. It also helps having a strong main villain and Marquis, aka the new Joker, is the villain that Batwoman needs and by adding Catherine and unleashing the inmates onto Gotham, it gives some “weight” and danger to our heroes. By having Team Batwoman work out their individual problems with each other in the prior episodes and back together again and with Marquis growing his villain army, the series is setting itself up for a chance to have some action-oriented final episodes of the season.
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