Category: Directed by Marcos Siega

Batwoman (2019) s01e02 – The Rabbit Hole

It’s a much better episode. While it’s not great, it’s at least enjoyable this time. The direction’s a lot better than the pilot; there’s not a lot of Batwoman action, but there’s a lot of action. Including civilian Nicole Kang having to defend herself from a bad guy because the show’s all in on the Batwoman (Ruby Rose) and Alice (Rachel Skarsten) are sisters and step-sister Kong is making Skarsten jealous by the end. It’s impressive, how immediately and seriously the show takes the whole sisters arc. Rose isn’t… great but she’s not bad and she’s definitely getting better. The show’s got a weird narrative distance with her, a lot more comfortable with Skarsten’s villain or even dad Dougray Scott’s private military force thing. The show’s desperate to namedrop Batman and Bruce Wayne, all of it entirely on Rose, and it’s all pointless.

There’s some really bad narration—Rose’s emails to Bruce or something—and it stalls the show’s momentum. But it doesn’t kill it, because this episode’s pretty good.

The weakest link—other than Scott, whose not Dennis Quaid enough for this part—is ex-girlfriend Meagan Tandy. She and Rose get thrown together, but they don’t have much energy and even less chemistry. The stuff with Rose and Skarsten—and there’s a ton of it; like I said, show’s going all in on it—that stuff’s good. It makes the episode and seems like it’ll help make the show.

And Kang’s really good. Yes, she’s got an interesting character built-in—ostensibly stupid famous social media influencer is actually a genius medical student who runs an underground clinic but Kang brings the right personality to the part. “Batwoman”’s got a tenuous grasp of its own reality and Kang’s a great grounding force. She makes Rose and Scott and all their nonsense seem a little less unreal, whereas Tandy just brings out the absurdity.

As the seemingly duplicitous mom to Kang, step-mom to Rose, Elizabeth Anweis is way too low energy. Though it could also be the thin part.

But, big improvement. Enjoyable episode. What more do you want.

Batwoman (2019) s01e01

“Batwoman,” at least for the pilot, gets a “Sure, you can maybe get away with this.” It’d be nicer if someone was excited about it. No one on “Batwoman” seems very excited. Except Rachel Skarsten as the villain, Alice (like in Wonderland). Skarsten’s awesome. So good you don’t even understand how it’s happening because there’s nothing to suggest anyone was actually going to be really good in the show. The fight choreography is promising, but the direction this episode—by Marcos Siega—is terrible. And they don’t have the effects shots down. Like the matte shots. What ought to be really simple stuff.

Because right now “Batwoman” feels like the most expensive shot in Canada nineties action show ever. Somehow they’re filming some exteriors in Chicago, but it only makes the show feel more Canadian. In that nineties period. It’s not a great vibe. And it’s a really peculiar one, given its supposed to be the new flagship CW Arrowverse show. And it feels like… first season “Arrow.” Only mixed with trailer moments from Nicholas Sparks adaptations when it comes to lead Ruby Rose’s flashbacks. She’s got all sorts of heartache—in childhood, her mom and sister died after Batman didn’t hang around to make sure his batarangs held, then in military academy she got busted out because she’s gay. Worse thing—because she’s also really rich so getting busted out doesn’t matter, but it’s really bad because girlfriend Meagan Tandy stayed (renouncing or denouncing the behavior). In the show’s timeline it’d be Gulf War II era, which it never feels like. The flashbacks just have a lot of filtered lighting, no real personality.

It’s kind of a big miss. Like, they didn’t take this seriously enough and then hired someone really good to cut Rachel Maddow doing a radio talk show host talking about Batman’s return over footage of the city inhabitants rejoicing. It’s a lot better done than anything else in the pilot, which fails Rose, mostly because it sets her up for all sorts of dramatic developments and instead just reveals she never knows what’s really going on and she’s (so far) always wrong about it.

Weird place to put the hero. Only, given the way the show’s structured and the importance of dad and man who forever won’t be James Howlett Dougray Scott, Rose doesn’t feel like the protagonist. And why’s she training to be an elite private army stormtrooper up in the Arctic with what seems to be a old Native American wise man stereotype from the 1940s. It’s really weird. And starts the show on an odd foot.

And the pilot doesn’t set up the show. It’s a bad pilot.

Nicole Kang is really good as Rose’s stepsister. Elizabeth Anweis is not really good as Rose’s stepmom. She’s kind of bad. But Kang’s good.

The show’s taking itself too seriously and, rather annoyingly, never in the right places. It’s that lack of enthusiasm. It all feels perfunctory, not creative. Not even in a craven way.