‘Batwoman’ Finale Misses So Many Marks

Hopes were high for this season of Batwoman as it started off on a very strong note. The villain-of-the-week format worked well as Batwoman (Javicia Leslie) took on various spins on some classic Batman bad guys. But as the show entered its second half, it tried to rally around its take on the Joker, Marquis Jet (Nick Creegan). Instead of focusing on a smaller scale threat that pushed the personal drama between Ryan Wilder and her brother, the show opted for a big “Joker is about to destroy the city” plot that has been done a million times before. Because of this, the stakes never truly felt as real as they should have.

But merely focusing on the family drama between the show’s hero and villain wouldn’t have been enough. It worked when Batwoman was Kate Kane because she had history with her sister, Alice (Rachel Skarsten). Once Ryan took over the mantle of Batwoman and started to develop ties to her biological family, the connection never appeared as strong. Having Ryan and Marquis battle it out felt fabricated. She has no history with Marquis, so it feels disingenuous when she said, “I want my brother back.”

The show also has an odd relationship with villainy. A major plot point to the season was the Joker’s buzzer and who would get to use its final buzz: Alice or Marquis. This “insanity can be cured with a shock” take on the show’s villains doesn’t sit right. It makes the plot too neat and pretty, which Batman stories are never supposed to be. His villains are flawed yet complex characters. Boiling them down to such a simple fix does not honor the history of the Batman mythos.

It feels strange to see a season of television go from such a high to such a low, almost as if the show’s writers forgot what made it so compelling in the beginning. The finale does end on a bit of a cliffhanger though, as a new villain prepares to enter the spotlight. It wasn’t clear who this villain might be. Perhaps it’s a new creation just for the show. Either way, if Batwoman enters a fourth season it’s going to need to develop its personal stakes in order to be compelling.