TV Review: Batwoman Season 1 Episode 9

Batwoman Season 1 Episode 9 “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two”

Director: Laura Belsey

Starring: Ruby Rose, Camrus Johnson, LaMonica Garrett, Stephen Amell, Melissa Benoist, Grant Gustin, Brandon Routh, Tyler Hoechlin, Kevin Conroy, Tom Welling

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 42 minutes

Major Spoilers Follow:

“Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two”, or as I like to call it, A Tale of Three Supermen, a Very Angry Batman, and Oliver’s Resurrection is quieter than the first episode, relatively speaking.  It’s still one of the most ambitious spectacles ever depicted in live-action television but it’s a generally more intimate episode than its predecessor that manages an impressive tonal balancing act.  “Crisis Part Two” is a total blast thanks to its ability to simultaneously explore the DC television multiverse while also digging deep into its main characters to ensure that the event maintains, and increases, its powerful emotional charge.

After a brief scene of Sara, Kara, and Kate drinking to Oliver’s memory (Barry’s too overcome with grief and anger at the situation to attend) Monitor and Lyla gather the team on the bridge of a Waverider belonging to the Mick Rory/Heatwave (Dominic Purcell) of Earth-74.  Monitor explains that their best hope now is to gather the Paragons, the seven greatest heroes in all the multiverse.  He only has information on four but fortunately, two are already among them.  Sara is the Paragon of Destiny and Kara the Paragon of Hope, though the latter has a hard time accepting her role given her heartbreak at the destruction of her planet and the deaths of her people and Oliver.  Monitor also knows that one of the other Paragons is another Kryptonian who has suffered a great loss and the fourth is “the Bat of the future”.  Clark and Lois (eventually joined by Candice Patton’s Iris West-Allen) depart to find the former while Kara and Kate go in search of the latter.  Meanwhile, a heartbroken Mia, Barry, a reluctant Sara, and mystical guide John Constantine (Matt Ryan) go on their own quest across the multiverse to find a functioning Lazarus Pit and resurrect Oliver.  Complicating the heroes’ plans, however, is Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) who Monitor brought back to life prior to the Crisis because he has a mysterious use for him, which only angers Kara more and furthers her distrust in the Monitor.  True to form, an inadequately-guarded Lex takes the first chance he gets to steal the reconstituted Book of Destiny and sets out to kill all the Supermen throughout the multiverse.  Lastly, Lyla is plagued by voices that eventually lead her face-to-face with the Anti-Monitor (also LaMonica Garrett), who seems intent on turning her.

Lex’s plan puts a ticking clock on the quest for the Kryptonian, with Lois and Clark arriving at one Earth whose Clark has already perished.  Next, they and Iris wind up at the Kent farm of Earth-167, where they briefly encounter Tom Welling’s Clark from beloved WB/CW series Smallville, before Lex gets there and teleports them away with the Book.  There’s then a delightful exchange between the mismatched enemies during which Welling’s Clark shocks Lex by revealing that he gave up his powers to take care of the children he now has with his Lois (Erica Durance, in her second crossover role).  Welling doesn’t miss a beat getting back into character as Clark and reminds us all why he is one of the best actors to have ever taken on the character.  His bemused refusal to take Lex seriously as a threat is a lot of fun as is getting to see him square off with a different Lex than the version Michael Rosenbaum made iconic on Smallville (though a Rosenbaum cameo absolutely would have been welcome).  Cryer also hams it up gloriously and his genuine confusion and absolute disgust at Clark’s decision to forfeit his abilities highlight how well he and the Arrowverse writers understand Lex’s character.

Lois, Clark, and Iris next arrive at the Daily Planet of Earth-96 and are greeted by that Earth’s Clark, with Brandon Routh stepping back into the role after playing it in the 2006 film Superman Returns.  Routh’s Clark now resembles in both costume and character the version featured in the famous graphic novel Kingdom Come, in which Lois Lane and most of Clark’s other loved ones were killed by the Joker.  Hearing this lets Lois-38 deduce that this is the right Clark, the Paragon of Truth.  It’s not long before Lex shows up on Earth-96, however, and uses the Book to brainwash Clark-96 and set him against the others, resulting in a spectacular clash between the two Supermen, before Lois is able to dispatch Lex and get through to her husband’s doppelganger.  Seeing him, Hoechlin and Tulloch interact is a treat but Routh doesn’t slide back into the Superman role as easily as Welling.  He’s good at conveying the solemn weight the loss of Lois and the others have on Clark-96 when certain scenes call for it but his default dorky peppiness has too much Ray Palmer left in it.  And he’s hammy in a bad way in the mind-controlled Clark scenes.  The creators really should have figured that Routh can’t do menacing after the demon Ray arc on Legends last year.

In the bleak future of Earth-99 Kara and Kate arrive at Wayne Manor, and find it guarded by a muscle-bound version of Kate’s friend Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson, the only member of the Batwoman cast other than Ruby Rose to appear).  After Kara busts their way into the house Bruce Wayne finally shows himself to stop Luke from shooting.  Bruce is played here by Kevin Conroy, who is considered by many to have created the definitive version of Batman with his voice work in Batman: The Animated Series and subsequent shows, and seeing him finally get the chance to play him in live-action is one of Crisis‘ most delightful bits of fan service.  There was always a chance Conroy’s interpretation might not necessarily translate to live-action but that proves to be a needless concern.  He brings a tired, sardonic gruffness to the role that imbues all his scenes with a dark, dramatic weight.  And when I say those scenes are dark I mean dark.  Because, in one of Crisis‘ most subversive moves, this Bruce is wildly different from the other versions Conroy has played.  As Kara and Kate soon learn Bruce-99 has broken all the rules that make Batman a hero.  After crossing the line and killing one of his enemies he gave in to his darkest impulses and did the same to many of the others before moving on to targeting anyone he perceived to be a potential threat, including Superman.  Before Bruce killed him, Superman-99 was able to break the corrupted Dark Knight, injuring him to the point where he needs a robotic exo-skeleton to walk.  Now unable to carry out his twisted crusade, the bitter Wayne sits in his house angry and has become such a nihilist he welcomes the news of his world’s impending destruction.  But he’s less thrilled to learn Kara is a Kryptonian, after which he uses Kryptonite to incapacitate her before Kate kills him to defend her friend.

This unexpected use of Conroy is sure to cause even more controversy among fans than the depowering of Welling’s Clark but it is fairly crucial to the story the episode tells about its core characters.  Kara may be the one designated Paragon of Hope but pretty much everyone is struggling with how to stay hopeful in light of all the chaos and tragedy going on.  Still, with Oliver dead for the moment, Kara becomes the singular heart of the event and Melissa Benoist builds on her moving performance in the first episode with more excellent work here.  Kara managed to stay relatively optimistic throughout most of “Part One” until Oliver’s death and the destruction of Earth-38 acted as the straws that broke the camel’s back.  Now Kara’s barely holding it together and Benoist conjures a startling, wounded energy that serves as an excellent reminder of the toll all the action and superhero craziness takes on the characters.  As this is technically the Batwoman episode it also shouldn’t come as a surprise that Kate Kane becomes a more key figure than she was in “Part One”.  Writers Don Whitehead and Holly Henderson are smart enough to recognize that Kate still wouldn’t really have a handle on all the multiverse shenanigans yet, so instead her story is tied closely to what’s going on in her own show.  As Kate relates to Kara, she’s had a rather rough time of it lately with her sister, the villainous Alice/Beth, framing their father for killing Kate’s stepmother, Catherine, in the previous episode of Batwoman.  For Kate, the Crisis, and the traumatic experience of meeting such a depraved version of Bruce, are just the latest in a series of tragedies all piling up on one another.  Kate feels tremendous guilt both for the ambivalence with which she treated Catherine and step-sister Mary before the former’s death and for believing there was good inside Beth.  Now she’s faced with a vision of her beloved cousin whose time as the Bat has not been liberating as it is for her but instead turned him into a monster. Kate’s terrified that if she keeps suiting up one day she’ll turn out just like Bruce and Ruby Rose does a great job conveying how all of this weighs on the character while still maintaining her usual stoicism and dry wit.  Rose also has great chemistry with Benoist.  It’s clear that the friendship between Kara and Kate is being set up to replace the one between Barry and Oliver and the two actresses are more than up to the task of creating a dynamic as interesting and entertaining as the one between Amell and Gustin.  The Monitor eventually reveals that Kate is truly the Bat of the future (the journey to Earth-99 was only meant to prove this to her), the fourth Paragon, and the mantle is the same kind of burden for her as it is for her Kryptonian friend.  Kara and Kate find comfort in each other in a lovely scene where they share a drink (despite Kara’s inability to get drunk) but in a testament to the gravity of the situation, neither one truly reclaims their hopefulness.  Kara’s putting on a brave face but she’s also clearly in denial, resolving to bring back her worlds and everyone else lost by using the Book of Destiny, despite the obvious danger of such an idea.  Kate likewise vows not to become like her cousin (or at least not the maniacal version of him) but she also discreetly pocketed his Kryptonite to use against Kara should the need arise, showing that she has at least some of Bruce’s paranoia.

The Lazarus Pit gang also ends the episode feeling discouraged.  They manage to find a working Pit in the North Dakota of Earth-18 and Sara and Mia quickly dispatch of its guardian, a sinister version of Jonah Hex (Jonathon Schaech) and even successfully use it to restore Oliver’s body to life.  Unfortunately the anti-matter spreading throughout the universe prevents Constantine from using his magic to restore Ollie’s soul as he once did Sara’s, so for now everyone’s favorite archer is just a raving animal when not sedated.  But just because it’s a downer of a trip for them doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch.  Constantine’s irreverent quipping keeps things lively and Ryan’s charismatic deliveries are reminders of the fact that his casting is one of the best translations of a comic character to live-action.  The seeds are also planted for a nice, friendly rivalry between John and Barry that can hopefully be expanded on in future crossovers.  And Sara telling Mia of some of the wild adventures she had with Ollie when they were younger is a nice acknowledgement of the franchise’s longest-standing superhero relationship that Caity Lotz brings a lot of quiet pathos to.

While there’s plenty of humor and a few significant wins for the good guys, like finding Clark-96 and discovering Kate’s a Paragon, this was ultimately, understandably, a very dark chapter for our heroes.  Everyone’s struggling to stay hopeful but with the threat of absolute destruction coming nearer and nearer no one’s quite sure how to do so.  Its use of some beloved DC icons might not be what fans are expecting but “Crisis Part Two” is another excellent episode that evokes a lot of emotion by examining the effects the event is having on the Arrowverse’s main heroes.

Best Cameo: Welling.

MVH (Most Valuable Hero): Benoist by far.

Notes:

• The action this episode is much improved over the last one, showing the benefits of human, or at least humanoid, antagonists over CGI monsters, when working on the kind of budget these shows operate on.  The Superman vs Superman duel is chill-inducing, and easily an improvement over the one from last year’s Elseworlds crossover (as an aside, I will be perfectly happy if there’s one of these in every crossover from now on).  And Sara and Mia vs Hex is a fun little fight, if only because it’s always a treat to see Caity Lotz beat people up.
•  Grant Gustin’s role is still rather small but he makes the most of all his material.  Barry’s disgust at the Monitor was palpable.
•  While I see the point of using Conroy like this, as a fan I also hope that maybe we can see him play a more heroic version of the character in the concluding episodes, especially given how much this event has enjoyed having actors play different characters or multiple versions of one.

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