Weekly TV Reviews: Batwoman s2 ep7

 

Ryan is facing her own crisis with the kryptonite steadily leading to her brain while Alice has come up with her own plan to learn the truth about her forgotten memories. Alice discovers more than she bargained for with her connection to Safiyah and her memories of Ocean. Ryan faces off with her own demons with delusions that let her confront Alice which is what she's wanted since the season began. Elsewhere, Jacob and Sophie remain dedicated to their search for Kate. 

1.) Alice & Ocean

Flashbacks continue to explore Alice's time on the island and what first put her into the path of a Safiyah. These scenes provide the final insight into a time in Alice's life when she escaped her captor and found a way to the island by accident only to regain a thread of humanity in a connection with Ocean. These moments also show the rage that has been with Alice since the beginning and gives a peek at the Alice pre-season one before she showed up to create havoc in Gotham. These flashbacks are also a creative way to give insight into Safiyah who has been labeled as the season's enemy and the moments show her in a more vulnerable light as she seems to open up to Alice. 

It also doesn't hurt to use this as a way to give a backstory to the magic and origins of the desert rose. Alice also learns about the collateral damage done in the process of removing her memories and what drove them off the island. As a way to punish them for taking what was the most important to them, Safiyah takes away what matters to them: each other. In a shocking twist, the creation of Alice was seen in how Safiyah set the stage for her to go on to become the other persona as she turned into a vengeance-obsessed killing machine. Taking away her memories also took away the love and humanity that she still possessed.

2.) Ryan

Ryan is slowly losing to her infection which has given her delusions of her mom and makes her weaker in a fight. It's also a poignant thing to note that in her delusion, she remembers her mom telling her that Angelique is a bad influence just before Ryan (as Batwoman) goes to her for information on Ocean's whereabouts just before Angelique shoves her off the balcony and onto a car. While Ryan's tripping out, Mary and Luke are teaming up to stage a Batwoman rescue which leads to a brief argument over who gets to drive the Batmobile - spoiler - Mary wins. Nothing beats seeing the pure joy on her face when the door opens. 

Inside Ryan's delusion, she literally confronts Alice in a violent confrontation, finally getting the death that she's been wanting for her enemy. Despite her condition, Ryan is driven entirely by her need to kill Alice before she dies even if she's barely moving. She ultimately chooses to not kill Alice thanks to an image of her mom telling her that it wasn't her. 

Quotes:

"You don't need to learn how to fight, Alice. You need to learn how to feel." - Ocean

"Yeah, I found my mother's head in the freezer. If you're trying to shock me, you're going to have to do a little better than that." - Alice