Batwoman tracks an assassin targeting members of Hamilton Dynamics.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: While Sophie's mom isn't described as physically abusive, she is apparently a virulent homophobe.
- Adaptational Jerkass: In the comics, Brigade Tactical Officer Reyes was sympathetic to Kate being outed, and offered to accept what he knew would be a false assertion that she was straight, but Kate chose to follow West Point's student code of honor and refused to lie, leaving him no choice but to expel her. His closest counterpart in the show, Burns, is rather callous to her situation, blithely unpersoning her without a second thought (he also shares no scenes with her in this episode). Related to Artistic License – Military, below.
- Ambiguously Evil: Catherine had the coil gun developed specifically to be able to pierce the Batsuit, putting the project on pause when Batman disappeared and restarting it when Batwoman showed up. She doesn't elaborate on why she felt the need for such a weapon, but it's at least suspicious that she'd build a gun that could kill Gotham's resident hero.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Sophie tries to assure Tyler that she loves him and she just wants her past with Kate to go away, Tyler asks bluntly: "Has it?" Sophie is unable to answer.
- Artistic License – Military:
- Kate and Sophie's barracks room is a fair bit nicer and more spacious than those at the actual service academies. It also has a double bed, which is not the norm.
- Point Rock's unpersoning of Kate is unusual compared to how real-life cadets discharged for DADT-related violations were treated around the same time Kate would have resigned; in some cases, at least, administration officials were actually supportive of the cadets in question, as in the case of Katherine Miller.
- In response to the above, Sophie's mouthing off to a superior with no immediate repercussions would not happen.
- The statements Kate and Sophie are asked to sign would not have been commonly used, if ever.
- Bait-and-Switch: In-Universe when Tyler thinks Kate is going to tell him who Batwoman is (which might well have been the case had the restaurant meeting not been cut short). Instead she reveals her past homosexual relationship with Kate.
- Batwoman Grabs A Gun: While not wearing the cowl and using it nonlethally to stop the Crows vehicle. Not that Kate has as much of a no-gun rule as Bruce anyway.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The kindly-seeming restaurant owner gratefully offers Batwoman a free meal anytime, but is quite a jackass to her in her alter ego.
- Blatant Lies:
- Sophie tells her husband Tyler that Batwoman didn't say anything to her, but he checks the CCTV footage and sees them standing very close and Sophie even lowering the gun she's pointing at her, strongly implying there's something more going on.
- The manager at Alessandro's claims that Kate and Sophie will have to leave because Kate doesn't fit the dress code. Kate instantly zeroes in on the real reason and refuses to leave without making a scene.
- When Mary stumbles across Kate, Luke, and Julia as they're trying to enter the Batcave (Mary assumes that it's just a safe room), Kate claims that Julia is her assistant. Mary is immediately skeptical, questioning why the owner of a real estate company that has no real estate yet would need two assistants working past midnight.
- Kate claims to be over Sophie in order to put the whole mess behind them, and Sophie tells her husband that she no longer has feelings for Kate. Sophie may have practice believing this, but Kate is obviously lying and Tyler also seems skeptical.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Mary does it to Catherine.
- Chekhov's Skill: In a flashback, Sophie mentions that Kate won a sharpshooter competition while suffering from a massive hangover. In the present, she demonstrates this by shooting out the tire on a Crows van while also driving a motorcycle, using iron sights.
- Conflicting Loyalties: Sophie is torn between Kate whom she loves and those whom she feels she owes loyalty to—Tyler whom she married and Jacob who has always supported her career.
- Cruel to Be Kind:
- Sophie lied about not having any feelings for Kate because she didn't want to tell her that her own father encouraged Sophie to denounce her. To be fair, Jacob seemingly was looking out for her; as he said, he knew Kate would never listen to his argument, and Kate, unlike Sophie, didn't need to join the Army (for financial reasons).
- Even though she now knows Sophie loves her, Kate tells Sophie that she made the right decision back in the Academy and she'll stay out of her life from now on.
- Continuity Nod: Sophie name-drops A.R.G.U.S. at one point.
- Do You Trust Me?: The issue of trust comes up several times. Batwoman asks Sophie if she trusts her. Luke asks if Sophie can be trusted, and Kate flashes back to when Sophie seemingly lied to her. She also has a sore spot for her former lover Julia, who was actually planted on her by Bruce Wayne to keep an eye on her—when Kate found this out, she left. Jacob and Tyler also face the fact that they can not longer trust their wives, as they haven't been told the full truth.
- Dynamic Entry: Julia is introduced attacking The Rifle and getting into a scuffle with Batwoman, instantly recognizing her technique and thus deducing that she is Kate.
- Experimented in College: Averted; Tyler calls Sophie on how a three year relationship is longer than any relationship he had before meeting Sophie, so there's clearly nothing casual about what happened with Kate.
- Failed a Spot Check: The Rifle twice avoids being spotted when he's not particularly well-hidden. First, his target doesn't see him while he's crouched behind a car less than 30 feet away and aiming at him. Second, a few Crows agents walk past him when he's standing in a relatively well-lit lot a dozen or so yards away.
- Failure Gambit: Alice uses this to screw over Safiyah, a mysterious criminal who wanted the Hamilton Dynamics coil gun for an unknown purpose. She first hires The Rifle, an associate of Safiyah's, to kill the main designers of the gun so that it can't be reproduced. Then, knowing the gun will be tested on Batwoman to prove its effectiveness, she sabotages it to make it nonlethal against the batsuit before exchanging it to The Rifle for a vial of antidote she intends to use for her own plans. Thus, The Rifle (and by extension, Safiyah), are left with a damaged if not outright useless gun and no apparent way to fix it, while Batwoman gets to live and Alice gets her end of the deal.note
- Fighting Fingerprint: Julia recognizes Kate as Batwoman by the way Kate throws hammerfists, which Julia taught her.
- Flashback: Several, to Kate and Sophie separating during the academy days.
- Food as Bribe: Mary bribes her way past the door guard at Wayne Enterprises by buying him coffee. Kate quips that the guard will be serving coffee soon enough.
- Foreshadowing: When Jacob says they don't have the technology to track the coilgun, Sophie interrupts to say that A.R.G.U.S. leant them the technology last month. This just looks like a forgetful oversight on Jacob's part until The Reveal that he's actually Mouse impersonating Jacob.
- The Ghost: The Rifle's boss, Safiyah, who wants the coil gun for some reason and who Alice seems very pissed about.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Safiyah for this episode as noted above.
- He Knows Too Much: Alice has all three engineers who worked on the Hamilton coil gun killed.
- I Am Very British: Being a member of the Pennyworth clan, Julia speaks in RP despite not being a butler.
- Identity Impersonator: Julia poses as Batwoman to fool the Crows (and specifically Sophie) into drawing suspicion away from Kate, while Kate appears in the same location as herself. Bonus points for Julia technically having the skills to pull off the ruse, even if she doesn't actually use any of them.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Catherine still tries to justify her decision to deceive Jacob and Kate.
- Improbable Aiming Skills:
- Kate was able to outperform over 200 cadets in sharpshooting at the academy... while being hungover as hell. At the end of the episode, Sophie gives her the medal back, which she saved from being thrown out.
- Kate also shoots out the front tire of a moving transport truck with a pistol while in pursuit on a motorcycle... left-handed. Interestingly, however, she is within the 50-meter effective range of the Walther P99 she uses, though on the tail end.
- Internal Reveal:
- Subverted. Sophie tells Jacob that Kate is Batwoman, but it was actually Mouse disguised as Jacob, and Mouse already knew. Also, by the end of the episode, Sophie is convinced that Kate is not Batwoman due to seeing Julia wearing the suit while Kate is in the same room.
- Tyler learns the details of Sophie and Kate's relationship at Point Rock.
- Catherine learns of Dean Devereaux's murder.
- Irony: At the end of the episode, Kate severs ties with Sophie the same way she did with her years ago.
- Kick the Dog: Point Rock immediately Unpersons Kate after she leaves.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Julia engages Batwoman in a fight after Batwoman ties up The Rifle's legs with a bolo after he tries to escape Julia. He untangles himself and flees while they're distracted.
- Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: A variant in which the superhero is seen in a more positive light than the civilian identity. The owner of Alessandro's is thankful to Batwoman for saving his restaurant and patrons from The Rifle, even offering her a free meal in an interview. When Kate and Sophie meet there later, however, he reveals himself to be homophobic, trying to get them to move outside while using the excuse that Kate doesn't fit the dress code.
- Made of Iron: Julia takes a coil gun round to the chest, gets blasted through a brick wall, falls three stories onto pavement, and goes through a violent van crash. Her biggest complaint afterwards is a few broken ribs. Even with the Batsuit, that's an impressive amount of punishment to walk away from.
- Mythology Gag:
- Julia's codename is Tuxedo One, which is what she went by in Batwoman (Rebirth).
- Julia wears a shirt featuring a graphic from Egyptian band Go! Save the Hostages!; in Julia's original New 52 design, she wore a "Middle Eastern punk band shirt."◊
- Julia suffers a torso injury (broken ribs). In the comics, she joined the Batfamily after also sustaining a torso injury, though one far more severe (impalement).
- Seems like every version of the Batcave has a T. Rex. This one is much smaller than normal, though.
- As noted under Recycled Plot, this is not the first time a Pennyworth has donned the Bat-Cowl to fool the loved ones of the vigilante.
- Nerves of Steel: The Rifle doesn't even flinch when Alice has the coil gun pointed at him. He later gets a little more affected when Alice betrays him and his employer and threatens him again.
- New Old Flame: While On the Rebound from Sophie, Kate had a romantic fling with her martial arts instructor Julia, only to find out she was a Pennyworth sent by Bruce Wayne to keep an eye on her. Kate then assumed the whole relationship was a setup and walked out on her.
- No Endor Holocaust: A car crash like the one Kate causes to get Julia out of the Crows custody probably would've killed everyone inside the van in real life, especially since it doesn't appear anyone was wearing seatbelts.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Having stolen the prototype coil gun and covertly sabotaged it, Alice then makes sure to kill everyone capable of recreating the weapon so it can't be used against Kate.
- Old Friend: Julia, to both Luke and Kate, though she didn't part on good terms with the latter.
- Pop the Tires: Kate shoots out a tire of the Crows van transporting Julia.
- Professional Killer: The Rifle is a killer for hire, contracted to get his hands on a weapon that can kill Batwoman.
- Recycled Plot:
- Kate deflects suspicion of herself being Batwoman by doing exactly the same thing Oliver Queen did at about this same point in his first season: have a trusted friend dress up as the vigilante and be seen while the "real identity person" is seen elsewhere.
- Not to mention, Kara did the same thing with J'onn in her first season.
- And most appropriately, Alfred would don the Bat-cowl in similar situations in the Batman (1966) show, since Robin would be too young.
- The Reveal: It was Jacob who ended up changing Sophie's mind about leaving Point Rock, by reminding her what it would cost.
- Revealing Skill: Sophie knows Kate rescued Batwoman because there's no one else in the city capable of pulling off the shot necessary to disable the van that was transporting her.
- Sarcasm Mode: Luke proceeds to hold both sides of an conversation between himself and an imaginary Kate who actually shows some interest and appreciation for him being up all night following leads.
- Secret-Keeper: Julia was already aware that Bruce was Batman, and quickly realises that Kate is Batwoman.
- Shout-Out: Shawn Izadi, the cadet whose obstacle course record Sophie broke, is a reference to writer Natalie Abrams's friend Ashian Izadi, who was a West Point cadet.
- Shown Their Work: Julia recognizes Kate by Kate's use of hammerfists, which Julia taught to Kate while posing as a Krav Maga instructor. Hammerfists are indeed part of Krav Maga.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Mary finally gets some recognition from Kate, getting invited to open a gay bar with her.
- Unperson: The academy hides every trace of Kate once they kick her out, much to Sophie's annoyance.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Zig-zagged. The plan to disguise Julia as Batwoman to fool Sophie and the other Crows isn't discussed onscreen, and encounters some big obstacles such as Julia getting shot and captured, but does ultimately succeed in its goal.
- Wham Shot: Jacob shown in his car in the woods, leaving a call for Kate that reveals he's been out of town for the entirety of the episode. Which leads to "Jacob" strolling into Alice's lair and peeling off his mask to reveal himself as Mouse.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Tyler is rightfully pissed about Sophie not telling him earlier about her and Kate. When he asks why, she points out that she didn't tell anyone, in order to keep word from getting back to her very homophobic mother.
- Mary, when Kate kicks her out when she wants to speak to her about their family crisis.
- Sophie calls out Kate for making a scene at the restaurant. Kate shot one back at Sophie for their breakup.
- Wild Card: Alice is still working on her own schemes, but she protects her sister's life from The Rifle and the coil gun.
- Working the Same Case: Julia and Batwoman are both hunting The Rifle when they meet.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Julia encourages Kate to not make the same mistakes as her cousin and let more people into her life, which she begins doing by the end of the episode.
