Alice enacts her "tea party" at a gala held in honor of Catherine.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Ambiguous Situation:
- Whether or not the claim that Catherine's company supplied arms to Gotham's criminals is true is left unrevealed; while Catherine was certainly shady and secretive, there's no solid evidence to suggest that she went that far and Alice certainly holds enough of a grudge to coerce an outright lie to ruin Catherine's reputation.
- Whether Mary's poisoning was truly an accident is unclear; Mouse did nothing to prevent Mary from drinking the poisoned champagne, Alice shows no regret or remorse for the "accident", and the Sadistic Choice that resulted from the situation is perfectly in-character for Alice to have arranged. Then again Mouse isn't a compliant minion and isn't above going against Alice when he feels slighted, so he may have done that of his own free will.
- Armor-Piercing Question: In an angry, grief-fueled rant at Kate over Catherine's death, Mary asks her whether saving Alice is still worth it. After a moment, Kate answers "No."
- The Bad Guy Wins: Alice gets her revenge on Catherine, murdering her, framing Jacob, and leaving the Hamilton-Kane family devastated.
- Bluff the Imposter: To confirm that Mouse is impersonating Jacob, Kate calls Jacob and tells a lie about his wedding to Catherine that Mouse doesn't even question.
- Break the Cutie: Poor Mary loses her mother in the most horrific way possible and is broken by the experience, now also no longer wanting to do anything with Kate.
- Clean Pretty Reliable: Averted. When Mary performs CPR on Catherine, it's presented fairly realistically, and is ultimately unsuccessful without Mary giving up too quickly.
- Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: Sophie uses her wedding ring to break herself and Tyler out of Alice's restraints.
- Deadly Nosebleed: Catherine's nose begins bleeding shortly before she collapses from her poisoning. Mary's also does later to indicate the same, but she takes a cure in time.
- Desk Sweep of Rage: Both Kate and Mary do this in the Batcave and the clinic, respectively, at the end of the episode.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Catherine, though Mary tries a cardiac massage in vain.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Lampshaded by Mary when her stepsister tries to explain away her comment that Alice/Beth deserves her forgiveness and not Catherine because she is family, implying that Mary isn't.
- Disproportionate Retribution: However immoral and illegal Catherine's evidence tampering was, most people would agree it didn't warrant death, and certainly not in the form of a slow, painful neurotoxin. Then again, it did lead to Alice being kept prisoner by a madman for eleven years and broke her mentally, so she's not exactly the most rational person out there.
- Downer Ending: Catherine dies, Jacob is framed for her murder, Mary wants nothing to do with Kate anymore, Tyler breaks up with Sophie, Alice gets away free and clear, and both Kate and Jacob have given up any hope of redeeming Alice.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Alice has her gang disguise themselves as Crows for the gala, allowing Mouse as Jacob to set them up as security.
- Engineered Public Confession: Played with. It's closer to a form of blackmail, but Alice forces Catherine to admit to supplying arms to Gotham's criminals, then letting the Crows defend Gotham from those same criminals for a profit on both ends; it's unclear as of this episode if those claims are actually true.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Tyler wonders why Mouse didn't kill them, Sophie realises that Alice can't kill her because Kate would never forgive Alice for killing the woman she loves... Sophie then realises she's Saying Too Much.
- Facial Recognition Software: Luke runs a scan on Mouse!Jacob to see if he can penetrate his Latex Perfection, then has an Oh, Crap! when the software shows the Crow guard he's talking to as one of Alice's men.
- Fake Shemp: Throughout the entire episode, Mouse is wearing the disguise of Jacob, and thus Sam Littlefield doesn't appear in the episode at all.
- Faux Affably Evil: Combined with Bait the Dog.
- When Jacob explains himself to her and apologizes, Alice seems genuinely touched... only to coldly thank him for turning her into what she is today.
- The same when Catherine tries to explain herself. Alice tells her that she earns a sip of the cure... just before revealing that Mary is also poisoned.
- Frameup: Jacob is framed for Catherine's murder.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Catherine doesn't hesitate for a moment to give Mary the antidote at the cost of her own life.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Alice poisons Catherine with a neurotoxin developed by Hamilton Dynamics. One which they never developed an antidote for.
- I'll Kill You!:
- Mary screams that she'll kill Alice if Catherine dies, though Alice isn't intimidated.
- At the end of the episode, Jacob promises to kill Alice for her actions. Kate, having finally given up on her sister, says she won't get in his way.
- Ignored Epiphany: Alice is genuinely moved by Jacob and Catherine's heartfelt apologies. She still destroys both of their lives with a smile not long afterwards.
- Internal Reveal: The heroes learn about Mouse posing as Jacob.
- Irony: Tyler notes it, using the engagement ring he got for Sophie to escape her ex-girlfriend's lunatic sister, who didn't kill them because she knows more about Sophie's past relationships than Tyler does.
- It's All About Me: Alice didn't expose Catherine's shady dealings or murder her out of any kind of moral objection to her actions; she just wants payback for Catherine's crimes against her.
- Kick the Dog: Alice hits a new low in this episode, murdering Catherine with a slow and painful neurotoxin, showing no remorse when Mary is poisoned as well, framing Jacob for the deed, and taunting Kate about all of it.
- Moral Myopia: Mary points out how much Kate vilifies Catherine, but is still willing to forgive Alice, despite the latter's crimes being far more severe.
- Motive Rant: Alice screams to Batwoman that she spent years of her life alone, planning revenge on Jacob for abandoning her and Catherine for seeping into their family. So she wants to make them both suffer like she did.
- Mythology Gag: The "cure-all" that Alice offers Catherine is from Coryana, and made from a "desert rose". In Batwoman (Rebirth), the Desert Rose was a bar located on the island of Coryana.
- Never My Fault: Alice tells Batwoman that Catherine got herself poisoned for coming into their lives.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Played with; Kate tries to warn Sophie that Jacob is actually Mouse, but Sophie hangs up as she's about to meet with Jacob (and she really doesn't want to talk to Kate with her suspicious husband listening). However, Kate sends a text message spelling things out. Sophie texts back that she's on it right before she's tranquilized, causing Kate to assume that Alice's plan has been thwarted at an early stage.
- Offing the Offspring: By the end of the episode, Jacob is perfectly willing to kill Alice after everything she's done.
- The Oner: One occurs as Batwoman fights her way up a staircase.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Kate accidentally hurts Mary's feelings again when discussing Alice in the beginning of the episode.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Kate realizes that Jacob is being uncharacteristically conciliatory toward Catherine, and tests this by casually mentioning the snowstorm at their wedding. Since Catherine and Jacob actually married "on the hottest day of the year" and Jacob didn't correct Kate, she realizes that Jacob is actually being impersonated by Mouse.
- Poison and Cure Gambit: Alice offers Catherine a "cure-all" to reverse her poisoning if she will sincerely apologize for the harm she's caused her (that is, faking Beth's skull fragments and thus preventing her from being rescued).
- Properly Paranoid: It's implied that Mouse suspects that Kate has figured out his deception after the phone call, and appropriately responds by taking Sophie and Tyler into Jacob's office and tranquilizing them, so Kate can't get Sophie's help. In the end, he and Alice come out victorious, ultimately rending moot that Kate is able to correctly guess his identity.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Angry at Alice for poisoning Catherine, Batwoman tries to strangle her to death, but she just couldn't go through with it. Alice tells Kate it's because she still believes Beth is somewhere inside when there isn't anymore.
- Recycled Plot: This isn't the first time in the Arrowverse in which a villain creates a Sadistic Choice involving a mother and a daughter, only for the mother to willingly sacrifice herself so that her daughter can live.
- Replacement Goldfish: Alice sees Catherine and Mary as a replacement family for Jacob, angrily claiming that her father replaced both her and Kate.
- Revenge: Alice's whole plan in this episode is to get back at Catherine (and, to a lesser extent, Jacob) for Catherine's faking of her death. She not only publicly thrashes Catherine and Jacob's reputations, she murders Catherine with a dose of neurotoxin and frames Jacob for it.
- Sadistic Choice: Happens accidentally. Mary drank some of the poisoned champagne that was only intended for Catherine. Since Alice only anticipated needing a single dose of antidote, Catherine now has to choose between herself and her daughter.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Catherine reveals she always knew Mary was running a secret clinic, but never said anything because she didn't want Mary to give it up.
- Secret Identity Change Trick: Mary used to change her clothes in the elevator so her mother wouldn't find out about the clinic work. They both have a laugh when Catherine tells her there were cameras in the elevator.
- Shown Their Work: In addition to averting Clean Pretty Reliable, Mary performs CPR on Catherine positioned appropriately in the center of her chest, with her arms straight and not bent, and at a reasonable pace.
- Skewed Priorities: While Tyler is right to be angry, trying to discuss his and Sophie's relationship while they are tied up probably wasn't the best timing.
- Something Only They Would Say: Kate figures out that Mouse has been impersonating Jacob. When the real Jacob calls her, she asks him what he gave her for her sixth birthday. His answer satisfies her.
- So Proud of You: Catherine tells Mary that raising her was the best thing she ever did.
- The Stinger: Nash Wells opening the Monitor's hidden chamber and being sucked into it.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Jacob and Kate give up on any possible redemption for Alice in this episode after she murders Catherine.
- Tonight, Someone Dies: Alice tells Jacob at the very beginning that she will kill somebody, and she keeps her promise by poisoning Catherine.
- Villain Has a Point: Downplayed. Alice makes a valid point about Jacob taking evidence provided by Catherine, someone he had only known for a few months at the time, at face value and not looking into it further to confirm the truth. Doubly so since Kate had personally checked the area the evidence had been found and turned up nothing, which she had told Jacob about. Jacob responds that he had no reason to think Catherine was lying or mistaken, though he doesn't deny that Alice is right about his failings and admits he took the easy way out by not further investigating Catherine's discovery because he didn't want to confront the fact that he hadn't been able to find Beth.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Alice sends Kate on a wild goose chase to rescue Jacob, as Alice wanted to ensure Batwoman wouldn't be there to thwart the first stages of her plan. Jacob has actually been drugged and left in his SUV to take the fall for Catherine's murder.
- We Used to Be Friends: Mary doesn't want Kate's sympathy at the end of the episode, both being sick of the way she treated her and because of her stepsister's indirect role in her mother's death.
- Wham Episode: Alice kills Catherine, frames Jacob for her murder, and Tyler and Sophie separate.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Mary gives Kate hell for believing that Alice was redeemable, as her refusal to take Alice down has now cost Catherine's life.
