When a familiar foe descends upon Gotham, Batwoman and Mary find they must rely on each other more than ever. Alice has a has a new mission – and gets an unexpected ally to join her.
Tropes:
- Assassin Outclassin': Alice overpowers Tatiana when the latter ambushes her and easily kills her.
- Back for the Dead: Alice kills Tatiana for killing Ocean.
- Bail Equals Freedom: Averted in Tavaroff's case, though he is pretty certain that he'll walk free nevertheless.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Thanks to Alice and Jacob, Kate and Circe have one of these inside Kate's mind, though it's not resolved in this episode.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Safiyah and Black Mask are revealed to have been working together all along.
- Big Damn Heroes: Diggle saves Luke from Tavaroff.
- Blatant Lies: When Circe questions her identity, Black Mask tries to insist it's just an episode and she's imagining it, even after she stabs his palm. Safiyah blows up that narrative and decides to tell Circe the truth so she can decide for herself.
- Buffy Speak: Mary explains that a case file she needs to look into was sealed, but it's not a problem because apparently "Luke has a thingy that unseals seals."
- The Bus Came Back:
- David Ramsey makes his return to the Arrowverse as John Diggle, after his last appearance on The Flash (2014) a year earlier.
- Safiyah and Tatiana return, having not been seen for half the season.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Tavaroff cheats at the card game between him, Luke, and Diggle, but he still loses to the latter two anyway because Luke has a better hand than Tavaroff's low-ball cheating.
- Continuity Nod:
- Diggle mentions that he's in Gotham on ARGUS business. Though in reality, he has a medical appointment to figure out the cause of his headaches.
- Diggle also mentions to Luke that his father was a Marine who was KIA.
- Safiyah reveals that Alice's fire more or less completely destroyed Coryana.
- Jacob is being transferred to Metropolis.
- Crazy-Prepared: Mary has tranquilizers with her all the time, which she uses to put Kate to sleep when the latter starts attacking her.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Despite Luke not backing down and getting a solid hit in, Tavaroff quickly overpowers him and starts beating him up. Then Tavaroff is on the receiving end of one himself at the hands of Diggle.
- Death Seeker: Luke tells Ryan that he wishes she and Mary didn't heal him last episode. This also partially fuels his challenge to Tavaroff.
- Dirty Cop: Black Mask has a number of GCPD officers on his payroll.
- Dynamic Entry: Tatiana makes her entry assassinating somebody (though the target survives).
- Enemy Mine: Alice and Jacob team up to rescue Kate.
- Everyone Knows Morse: The Bat-Signal flashes in Morse code to let Luke know he's needed. He and Diggle are able to read it.
- Fixing the Game: Luke and Diggle reveal that Tavaroff cheated at the card game, with the result being the above.
- Headache of Doom: Diggle has had them recently. It's the reason he comes to Gotham, as he has a medical appointment.
- Heroic BSoD: Luke is in this for most of the episode after being healed. It causes him to eventually confront Tavaroff and almost get himself killed if not for Diggle.
- Hyde Plays Jekyll: When "Circe" resurfaces, she distracts Sophie with something Kate knows and bails.
- Impaled Palm: What "Circe" does to Black Mask at the end, demanding to know who she really is.
- Internal Reveal:
- Safiyah reveals to Black Mask that Alice is Beth Kane.
- All of the main characters learn that Kate is alive and has been brainwashed into thinking she's Circe, including Circe herself.
- Gotham in general learns that Alice is Beth Kane.
- Jacob learns that it wasn't Cartwright (alone) that turned Beth into Alice.
- Irony: This episode features a meeting between Luke, the right-hand man of Batwoman (both Kate and Ryan) and John Diggle, the right-hand man of the Green Arrow (and who also knows Kate). However, neither one of them learns of the other's connection to the superhero community, or that they have a mutual friend in Kate.
- Never My Fault: Tavaroff has the audacity to blame Luke for getting shot, as if it's his fault somehow for "being at the wrong place at the wrong time".
- No Endor Holocaust: Averted, Safiyah mentions that Alice's fire on Coryana destroyed 9 villages.
- Oh, Crap!: Safiyah, when she hears that Alice is the one who made "Circe's" face.
- Prisoner Exchange: Batwoman exchanges her Desert Rose flower for Alice in order to get her to fully awaken Kate's memories.
- Put on a Bus: This is Jacob's last episode.
- The Reveal: Safiyah did have a hand in bringing down Kate's plane after all, providing the flight plan to Black Mask so he could take it down.
- Revenge: The other reason Luke decides to go after Tavaroff.
- Sore Loser: Tavaroff ambushes Luke after losing against him, wanting to take his money back forcefully.
- Standing Between the Enemies: Diggle stands between Luke and Tavaroff after the latter gets the upper hand in their fight.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Luke is driven to get his revenge for Tavaroff, but he is barely trained to fight, while Tavaroff is a skilled fighter himself. Thus, when the two head into the back alley to brawl, Luke loses pretty quickly and would have died if Diggle didn't intervene.
- Targeted to Hurt the Hero: While Safiyah would want Ocean dead for other reasons, he's mostly killed just to piss off Alice.
- Threat Backfire: Jacob tells Roman that if anything happens to him "the GCPD will be at your front door." Smirking, Roman has the two goons unmask to reveal they're cops who promptly arrest Jacob for aiding and abetting Alice.
- Title Drop: In a commercial for Roman’s company.
- Unwanted Rescue: When Ryan confronts Luke outside the gambling bar, he tells her he wished they had not saved him from the gunshot wound.
- We Are Everywhere: It turns out that the False Face Society has people inside the GCPD.
- Wham Episode:
- Safiyah and Black Mask are working together.
- Tatiana kills Ocean, and is then killed in retaliation by Alice.
- Black Mask uses his moles in the GCPD to arrest Jacob for harboring Alice.
- Ryan, Sophie, Luke and Mary learn that Kate is alive and brainwashed into being Circe.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: There is no mention of what Diggle did with the Lantern ring he found in Arrow's Grand Finale. Though since this isn't the last time we'll be seeing Diggle this year we may find out later on. An interview
with Ramsey indicates that he returned the ring in order to spend more time with his post-Crisis family. - You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Diggle gives Luke a pep-talk as he recovers from his gunshot wound, foreshadowing events in the season finale.
- You Are Too Late: Alice arrives minutes too late to stop Tatiana from killing Ocean, though close enough to kill her in retaliation.
