As Ryan's Kryptonite wound grows more severe, it hinders Batwoman's ability to protect Gotham. Growing interest in reproducing the serum from the Desert Rose puts Mary's and Jacob's lives in danger. Meanwhile, Alice's reunion with a fellow Coryana inhabitant presents unexpected complications.
Tropes
- All for Nothing: After all the trouble Sophie goes to in order to get the map to Coryana, Batwoman is forced to trade it for Sophie's life before the heroes can get any use out of it.
- Ambiguous Situation: Did Catherine know about or have any hand in Dr. Rogers's experiments? Rogers works for Hamilton Dynamics, and Catherine herself got up to some shady stuff with her company, but there's no confirmation that Catherine was aware of Rogers's illegal experiments.
- Amnesiac Lover: A mutual example with Alice and Ocean, who were lovers on Coryana before Safiyah wiped their memories of each other. They're understandably awkward around each other when this starts coming back to them.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Sophie basically blackmails Ryan into installing Spyware on Angelique's phone to get to Ocean, otherwise she'll go to Blackgate.
- Armor-Piercing Response: Alice claims not to have emotional attachments while speaking with Safiyah. Safiyah points out that Alice is doing whatever possible to get her sister back, which actually manages to shut Alice up for a moment.
- Big Bad Ensemble: On top of Alice and Safiyah's power struggle and Black Mask running the False Face Society from the shadows, we have Dr. Rogers, who is willing to do whatever it takes to get the Desert Rose.
- Blatant Lies: Ryan tells a doctor that her injury came from a spider bite. The doctor later calls her in for more tests when he finds that the injury is radioactive. Of course, it could've been a radioactive spider, like that other superhero.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Jacob and Mary's argument over her clinic. She's been helping a lot of people who can't afford licensed medical assistance, but in doing so she's violated numerous laws, and since she hasn't finished her qualification as a doctor yet, she's technically gambling with her patients' lives.
- Car Fu: Aaron rams a truck into Jacob's car to incapacitate him and Mary.
- Chekhov's Gun: Luke tells Ryan that the Batsuit can administer a shot of adrenaline, and she uses it in the fight against Aaron.
- Covert Distress Code: Mary calls Luke and tells him that she needs help by calling him "Lucas" (which she never does) and asking him to come to the clinic "like a Bat out of hell".
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Ryan notes that her Kryptonite poisoning is likely to be a slow death.
- Determinator: Ryan is determined to keep fighting despite suffering from increasingly painful and likely terminal radiation poisoning. Luke is amazed at her resolve.
- Downer Ending: The map to Coryana is lost, Ryan's Kryptonite injury is revealed to be fatally poisoning her, Jacob wants to shut down Mary's clinic, and adding insult to injury, Ryan's relationship is on the rocks because she bugged Angelique's phone.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- When Ocean (not yet aware of their forgotten relationship) presents a theory that Alice might have been the one to steal the Desert Rose and framed him for it, Alice admits that she wouldn't do that, implying that selling out someone she loved would be a line even she wouldn't cross.
- Alice calls Safiyah "sick" for sending her to kill someone she once loved but can't remember. Safiyah also invokes this trope by saying that it would be telling Alice the details of her relationship with Ocean and then sending her to kill him that would actually be sick. Although she's happy to do so if Alice wants.
- Everyone Has Standards: Ryan has no fondness for Sophie, but she still can't bring herself to let her die.
- Faking the Dead: Alice and Ocean use a body double to make it look like she's killed him.
- Flashback: There are more detailing Ocean's and Alice's past. It's shown that Ocean is the one who trained her for Safiyah.
- Heroic Second Wind: Ryan using the Batsuit's emergency adrenaline shot to get back on her feet during the fight in the clinic.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: Ryan gives up the map when Sophie is held hostage.
- I Lied: Angelique claims that she can't abandon her job as a drug dealer due to knowing too many secrets about dangerous people. When Ryan later offers her an out, Angelique admits that she actually likes her job and doesn't want to quit, blatantly telling her that she lied earlier.
- Internal Reveal:
- Jacob finds out about Mary's clinic.
- Luke discovers that Ryan's wound is worse than she's been letting on.
- Ryan finds out about Luke's encounter with Alice two episodes earlier.
- Sophie lets Alice know the painting conceals a map to Coryana.
- I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Aaron threatens to kill Jacob if Mary doesn't give him the cure.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Jacob is a bit harsh in shutting the clinic down, but he's not at all wrong to point out that it's illegal in a number of ways and that Mary isn't yet a qualified doctor. Although this is a bit hypocritical given that Jacob and his Crows have also operated outside the law.
- Kick the Dog:
- Ryan takes a couple of shots at Sophie, asking if she's ever been in love (Ryan knows she has; Sophie told Batwoman in the previous episode that Kate is the love of her life), and pointing out that unlike Sophie, she fights for people she loves (a shot at how Sophie's romance with Kate ended).
- Safiyah sent Alice to kill Ocean knowing full well about their past romance. Even Alice thinks this is "sick".
- Lampshade Hanging: An irritated Jacob reflects on how yet another of his daughters was living a double life he had no idea of.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: Ocean points out to Alice how nonsensical the thought of him framing Safiyah for killing Kate sounds.
- Made of Iron: Jacob is barely even annoyed when Aaron stabs him in the side with a scalpel.
- Mood-Swinger: Aaron, due to his brain cancer impacting his amygdala.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr. Rogers, the Hamilton Dynamics scientist overseeing experiments on the Desert Rose serum, is willing to continue human experiments even when attempts to transfer the serum keep killing the patients. Then, he sends an unhinged patient (whom he himself made unstable by experimenting on him to deal with his emotional problems) to threaten Mary and Jacob in order to find out where the serum came from.
- Moral Myopia: Ryan blatantly refuses to work together with the Crows or listen to Luke's reason for working together with Alice, but at the same time tries to make excuses for Angelique's criminal behaviour because she loves her.
- Mythology Gag: Kryptonite being lethal to humans has its roots in the comics, where Lex Luthor contracted terminal cancer from carrying around a piece of Kryptonite for years.
- Never My Fault: As Ryan notes, despite Angelique apologizing for her arrest, she hasn't actually changed her ways, showing that she isn't taking responsibility for it. Angelique also justifies her choice of career by saying that, unlike Ryan, she was never adopted, framing a criminal activity that she admits that she enjoys as a necessity while also refusing any attempt by Ryan to get her out of it.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: As Mary feared, Jacob finding out about the clinic spells the end of her practice; no matter how many lives she's saved or how good her intentions were, the clinic is very much illegal (Jacob specifically cites practicing medicine without a license, impersonating a doctor, and possessing narcotics as Mary's crimes while they argue about it).
- "Not So Different" Remark: Jacob tells Mary that she and her mother are this, due to both using illegal methods to save lives.
- Oh, Crap!: Ryan is horrified to learn that there's radiation in her injury, and it gets worse when she researches Kryptonite and realizes that the poisoning is likely terminal.
- Papa Wolf: Jacob attacks Aaron to protect Mary.
- The Reveal:
- Ocean got exiled by Safiyah for trying to steal a Desert Rose.
- Ryan's Kryptonite injury isn't just severe, it's causing terminal radiation poisoning.
- Sadistic Choice: Batwoman has to choose between the map to Coryana (knowing that, in addition to finding Kate, she needs the Desert Rose to cure her Kryptonite poisoning) and saving Sophie's life. She hesitates for a moment, but hands it over.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Angelique breaks up with Ryan after finding out about her installing spyware on her phone.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Sophie points out to Ryan that Angelique is this to her. Given Angelique's unrepentant attitude towards wanting to keep on dealing, she isn't exactly wrong.
- Tragic Villain: Aaron Helzinger, who suffers from brain cancer which impacts his amygdala, causing constant, violent mood shifts. He wants nothing more than to be cured from his horrible condition.
- The Unfavorite: Mary feels like she has always been this to Jacob. But at the end of the episode, she tells him that she now actually prefers being ignored, as opposed to her stepfather taking away the one thing that matters to her (her clinic).
- Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- Dr. Rogers wants the Desert Rose to cure horrible diseases, and he doesn't care how many lives he has to go through to get it, even threatening Sophie at gunpoint to secure a map to Coryana.
- Jacob characterizes the late Catherine as one, seeing her as a person who always tried to do the right thing, but went too far. He's worried that Mary's illegal clinic means she's on a similar path.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Ryan is furious that Luke is basically allowing Alice, leader of the gang that murdered her mother, to run loose in order to use her to find Coryana.
- Worf Had the Flu: Both Batwoman and Jacob are at considerably less than their best while fighting Aaron; Ryan is suffering from terminal Kryptonite poisoning, which already incapacitated her earlier in the episode against two ordinary robbers, while Jacob is fighting through a stab wound.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Ryan acts as if she is in pain and needs her meds for Angelique to leave the room, so she can install the spyware on her phone.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Luke notes that Mary never calls him Lucas when she has to call him to bring over the map to Coryana to her clinic, letting him know she and her dad are being held hostage.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Ryan determines that the Kryptonite poisoning in her wound is likely to be fatal.
