Kate struggles with her public identity as Batwoman. Mary tries to help Jacob's defense for trial. Alice celebrates her successful revenge.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Vesper Fairchild complains that by coming out, Batwoman has mixed politics with superheroes. Vesper is voiced by Rachel Maddow, who is herself a political commentator and an out lesbian.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- It's not clear whether the "Alice" Mary saw at the university was just her seeing things (an understandable result of the stress she's been under), or if it was the second Beth that Kate meets at the end of the episode. Although, it was most likely the second Beth given the different hair color and style compared to Alice.
- The nature of the second Beth is very unclear; she claims to have just been on sabbatical and seems very confused about Kate's hostility towards her, raising the question of whether she's an imposter making up a story, a result of the cosmic Reset Button of Crisis, or something else entirely.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: How Alice treats Catherine's death, having a tea party with Mouse by her grave, which she pours bad tea on and spits cake on. Although it's raining, Alice tells Mouse that "the sunshine is implied" because Catherine is dead.
- Anti-Villain: Parker never intended to hurt anyone; at first, she just wanted her parents to show that they cared about her, and later, she just wants to leave Gotham to get away from her troubled school and home life.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Dr. Campbell, a plastic surgeon Mary approaches to back up her theory about Mouse, says that, in a world that's not only seen all the stuff going on in The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, but just had the entirety of Supergirl shoved into everyone's memories as well, Magic Plastic Surgery is "science fiction." Although, to be fair, most of the weirdest events aren't public knowledge, and those that are may be thought of as exaggerated to someone who doesn't live in Central City or National City.
- Artistic License – Physics: Everything about the Trainstopping is completely wrong. First, Batwoman secures her grapple to a railroad tie and the train's rear door. Even if we assume her grapple could withstand the force of the train moving at speed, both the railroad tie and the rear door never could. The line would either tear through the door or out of the tie without any appreciable effect. Even if all three held, all the people inside would still retain their inertia once the train stopped and go hurtling forward much harder than they actually did. It's exactly the same problem as Not the Fall That Kills You…, but horizontal rather than vertical. The scene would be more plausible if the cable gradually slowed the train, but this isn't what happens.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: When Sophie is talking with Batwoman in a darkened warehouse:Sophie: Ever feel like you're hiding from the world?
Kate: I'm literally standing in a shadow. - Bait-and-Switch: Parker didn't actually out Kate and Batwoman, she just disguised the message and informed the GCPD about the bomb planted by Alice.
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Alice spent the first half of the season trying to get Kate to accept that she's no longer Beth. In this episode, when she's trying to get Kate to join her, Kate finally tells her to her face that she doesn't accept her as her sister anymore.
- She also begs Kate to accept her for who she is. Kate does; naming her sister as an evil lunatic who would be better off dead.
- A possible version when Kate blows out the candle on her birthday cupcake and Luke says he hopes her wish will come true. We don't know what Kate wished for, but if it was to get Beth back...
- Be Yourself: Done as a Gay Aesop and lampshaded during Kate's narration.
- Birthday Episode: Downplayed. The episode starts two days before Kate's birthday, and ends on the day of, which is only marked by Luke giving Kate a homemade cupcake.
- Black Comedy: After finding a razor blade in his food, Jacob then has a prisoner try to muscle him. Jacob tells the man to help himself (though we're not shown if he did).
- Brick Joke: Apparently Kate really did fire the guy at the front desk who let Mary in for a Frappuccino, because Beth is introducing complaining about his absence.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Alice's plan to out Kate as Batwoman revolves around Parker spreading the word, so her death threats against Parker carry little weight.Parker: If you kill me, you lose.
Alice: As do you, because you'll be dead. - Coming-Out Story: Batwoman publicly reveals herself to be a lesbian after refusing to kiss Slam Bradley.
- Continuity Nod: Appropriately, the Crisis is brought up. Vesper Fairchild even mentions Oliver Queen's death. And the reveal of Batwoman's sexual orientation is shown to have earned the cover of CatCo Magazine, with the article written by Kara Danvers, now that Kara and CatCo exist on the same Earth as the rest of the Arrowverse. The magazine also has an article about Lena Luthor being spotted in Gotham, and another about S.T.A.R. Labs.
- Continuity Snarl: The first four episodes of the season took place several months before the Elseworlds crossover, and the next four episodes before the Crisis. This episode brings the series up to the present day, taking place after the Crisis, yet everyone is acting like Alice's murder of Catherine just happened recently. Although given that several Cosmic Retcons happened during the Crisis, this is possibly justified.
- Cool Bike: It finally occurs to Luke that having Batwoman fooling around on Kate Kane's motorcycle is a recipe for having her identity sussed out, so he has provided a new motorcycle for superheroics.
- Didn't Think This Through: Parker inexplicably tries to run past Alice instead of away from her. One guess what happens.
- Diving Save: Done as Book Ends; first Slam Bradley saves Kate, then Kate saves Bradley. Their Suggestive Collision leads to In-Universe Shipping.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Parker Torres, aka "The Terrier", hacks all the screens in Gotham a few times.
- Double Standard: The entire city is eagerly shipping Batwoman with Slam Bradley but it's only the moment she outs herself as lesbian that's treated as a problem by Vesper.
- Dramatic Unmask: In-Universe for Parker, when Batwoman removes her disguise to reveal the well known lesbian real estate CEO Kate Kane.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Alice doesn't see Kate being Batwoman as anything but her pretending to be a hero, and assumes that Kate will immediately join her if she's publicly unmasked. She also doesn't understand why Kate is angry over Alice planting a bomb beneath a gymnasium full of teenagers.
- Evil Is Petty: Alice celebrates Catherine's death by having a tea party at her gravesite and pouring tea over her tombstone.
- Failed Attempt at Drama: Batwoman rappels down into a student dance hall and demands to know which one of them is the Terrier, only to be mobbed by students looking for selfie with Batwoman.
- Fair Cop: The handsome and heroic Slam Bradley.
- Forced Out of the Closet: Parker's girlfriend didn't accept that Parker was still in the closet and demanded that she come out to her parents. When Parker wouldn't out herself, her girlfriend revenge outed her. The poor girl's parents are homophobic and now her life is miserable.
- Gayngst: Parker struggles with how her parents and classmates treat her for being gay, but some encouragement from Kate helps her overcome this.
- Have a Gay Old Time: The intentional version with the episode title.
- Hypocrisy:
- After Batwoman outs herself as gay, Vesper Fairchild is heard bitching about her going "political". Seems odd given that the media - probably including Vesper - are the ones who started it by speculating about her love life.
- When Batwomen suggests to Sophie that she might want to take her mask off, Sophie snarks, "Look who's talking."
- Idiot Ball: Parker inexplicably tries to run past Alice instead of away from her. One guess what happens.
- I Have No Daughter!: Parker's parents disowned her for being a lesbian.
- Incompatible Orientation: Slam Bradley is interested in Batwoman, and much of Gotham ships the two of them until Batwoman outs herself as a lesbian.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: The mayor insists they have the hacker situation under control. Parker hacks the live feed to superimpose her logo over his face and displays his credit card number just to prove him wrong.
- Internal Reveal: Gotham's populace is informed that Batwoman is gay.
- Irony:
- When Kate is annoyed at everyone Shipping her, Luke says they just want their heroine to be happy. Which as Kate points out, is exactly what she's not—given that her stepmother is dead, her father is in prison, her stepsister is estranged from her and she's broken off relations with Sophie.
- Alice just wants her sister to accept her for who she is, like Parker wants with her own family. Of course things are different when instead of being gay, you're an evil murdering psycho.
- Right when Kate accepts that Alice is no longer Beth, another Beth turns up in her office.
- I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Alice reveals she has a bomb set up to blow up the dance when Parker refuses to out Kate on threat of death alone.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique:
- Sophie is seriously on the edge, pistol-whipping and threatening to shoot the Russian hackers while interrogating them.
- Parker tries sassing Batwoman only for a batarang to slam into the paper towel dispenser next to her head.
- Jerkass Realization: Parker, after realizing that Batwoman, whom she railed against as being unable to understand her, is a lesbian too.
- Karma Houdini: Downplayed. Parker endangers 450 people on a train through a cyberattack, extorts the city for millions of dollars, and doxxes the Mayor, but only has to return any money she received and perform 150 hours of community service (though this is part of an ultimatum by Kate, that if Parker doesn't comply, she will be sent to juvie).
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Alice is finally arrested.
- Mistaken for an Imposter: When Beth turns up at the end, Kate grabs her sister's face and pulls painfully on her skin, naturally assuming it's Mouse in disguise.
- Moral Myopia: Alice assumes that Kate would appreciate Catherine's death and Jacob's downfall as much as she does, and is blindsided by the fact that all it did was make Kate hate her.
- Mythology Gag:
- The "Scarecrow incident" involving a train is a reference to Batman Begins, where Ra's Al-Ghul used a railway to disperse Scarecrow's fear gas throughout Gotham.
- Slam Bradley is a private detective in DC Comics.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Forcing Batwoman to unmask only convinces Parker to sabotage Alice's plan, as she instantly recognises Kate Kane as a lesbian from an article she read on her real estate business. Instead she alerts the Crows to her location and Alice gets captured.
- Noodle Incident: Luke mentions a "Scarecrow incident" as being why Gotham's trains were redesigned to make their brakes analog and unhackable.
- Not Me This Time: The Russian hacker group Sophie interrogates is not the one behind the recent hackings.
- Not so Dire: In which wretched hive of scum and villainy lurks the hacker who is holding the entire city to ransom? Gotham Prep.
- Offscreen Breakup: Downplayed. After her marriage was on the rocks in the midseason finale, Sophie reveals in this episode that it finally crumbled.
- Only Sane Man: Mouse of all people points out the fact to Alice that Kate is never gonna join her, after everything she did, and he is proven right.
- Properly Paranoid: It's pointed out that Batwoman outing herself is a step closer to revealing her Secret Identity; sure enough Sophie is shown studying the article with a thoughtful look.
- Psychological Projection: Alice projects her issues with Jacob and Catherine onto Kate, assuming that she feels the same way about their father and stepmother as Alice does. She also rants for a moment about Batwoman saving people "who don't want to be saved"; the only one who fits this criteria is Alice herself.
- Pun-Based Title: Another Alice in Wonderland-based title, with "queer" referencing both Batwoman's coming out and the sudden twist of a second Beth showing up.
- Razor Apples: Jacob discovers a razor blade hidden in his prison food. Whether this was done by the prison staff or the vengeful inmates isn't revealed.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kate tells Alice straight to her face that she's pure evil and that the world would have been better off if Beth had stayed dead.
- Rescue Romance: Averted Trope
- When Slam saves Kate the public starts shipping them together, and when Kate saves Slam, the bystanders start chanting for them to kiss and are disappointed at Kate's pointblank refusal.
- A subtle version, but when Parker turns up the next day at her office, Kate makes a point of setting boundaries—making sure Parker doesn't stand too close, firmly dismissing Parker at the end of their conversation but saying she's welcome to come back and talk about her issues—to make it clear she's willing to act as a mentor and not a potential romantic interest for a girl who's still underage.
- The Resenter: Mary is obviously still pissed at Kate, but at the end of the episode reconciliation seems a bit more close, with the two hugging each other.
- Samus Is a Girl: The hacker, who Kate soon dubs "The Terrier", is actually a high school girl named Parker Torres.
- Sanity Slippage: Both Dr. Campbell and Sophie suggest that Mary might be seeing things (Alice in particular) due to her loss affecting her mental health.
- Secret-Keeper: Parker becomes this for Kate's identity as Batwoman when Alice forces her to unmask herself.
- Shipper on Deck: The entire city gets on board with Slam Bradley and Batwoman being an item. Even though Luke suggests going along with it to further distance Kate from her Batwoman persona, she outs Batwoman as a lesbian at the end to keep from being something she's not.
- Shout-Out:
- Kate and Luke compare Slam Bradley, the cop who first rescues Kate and later gets rescued by her, to Captain America, even more specifically the Chris Evans version.
- Kate also mentions Mr. Robot.
- A commuter in the beginning mentions he has tickets to Jagged Little Pill.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Poor Mary takes a break from her Instagram accounts because she receives heaps of online abuse from people for her mother being supposedly corrupt and her step-dad being accused of murdering Catherine.
- Skewed Priorities:
- Kate is annoyed that despite her saving a train full of people, all the media are talking about is Batwoman's supposed relationship with Slam.
- Despite still being in mortal danger, Parker takes a few moments to chat with Kate after she unmasks, much to Alice's annoyance.
- Take That!:
- The show takes a huge swipe at all the shows and movies that are still just taking baby steps with gay representation, as Parker says all she has to look forward to is "an ancillary character on a TV show."
- Vesper Fairchild complaining about Batwoman mixing superheroes and politics is likely a jab at internet commenters who make similar complaints every time there's even a hint of LGBTQ+ representation in superhero stories.
- Talk to the Hand: Kate's "No. Just… No" Reaction to a Smooch of Victory from a grateful Slam Bradley, to everyone's disappointment.
- Trainstopping: Kate does this at the beginning, with nothing but a grappling hook.
- Wham Shot: Kate walks into her office to be greeted by a version of Beth who isn't Alice.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: The police officer who helps Kate is named Slam Bradley. Although it's quite possible that Slam is a nickname as with the comics version of the character, Samuel "Slam" Bradley.
- Would Hurt a Child: Alice is willing to cut up Parker with a buzzsaw and also has a bomb ready to blow up dozens of celebrating teenagers.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Parker staged the train accident as a way to evoke sympathy for her from her homophobic parents.
