Sophie's first case comes back to haunt her, leading to a team-up with Ryan and Mary.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Arthur has no issues with putting his daughter's life on the line for his twisted games.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Stephanie skipped grades and graduated from MIT. She went to a normal college at the normal age in the comics. In fact, this is ripped right from the origin story of Marvel's Ironheart!
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Stephanie Brown is blonde in the comics but in the show she’s a redhead.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Alice begs a drugged up Jacob to save her, lampshading how desperate she has to be to be calling him for help, though he is in no shape to respond properly.
- Ambiguous Situation: Whether or not Kate and Circe are supposed to be Identical Strangers. Kate technically now has Circe's face, but Alice still recognizes her for who she really is. It's not immediately clear whether this is because of the face itself or if Kate's eyes (which Alice seemed to recognize beforehand) looked more familiar to Alice in the context of a real face instead of a mask.
- Big Damn Heroes: Luke saves Stephanie from getting gassed to death by her father in a car, alongside him.
- Big Damn Kiss: Luke and Stephanie share one in the end.
- Birds of a Feather: Mary, Ryan and Sophie all instantly notice sparks flying between Stephanie and Luke.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Arthur Brown says, "We'll be back after a word from our sponsors" before a commercial break.
- Bruce Wayne Held Hostage: This is exploited by Sophie, who knows full well Ryan is Batwoman and suggests calling her to trick Ryan.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Alice leverages her skills in making skin masks to make Circe a mask of her original face, which will require maintenance that only she can provide.
- Defiant Captive: Played with. While Alice talks back to Sionis and plays her usual mind games, she is still terrified about being at his mercy and clearly wants to escape, as the guy is psychotic enough to just kill her on a whim.
- Despair Event Horizon: Mary lampshades this about Jacob when she explains to Ryan about his addiction to Snakebite.
- Driven to Suicide: After realizing that his daughter is smarter than him, Cluemaster knocks her out and tries to gas her to death, alongside himself.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Sophie realizes that Cluemaster's game is unwinnable, as he wants her to die.
- Flashback: To 5 years ago, with Sophie visiting Arthur Brown in prison after catching him.
- Fingore: Alice tears out one of her nails to escape her restraints.
- Geeky Turn-On: Basically all of Stephanie and Luke's interactions.
- Gilligan Cut: Ryan at first refuses to share drink with Mary and Sophie, then she says it will only be one. Cue cut to them playing "Never Have I Ever".
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Black Mask points out how Alice used to be the most powerful crime boss in the city, and now she is just a victim at his mercy.
- Internal Reveal:
- Ryan learns that Sophie is lesbian, not bi, as she previously assumed. She also learns about Jacob's addiction.
- Sophie tells Ryan that she knows the latter is Batwoman, and Ryan tells Sophie how to enter the Batcave.
- Alice realizes that Circe is actually Kate. She also realizes that Roman Sionis is Black Mask, because that's the only reason someone would go to that much trouble for Circe.
- Irony:
- Jacob is so high on Snakebite and hallucinating his two daughters playing on swings together that he ignores a phone call from Alice, asking for help from Black Mask.
- He also dreams of his children together, not knowing that they are already reunited due to Alice being a hostage.
- Finally, he overdoses and ends up in Mary's clinic, the very clinic that he tried to shut down.
- Irrational Hatred: Mary calls out Ryan for hers of the Crows, as she won't even work together with Sophie when both of their lives are on the line. It gets her to reconsider.
- It's Personal: Cluemaster wants to take revenge on Sophie for imprisoning him.
- Jerkass Realization: Ryan finally realizes that she has been treating Sophie with more mistrust and disdain than she deserves after Sophie reveals that she knows Ryan is Batwoman yet hasn't compromised her identity.
- Just in Time: Sophie provides Ryan with the grappling hook to save herself and Mary from Cluemaster's trap less than 20 seconds before the bomb detonates.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Batwoman's rant against the Crows agents ready to shoot her include telling them how badly they suck at their jobs, a sentiment shared by many, many fans.
- Mood Whiplash: Mary, Ryan and Sophie are actually shown having fun answering Cluemaster's questions to buy themselves more time before getting blown up.
- Moral Myopia:
- Alice is very angry at Ryan for abandoning her at the hands of Black Mask, especially after Alice saved her. However, she seems to forget that the reason Ryan left is because Alice is a violent murderer who she can't trust and holds responsible for the death of her mother.
- Ryan complains to the Crows about their incompetency when they get in her way at the beginning of the episode...only to do the exact same thing to Sophie throughout the episode when they work together.
- Mythology Gag:
- Stephanie says, "Spoiler alert", a reference to one of her comic counterpart's superhero identity.
- Stephanie's purple outfit towards the end of the episode resembles her Spoiler suit from the comics.
- "You have our father's eyes." is more of a Continuity Nod this time as Alice discovers that the new "Circe" is actually Kate after she makes a near-perfect replica of Circe's face into a mask (the real Circe had brown eyes while Wallis Day kept her real blue eyes for the role of Kate).
- Only Sane Woman: Mary sets Ryan and Sophie straight multiples times, when they care more about arguing instead of catching the deranged madman.
- The Queenpin: Black Mask calls Alice this.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ryan gives one to a bunch of Crows in the beginning, telling them how much they suck at their job (after they just blew up her plan of tracking Black Mask).
- The Reveal: Circe Sionis was trampled to death during the Arkham breakout, and Alice knows this one is a fake because she was part of the trampling.
- The Rival: Judging by his snide remark, Cluemaster obviously regards the Riddler as this.
- Secret-Keeper: Sophie vows to keep Ryan's identity a secret.
- Shout-Out: Stephanie makes a riddle for Luke to solve her name, using the first letters of several strong, fictional women, namely Shuri, Tiana, Evie, Pepper, Hermione and a few others (it gets cut short after that).
- Spotting the Thread: Alice recognizes that "Circe" can't be the girl in the photo, as she has a different eye colour, plus Alice remembers running over Circe's body in Arkham. She then recognizes Kate by her eyes, after looking closer.
- Stealing the Credit: Not quite stealing in Sophie's case, as she took the credit for solving Cluemaster's riddle on behalf of his daughter because Stephanie asked Sophie not to reveal her involvement.
- Tap on the Head: Stephanie knocks out Luke to protect him, so she can confront her father alone.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Sophie and Ryan can barely tolerate each other through most of the episode, trading passive-aggressive comments at best and outright insults at worst. Thankfully, at the end of the episode they start trusting each other for real.
- Title Drop / Visual Title Drop: It first appears on the wall of Arthur Brown's cell, but he also says it a few times.
- The Unreveal: Kate's burned face isn't shown, probably for the best anyway.
- We Can Rule Together: Arthur wants his daughter to become his partner-in-crime.
