Luke has been shot, and is in the hospital comatose due to severe injuries. Tavaroff, the Crows agent who shot him, insists Luke had a gun, while false footage surfaces showing he did. Ryan races to show that's false with help from Mary and Sophie, along with exposing The Crows' corruption overall.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear if the Bruce that Luke meets is really a spirit (and therefore dead) or just a product of his subconscious.
- Bait-and-Switch: Luke seemingly crosses the Despair Event Horizon, ready to die and join his father. But then he wakes up.
- The Bus Came Back: Evan Blake/Wolf Spider returns in this episode.
- Call-Back: Sophie brings up the Detonator case when talking about the Crows' corruption.
- Car Fu: Tavaroff has his buddies ram Batwoman with their SUV after being ambushed by her in an alley.
- Combat Pragmatist: Tavaroff tries to strangle Ryan with a phone cord.
- Despair Event Horizon: In his subconscious mind, Luke admits to "Bruce" that he's become tired of living in a world where all the effort they put into making everything better proves to be not enough.
- Dirty Cop: Tavaroff and his crew turn out to not just be trigger-happy, they'll murder their boss for self-preservation. It's indicated the Crows is filled with agents of the same ilk.
- Disposing of a Body: Ocean does so with Enigma, especially after realizing who her father is—The Riddler.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Evan finds Luke cute.
- Even Evil Has Standards: One of Tavaroff's croneys is a bit hesitant when Tavaroff is about to kill Jacob.
- The Faceless: Lucius Fox's face remains obscured by light during the whole dream sequence.
- Frame-Up: The bodycam footage showing Luke being shot is photoshopped to show that he'd pulled a gun, when he really only had his cell phone. They also use that same gun to connect him to another crime. Ryan has to find the meta data with Sophie's help before it gets erased to show it's doctored. She's ultimately forced to abandon the search to save Jacob because the data is too disorganized to search quickly, but Jacob steps in after the fact to clear Luke.
- Framing the Guilty Party: Sophie belatedly realizes a rapist she caught the previous year that couldn't be legally convicted on the evidence had some fabricated to put him away. At the time she was just relieved, but now realizes it's a sign of how dirty the Crows have grown over time.
- Go into the Light: At the last second, Luke decides to see his father even though it will mean dying, but is pulled back to the world of the living just before they can meet.
- Hypocrite: Tavaroff tries to pull this card on Jacob, bringing up his own use of excessive force against Batwoman.
- Internal Reveal:
- Alice tells Jacob about Kate's situation so they can save her together.
- Tavaroff and his cronies learn that Jacob is addicted to Snakebite.
- It's All My Fault: Ryan blames herself for motivating Luke to step into danger.
- It's Personal: Ryan gets very pissed when she hears that Tavaroff is the one who shot Luke, due to his previous actions.
- Karmic Jackpot: Ryan ditches the meta data to save Jacob from Tavaroff, which convinces Jacob that the Crows have grown too corrupt to continue to exist. He announces that Luke is innocent, implicates Tavaroff, and disbands the Crows.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Tavaroff, after having spent the entirety of the series as a pure Dirty Cop, ends up being implicated and subsequently causes the downfall of the very organization he worked for.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Alice mocks the Crows' lackluster security after breaking into Jacob's SUV for the umpteenth time.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Tavaroff plans to make it look like Jacob died from a Snakebite overdose after learning he's addicted, for fear of losing his career. Ryan intervenes just in time to stop him.
- Misdirected Outburst: Ryan blows up at Sophie due to her own guilt regarding Luke getting shot.
- Mythology Gag: This isn't the first time that Bruce Wayne has appeared as a subconscious advisor to one of his allies.
- Near-Death Experience: Luke experiences a vision of Bruce's office with his father on the balcony and Bruce in front of the desk. Bruce explains his situation and tells him that seeing his father will mean passing on.
- Never My Fault: Eli, the carjacker from last episode, has the audacity to blame Luke for getting shot, as he didn't have to try and stop him from committing a crime, when Eli was clearly counting on the Crows believing the black man was the criminal.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Tavaroff, in a desperate attempt to save his own career, kidnaps his boss and convinces several other agents to help him. All this results in is a swift ass-kicking by Batwoman, and being the catalyst that convinces Jacob to finally disband the Crows.
- Pet the Dog:
- Alice tells Mary that Black Mask has it out for her, even though she doesn't have to.
- This, in turn, makes Mary tell Alice, someone she hates, that she knows about Ocean and everyone deserves love.
- The Reveal: Relatively minor, but Alice reveals that Engima was the daughter of the Riddler in this universe.
- Running Gag: Once again, Jacob is knocked out and taken captive. To make things extra fun, this time it's his own men! Shortly after, the Crows are disbanded completely.
- Also once again, there's someone hiding in the back seat of a vehicle in the Crows garage.
- Sadistic Choice: Ryan is forced to let the true Bodycam footage get deleted in order to save Jacob. Fortunately, justice still gets served.
- So Proud of You: Mary writes Jacob a text saying she is proud of him after he disbands the Crows.
- Spirit Advisor: Bruce appears in Luke's vision of purgatory.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After several scandals plaguing the organization, starting with the ambush on the first Batwoman, Jacob is forced to disband the Crows once there is an attempt on his life.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: Alice lampshades the truly ridiculous number of times she's broken into cars inside the Crows' garage, telling Jacob that it's perhaps evidence his organization wasn't all that great at their job.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Mary towards Alice. Despite everything she did to her, Mary still believes that Alice deserves to be loved.
- Technobabble: An airgapped computer is one which is completely isolated from other machines, and so cannot serve as an automatic backup. Plus, what Ryan and company are looking for is not the video metadata (which could at best prove Tavaroff was present at the time and place of Luke's shooting, something he never contested) - it's just the data, specifically the unedited footage.
- Turn in Your Badge: Jacob fires Tavaroff, who in turn tries to kill him.
- Very Special Episode: Like the previous one, this one deals with police brutality, corruption and systemic racism.
- We Need a Distraction: Mary (very awkwardly) distracts the two Crow Guards at Luke's door for Evan to successfully inject him with the Desert Rose.
- Wham Episode:
- Jacob disbands the Crows, once he learns how abusive and corrupt the whole organization has become, to his shame.
- Warren Christie appears as Bruce Wayne (the real Bruce Wayne this time, not a disguised Tommy Elliot) in Luke's vision of purgatory. The fact that he's a hallucination notwithstanding, this marks the first appearance of Earth-Prime Bruce Wayne in the Arrowverse (Kevin Conroy previously played an older Alternate Universe Bruce).
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Mary reacts this way to seeing Alice at Wayne Tower.
