Batwoman Season 2 (2021) 🦇

New Batwoman, same Gotham-shaped headache

🎬 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

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Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

So today we’re moving on to Batwoman Season 2, which aired in 2021, and good lord, this season is somehow both a reboot and a continuation at the same time.

That alone should tell you the problem.

Season 1 ended with Kate Kane as Batwoman, played by Ruby Rose. Then behind the scenes, Ruby Rose left the show, and instead of just recasting Kate right away and continuing the story cleanly, the show decided to create a brand-new character named Ryan Wilder, played by Javicia Leslie.

And look, I’m not against the idea of a new person becoming Batwoman. That can work. Legacy heroes are a normal comic book thing. People take up mantles all the time. The problem is how messy this whole transition feels.

Because Season 2 has to do way too much at once.

It has to explain where Kate Kane went. It has to introduce Ryan Wilder. It has to make Ryan feel worthy of being Batwoman. It has to keep Alice involved. It has to continue the Crows storyline. It has to deal with Gotham’s corruption. It has to bring in Safiyah. It has to bring in Black Mask. It has to deal with False Face Society. It has to handle the fallout from Season 1. It has to awkwardly move around the fact that the original lead character is gone.

That’s not a season. That’s a pileup.

The basic setup is that Kate Kane disappears after a plane crash, and Ryan Wilder, a homeless young woman with a troubled past, finds the Batwoman suit and starts using it. She becomes the new Batwoman, while the rest of Team Batwoman is grieving Kate and trying to figure out what happened.

On paper, Ryan’s story could be interesting. She’s not rich. She’s not part of the Kane family. She’s not connected to Bruce Wayne. She’s someone Gotham actually failed. So there is an idea there: what if Batwoman came from the people Gotham ignored instead of from Gotham’s elite families?

That could work.

But this is still Batwoman, so instead of cleanly building that idea, the season throws in twenty different directions and hopes one of them lands.

And spoiler alert, not many do.

This season also introduces Black Mask / Roman Sionis, played by Peter Outerbridge, and honestly, he should be a way bigger deal than he ends up feeling. You have a major Batman villain, you have Gotham crime, you have a new Batwoman trying to prove herself, and somehow the whole thing still feels like CW soup.

Alice, played by Rachel Skarsten, is still one of the better parts because Rachel Skarsten continues acting like she wandered in from a better, weirder show. Mary Hamilton, played by Nicole Kang, is still likable. Luke Fox, played by Camrus Johnson, gets more to do. Ryan Wilder has some potential. But the season as a whole is a mess.

It’s not just bad because they replaced Kate.

It’s bad because replacing Kate exposed how shaky the show already was.

Season 2 is the show trying to rebuild the plane while it is actively crashing into Gotham Harbor.


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Character Rundown

Ryan Wilder / Batwoman, played by Javicia Leslie, is the new lead of Season 2. She is introduced as someone living out of her van, struggling with her past, and carrying a lot of anger toward Gotham’s systems. She is not part of the Kane family. She is not a billionaire. She is not Bruce Wayne’s cousin. She is just someone who finds the Batwoman suit and decides to use it. That is probably the strongest idea behind this season. Ryan being an outsider could have given the show a fresh identity. She has a different relationship with Gotham than Kate did. Kate came from power and privilege. Ryan comes from being abandoned, failed, and ignored. That contrast could have been really interesting. The issue is the writing still feels clunky, and the show is so busy trying to prove Ryan is Batwoman that it sometimes forgets to let her naturally grow into the role.

Kate Kane, originally played by Ruby Rose and later played by Wallis Day, is the giant missing piece of the season. Kate’s disappearance drives the early story, and the show spends a lot of time dealing with whether she is dead, alive, missing, or being hidden somewhere in the plot’s junk drawer. Eventually the role is recast with Wallis Day, but by then it feels like the show is already committed to Ryan Wilder as the new Batwoman. So Kate becomes this weird ghost hanging over the season. She is gone, then not gone, then recast, then written around. It’s messy.

Alice / Beth Kane, played by Rachel Skarsten, continues being one of the strongest parts of the show. Rachel Skarsten still brings the most energy. Alice is chaotic, theatrical, damaged, and tied to the Kane family trauma. Season 2 gives her more backstory involving Safiyah and Coryana, and while not all of it works, Alice is still usually more entertaining than the hero side of the show. That says a lot when the villain keeps feeling like the most watchable character.

Mary Hamilton, played by Nicole Kang, remains one of the better characters. Mary is still compassionate, still running her clinic, and still trying to hold everyone together emotionally. She is also one of the characters who actually feels like she has a heart. In a show full of people being dramatic and messy, Mary often feels like one of the only people who would actually ask, “Hey, is everyone okay?” which in Gotham apparently makes you a unicorn.

Luke Fox, played by Camrus Johnson, gets more development this season. He is still the tech guy and the Batcave support, but Season 2 starts pushing him toward a bigger heroic role. His connection to Lucius Fox and the Bat legacy becomes more important, and this is where the show starts setting up his future as Batwing. I actually think Luke had potential, but again, the writing around him is uneven.

Sophie Moore, played by Meagan Tandy, continues being part of the Crows and remains tied to Kate, Ryan, and Gotham’s law enforcement drama. Sophie has some decent moments, especially as she starts questioning the Crows more, but she is also still dragged through a lot of the show’s relationship and identity drama.

Jacob Kane, played by Dougray Scott, is still leading the Crows, but by Season 2, the Crows feel even more like a broken system the show wants to critique. Jacob is grieving Kate, spiraling emotionally, and dealing with the consequences of what his organization has become. His character becomes more tragic this season, but also more frustrating.

Roman Sionis / Black Mask, played by Peter Outerbridge, is one of the major villains of Season 2. He is the head of the False Face Society and a classic Batman villain. In theory, Black Mask should be terrifying. He should feel like a brutal crime lord who owns Gotham’s underworld. Peter Outerbridge has presence, but the show’s version of Black Mask still suffers from CW villain syndrome. He should feel bigger, nastier, and more dangerous than he does.

Circe Sionis, played by Wallis Day through the Kate Kane storyline, is tied to Roman Sionis and one of the season’s biggest twists. I won’t spoil the full details here, but this is where the show tries to merge Kate’s disappearance with Black Mask’s storyline, and yeah, it gets very comic-book soap opera.

Safiyah Sohail, played by Shivani Ghai, is another major figure this season. She is connected to Alice’s past and the island of Coryana. She has power, secrets, and history with Alice. The problem is that the Safiyah/Coryana storyline feels like it should be huge, but the execution is kind of underwhelming.

Angelique Martin, played by Bevin Bru, is Ryan’s ex-girlfriend and is connected to Gotham’s drug/crime storyline. She exists to tie Ryan emotionally to the street-level side of Gotham, but the relationship drama is very CW.

Victor Zsasz, played by Alex Morf, appears this season, and honestly, he is one of the more entertaining villain appearances because at least he has personality. Zsasz is one of those villains where the actor seems to understand the assignment more than the show around him does.


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Pacing / Episode Flow

Season 2’s pacing is a mess because the season is trying to do too many things.

The first chunk is about Ryan becoming Batwoman and everyone trying to figure out what happened to Kate. That should be enough for a season on its own. A new Batwoman steps in while the old one is missing? That’s a strong setup.

But then the show adds the kryptonite wound Ryan gets from the batsuit, the Desert Rose cure, Safiyah, Coryana, Alice’s backstory, Jacob’s spiral, the Crows corruption, False Face Society, Black Mask, Circe, Snakebite, Kate’s return, Luke’s arc, Ryan’s biological mother setup, and probably five other things I’m forgetting because this season is built like someone dumped every plotline into a blender and forgot the lid.

There are moments where it feels like the season is finally finding direction with Ryan. Then suddenly we’re back to Kate. Then Alice. Then Safiyah. Then Black Mask. Then the Crows. Then Ryan’s ex. Then another Bat-family reference.

It never breathes.

And because the original lead actress left, the season has this weird feeling where it’s both trying to move on from Kate and also constantly talking about Kate.

That is hard to pull off, and this season does not pull it off smoothly.


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Pros

Javicia Leslie does bring a different energy as Ryan Wilder. She feels more scrappy and grounded than Kate. Ryan being someone who comes from Gotham’s lower class instead of the billionaire Bat-family world is a good idea.

Rachel Skarsten as Alice is still one of the strongest parts. Even when the writing is nonsense, she gives Alice enough personality to keep her watchable.

Mary is still likable. Nicole Kang keeps giving the show warmth it desperately needs.

Luke gets more development, and the idea of him becoming Batwing is actually a decent direction.

Black Mask is a good villain choice in theory. Bringing in Roman Sionis makes sense for a Gotham crime storyline.

The idea of replacing Kate with a new Batwoman is not automatically bad. Ryan Wilder could have been a strong character if the season had been cleaner and more focused.

There are a few decent concepts here: Gotham failing people, the Crows being corrupt, a new hero trying to claim the symbol, and Alice dealing with more of her past. Those are all ideas that could work.


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Cons

The season is overloaded. There is way too much going on, and because of that, almost nothing gets enough time to fully work.

Kate Kane’s disappearance is awkward. The show has to explain why the lead character is gone, introduce a new lead, and then later recast Kate anyway. That is messy no matter how you slice it.

Ryan Wilder is not given a clean enough rise into Batwoman. She has potential, but the show rushes and forces too much around her.

The Safiyah storyline is underwhelming. It feels like it should be this huge, mysterious, powerful plotline, but it doesn’t land as strongly as it should.

Black Mask should be scarier. Roman Sionis is a major Batman villain, and this version feels limited by the show’s writing and budget.

The Crows storyline is exhausting. The show wants to critique them as a corrupt security force, but it drags.

The dialogue is still bad. This is still CW writing, and sometimes characters speak like dramatic social media posts wearing leather jackets.

The show still lives under Batman’s shadow. Even with Ryan as a new Batwoman, everything is still built out of Batman leftovers. The cave, the suit, the villains, the mythology, the missing Bruce, the references. It still feels like the show is screaming, “Batman was here once!” every few minutes.

And worst of all, the season feels like damage control. You can feel the show trying to recover from losing Ruby Rose, and instead of becoming stronger, it becomes even more chaotic.


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Final Thoughts

Batwoman Season 2 is one of the messiest second seasons I’ve seen from a superhero show.

It is not just a bad season. It is a season that feels like it is trying to survive a behind-the-scenes explosion.

Ruby Rose leaves. Kate Kane disappears. Ryan Wilder becomes Batwoman. The show tries to keep Alice relevant. It brings in Safiyah. It brings in Black Mask. It critiques the Crows. It recasts Kate. It sets up Batwing. It throws in drug plots, family twists, Gotham corruption, and Bat-villain leftovers.

And somehow, after all that, it still feels hollow.

There are ideas here that could have worked. Ryan Wilder as a new Batwoman from outside the Kane/Bruce world? Good idea. Alice continuing as a tragic villain? Good idea. Black Mask as a Gotham crime boss? Good idea. The Crows being exposed as corrupt? Good idea.

But the execution is just so messy.

It feels like the show is constantly trying to prove it deserves to exist, but every time it gets close to having an identity, it runs back into Batman’s closet and grabs another piece of lore.

This season is one giant “what were you guys thinking?” moment.

And honestly, after Season 1 already being bad, Season 2 did not fix the show.

It just changed the Batwoman and kept the chaos.


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Rating

0 / 10

Yeah, both seasons get a zero.

Season 2 has some ideas that are better on paper, and Javicia Leslie does bring a different energy, but the season is still a disaster.

This is not a clean reboot.

This is a superhero show trying to do CPR on itself while Gotham burns in the background.


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning

Alright, now we’re getting into everything. Kate’s disappearance, Ryan finding the suit, Safiyah, Alice, Black Mask, Circe, the Crows, Batwing setup, and the whole messy downfall.


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Spoilers

Season 2 starts with a plane crash.

Kate Kane is gone. Her plane crashes, and Gotham believes she may be dead. This is the show’s way of writing out Ruby Rose after Season 1, and right away, you can feel how awkward the situation is. The main character of the show is suddenly missing, and the whole season has to build itself around that absence.

Then Ryan Wilder finds the batsuit.

Ryan is living out of her van, struggling to survive, and she finds Kate’s suit in the wreckage. She puts it on and starts using it, partly because she wants power in a city that has given her nothing. That is actually a decent starting point. Ryan is not a Kane. She is not a Wayne. She is not rich. She is someone Gotham chewed up and spit out.

That gives her a different reason to become Batwoman.

Ryan also has a personal grudge against Alice because Alice’s gang was responsible for the death of Ryan’s adoptive mother. So when Ryan steps into the Batwoman role, she isn’t doing it for legacy at first. She’s angry. She wants justice. She wants revenge. That could have made her arc compelling.

The problem is the show immediately has to balance Ryan’s rise with everyone else grieving Kate.

Mary and Luke don’t accept Ryan right away because, from their point of view, she’s some random person wearing Kate’s suit. That makes sense. The suit belongs to Kate. The mission was Kate’s. So Ryan stepping in causes tension. But the show also wants us to accept Ryan quickly, so it’s constantly trying to push both things at once.

Kate is gone, but also Ryan is here, but also Kate might be alive, but also Ryan is the new Batwoman, but also the show isn’t done with Kate.

Pick a lane.

Ryan also gets injured by kryptonite because the batsuit had been pierced by a kryptonite shard during the plane crash. The wound starts spreading and poisoning her, which becomes part of the Desert Rose storyline. The Desert Rose is a rare cure-all plant from Coryana, the island connected to Safiyah.

And here is where the season starts getting messy.

Safiyah Sohail is built up as this mysterious powerful figure tied to Alice’s past. Alice spent time on Coryana, and Safiyah has a complicated history with her. Safiyah is supposed to feel like this dangerous, elegant, untouchable villain. But when the show finally brings her in, the storyline doesn’t hit as hard as it should.

Coryana should feel like a major location. Safiyah should feel like a major threat. The Desert Rose should feel like this huge mythical thing. But the execution feels cheap and underwhelming. It’s one of those storylines where characters keep talking like something is epic, but the show doesn’t make you feel it.

Meanwhile, Alice is still dealing with everything from Season 1. She’s still Alice, still chaotic, still theatrical, but Season 2 gives her more backstory with Safiyah and Ocean. Ocean, played by Nathan Owens, is connected to Alice’s past and becomes part of her emotional storyline. The show tries to explore Alice’s memories and what Safiyah did to her, including manipulating and altering parts of her past.

Again, there is a good idea here. Alice is a character built on trauma, identity, and manipulation. Her past with Safiyah should deepen that.

But because the season is so overcrowded, it gets buried under everything else.

Then there’s Jacob Kane.

Jacob spends the season grieving Kate and spiraling. He becomes addicted to Snakebite, the drug being pushed through Gotham. This is meant to show how broken he is after losing Beth, Catherine, and now Kate. On paper, that is tragic. Jacob is a man who built his life around control and security, and now everything has fallen apart.

But the Crows storyline is exhausting.

The show is clearly trying to critique the Crows as corrupt, violent, and harmful. Sophie starts realizing the organization is broken. Ryan has personal reasons to hate systems like the Crows because she was wrongfully convicted and failed by Gotham. So there is a social commentary angle here about policing, private security, corruption, and who gets protected.

Again, that could work.

But the writing is so heavy-handed that it often feels less like drama and more like the show is reading its own thesis statement out loud. Characters don’t talk naturally. They announce themes.

And that’s a huge CW problem.

Then Black Mask enters the picture.

Roman Sionis, played by Peter Outerbridge, is the leader of the False Face Society. He’s connected to the Snakebite drug trade and Gotham’s criminal underworld. He hates masks while also using masks, which is almost funny in a “sir, please look in a mirror” way. He becomes one of the main villains of the season, and he should be terrifying.

Black Mask is a major Gotham villain. He should be brutal, sadistic, and scary. He should feel like a crime lord who can make the entire city shake.

But here, he feels watered down. Peter Outerbridge does what he can, but the writing and CW limitations hold him back. This should feel like Gotham crime at its ugliest, but instead it often feels like a network TV crime plot wearing a Batman villain mask from Spirit Halloween.

Then we get the Kate Kane twist.

Kate is alive.

She survived the plane crash, but she was badly injured and unrecognizable. Roman Sionis has her, and he brainwashes her into believing she is his daughter Circe Sionis. Wallis Day takes over the role of Kate after reconstructive surgery changes her face.

This is comic book soap opera nonsense at maximum volume.

And look, recasting Kate this way is not the worst idea in theory. If Ruby Rose is gone and you still want Kate in the story, okay, fine. Have the character’s face changed after the crash. Comics do crazier things before breakfast.

But the problem is that by the time Kate returns, Ryan is already Batwoman. So now the season has to deal with two Batwomen: the original one who disappeared and the new one who has taken up the mantle.

That could have been fascinating if handled cleanly. Kate coming back and realizing someone else has taken her place could be a strong identity crisis. Ryan having to prove she isn’t just a temporary replacement could be strong too.

But again, the season is too messy.

Kate as Circe becomes part of Black Mask’s plan. Alice gets involved. Mary and Luke are dealing with the emotional shock. Ryan is still trying to establish herself. The show is juggling so many emotional threads that none of them land as strongly as they should.

Then Luke gets shot by a Crow officer.

This is one of the season’s bigger moments. Luke is shot while unarmed, and the show uses it as part of its critique of the Crows and systemic injustice. Luke nearly dies, and this pushes him toward becoming Batwing later. The moment is clearly meant to be serious and socially relevant.

And honestly, Luke getting more importance is one of the few decent directions. Camrus Johnson is good, and Luke becoming Batwing makes sense because of his connection to Lucius Fox and the Bat-tech side of the universe.

But like everything else, the season is doing so much that even this huge moment has to share space with five other plotlines.

By the finale, everything crashes together.

Ryan fully accepts herself as Batwoman. Kate starts recovering from the Circe brainwashing. Black Mask’s plan comes to a head. Gotham is in chaos because of Snakebite and the False Face Society. Alice has to deal with her own choices and relationships. Jacob’s Crows storyline collapses. The Bat-team shifts into its new form.

Kate ultimately decides to leave Gotham to find Bruce Wayne. And that basically wraps up her role for now.

So after all that, Kate Kane, the original lead, disappears, gets recast, gets brainwashed into thinking she’s a villain’s daughter, comes back, and then leaves again.

What was the point?

No seriously, what was the point?

If you were going to move on to Ryan Wilder, just move on. If you were going to bring Kate back, then commit to that emotional conflict. Instead, the season does both and neither. It spends all this time making Kate’s disappearance central, then makes Ryan the new Batwoman, then brings Kate back, then sends Kate away.

That is not clean storytelling.

That is narrative whiplash.

Ryan ends the season as Batwoman, and the show is clearly saying, okay, she is the lead now. Fine. But getting there was such a chaotic mess that it doesn’t feel as satisfying as it should.

And then the finale teases Batman villain trophies and items being loose in Gotham, setting up Season 3 with Poison Ivy-related stuff and other Bat-villain objects. Again, the show is going back to Batman’s toy box.

Because of course it is.

That’s the thing with Batwoman Season 2. It keeps trying to say Ryan is her own hero, but the show itself keeps clinging to Batman mythology like a security blanket.

The batsuit. The Batcave. Bruce Wayne. Hush. Black Mask. Crows. Lucius Fox. Batwing. Poison Ivy setup. Gotham villain trophies. It never fully escapes the feeling that it is a Batman show without Batman.

And that’s the problem.

Ryan Wilder could have been a clean fresh start. Instead, Season 2 is buried under the wreckage of Season 1, Ruby Rose leaving, Kate Kane’s absence, Kate Kane’s recast, Black Mask, Safiyah, Alice, Crows, Snakebite, and way too much CW drama.

This season is not just bad.

It is exhausting.

It feels like the show is constantly yelling, “We fixed it!” while actively tripping over another plotline.

And honestly?

No.

You didn’t fix it.

You just changed Batwomen and kept the disaster moving.

That’s why Season 2 also gets a 0 out of 10.

Because this is not a comeback.

This is a crash landing with a new paint job.