‘Batwoman 3×02: Loose Tooth’ Review
Stars: Javicia Leslie, Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Nicole Kang, Camrus Johnson, Dougray Scott | Created by Caroline Dries
Batwoman continues their streak of adding former Batman villains to the series and this week we are introduced to Killer Croc. Plus, Alice and Batwoman become partners, Luke has issues he hasn’t addressed yet, and Ryan’s mother is revealed! It’s a lot, so let’s get to it.
What Happened This Week?
Long in the Tooth
After missing for two decades, the reptilian villain Killer Croc is back in Gotham and to announce his return, he devours two Gotham University students as they attempt to take a dip in the college’s swimming pool. The mystery that Team Batwoman must solve is if this is the original Killer Croc, aka professional wrestler turned murderer Waylon Jones, or if it’s another copycat like the Mad Hatter from last week.
While Batman felt pity for Jones and his disease that caused him to turn into a walking crocodile, the Gotham Police did not and supposedly killed Croc by dropping a bomb into the sewers of Gotham. First, that seems problematic for the city’s sewer department and second, how did the police get a missile? Back to the story, the only thing Batman was able to recover from Killer Croc was a single tooth so it’s possible the original Killer Croc is still alive.
Killer Croc is the perfect villain for the new team of Alice and Batwoman (thanks Detective Montoya!) to hunt as Alice knows a little thing about tracking murderers. Helping Batwoman also allows Alice to leave the confines of the Batcave where she is kept handcuffed for the majority of the day. Ryan doesn’t like working with Alice, but she realizes Alice has some good ideas about finding Killer Croc and brings her arch-nemesis along to find our villain.
Batwoman and Alice respond to a park where a girl named Whitney was taken by a giant crocodile into the sewers. Batwoman doesn’t think the girl is still alive, but Alice disagrees and promises to not stop looking for Whitney as she can relate to the missing girl and everyone giving up on her.
They enter the sewers and find Killer Croc’s father attempting to lure him out of his hideaway by hanging slabs of meat in the sewers. Croc’s father reveals his son, Steven, found Killer Croc’s tooth while fishing and accidently cut himself. As a result, Steven became infected and began to turn into a new version of Killer Croc.
Batwoman attempts to convince the father that she just wants to help Steven, but his father doesn’t believe her, especially with Alice in the picture. Steven’s father pulls out a shock stick and tases Batwoman, knocking her to the ground. Before Alice can respond, he pulls a gun on her and tells them that they won’t hurt his son. Upon hearing the commotion, Killer Croc arrives and pulls his father back into the shadows, killing him. This diversion allows Alice to take the shock stick and disable her ankle tracking bracelet, allowing her to escape.
Alice doesn’t get too far into her escape before she hears Whitney yelling for help. Alice turns around and finds her, but the missing girl has a hurt ankle and cannot run. Alice tells Whitney that while this situation may be awful, the only way Whitney will survive is by being strong and not relying on others. With that, Alice leaves Whitney in the sewers to fend for herself. Batwoman arrives in time to save Whitney and after a brief scuffle, Batwoman uses her grappling gun to capture Killer Croc. It’s an anti-climactic battle after teasing the brutality of Killer Croc all episode.
Alice escapes the sewers but finds Batwing waiting for her. After a short confrontation, Batwing injects Alice with thousands of nano-bots that can be tracked by any government satellite. Alice is placed back in Arkham Asylum and her future on Team Batwoman is in jeopardy…again.
Jada Who?
Ryan isn’t just Batwoman, vigilante of Gotham, no, Kate Kane also made her the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Ryan tells her team she was only CEO in name-only, which opens up so many questions for me like, who REALLY is running this billion dollar company with thousands of employees? It seems irresponsible that no one is truly make the decisions for a Fortune 500 company that many employees hinge their livelihood on, but I digress.
Jada Jet (Robin Givens!), the CEO of another billion dollar company, arrives unannounced to meet with CEO Ryan but Sophie has some unexpected news…Jada is Ryan’s mother. It’s cliché that the new business antagonist for Ryan is her mother but the presence of actress Robin Givens gives the reveal a pass for now. Jada gives a warning to Ryan that someone in Wayne Enterprises is attempting to steal secrets from Jada’s company and she will not stand for corporate espionage. Jada advises Ryan that she only warns people once and being ignorant to her company’s actions does not give Ryan a pass. It’s a tremendous scene and adding Givens to Batwoman gives another strong actress to it’s cast.
Later on, Ryan returns the favor by paying an unexpected visit to Jada’s company and while Jada threatens her again, Ryan admits this is more of a personal visit. With that, Ryan drops the bombshell that Jada is her biological mother, and she knows Jada gave Ryan up as a baby.
Quick Notes:
- Luke and Mary discover the reason for the glitches in the Batwing suit is a fail-safe when the suit thinks the person inside is injured. Mary convinces Luke to allow her to run a series of medical tests on him to confirm he really isn’t injured but after reading the results, Mary concludes the Batwing suit is not protecting him from physical pain, but the psychological pain Luke is going through ever since he was shot.
- Upon investigating Poison Ivy’s recovered plant from last week, Detective Montoya realizes it’s a fake and Ivy’s plants are still missing and somewhere in Gotham. This also means a copycat of Poison Ivy will be introducing herself to Gotham soon.
Episode Grade: B- (Good)
Batwoman’s second episode didn’t disappoint, and the arrival of Killer Croc was a nice surprise. The CGI for Killer Croc was good for network television standards and didn’t take away from the episode, unlike the Solomon Grundy CGI from Stargirl a few weeks ago. The episode also introduced Jada Jet who is not only Ryan’s mother but looks to be a new antagonist for Team Batwoman and with Robin Givens portraying her, it will add another solid actress to the cast. Overall, it was a fun episode and while the confrontations between Alice / Batwing and Killer Croc / Batwoman were short and disappointing, one can think this was done on purpose to tease future confrontations between these four characters.
