08th May2020

‘Batwoman 1×18: If You Believe in Me, I’ll Believe in You’ Review

by Jason Brigger

Stars: Ruby Rose, Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Nicole Kang, Camrus Johnson, Elizabeth Anweis, Dougray Scott | Created by Caroline Dries

Batwoman changes pace this week and goes from a villain-of-the-week story to a heist storyline and the change of pace makes for a fun episode.

Batwoman kicks off the episode by breaking up a human trafficking ring that specializes in selling humans (still alive!) in order to harvest their organs. Batwoman beats up some nameless thugs that attack ninja-style, but in the process, the ringleader is able to escape. I’m hoping more is done with this group as a gang selling humans for organ harvesting is pretty dark and actually could be a way to connect the series to Black Lightning.

Mary, now knowing Kate’s secret, brings champagne to Kate’s office after Batwoman returns from making her crime-fighting rounds. Mary tries to make her point for joining the team, as she even has ideas to update the Batwoman suit in order to protect Kate from close contact with villains. Unfortunately, Kate is no mood to celebrate since the ringleader escaped and she advises Mary that she won’t let her join Team Batwoman as Kate wants to protect her step-sister.

The majority of this weeks Batwoman focuses on everyone racing to find Lucius Fox’s journal that contains all of Bruce Wayne secrets. Elliot, aka Hush, agrees to work Alice and Mouse, who is still disguised as the head doctor at Arkham Asylum, in exchange for a new identity when he escapes from Arkham. In true Alice fashion, Elliot’s procedure for a new face is only halfway completed until Alice receives the journal.

On the other side, Team Batwoman, after failing to find the journal at a police storage unit that seized all of Elliot’s personal contents, discover the journal was stored in a safe and guarded by Elliot’s money launderer, Johnny Sabatino (Carmine Giovinazzo), at one of his nightclubs.

Team Batwoman goes into sting mode at the club, as Julia and Kate team-up to find the journal, while Luke runs point in the Batcave. While at the club, Kate runs into her former girlfriend (seriously, where aren’t her girlfriends!), Reagan, and they continue their flirtatious ways. If this episode brings Reagan back into the series in a more regular role, I’m all for it. Heck Kate, just hire Reagan as your bartender at your own club!

Julia and Batwoman are both captured; Julia by security after turning the electric off, and Batwoman after she is knocked out picking up the booby-trapped journal that was just sitting in plain sight on Sabatino’s desk. Sabatino decides to auction off the unconscious Batwoman to Gotham’s crime families. He also backstabs Elliot and decides to keep the journal for himself, but it’s a good thing Hush is working with Alice, as she planned for that and releases the master thief, Magpie, in order to retrieve the journal. The series is now leaning heavily into the Rogue’s Gallery of villains and I’m in.

With both Julia and Batwoman captured, Luke needs a socialite to infiltrate the club, a task Mary is happy to take on. Mary fakes her way through the bouncers by pretending to be Johnny’s cousin and during the impromptu auction, Mary bids $10 million for the vigilante.

Mary convinces Sabatino that Hamilton Technology, her mom’s company, doesn’t care about Batwoman, but they do care about the technology in Batwoman’s suit. Sabatino doesn’t really care as long as Mary has the cash to pay but since Mary only wants the suit, Sabatino wants to kill Batwoman. Luke creates a distraction, Mary’s money blowing up, allowing Batwoman and Julia to both escape their confines and take down Sabatino and his friends.

With all the commotion, Magpie was able to sneak into Sabatino’s office and steal the journal. Unfortunately for Magpie, her victory is fleeting as Batwoman stops her from escaping, that is until Magpie throws the journal off the roof. While Batwoman recovers the journal, Magpie is able to escape and is now another villain running around Gotham.

The status quo changes for Batwoman as Kate welcomes Mary into Team Batwoman, along with all their secrets, while Kate goes home with Reagan. The twists? Let’s break them down:

  • Reagan is a criminal and was hired by Magpie to steal the journal from Kate, which she does.
  • Julia is lying about working for a government agency and actually went rogue and is working for a mystery person. My guess? Bruce Wayne is alive and hired Julia as his spy to monitor Gotham.
  • Lucius Fox’s journal ends up in Alice’s hands but holds a secret…it’s all written in code so no one can decipher it. That part actually made me laugh.

One Good Thing:

  • The majority of the cast was used well. Outside of Sophie having nothing to do this week, and Jacob only having one scene in which he realizes he can never help his daughter, Beth/Alice, again, the rest of the cast was heavily involved in this week’s story. The writers have started to expand on each character’s strengths and the series is finding it’s groove. The writers seem to have found what works and either removed the parts that didn’t work earlier in the season or have limited the characters that tend to “bog” down the series…I’m looking at you Jacob and Sophie. Overall, this episode felt like a change of pace for the series and possibly a move in the direction of a team-up type superhero series, similar to Arrow.

This Episode’s Grade: B (Good)

Batwoman continues to be a fun series and while there were some twists this week, none of the twists seemed farfetched or a twist just to have a twist. The status quo seems to be changing for Batwoman as Kate’s team becomes larger, the writers have moved onto a more interesting chapter in Kate and Alice’s relationship, and more and interesting villains are starting to appear in the series. Overall, the first season has been a joy to watch and I’m interested in seeing how they wrap up the season in the next few weeks.

You can catch Jason Brigger on the geek-centric podcast, The History of Bad Ideas, as new episodes are released every week at www.nerdly.co.uk or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and other podcasting apps. You can listen to their latest episode right here.
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