Batwoman Review: If You Believe In Me, I’ll Believe in You (Season 1 Episode 18)
Batwoman Season 1 Episode 18, “If You Believe In Me, I’ll Believe in You,” pulls off a couple of twists. Neither is huge or earth-shattering, but both are decent game-changers that will affect Kate both as Batwoman and as Kate. And both are decently surprising.
It’s always great when a show can pull off smaller twists. They are still surprising and have you curious about what will happen next, but the twists aren’t super dramatic.
With some twists, the initial shock value is the most important thing, and that’s not the case here. The fallout will be the most intriguing, and, with Julia’s twist, it won’t be immediate. We will have to wait and see. There’s a level of suspense there.
Batwoman is showing that it knows how to craft good storytelling and give us smaller, more personal dramatic moments.
Let’s focus on Reagan’s twist for a bit, shall we?
When she first pops up, it’s like a happy coincidence, but as soon as we see the journal get knocked out of Kate’s bag, the alarm bells start going off.
Alice: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again. But he was an egg and never should have been sitting on that wall in the first place, and, honestly, what were a bunch of horses going to do?
The twist that Reagan is Magpie’s sister is unexpected and very well done. This twist calls into question all of Reagan’s motivations, although she does seem genuinely bummed that she’s losing a girlfriend, so some of it had to have been real.
There’s also no way that Reagan doesn’t know Kate is Batwoman. She brings up the coincidence of being around Batwoman when Kate’s around, and seeing how we now know that there’s more to Reagan than meets the eye, she has to know. Right?
While we know that Reagan is acting out of loyalty to her sister, Julia’s loyalty is now a bit of a mystery.
She’s always had an element of intrigue to her, being employed (or so we thought) by a foreign agency, but now there’s really some intrigue there because she’s been lying to everyone. It’ll be interesting to see when everyone learns more about her true employer.
All in all, this is a fun hour. The bat team is in full force, and it’s amazing to see everyone being utilized. Between Kate having actual backup and Mary and Luke working together, it feels like a more well-rounded mission.
It is a little sad that mobsters are able to take out not only Julia but also Kate. Granted, the mobsters were warned and prepared for this, but the fact that both are down for the count seems a bit much. Julia and Kate are badasses, right? Shouldn’t one of them have gotten away?
I can understand the trap for Kate working well (although, how is she subdued for that long and not struggling/fighting/escaping?), but Alice couldn’t have known that Julia was going to be tagging along. So the full team capturing Julia is overkill, especially considering how fast they are able to get to her.
Narratively-speaking, Julia is captured so Mary gets called in and the secret about Julia can be revealed. Both could have happened without Julia’s capture and interrogation, but maybe I’m expecting too much out of Kate and Julia. What are your thoughts?
In addition to the bat team being well utilized, the villains are as well.
Batwoman makes use of all of Batwoman’s villains just sitting in Arkham — rather Alice does. This is not only a nice callback to earlier on in the season, but it also allows us to see just how brilliant and devious Alice is.
Tommy: If you can’t trust your money launderer, who can you trust?
The slight issue here is that this callback requires you to really remember Magpie.
Her first appearance — way back at the beginning of the season — was on Batwoman Season 1 Episode 4 “Who Are You?,” and Kate captured her during that very same hour. Since then, she popped up in therapy in Arkham, but it’s not super memorable.
So you have to dig back in your memory. It’s not essential to the plot to be able to recall every minute of her last appearance, but it does mean that seeing her pop up again as exciting as if she was a villain for the first half the season or something. We don’t know her that well.
Magpie’s re-appearance is more of a memory exercise than a delight, especially once the Reagan connection is announced. Once that happens, you are just trying to remember if/when Magpie and Reagan ever interacted or what connections between them we knew about.
Stray Thoughts
- Tommy continues to be delightful and brings some humor to the hour. It’ll be interesting to see him in villain mode as Hush.
- Who decided that being on a task force comes with a Men in Black level dress code? I’m not a fan.
- Mary and Luke in the Batcave is EVERYTHING. I’m excited for more of them working together.
- Kate delivers a pretty darn good apology to Mary.
What did you think of this episode of Batwoman? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Batwoman airs Sunday at 8/7c on The CW.
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Allison Nichols
Allison is in a love affair with television that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. Slightly damaged fictional characters are her weakness. She loves to spend her free time curled up with a cat and a show to binge-watch. Allison is a Tomatometer-approved critic (Rotten Tomatoes).