Batwoman Review: Arrive Alive (Season 2 Episode 11)
Ryan and Sophie are forced to team up to find Angelique on Batwoman Season 2 Episode 11, “Arrive Alive.”
This episode is all about the final moment where Sophie discovers Ryan is Batwoman. The reveal is in no way surprising as the hour makes it clear it’s coming. The obvious foreshadowing hurts this episode because we know what’s up, and this causes everything that happens leading up to the scene to become less important.
While we wouldn’t go as far as calling it filler, it definitely serves as a setup for the back half of the season. This means the episode repetitively spins its wheels during a few scenes.
We’re also not fans of the idea that both Sophie and Batwoman basically sacrifice the city by letting Black Mask just walk away. We don’t want Angelique killed, but sometimes heroes make hard decisions.
A major positive is that Meagan Tandy takes center stage, finally bringing some character to Sophie’s life. Considering how connected she is to the rest of the main characters, it’s ridiculous that it has taken this long for her to legitimately have something to do.
As Ryan says, we get “Fast & Furious: Gotham Drift” in this episode, which sees her work with Sophie when the Crows once again prove themselves to be inept. Sophie sets Ryan up as a getaway driver for False Face, so they can discover where Angelique has been taken.
The show really wants us to invest in the possibility of Ryan and Sophie. The problem is, they’re both still in love with their exes and, more importantly, they don’t have chemistry.
There’s no heated will they/won’t they expectations with these two. They have agreed to coexist and that’s as far as they should go right now. Maybe down the road, they can become friends, which would be far more interesting than a romance.
It’s a little insulting that they’ve decided the two Black lesbians on the show need to be a couple. Ryan and Sophie are the relationship equivalent of a square peg in a round hole.
If Batwoman is committed to making this happen, the series needs to slow down and let things progress organically. For example, having them work as a team in a fight with Black Mask.
Jacob Kane continues to be the worst, and the drugs aren’t helping. After her undercover operation gets blown by Batwoman, he pulls Sophie, putting Agent Tavaroff in charge.
The look he gives Sophie when she walks into Kane’s office tells us everything we need to know about him.
He’s a cowboy who obviously resents taking orders from a Black woman. He uses a tragedy, along with Kane’s weakened state, to get ahead. Any woman who’s ever been in a supervisory position has dealt with a Tavaroff. He’s most definitely going to be Black Mask’s mole.
Sophie is the last “daughter” Jacob has but Snakebite is leading him to push her away. He’s insufferable under the best circumstances, so with no one to care about him or monitor his behavior, he will only get worse.
We’ve given up on ever liking Jacob but for the sake of Mary, we don’t want to see him give in to his worst impulses and destroy himself in the process. Plus, we still like Dougray Scott and want better material for him.
Speaking of the fractured Kanes, Alice commands Enigma to erase Kate from her memory. Turns out forgetting your twin isn’t that easy, so she sends Alice on an emotional psychological journey, that leads to a confrontation with a very alive, very mad Ocean.
If this story revolved around any other character we honestly wouldn’t care. Alice makes everything infinitely more interesting, however, the show loses us when Ocean comes back into her life.
It’s not that we don’t want Alice to find love, it’s that we don’t trust Ocean. We also feel that this focus on her love life is burying some of the traits that make her character so uniquely captivating.
The fact that she’s not a mustache-twirling villain or a stereotypical psychopathic killer is the reason we enjoy Alice so much. Boiling her mental issues down to “she doesn’t know how to love,” is uncreative and unworthy of such a great character.
There’s no question Sophie finding out the secret will change things. We just hope it’s for the better. Batwoman has done a fantastic job covering new ground in Gotham City this season. We hope adding Sophie into the mix of the team doesn’t throw off the cool dynamic they’ve built up.
What did you think of this episode of Batwoman? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Batwoman airs Sundays at 8/7c on The CW.
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Stephanie Holland
Stephanie Holland is a nerdy lover of Star Wars, Disney, Doctor Who, Arrowverse, Star Trek and WWE. Is living the dream of turning a lifelong obsession with TV into an actual job. Still waiting for a reboot of the '80s classic Small Wonder.