TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Batwoman Season 2 Episode 7: You Best Stop Digging

I feel like I’m getting more and more bitter about Batwoman season 2 with each episode, and I can sum it up with “You Best Stop Digging” with a single thought. In the climactic finale of the episode, Ryan fought Alice…and I was rooting for Alice. Granted, I knew Ryan wasn’t going to kill Alice for various reasons, but I still wanted to kick her butt because her motivations and “logic” for wanting to kill Alice was ludicrously put and Alice had a much better fleshing out episode in one shot than Ryan has all season.

Let’s backtrack a bit. “You Best Stop Digging” had a multi-prong attack going on here. As Alice came and pulled a switch in order to get Tatiana to spill the beans on what Safaiyah did to her, and while some of it was a bit basic, the twist at the end was very nice. Alice also became human again through Ocean. She was going to move on with her life like he suggested, but then Safaiyah grew jealous and turned on the “hate switch” that led us to the Alice we know (and love). And you could tell that it hurt when she found that out. Just as much as it hurt when Ocean told her to “live her life” the second time and she knew that any chance for a relationship with him was indeed gone.

Alice throughout the episode was a treat, especially as she constantly teased Tatiana and beat off her various barbs. Especially the “I found my mom’s head in the freezer” line, that was great.

Meanwhile, I liked seeing Jacob back in action and trying everything he could to go and find the map to get Kate back, even when every attempt ended in failure. He too showed great pain in regards to how everything was crashing around him. From Katherine’s secrets continuing to bite him, to losing another chance at Kate, to coming to terms about WHY Katherine lied to him, I wish we would get more of his story out there this season.

As for Ryan…what can you say at this point? She’s getting stories that are crafted to make her “feel worthy” of the Bat-mantle, and yet the writers are playing it really weirdly to try and get that point across. For example, the Kryptonite going into her brain scene was interesting because of her hallucinations, and I honestly wish we got more of her and her “mother” together because that very much gave her more depth. If you think about it, we honestly haven’t seen too many scenes of them together, and yet we’re supposed to care that she was killed by the Wonderland Gang?

Second, it was just sad that Ryan’s only thought with death on her door was to go kill Alice. That right there shows she’s not worthy of the bat mantle, and then she even tried to invoke it to sway Mary to let her kill Alice. Except, Kate wore that mantle and only killed once on accident, not with intent to murder. And Batman…well, I’ll get to him. Then for her to go up against Alice and hallucinate her mother telling her “that’s not how I raised you” and suddenly realizing, “you’ll never be worth it!” was just…so dang forced.

Oh, and then her with the “tracker”? When did that happen? Replay the fight and you’ll see that there was only one time she had access to her boot and that was BEFORE her “revelation”. And yet it was framed like it was her “plan all along”. No it wasn’t. Not even close.

Now, some might draw comparisons’ to Batman V Superman (a relevant comparison with the Snyder Cut coming this Thursday) to how Batman wanted to kill Superman to “save the world”. Here’s the difference. Batman was slowly manipulated into believing that Superman was the “ultimate threat to the human race”, something that tracks with the comics via the Babel Protocols (aka, his infamous contingency plans). The movie just took it to the next level via making it his “dying wish”. He knew he COULDN’T wear that mantle anymore because it wasn’t enough, so he wanted to do “one thing worthwhile” before dying, and that was killing Superman. He stopped though when he realized via the “Martha” scene that Superman was just as human as he was because his last thoughts were about his mother. Ryan stop because she hallucinated her mother and suddenly realized, “oh, she might not want this for me.”

What’s more, Batman PLANNED for his attack on Superman and executed it to a T, Ryan was injured, rushed in, de-masked, and Alice still owned her until plot armor gave her the upperhand.

And at this point, while we likely won’t get Kate back (or even see her based on recent statements…), it would really behoove the writers to move away from this “feud” of Ryan’s so that she can grow in some meaningful ways versus going and trying to force things to make us like Ryan better. Because after this episode? Alice was much more sympathetic, understandable, and downright rational, than Ryan, and that’s saying something.