A new Snakebite variant causes a horrifying new problem for Gotham City. Ryan, Sophie and Luke get on the wrong side of the law. Alice seeks out a way to get her sister back.

Batwoman gets really dark this week, and in fairness, the horrifying side effects of ‘New’ Snakebite and the sewing on of a new face to Roman Sionis’ ‘daughter’ are possibly the least of it.

Ryan is struggling to keep her personal life and her secret identity going at the same time – same old, same old, we’ve done all this before. But things really go sideways when an *ahem* ‘over-enthusiastic GCPD officer turns up in The Hold Up as they hold a fundraiser to investigate a ‘noise complaint’. Ryan responds to this blatant provocation as you might expect, with Luke unable to stop her and suddenly they’re both in a holding cell, swiftly joined by Sophie, when she confronts the same officer.

Three of our main characters stuck in a cell for a large part of the episode might not sound great, but it actually allows for some important character beats. First off, these are three characters who have more in common than perhaps any of them have really allowed for, and this shared experience helps all of them to start coming to that realisation. Secondly, the whole experience proves a big catalyst in a later decision taken by Sophie.

But while Batwoman is locked up, flesh-craving nightmares are stalking the city and the police can’t cope. By the time the three are released, things have gone really badly wrong, and it’s as much as any of them can do to try and right things. Thank goodness Team Bat also includes Mary.

It’s Mary who manages to figure out what’s going on, between treating various victims of the bitey attacks, examining an affected Snakebite user who essentially hands himself in to the clinic and dealing with her father. Real talk: if Jacob Kane is expecting his youngest and most caring daughter to easy on him about his new habit, he’s barking up the wrong tree. The way the interactions play out between the two of them are excellent, as Mary gives him the reprimand he desperately needs and he starts to really see and respect what it is that she’s been doing with the clinic these last few years.

Meanwhile, Sophie, in her capacity as acting Commander of the Crows, dispatches them to help with containing the ‘zombie’ issue, but with Tavaroff leading the effort in the field, things are never going to go smoothly. Shoot first and then forget the questions seems to be this guy’s motto, with tragic consequences more than once as the episode unfolds.

Against this backdrop, Alice’s struggle to find out exactly how to reverse her sister’s brainwashing might seem trivial, and in all honesty it sort of is. Wisely, the writers don’t spend an awful lot of time on it, and the episode speeds through what it has to. Interestingly, it does set up a nice set of philosophical questions for Alice by the time it plays out, and I look forward to seeing where they go with this next.

Given how starkly the episode (and the series to date) addresses the issues of racial profiling and the vast disparity in treatment of people of colour versus white people by law enforcement, the final scene hits home all the harder, and elicited a series of expletives from even this seasoned reviewer. When I said this goes dark, I wasn’t joking. I really hope the writers’ room fully commits to what they’ve started here, and evidence thus far gives me confidence they will.

Verdict: Possibly the darkest and most genuinely harrowing but also one of the absolute strongest instalments of the show to date. Important and heartfelt stuff, with the whole cast giving it their all. 9/10

Greg D. Smith