As Luke hovers between life and death, the events surrounding his shooting act as a catalyst for some necessary truths to be confronted.

Luke getting brutally shot by Agent Tavaroff at the very end of last week’s episode felt shocking for a bunch of reasons. Luke is a pivotal character in the show, but also the one who is always the very furthest from violence. We know that police violence in America is an issue in the real world, and there are many high profile examples of people of colour encountering this violence, often fatally, when simply going about their lawful business. For a TV show – and a comic book-based one at that – to tackle the issue so bluntly and head on, feels brave in a way that it absolutely shouldn’t. But then the Batwoman writers’ rom has never shied away from difficult subject matter.

As Luke lies in the limbo between life and death in the hospital then, the real question becomes what will happen in the wake of this act of stark injustice. And in a city where one of our main villains has murdered dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of innocent people, will it even matter?

Well, yes. But although I am one hundred per cent on board with the destination of the episode, how it gets there is…. eh. Look, police violence is a real issue. If you are going to take that on, you need to take it on with the clear-eyed understanding that often the difference between a ‘good cop’ and a ‘bad cop’ is as ‘small’ as looking the other way when bad stuff is going down. Tavaroff has been a blunt instrument in the show since he barrelled in, he and his crew running over a suspect, shooting dead dozens of infected innocents and generally being as loudly obnoxious as possible. The issue is, he’s been the only one of his ‘crew’ we’ve ever really got a look at before this episode and suffice to say that although we see them all here, they’re all generally faceless and anonymous. Other than an earnest speech from Sophie as she pleads with Jacob Kane to look deeper into Tavaroff’s version of events, we don’t really get any sense of them other than a faceless blob of ‘henchmen’ (and women, well, woman) and therefore what we have feels like a cartoonish depiction of a real and awful problem.

Whereas that on its own might not be a dealbreaker, it permeates into Tavaroff and his friends’ actions when they start to realise that the gig is up. Instead of opting for nuance, taking the chance to watch truly bad and insidious people of the type that hide behind a badge and know how to use the system to cover their tracks, the show opts to just have them go full comic book bad guy and try to literally murder their way out of the problem.

So while Batwoman tries to deliver justice the only way she knows how, Mary does her best to try to save Luke’s life in the face of some fairly rudimentary opposition which forces her to enlist the help of a costumed vigilante to acrobat their way into his room but no, not the one you’re thinking. And honestly, I’m at a loss as to why, given how the Batwoman subplot that prevents it being her ends up playing out.

Against this backdrop we also have the increasingly tortured story of Alice trying to work out exactly how to have it all – her relationship with Ocean and her sister back (though still unclear as to why). It’s getting increasingly difficult to take Alice seriously as a character, and nothing her helps much.

As things wind up then, a momentous decision is taken which will literally change the face of Gotham for (hopefully) the better and it’s impossible to argue that overall, it’s the exact right destination to reach. It just feels like a bumpy road getting there, is all.

Verdict: Right result but questionable journey to get there. Some interesting stuff but not the show’s finest hour. 7/10

Greg D. Smith