Ryan and Marie are forced to keep Team Bat running on their own as Luke needs time to himself, which is rather inconvenient with a familiar enemy stalking Gotham’s streets. Jacob and Alice try to retrieve Kate from under the layers of conditioning imposed by Enigma.

What will a Gotham without The Crows look like? That was a question I had hoped the show might want to deal with after Jacob Kane’s blockbuster announcement to the press at the end of last episode. Instead, the show chooses to focus its attention mostly elsewhere, though that doesn’t mean it’s not a fun watch.

Jacob and Alice working together to try to retrieve Kate’s mind and memories from under the false identity grafted over them by Enigma, for example, is almost worth a whole episode of its own. I didn’t think it would really be possible to redeem Alice in any meaningful way but the writers have a damned good go here, as Jacob is made to reckon with the reality of why his damaged daughter is the way she is, and the strength of character it took for her to have even survived what she went through. Add in Ocean introducing himself ever so politely to ‘Mr Kane’ and it’s so domestically adorable that you too may briefly forget that Alice is a sociopathic mass murderer. Almost.

Meanwhile, Ryan and Mary are forced to try to deal with Gotham’s latest problem – a hooded, sword-wielding killer who is working their way through victims – on their own as Luke is too busy trying to work through his feelings. Those feelings mainly being anger at being brought back and robbed of the chance to see his father on the other side, and being forced to continue to live in a world where a man who looks like him can be unlawfully shot by a law enforcement officer with no apparent consequence.

Yes, Tavaroff is already out on bail and it’s looking increasingly likely that he won’t be facing anything more grievous than some inconvenience. If you think that might make Luke mad, as well as reckless, well you’d be right. Fortunately he turns out not to have to face the consequences of that recklessness alone, as a familiar face from over in Star City turns up with some words of wisdom.

Meanwhile that sword-wielding killer turns out to be someone we’ve seen before – Alice’s past actions are catching up to her with surprising rapidity and Batwoman faces an unholy dilemma given that Alice/Beth seems to be the best chance of getting the real Kate Kane back. Jacob meanwhile continues his miserable streak of luck at getting caught by bad guys only this time he’s in the hands of someone really clever and really powerful. And as the episode winds to a close we begin to see after all just what a Gotham without The Crows might look like – spoiler alert, not necessarily the massive improvement we might have hoped for.

Verdict: An interesting episode which asks some deep questions, even if they aren’t always the ones you might expect. 8/10

Greg D. Smith