With Kate back from the dead, Ryan starts to question her own place in the general scheme of things. Black Mask raises the stakes dramatically. Safiyah and Alice cross paths again.

Another week, another episode where Ryan Wilder starts to feel like an interloper in the role of Batwoman and questions whether it might not be best if she just walked away and left everyone else to it. I really thought perhaps we had got past this. Oh well.

Yes, Kate Kane is ‘back’ and Mary and Luke couldn’t be happier, fawning over her and having cosy little get togethers at Wayne Tower while poor old Batwoman is left to her own devices trying to sort out the increasingly scary situation perpetuated by Roman Sionis and his False Faces in the streets of Gotham. It’s enough to make a girl feel positively unwanted. Again. Sigh.

In truth, the writers had little choice as far as Kate goes – if you are going to bring back a character whose absence left such huge holes in the lives of the rest of the cast, it only stands to reason that their return should be a big deal. It just feels a little like we’ve trodden this same path with Ryan several times before now, where she feels like the odd one out and instead of fighting to say ‘Hang on a moment, I’ve made this fight my own and I’ve been doing the job well enough for months now’, she just decides that everyone would be much happier if she slipped away.

Still, that isolation is put to interesting narrative use. Turns out that when a rich psychopath has the police on his payroll, and the inside track on your secret crime-fighting identity, looking into him on your own isn’t the smartest idea. Javicia Leslie acts her socks off in this one, as Ryan finds herself in a situation not unfamiliar and potentially deadly, trying desperately to get someone to listen to her before it’s too late. Bravura stuff indeed, even if I don’t love how we got there.

Meanwhile, Alice is extremely sad because her boyfriend is dead, and sensing weakness, Safiyah reaches out to her with an offer. Pleasingly, Alice isn’t quite done yet. I had rather started to worry about this new ‘domesticated’ version of the character that seemed to be emerging and it’s good to see a bit of the old Alice fire is still burning.

As the episode barrels onward toward its conclusion, Mary, Sophie and Luke get treated to the most obvious reveal ever and Ryan gets the opportunity to once again stand there saying ‘Told you so’. While that’s not all that satisfying, the plot that it’s fashioned to get us to is at least interesting. Turns out that several bad guys are making friends, and they have a plan for Gotham involving some relics from the past which might make the next few weeks very interesting indeed.

Verdict: Though it recycles a trope I feel we should have been long since done with by now, it gives the opportunity for some stellar performances and sets up an intriguing new plotline. Just please let this be the last time. 7/10

Greg D. Smith