After the brief high of posing as Batwoman, Ryan finds herself back to the daily grind of her life. But a new devious plan from Alice might mean she has to put on the cape again.

OK, so you lost your lead right after you’d laid out the groundwork for a whole second season involving her, you pushed ahead with the show anyway and re-cast. But you can’t just have the beloved symbol of justice in Gotham be forgotten easily. It’s a tough gig, I get it, but it’s hard to feel like Javicia Leslie isn’t saddled with a part that thus far is keeping her very much in her predecessor’s shadow.

First the episode has to get some housekeeping out of the way and it feels a little heavy-handed. Wilder has a ‘criminal’ past that involved her having been convicted for a crime she didn’t actually commit. But it also transpires she’s had run ins with the Crows enough times after that that she not only knows Sophie, but they’re on first name terms(ish). In the wrong place at the wrong time (again), Ryan finds herself on the receiving end of another round of ‘Justice Isn’t For Black People’, which feels clumsily put together and unnecessary. We’ve already introduced the character, we already know her backstory and we have seen that she can handle herself – why do we need this?

Then it gets even worse – Alice does another one of her incredibly fiendish plans that will put huge numbers of lives in danger and there’s a need for Batwoman. And Wilder is right there saying ‘Fine, suit me up, I’ll do it’ and somehow for other characters this is some sort of debate that needs to be had, while they still moon over how sad it is that the ‘real’ Batwoman isn’t here. Good job that things relating to Alice don’t come with built in ticking clocks…

Effectively it starts to feel like the script is requiring its new star to prove herself all over again, as if the things she did in episode 1 just weren’t enough. It’s almost like the show is auditioning Leslie in real time, and it starts to feel a little off-putting.

As to the actual meat of the plot, Alice’s plan is the usual wheels-within-wheels stuff, of the type we have come to expect. Her real target indicates that just like every other character in the show, she’s really pining for Kate, and that doesn’t help with the whole sense of inertia to proceedings.

And yes, everyone else is pining. Jacob is predictably refusing to make the mistake of giving up on a missing daughter again, Luke seems positively fixated on the fact that Kate and only Kate can be Batwoman, and Sophie and Julia’s relationship is divided by the twin chasms of Julia’s having kept secrets from Sophie and Sophie still having unresolved feelings about her ex.

By the end, it feels like maybe the show is finally ready to move on and let its new star be its new star, only there’s one last clanger as the script decides to have her do one more thing that is basically what her predecessor did. You know, just in case we forget who the original Batwoman was.

Verdict: Hopefully it’s got it out of its system and Leslie can just crack on with being the Batwoman now, but this feels like an unnecessary entry and it suffers for not letting the new lead breathe in the role. 6/10

Greg D. Smith