Batwoman has a new sidekick, but don’t call him that and also maybe he needs to work out some kinks first. Mary prepares for her graduation ceremony. A new villain with a dangerous obsession arises. A sharp investigator may prove troublesome to Team Bat.

Kate who? After a maiden season in which she kicked ass but too often felt like she was playing in the shadow of her predecessor, Javicia Leslie’s Ryan Wilder finally gets to be front and centre with no distractions. Aside from new sidekick Luke, still undecided on a superhero monicker and having a few intermittent issues with his suit. There’s no sign here that the male co-star might end up overshadowing the show’s lead, so breathe easy, Bat-fans.

The pair are working together to try to recover all the super villain artefacts that went missing from the Batcave at the end of last season, but whereas they round up a few, more remain and one finds itself in entirely the worst hands – those of Alice’s biggest fan. A man who thinks Alice has been done wrong isn’t who you want in charge of an artefact that can control people’s minds, but this is Gotham, so here we are.

Meanwhile, Mary is getting ready for her graduation ceremony having (of course) finished top of her class and therefore being due to give a speech. But again, this is Gotham, so you can’t realistically expect that to go off without a hitch. The hitch itself is really quite shocking, albeit admittedly a little over the top, and the only solution turns out to be… yeah you’ve guessed it, an alliance with Gotham’s craziest criminal mastermind.

I would drop points off the show for dragging out another ‘Oh no, only working with Alice can save us now’ plotline right out of the gate, but truth be told, Rachel Skarsten has always been one of my favourite cast members in the Batwoman ensemble and the way in which she gets to develop the character of Alice is always interesting. Here we see a different side of Alice, no longer feigning madness but potentially actually starting to slip loose from reality for real, and how that plays out and the way in which she responds is compelling viewing indeed.

That said, everyone here is very much on their ‘A’ game, whether it’s Nicole Kang’s Mary playing through some horrifying mind-control sequences with real conviction, Meagan Tandy’s Sophie finding her new space in the world or indeed Camrus Johnson as Luke, treading a fine line between excited energy and perhaps a slightly less confident side. Crowning it all is Leslie as a stronger, more centred Ryan than we’ve been allowed to really see to this point, and then to really give us the cherry on the cake an old DC favourite walks into the middle of everything with specific intent and the ability to blow up everything Team Bat have worked for if they so choose. Life in Gotham is about to get very interesting indeed…

Verdict: Punchy straight out of the gates and promising a lot of interesting sub plots to come over the season. I’m here for it. 9/10

Greg D. Smith