Alice continues to spiral as she obsesses over gaining the Joy Buzzer and leaving her past behind. Ryan, Sophie and Jada must work together to try to put an end to Marquis’ schemes, but will they be able to outwit him in time?

To say that there was a lot going on in this episode would be an understatement, and though it does go over some well-worn themes that the show has covered before, it mostly succeeds in what it’s aiming for.

The most prominent of those themes is Alice’s continuing descent into even deeper insanity. We’ve seen her hallucinate before but those visions are on a whole new scale now, fuelled by her absolute desperation to finally rid herself of her demons and become the girl she once was. What’s interesting here is that Alice, who always has some sort of angle, actually doesn’t. Did all that time with Mary really have a profound impact on her? Could we really be seeing Gotham’s Queen of Crime trying to genuinely turn over a new leaf?

Speaking of Mary, she has issues of her own, and here I don’t actually agree with the overall arc the show elects to take. Mary has always been a moral centre to Team Bat – the knowledge that she is responsible (however accidentally) for the death of an innocent man is something which rightly weighs heavy on her mind. Unfortunately, just as the show has her make up her mind to do something real about that guilt, the writers hand her a get out of jail free card, and worse, she seems perfectly willing to take it. I’m not going to get into the relative morality of what happens and how it plays out but suffice it to say this isn’t the Mary we’ve known and loved so far.

Meanwhile, with Marquis still on the loose, Jada and Ryan join forces (with a reluctant Sophie too) to try to recapture him and make use of the Buzzer before he can do any more harm. Unfortunately, between Alice trying to get the Buzzer for her own purposes and Marquis’ obsession with righting the many wrongs he sees the world having done to him, things get complicated very quickly. And then… well, then the show just takes a turn for the silly.

Look, comic book shows are based around a lot of tropes, and coincidences are one of those. Done right, that can work well enough. Done wrong, it just starts to feel forced, and the link the show decides to put in here between two major characters is both forced and unnecessary – it adds nothing of any real value to anything and it just comes off wrong.

Back in the action though, Alice sort of returns to form, as she helps out unintentionally while also… not. Alice has done a lot of things in the course of the show which have proved a major hindrance to Team Bat, but this might be the worst one yet.

Aside from the action, the main emotional sub-plot revolves around Sophie and Ryan’s new status, and how each of them deals with that. This is actually good, showcasing insecurities which both of them have and having something intelligent and relevant to say about it. It’s a pleasingly positive note in an uneven episode, and I hope to god the writers avoid the temptation of throwing more drama n the way of the couple going forward.

Verdict: A mixed episode which does some really good stuff, some really odd stuff and some just plain bad stuff. 6/10

Greg D. Smith