Luke and Mary try to find the source of Beth’s crippling new headaches while also trying to keep her hidden from The Crows, on orders from Sophie to shoot to kill Alice on sight. Alice meanwhile is having issues of her own. Jacob speaks to an expert who may well be able to clear his name.

It feels like the characters of Batwoman have all suffered quite enough by this point, and yet the writers don’t ever seem to quite agree. Just as it seemed last time out that Kate had her happy ending, having found a version of her beloved twin sister who wasn’t a damaged psychopath, Beth started suffering sudden crippling pain. This time around, with Alice on the loose and Sophie feeling she has something to prove, there’s an added bonus to that problem as Beth needs to be kept firmly hidden but also taken somewhere where she can be helped, in a city on lockdown looking for her literal evil twin.

As the story progresses there is some necessarily loose writing to help it along – when you’re trying to incorporate concepts like multiverses into your show, you need some characters to be able to make leaps they wouldn’t realistically be capable of if you’re to actually move the plot forward, after all. That said, there is a real sense of tension as the ‘three smartest people in Gotham’ (of course Beth in her own reality was a genius scientist) try to find a solution to the problem. All the more impressive when it’s fairly obvious to us the audience – two of the same person existing in one plane of reality? Doesn’t take a genius level watcher of genre TV to work out what the issue is and how it might be solved.

There’s also some necessary hand-waving on the way to that solution including one step which feels a little too convenient but also sets up an excellent character moment between a couple of people who really have no reason to like one another even though on another level there is some sort of bond there. If there’s a criticism, it’s starting to get a little wearing how much Kate still feels conflicted over the fate of her proven to be evil and un-saveable ‘real’ sister, but then again it’s nice to have a hero who’s good without being utterly certain about everything all the time.

The B plot involving Jacob and the plastic surgery expert who may be able to clear his name is one that doesn’t quite work by virtue of being a little obvious as to where it’s going. No spoilers here, but I had it worked out almost immediately and I’ll be surprised if anyone else watches it doesn’t. Sophie’s own internal conflict at being the de-facto head of The Crows and being pretty heavy-handed as a way to try to compensate for her ‘failure’ in letting Alice go is a little more interesting, if only because like Kate she seems to be a basically good person who is never quite certain in what the right thing to do might be.

The conclusion feels predictable on a fundamental level, but also plays around a little with its actual execution and sets up some intriguing possibilities going forward.

Verdict: Some looseness in the writing to get over certain narrative hurdles that aren’t the show’s fault and a few obvious plot turns don’t take away from a solid hour of TV. Not the show’s finest hour, but still pretty good. 8/10

Greg D. Smith