SPOILER ALERT: This article contains SPOILERS for ‘Batwoman’, so if you haven’t seen the latest episode, “A Mad Tea Party,”, turn back now or proceed with caution.
Prior to the events of “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” ‘Batwoman’ wrapped up the first half of its regular season, with an explosive turn of events. In the latest episode, “A Mad Tea Party,” Alice (Rachel Skarsten) took her revenge against Catherine (Elizabeth Anweis), who had faked evidence to convince Jacob (Dougray Scott) to give up looking for his lost daughter Beth (a.k.a. Alice), after she was seemingly killed in a car accident. And just for good measure, Alice framed Jacob for Catherine’s death.
While this event turns the status quo upside down, the one character that will be most impacted by Catherine’s death will be her daughter Mary (Nicole Kang).
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Kang discussed how Mary will react:
“Losing a parent, and only parent, is so significant in a person’s life that it’ll change her forever. I hope the audience sees and feels that. We’re really seeing Mary’s coming of age story. She’s a young girl in her 20s figuring out what it means to be a citizen of this world, and she’s got really, really high aspirations. Then all of a sudden she loses something so close to her. She just didn’t see it coming. I think it still wrecks me. We can be out there and we have this plan and we’re finding our way, and then life happens. I think her whole world stops for a second. It’s hard to even think about her moving forward past this.”
Don’t expect her to bounce back quickly. (Y’know, the way they do on ‘Titans’.) Mary will have to work through her grief. And keep in mind that Alice is still out there and is still gunning for Kate.
“I wish I could say that Mary super gracefully rises above and goes into action. But honestly, I think she deals with grief in a super realistic way,” says Kang. “She’ll deal with it in all kinds of ways. She’ll shove it down, she won’t want to deal with it, she’ll pretend everything is fine. She doesn’t want the rest of her life to fall apart. She’s in shock, a state of shock, immediately after. Then it hits her and then there are crazier things happening in Gotham that she has to deal with. But really, it clarifies her point of view on Alice.
“Just to see her and Alice together in a room again — when we see that, it’s volatile because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Kang continues. “So [Alice’s] relationship with Mary: She knows she matters to Kate, but she also has got this insane jealously of Mary. I think the sisters being pitted against each other, and one of them being a villain and one of them being Batwoman is such an incredible playground for Mary to be in, even though Mary doesn’t know it. She doesn’t know Kate is Batwoman, so I think all of that is so juicy moving forward.”
Unfortunately, viewers aren’t likely to see how this storyline plays out until next year, when ‘Batwoman’ returns with the second half of Season 1. “Crisis on Infinite Earths” kicks off this weekend, starting with ‘Supergirl’ on Sunday night at 8 pm. There won’t be an episode of ‘Batwoman’ that night, as The CW is following up the ‘Supergirl’ episode with ‘Crisis Aftermath’ a recap/chat show. ‘Batwoman’ airs on Monday night at 8 pm, but it is part two of “Crisis,” so the show’s main storylines probably won’t factor in.
How do you feel about ‘Batwoman’s mid-season finale?