Batwoman ran for three seasons and 51 episodes on The CW, from October 6, 2019 to March 2, 2022. It was cancelled on April 29, 2022. Across that run the show cycled through two leads, one plane crash, a surgical identity swap, and a villain who was better than everything around her. It never solved the problem at its center.
Trailer, via DC.
A Cowl Built for Kate Kane
Caroline Dries developed Batwoman for The CW as part of the Arrowverse. The first season follows Kate Kane, Bruce Wayne’s maternal first cousin, who takes up the cowl after his disappearance. Ruby Rose was cast as Kate in 2018, the same year development began, after The CW announced Kate would appear in the “Elseworlds” crossover.
The casting drew backlash on social media and intense criticism. DC Comics reintroduced Batwoman in 2006 as a gay Jewish woman. Some online reactions attacked Rose for not being Jewish. The main focus of the criticism was the assertion that her considering herself gender-fluid made her “not gay enough.” Rose left Twitter and deactivated public commenting on her Instagram.
That is a lot of noise around a performance that never got room to settle. Rose plays Kate as guarded and clipped, which fits a character who spent years away from Gotham and came back to a city that had moved on. But the first season keeps handing her the same beat: Kate insists she is not a hero, then does something heroic. The show states its thesis in the synopsis and repeats it for a full season.
Ryan Wilder Picks Up the Suit
Rose exited the series shortly after the first season ended. Javicia Leslie was cast as Ryan Wilder, an original character created to succeed Kate. Seasons two and three follow Ryan, a former convict, as she protects Gotham as Batwoman.
This is where Batwoman gets interesting. Ryan has no Wayne money, no family name, no training montage that ends with a cape fitting perfectly. She is a former convict wearing a suit built for someone else. Leslie plays her with a temper and a chip, and the show is better for it.
The problem is that the show does not fully commit. Season two spends much of its run on Kate’s disappearance and the search for her, which means the new lead shares the season with the old one’s absence. Kate goes missing when the False Face Society crashes her plane. She is rescued by the Society’s leader, who has her surgically altered to resemble his late daughter. Wallis Day plays Kate in season two, and also plays the original Circe Sionis in photographs.
That is a lot of plot for a character the show already wrote out.
Alice Carries the Whole Thing
Rachel Skarsten plays Elizabeth “Beth” Kane, Kate’s presumed-dead fraternal twin and the leader of the Wonderland Gang. The character has an ever-changing personality and sets out to erode Gotham’s sense of security. Gracyn Shinyei plays a younger Kate; Ava Sleeth plays a younger Beth.
Skarsten is the reason to watch Batwoman. Alice is not a villain with a plan so much as a wound with a body count, and Skarsten plays every scene like she is deciding in real time whether to laugh or cut someone. The show knows this. It keeps finding ways to bring her back, including an alternate Beth displaced from her native Earth during “Crisis on Infinite Earths” who appears on Earth-Prime, did not get lost in the car accident, and is later killed by August Cartwright, who mistook her for Alice.
That is the show’s best trick and its worst habit. Alice works because she is unpredictable. The show keeps her around because she works, and then has to invent reasons for her to stay.
Sophie Moore, Mary Hamilton and Luke Fox
Meagan Tandy plays Sophie Moore, a military academy graduate, former high-level Crows agent, and Kate’s estranged ex-girlfriend. She eventually learns Kate was the original Batwoman and Ryan is the new one, and becomes an ally.
Nicole Kang plays Mary Hamilton, Kate and Beth’s stepsister, a medical student and influencer-in-the-making who provides aid to Gotham’s under-served communities. She discovers Kate is Batwoman and joins her. Camrus Johnson plays Lucas “Luke” Fox, son of the late Lucius Fox and a Batman loyalist who keeps Wayne Tower secure.
These three are the show’s spine, and the show rarely notices. Sophie’s arc is the most promising: a Crows agent who has to unlearn the institution she signed up for. Mary’s arc is the most human: a rich kid who builds a clinic because the city will not. Luke’s arc is the most frustrating, because Camrus Johnson is funny and the show mostly asks him to explain technology.
Season three adds Robin Givens as Jada Jet and Nick Creegan as Marquis Jet as new series regulars, along with Victoria Cartagena. Bridget Regan was cast in the recurring role of Poison Ivy. Jada and Marquis give Ryan a family thread the show should have started in season two. Instead it arrives with one season left to use it.
The Numbers Behind Batwoman
- Premiere: October 6, 2019
- Finale: March 2, 2022
- Cancellation announced: April 29, 2022
- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 51
- Network: The CW
- Metacritic: 59/100
- Published critical score: 5.9/10
Batwoman Against The Flash
| Batwoman | The Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Network | The CW | The CW |
| Franchise | Arrowverse | Arrowverse |
| Seasons | 3 | 9 |
| Episodes | 51 | Not stated in source |
| Final season | 3 | 9 (final) |
| Lead change | Ruby Rose to Javicia Leslie | None |
| Post-cancellation | Leslie reprised Ryan in The Flash season 9 | Ended |
The comparison is not flattering, and it is not the point. Batwoman ran three seasons and got a lead swap in the middle of it, and still produced Alice. The Flash got nine seasons and a planned ending. Batwoman got a cancellation notice.
What the Show Gets Right
The suit works. The Gotham of this show is not the gothic nightmare of the comics or the movies; it is a city with bad infrastructure and worse cops, which is a more useful setting for a vigilante story in 2019 than a cathedral full of gargoyles. Ryan’s version of the character is the right version. A Batwoman who has been failed by the system is a better Batwoman than one who inherited the system.
Leslie reprised her role as Ryan in the ninth and final season of The Flash after Batwoman was cancelled. That is the correct call. The character deserved more than three seasons, and the show that introduced her deserved a better first season.
Where Batwoman Lands
Batwoman is a 5.9 out of 10. That is a fair score and an accurate one. The first season is a slog with a lead the show never figured out how to write. The second season is a rebuild that spends too much time on the character it is replacing. The third season is the best of the three and arrived too late to matter.
What keeps it from being worse is Skarsten. What keeps it from being better is that the show never trusted Leslie to carry it alone until it was almost over. The Arrowverse had a habit of treating its later shows as obligations rather than opportunities. Batwoman was an opportunity. It got three seasons, 51 episodes, and one great villain. That is not nothing. It is also not enough.
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