- "Okay, people. Time to recalibrate our gaydar. Batwoman is a lesbian? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but talk to me, Gotham. Whatever happened to politics staying out of our superheroes?"
- —Vesper Fairchild on Batwoman coming out
"How Queer Everything Is Today!" is the tenth and midseason premiere episode of the first season of Batwoman, and the tenth episode overall. It aired on January 19, 2020.
Synopsis[]
While Gotham busies itself reacting to Batwoman's awkward encounter, Alice celebrates her ultimate act of vengeance with Mouse. A devastated Mary focuses on Jacob Kane's trial, while Sophie seeks advice about her love life from someone unexpected. As they tackle the newest threat to Gotham, Luke prioritizes protecting Batwoman's secret, and Kate must decide what she is willing to do to honor Batwoman's identity...and her own.[src] |
Plot[]
A train in Gotham City fails to make a stop, which leaves a horde of would be passengers behind and confused.
Inside the train, one of the passengers complains that the stop the train just passed by was his stop.
While another one tells the train's conductor to slow down and refers to said conductor as Keanu. He goes onto mention that some of them have tickets to Jagged Little Pill they can't miss.
Several train commuters then end up getting rattled and shaken when the train loses its breaks and the conductor subsequently tells the passengers to brace for impact.
Back in the Batcave, Luke tells Batwoman, that the GCPD received an SOS alert from the train's conductor five minutes ago when the train’s brakes went out. He explains that the train’s got half mile of traction before it reaches the end of the line.
Kate is driving to where the train is ending up at, and tells Luke over the comms that she really loves the new bike, and thanks him for the present. Though she subtly reveals that her birthday isn’t for another 2 days.
Kate then realizes Luke had no idea.
Meanwhile, back on the train, it continues to speed on, but Kate is not too far behind. She ends up using her grapple hook that connects to the back one of the train’s carts.
It ends up stopping the train from crashing, and the passengers remained unharmed. However, the grapple hook comes undone, and almost hits Batwoman, who gets pushed out of the way and to safety by Slam Bradley.
The onlookers then begin taking pictures of the two.
Later, Vesper Fairchild greets her listeners, and talks about how after the death of Oliver Queen, they all need a reason to smile.
On The Gotham Observer, the front page has a picture of Batwoman and Slam Bradley, and the headline discusses how Batman’s got competition.
Luke then comes into Kate's office at Wayne Enterprises, where she is reading the same article online and telling her that Batwoman's street cred is off the charts now.
Luke goes onto say that Officer Slam Bradley is as hometown hero as it gets. Luke then laughs and reveals to Kate that Slam was Mr. March in the annual Hunks of the GCPD calendar.
Luke goes onto say that Batwoman gives off major straight vibes, but that this is good for them because the more misinformation there is of her, the better is to hide her identity.
Kate gets irritated that all off Gotham is only talking about Batwoman's sex life after the fact she saved a train full of 450 passengers.
Luke argues that the denizens of Gotham just want to see Batwoman happy.
Kate walks out as she says that it’s too bad she isn’t feeling all that happy at the moment.
Luke then notices that Kate was reading an article from The Gotham Gazette whose headline reads: Crows Commander Awaits Murder Trial as Evidence Piles Up. It also mentions how Jacob Kane maintains his innocence in the shocking death of his wife Catherine Hamilton-Kane.
Meanwhile, Alice and Mouse are enjoying a tea party near Catherine's tombstone and eventually she spills the tea all over said tombstone. All while asking the deceased Catherine to tell her if it's too weak. She says that if tastes bitter, then it's perfect.
Alice then tells Mouse how it’s such a shame her dear sister couldn’t join them today. Mouse replies by saying that he guesses that would require her taking one of Alice’s calls, or answering a text, a letter or a cryptic gift.
Alice gets annoyed and shushes Mouse, saying that his tea is getting cold. Mouse tells Alice that he’s getting cold, so perhaps they could resume whatever this is when the weather is more favorable to celebration.
Alice says that Catherine Hamilton is dead, so the sunshine is implied.
Mouse tells Alice that he knows she has this fantasy where, the three of them become a family one day, but tells her that Kate doesn't share that same fantasy.
Alice says that Kate will come around since she killed their mutual enemy.
Mouse tries to reason with Alice by saying that to Kate, that is not a gesture of love, but of weakness, and that it's another strand in her unraveling psychosis. Mouse continues by saying that Kate doesn’t see her sister in Alice anymore, but rather a soul in need of saving because she's the city's hero. Who can't be seen sipping tea with fugitives.
Mouse tells Alice that as long as she wears that mask, Alice will never bring Kate to their side.
At her secret clinic, Mary records a video telling the people that follow her on instagram that her profile isn't a place for them to leave behind comments that refer to her as human garbage for defending her step-dad.
Mary says that there’s not enough bandwidth in the world to explain to all of them why they’re wrong for how they’re treating her, so instead, she will be signing off for a bit, and tells the people spewing hate onto her to be better to one another.
Kate shows up and scares Mary, who is still angry at her.
Kate wants to help, but Mary says that between her and Sophie they got it.
Mary tells Kate that Jacob has every lawyer in Gotham on retainer, Sophie is assembling a strike team to find Mouse and she is looking for a plastic surgeon willing to testify that that masks of people Mouse has worn are possible.
Mary goes onto tell Kate that if she really wants to help, that she could start by telling Alice to stop defiling her mother's grave.
Luke mentions that ever since ever since the Scarecrow Incident, Gotham's train station run on analog system.
While investigating the train, Kate finds a device that Luke mentions could have been used to hack into the system helps the train operate.
Then everyone in Gotham gets a message where they are being blackmailed to help an unknown hacker get $5 million dollars unless they want their secrets revealed.
Later, mayor Akins holds a press conference where one of the reporters asks him if he will be calling what just took place a terrorist attack.
Akins promises that the citizens of Gotham have nothing to fear because the city has layer of cyber security in place, and they will certainly not be coerced to meet the demands of some silly prankster.
The Mayor encourages everyone to go about their daily lives since the authorities are working around the clock to catch the criminal and make sure that it never happens again.
However, the hacker makes their presence known again, when they hack the Mayor’s Press Conference and puts an emoji of a dog on the Mayor’s face.
In prison, Jacob finds a blade hidden in his food. One of the inmates taunts Jacob saying how it's ironic that Jacob is in the same place as half of the people he's responsible for locking up.
Batwoman gets Sophie to open up, who confesses that her husband left her.
At Gotham University, Mary is talking on the phone with Sophie and she sees who looks to be Alice going into the university.
Later, Batwoman crashes a dance at Gotham Prep and finds out who Terrier is.
Parker meets Alice, who is also walking down the halls of Gotham Prep.
She tries to run, but Alice hits Parker, telling her that believe it or not, she needs her help.
At an unknown location, Parker is tied up and asks Alice why she's doing this.
She jokes by saying that this is because her inner mean girl never got to live out the high school experience.
Sophie visits Mary at her clinic to tell her that they looked everywhere for Alice at Gotham University, but they didn’t find any trace of her.
Alice pushes Batwoman to reveal her identity in front of Parker. In order to prevent innocent lives from getting killed by the CN4 Alice place in the school's gym, Parker does what Alice says and seemingly outs Batwoman’s identity.
Sophie is among the people who see the alert and she takes the Crows to Gotham Prep to put a stop to Terrier.
Back at Gotham Prep, Kate punches Alice and asks her to diffuse the bomb, Alice gets angry and tells Kate that she's not a hero.
Kate then tells Alice that it doesn't take a hero to see what pure evil looks like.
It turns out that the real alert Parker sent was to tell everyone of Alice's location. The high gym however, blows up and Batwoman now ends up being the one to save Slam Bradley.
The onlookers all yell out "kiss!. Kiss! .Kiss!". While they have their phones out.
Slam leans in for a kiss, but Batwoman tells him it's not happening.
The next day, Parker shows up at Wayne Enterprises, and Kate tells her that she is expected to complete 150 hours of community service cleaning up graffiti from the streets of Gotham City.
Kate then tells Parker that if she finds out Parker is still hacking, she will have her go to juvie and pay back every single person she had blackmailed.
Parker agrees and tells Kate that she was outed before she was ready for her parents, so she wasn't about to do the same thing to her.
Kate tells Parker that she's here if she ever needs to talk about her parents, ex-girlfriend or anything of that sort.
At Crows Security, Sophie is interrogating Alice.
Luke then brings Kate a cupcake to celebrate her birthday.
Batwoman ends up on the cover of CatCo Magazine, where she gave an interview to Kara Danvers where she came out of the closet as a lesbian.
Later, Mary is on the phone with yet another doctor who refuses to help, and she is heard telling said doctor, that they should really work on removing the word "crazy" from their vernacular.
Kate eventually shows up, and a teary eyed Mary finally lets herself cry and the two sisters hug it out.
Kate then tells her dad on the phone all about their reunion.
Jacob tells Kate he's really proud of her.
When Kate gets back to her office Alice is there, who wishes her a happy birthday.
Kate asks her if Sophie let her go, but Alice is confused.
She goes onto say she finally came back from a semester abroad, and asks her sister if this is how she reacts.
Alice, sporting brown hair says it's bad enough that they converted her apartment into a boy's dorm room, and no one chose to tell her.
Kate asks Alice who is she and tries to pull at the person's face to see if it's a mask.
But the mystery woman says she's Beth, and asks her who the hell else she'd be.
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman
- Rachel Skarsten as Beth Kane/Alice and Beth Kane
- Meagan Tandy as Sophie Moore
- Nicole Kang as Mary Hamilton
- Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox
- Dougray Scott as Jacob Kane
Guest starring[]
- Sam Littlefield as Jonathan Cartwright/Mouse
- Malia Pyles as Parker Torres
- Sebastian Roché as Dr Ethan Campbell
Co-starring[]
- Rachel Maddow as Vesper Fairchild (voice)
- Chris Shields as Mayor Akins
- Kurt Szarka as Slam Bradley
- Ruairi MacDonald as Male Dorm Student
- Janelle Beadall as Female Student #1
- Neetu Garcha as Journalist #1
- Sherilyn Allen as Journalist #2
- Marlowe Percival as Male Student #1
- Shelby Armstrong as Female Student #2
- Simon C. Hussey as Passenger
- Alan O'Silva as Russian Hacker
- Seth Whittaker as Reggie Harris
Gallery[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- The title of the episode is a reference to Alice's statement in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: "Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day!"
- In the novel's context, the word "queer" refers to strange or odd, while in the episode's context, "queer" refers to the fact that Batwoman came out as gay after being mistaken for being straight.
- Luke mentions a "Scarecrow incident" with Gotham's trains, which is an allusion to Jonathan Crane, an enemy of Batman, who is also known as Scarecrow.
- The "Scarecrow incident" in question is never elaborated on, but it seems to be a reference to the events of Batman Begins, which culminated in a massive gas attack on the city by Scarecrow, who was working with Ra's al Ghul. Ra's was planning to use the city's monorail system to quickly and efficiently deliver the Scarecrow toxin to Gotham's water supply, and only failed because Batman and James Gordon managed to crash the almost-empty train, killing Ra's.
- Barry and Oliver were exposed to Scarecrow's Fear Toxin in "Elseworlds, Part 2".
- Slam Bradley is said to have "Chris Evans vibes" and is later nicknamed "Captain America" by Luke and Kate, implying that the cinematic version of the Marvel Comics character is known on Earth-Prime.
- A commuter on the train reads “slow down, Keanu!” a reference to the 1994 film Speed, where Keanu Reeves plays the lead role.
- Another commuter references the musical Jagged Little Pill.
- Parker Torres rants how she pretended to be a "BTS-loving heteronorm", referencing the Bangtan Boys, a South Korean boy band.
- Parker mentions that Kate was in a "30 Lesbian CEOs Under 30"-type article for The Advocate, a long-running LGBTQ magazine.
- The episode reveals that Kara Danvers did an interview with Kate for CatCo Worldwide Media, where she outed her secret identity of Batwoman as gay, showing that their friendship continued on Earth-Prime.
- Vesper Fairchild uses the old Seinfeld line “…not that there's anything wrong with that".[1]
- This is the first episode of Batwoman that is set on Earth-Prime. The series was originally set on Earth-1 for the first 9 episodes of it's first Season before it was destroyed in the Crisis at the end in Part 3 of the crossover event.
Goofs[]
- A train suddenly stopping would've caused at least some serious injuries among the passengers.
- A single wooden plank would never be able to absorb even a tiny fraction of the kinetic energy of a train traveling at speed without shattering, and even if it could, all the people inside would still retain their inertia, and go hurtling forward into the front wall of a suddenly-not-moving train car.
- Trains have a fail-safe air braking system. If the brakes fail, the air comes out of the brake pipe, causing the brakes to apply and stop the train. It does not cause a runaway train.
References[]
Batwoman season 1 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
"Pilot" • "The Rabbit Hole" • "Down Down Down" • "Who Are You?" • "Mine Is a Long And a Sad Tale" • "I'll Be Judge, I'll Be Jury" • "Tell Me the Truth" • "A Mad Tea-Party" • "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two" • "How Queer Everything Is Today!" • "An Un-Birthday Present" • "Take Your Choice" • "Drink Me" • "Grinning From Ear to Ear" • "Off With Her Head" • "Through the Looking-Glass" • "A Narrow Escape" • "If You Believe In Me, I'll Believe In You" • "A Secret Kept From All the Rest" • "O, Mouse!" |