Welcome back to Gotham! After successfully recovering Mr. Freeze’s nitrogen, Ryan and the team are well on their way to recovering the tricks and tools of some of Batman’s more fearsome foes. Or are they? While the team might have Renee Montoya breathing down their backs and Jada Jet scheming from the wings, bigger plans are in motion. With devious plans afoot and mysterious societies making themselves known, the Batfamily might have their hands full. So don your cape, grab your freeze gun, and join us as we give you five thoughts on season 3, episode 4, “Antifreeze.”
1. Ryan’s rising star makes her a bigger target
While Ryan’s promotion to the CEO role might have initially just been to hide her role as Gotham’s caped crusader, it seems that she is rising to the occasion, making moves and improving Wayne Enterprises’ reputation. “Antifreeze” takes a break from the season’s overarching plot of finding the trophies of Batman’s foes and instead gives Ryan a chance to prove herself in a much more dangerous role, a 30 under 30 gala. While Ryan crushes her role, she quickly realizes that a bigger spotlight means a bigger target.
This is primarily due to her relationship with her half-brother Marquis Jet, who organized Ryan’s inclusion on the 30 under 30 list. While Marquis had just a hint of scheming last week, in “Antifreeze,” he is all earnest and helpful. The problem is that Jada told Ryan and further involvement with her family would lead to dire consequences for her company. Once pictures of Ryan and Marquis leak, Jada makes her moves and leaks information about misappropriated funds for the Wayne CEO. While Ryan was given warnings throughout, you can tell she was reveling in the limelight. At the end of the episode, though, she’s ready to fight back. With Marquis at her side, these siblings might just hit their mom where it counts.
2. Luke and Mary’s tension leads to profound discoveries
Last week, the budding tension between Luke and Mary was suddenly crushed by Alice’s scheming. By making Mary feel lesser than and telling Ryan about Luke’s undiagnosed PTSD, the team felt fractured, and everyone went their separate ways. While “Antifreeze” doesn’t have the group isolated from one another, there is some clear tension there, something that Camrus Johnson and Nicole Johnson do a good job portraying. The episode doesn’t resolve this tension. Instead, it uses it to help them both learn some important information to resolve their plots.
While Mary’s revelation is more plot-oriented, that her disappearance at the hands of a mysterious plant-based foe helps to unfreeze the victims of the Black Glove Society’s experiments with the freeze gas, Luke’s is a bit more interesting. “Antifreeze” focuses on Luke trying to get his father’s AI back, but the only way that can happen is to keep the failsafe on, to continue dealing with the shutdowns due to panic attacks. The episode ultimately ends with Luke realizing that he’s not ready for the suit, but it seems part of a more significant journey. He can help in other ways, help preserve his father’s legacy by saving the company, work his way through the trauma to find his way back to his suit. It’s nothing fancy, but it works.
3. A mysterious society with a dark purpose
Well, at least it wasn’t someone taking on the mantle of Mr. Freeze again. After successfully recovering Mr. Freeze’s experiments last week, “Antifreeze” shows that nothing is quite an easy fix. The villain of this week’s episode is “The Black Gloves Society,” an organization for Gotham’s super-rich who look to cheat death and seemingly have no morals about how they will achieve their task. Throughout the episode, there are a few moments of a mysterious man freezing people outside of Freeze’s tubes to create a way to extend life without the rapid aging side effects. There are a few pretty chilling visuals in “Antifreeze” of their victims, perfectly encased in ice and snapping in half as they begin to thaw.
The ultimate victim of “Antifreeze” is Jordan Moore, Sophie’s activist sister and 30 under 30 recipients looking to use her platform to uncover the Black Glove Society and bring them to justice. The iconography of The Black Gloves Society is nothing to write home about, especially considering that the False Face society seemed unique and varied and didn’t leave an impression. However, it appears that they are being set up to be something more. Hopefully, they find a way to make that more interesting.
Continued below4. Alice’s condition leads to an unlikely coupling
It seems like the third season of Batwoman is trying our chemistry tests with Alice and the entire cast, giving her plenty of moments to work with every member of the cast one on one. Because Rachel Skarsten feels pretty effortless in the role, she just works well with everyone. “Antifreeze” continues some patterns set up in previous weeks, that Alice’s condition is deteriorating and that Arkham doesn’t seem to care. Unlike previous seasons, though, the Batfamily appears actually to feel some sympathy for their former foe.
This week, Alice and Sophie team up to find Jordan and stop the Black Gloves Society, and Sophie quickly realizes that something is not right with Alice. The two, again, have some pretty solid chemistry in their scenes, which makes the ending of “Antifreeze” so fun. After telling Ryan that they will attempt to allow Montoya to keep Alice out of Arkham by keeping her under Mary’s supervision for treatment, they reveal something else. Alice and Sophie are going to be roommates. While the show is still pushing a potential Ryan/Sophie pairing, adding Alice to the mix will make it a little more interesting.
5. Jada Jet makes her true purpose known
At the end of “Freeze,” it seemed pretty likely that Jada Jet was involved, in some capacity, with the mercenaries trying to steal the research. But, honestly, it was only because she had such a small role in the episode that it made her a likely candidate. “Antifreeze” not only confirms her involvement but makes her a major player in the scheme, the money behind the Black Gloves Society, the significant threat to Ryan and her team.
There was a possibility that Marquis was part of her larger plan, but again, “Antifreeze” puts this idea to rest. It wasn’t too shocking to discover that Jada is looking to take him off the board. It seems likely that Jada’s problem with Ryan isn’t that she was coming for Marquis’ throne. Instead, she found Marquis wanting and Ryan, the one she threw away, seems more her heir apparent. Again, much like the Black Glove Society, Jada lacks the menace of a Roman Sionis. As of now, it was a lackluster twist to a just ok episode.
So there we have it, Jada is not trusted, mysterious organizations are on the rise, and Ryan might have lost some allies. What did you think of the episode? Sound off below, and see you next week.
