Welcome back to Gotham! After a frigid two weeks for Ryan and her team, things are starting to heat up as the search for the rogue’s weapons continues, but Ryan is fighting a war on multiple fronts. Not only does she have to deal with an old foe on her team, but she also has plenty of family drama to catch up on. So when mom invites you for dinner, you know you’re in for a tense evening. No cape this week, but be sure to grab your panic room supplies and adrenaline needles as we give you five thoughts on season 3, episode 5, “A Lesson From Professor Pyg.”
1. A tense dinner party takes family drama from bad to worse
After attempting to destroy Wayne Enterprises, Jada pulls another power move and invites Ryan over to dinner. While Luke advises confronting Jada so close to her powerplay in “Antifreeze,” Ryan and Sophie have other plans, finding evidence to connect Jada to the Black Glove Society. Unless this reviewer missed a significant plot point last week, it seemed weird that the team not only knew Jada’s secret but were ready to strike against her. In any case, “A Lesson From Professor Pyg” puts Ryan and Sophie into the lion’s den. The real problem is that somehow Marquis found out about the party and is not happy.
After forming an uneasy alliance over the past two episodes, it seems that Jada’s real intentions behind the dinner party were to drive a wedge between her conspiratorial children. While Marquis was all smiles and charm in the previous episode, there’s an intensity at his perceived betrayal at the hands of Ryan that feels palpable. Thankfully, Ryan can quickly tamp down her half-brother’s rage, but “A Lesson From Professor Pyg” quickly turns up the heat and sends the family on a fight for their lives.
2. Digging up Renee Montoya’s true motives
While there isn’t a lot of Batwoman in “A Lesson From Professor Pyg,” we still get the continued hunt for the Rogue’s weapons under the direction of Renee Montoya. This week, Alice is riding solo after Ryan determines the whip thought to belong to Catwoman is a copycat. Her whip is indestructible, but the murderer used a cut up whip. While Ryan puts Alice on the task of figuring out who was responsible for the murder, Alice’s time alone provides insight into the larger plan of their boss.
Montoya is looking for results and, because of this, allows Alice access to all of her files on Batman’s rogues’ gallery. While Alice is her usual flippant self, when she runs across the file for Pam Isley, she realizes that Montoya is almost overly thorough in her investigation. It turns out, before her transformation into living plant and bioterrorist, Isley and Montoya were an item, and Montoya is desperate to find out what happened to her.
3. Professor Pyg’s plan backfires as the Jet family works together
While Jada’s party seemed to intend to drive her children apart, the chef had other plans. As the episode progresses and the dinner party gets increasingly tenser, “A Lesson From Professor Pyg” really turns up the heat when Marquis’ date Zoey realizes she can’t move her hands and Lazlo Valentin, a disgruntled former employee of Jeturian Industries, gets his first kill. Valentin, wearing a deranged pig mask, reveals that he has drugged their wine and will force Jada to watch him destroy her family, the same way she destroyed his family.
While there wasn’t a lot of Batwoman in “A Lesson From Professor Pyg,” the episode makes up for it by forcing the superhero to save the day without their usual resources. Ryan has no suit, no gadgets, and barely has control of her motor functions as the drugs begin to work their way through her system. Instead, she must rely on her wits and skills to successfully sneak into the basement and find adrenaline to save Marquis’s life. It’s a pretty compelling slasher movie set up, as half the team is trapped in a panic room as Ryan sneaks her way through the house. Ryan’s heroics and putting her life on the line for Jada’s son gains her some respect. Jada even has a pretty triumphant “not my daughter” moment. This is a creative use of keeping your hero out of the suit, and more superhero properties should take note.
Continued below4. Mary’s role on the team makes her green with envy
Mary has been feeling increasingly put on the sideline this season. While she started strong and a full member of the team, it seems that she has been disrespected and discredited by Alice and Luke throughout the season. And while Mary might be a little too keen to listen to Alice’s whisperings, it seems that there is something else going on in the good Doctor, a particular poison itch that she can’t seem to scratch. “A Lesson From Professor Pyg” is setting up a pretty significant plot for Mary.
Mary is going through some changes. She’s obsessed with plants, a little too obsessed, and pretty bitter that she is not getting the credit for using her newfound plant knowledge to save Sophie’s sister. “A Lesson From Professor Pyg” has Mary getting increasingly more irritable and aggressive, suggesting that perhaps the thorns she found last week are infecting her with more than just a relentless itch. The biggest problem is that her increased isolation from the team means that only one person is aware of her changes. Unfortunately, that person is Alice, and it seems unlikely that she’s going to be spilling the beans on that one anytime soon. (Unless it gets her a trip to Aruba, that is.)
5. All is not what it seems with the Jet family
While Ryan earned Jada’s respect, it doesn’t change the fact that Jada has some serious skeletons in her closet, specifically her connection to the human experimentation that took place in “Antifreeze.” While “A Lesson From Professor Pyg” ends with Ryan confronting her mother, there is a double twist. Jada was not trying to remove Marquis because of some kind of embarrassment or spite for betraying her. Rather it is to keep Gotham safe from her son. The episode ends with a pretty chilling montage of Ryan watching tapes of her half-brother as her mother monologues about how Marquis had a run-in with the Joker as a boy and was never the same.
The monologue shows Marquis getting increasingly more upset and eventually killing his father while laughing about it. While Marquis saves the day in “A Lesson From Professor Pyg,” killing their assailant, it seems to unlock something in him, and Jada seems fearful about what her son is about to do. She was keeping Ryan away to keep her safe. Does this forgive Jada’s actions? No, but it at least gives them context. There is a more significant threat to Gotham, and he seems to kill with a smile.
So there we have it, a new threat appears, and Ryan seems to be more vulnerable than ever. What did you think? Sound off below, and we will see you next week!
