Well, that certainly was a lot. It’s a new day in Coryana as the hunt for Kate Kane brings all of the storylines crashing together to finally solve the mystery of what happened to the first Batwoman. With twists, betrayals, and one very resilient plant, things have taken a sharp turn in season 2. So don your cape, grab your giant conspiracy board, and join us as we give you five thoughts on season 2, episode 8, “Survived Much Worse.”
1. Coryana has quite a few unsuspecting visitors
“Survived Much Worse” has all the beats and energy of a midseason finale, with all of the storylines converging on Coryana, the island nation run by Safiyah and the only place that grows the mysterious Desert Rose. With how disconnected the first half of this season has been, it was pretty interesting seeing all the characters existing in one space. Even if they didn’t necessarily all interact with one another, it shed some light on their true motivations as the episode progressed.
While all of the characters were there to save Kate, it’s pretty clear that there are other motivations at work. Ryan’s searching for the desert rose to cure her kryptonite poisoning. While Alice claims that she’s there to kill Kate, it seems that Alice just wants closure with Safiyah and to start a new life with Ocean. Jacob and Sophie are there. There’s some talk of Sophie maybe realizing that the Crows are a private military force, but it felt pretty tacked on as per usual. In any case, it’s always fun to see storylines converging in such a manner, and to Batwoman’s credit, it was pretty riveting. Throw in some big twists and multilayered schemes, and you have a heck of an episode.
2. The growing parallels of Ryan and Alice
Last week in “It’s Best You Stop Digging,” the show creates some pretty compelling parallels between Ryan and Alice. Both came from tragic situations, dealing with multiple traumas and kidnappings. The difference arises in how they dealt with their problems. “Survived Much Worse” continues to draw on these parallels, with Ryan and Alice sharing a few key scenes in a Coryana cell after Ryan reveals that Alice had lied to Safiyah. The episode highlights both of their self-preservation tendencies, with Ryan choosing the Desert Rose over saving Kate and Alice continuing her quest for closure.
The thing that makes their relationship interesting, though, is that Ryan recognizes their parallels. She might even see a bit of herself in Alice. With Kate, their relationship was all about redemption, with Kate being the paragon of virtue and Alice being the lost soul needing saving. With Ryan, she can see through Alice’s veneer, recognizing that her anger and desire for revenger are simple there to mask her pain. While Ruby Rose and Rachel Skarsten had some undeniable chemistry on screen, the interactions between Javicia Leslie and Skarsten are much more compelling. While they aren’t the same, there is an understanding there that Kate was missing.
3. Don’t try to con a master artist
Safiyah hadn’t been much of a threat in the first part of season two. While it was clear that she probably wasn’t to be trusted, she had an air of vulnerability, confused why she was involved in all of this drama. That all changed in “Survived Much Worse” when she showed just how much of a chess master she is, playing the long game for maximum torment. There were a lot of twists and turns in this episode. Safiyah unearths Alices scheme of “killing” Ocean, so brings the real Ocean to be killed by Alice in exchange for Kate’s life. Alice kills Ocean, but with a blade treated by the Desert Rose (which I guess cures stabbing?) to prove Alice never loved him. Safiyah reveals that she never actually had Kate and had nothing to do with her plane exploding. It all culminates in Safiyah turning on her number 2 Tatiana for orchestrating the explosion of Kate Kane’s plane to remove Alice from the picture.
It was a lot, but it all worked, mainly because of Shivani Ghai’s acting throughout the episode. Ghai does an excellent job of playing just innocent enough, acting shocked and surprised at the various betrayals throughout the episode, effectively hiding that she’s been in the know the entire time. When the mousetrap finally springs off, it’s a thing of beauty. She plays scenes with a combination of menace and disappointment that someone even tried to get a fast one-off on her. Safiyah’s final revelation that she never had Kate in the first place is truly cruel, her full villainy on display. At that moment, Safiyah channeled all of her inner Ra’s Al Ghul, and it brought excellent energy to the episode.
Continued below4. The dangers of an unhinged Alice
It seemed that even if only a little bit, Alice was growing in the first half of season 2. “Survived Much Worse” remedied that. In the episode, Alice killed the man she loved and was planning on starting a new life with, realized that everyone betrayed her, and then when she decided she wanted to save Kate instead of killing her, she realized that Kate was never really there. That Kate was dead. Alice doesn’t take this news well and burns the entire field of Desert Rose, effectively destroying Safiyah’s power.
It’ll be interesting to see where Alice goes from here. The writers had her on a healing path, but now it seems that she is back to being a full villain. It might have been interesting to see anti-hero Alice, especially now that it looks like Safiyah isn’t going anywhere, but that idea doesn’t seem likely anymore. In any case, it appears that Alice is entirely off the leash, and it seems likely that chaos will reign.
5. So, where do we go with that ending?
So the Desert Rose is dead, except that it’s not. A running gag through “Survived Much Worse” is Mary desperately trying to take care of a plant Ryan left in her care, one that survived Ryan’s various traumas. But in the end, it blooms a Desert Rose. There’s hope for Ryan yet.
But that’s not the ending we need to discuss. The real conclusion is zooming into Gotham’s sewers onto a badly burned woman wearing the red necklace that Alice and Kate shared. That Kate Kane is alive, after all. Now, this is a superhero medium. No one stays dead in superhero shows. But it’s worrisome that Kate is back. You don’t want to take any attention off of the new Batwoman, and maybe they have some bigger plans for Kate, but it just seems ill-advised to simply recast the role after it appeared that they weren’t going to do that. Overall, I wish that the writers did with Kate what they did with Bruce, a mysterious disappearance, but not much more than that.
So what did you think? Are you excited about the prospect of two Batwomen? Are you nervous? Sound off in the comment section below, and we’ll see you next week!
