Welcome back to Gotham. While Ryan’s family reunion is shaping up to be far more dangerous than she initially suspected, there is tension brewing in her found family as well. Even worse, nature seems to have a new mother. With things growing out of control, nothing will be the same. So don your cape, grab your garden shears, and join us as we give you five thoughts on season 3, episode 6, “How Does Your Garden Grow?”
1. The Strange Case of Dr. Mary and Miss Ivy
Mary Hamilton has been going through changes, including a budding obsession with plants, a growing disdain for humanity, and an almost unquenchable thirst for water. After a mysterious attack in the park and a rash that seemingly is not going away, Mary has become Poison Ivy. While the episode plays coys with the idea initially, with Ryan and Luke convinced that Alice has manipulated Mary, “How Does Your Garden Grow” cuts right to the chase and has them discover that Mary has been on a string of murders. The only problem is that she doesn’t seem to remember anything about it.
The episode hinges on a mystery. While we know that Mary is responsible for the murders, no one is quite sure how or why. There is an element of Jekyll and Hyde for “How Does Your Garden Grow?” as the team tries to figure out what triggers Mary’s murderous responses. The episode even plays with the idea that Mary is, perhaps, a Killer Frost-style anti-hero. She did, after all, capture the man responsible for freezing Jordan! But as the episode progresses, the main question remains. Where does Mary end and Ivy begin? It’s a solid enough mystery to build an episode around, and to the show’s credit, it pulls it off well enough.
2. Sewing seeds of discord wherever she goes
There has been a certain degree of inconsistency for Alice this season. While that’s perhaps just part of the character, it seems that she has been fluctuating quite a lot over there past few episodes. In “How Does Your Garden Grow?” Alice again fills the role of an agent of chaos, poking and prodding the team until something truly cracks. Batwoman has done a good job establishing that Alice is the only one aware of the situation to understand what is happening to Mary and fully uses that to her advantage. While inconsistent, Alice continues to be one of the primary drivers in the show’s plot and quality.
Alice’s chaos isn’t just for pushing Mary to embrace her new villainous alter ego. In “How Does Your Garden Grow?,” Alice is determined to drive a wedge between every member of the Batfamily. She lets Sophie know about the capture of her sister’s attacker, reveals to Montoya that someone has been infected with the Ivy serum, and eventually figures out that sunlight triggers Mary’s Ivy reaction. While Alice’s motivations have been challenging to track, this week, she’s back to doing what she does best, creating chaos.
3. Skeletons in the closet continue to drive the team apart
After Ryan learns the truth about Jada and Marquis, it seems that she has begun to keep secrets from her fellow teammates. While she knows that Jada is responsible for hiring The Black Gloves to figure out the cryo technology of Mr. Freeze, she knows that there were some noble intentions behind it. She was trying to keep her son and Gotham safe. But this means that she has been lying to those she cares about, as well. The only problem is that “How Does Your Garden Grow?” doesn’t give Ryan any strong motivation for why she’s keeping this a secret. It would have been helpful for Ryan to explain to SOMEONE why she is keeping this information to herself. It’s borderline selfish to deny information that could potentially help Gotham.
Ryan’s continued attempts to connect with her family are causing other problems, making certain members of the team feel cast aside and unimportant. Ryan admits that she was trying to have it all, to connect to her family, be Batwoman, and be a good friend all at the same time. Unfortunately, “How Does Your Garden Grow?” shows that trying to do it all means that inevitably some things are going to fall through the cracks. Ryan now has to deal with the consequences of keeping her skeletons hidden, and she’s not going to have the same resources she had before.
Continued below4. Things heat up as Sophie searches for answers
Similar to Alice, Sophie is a character who has felt lost this season, with inconsistency to her character that borders on frustrating. However, you can at least credit Alice’s inconsistency to her growing instability. Sophie has always seemed to be a character who was collected and levelheaded. Yet, in “How Does Your Garden Grow?” she has seemingly gone rogue PI. This involves an attempt at using advanced interrogation against The Black Glove member Mary captured, barging into Montoya’s office, and confronting Ryan about her mother. It just seemed out of character for Sophie, especially when you remember that she left the Crows because of the abuse of power.
What makes everything even more muddled is when “How Does Your Garden Grow?” springs a romance between Sophie and Montoya, two characters who have barely shared screen time before this week. Now here’s the thing, you can argue that this is just a heat of the moment hookup, but there was very little chemistry between the two characters in the episode. While the Ryan and Sophie pairing felt rushed, at least the two characters had some chemistry while on screen. It just seems like the show doesn’t know what to do with Sophie and is forcing some conflict between her and Ryan through Montoya.
5. Growing insecurities lead to major consequences
At the beginning of season 3, it seemed like the Batfamily was a well-oiled machine. Everyone had their roles and respected one another, but “How Does Your Garden Grow?” shows that, to some extent, was a fabrication. Season 3 of Batwoman has seemingly been all over the place. From family drama to treasure hunts, there were episodes where characters felt overlooked or ignored, but it seems that this was part of a larger story. The episode ends with Mary making a declaration of her power and her intent to take down Ryan. In her speech, she talks about being overlooked and ignored, disrespected and downplayed, which even happens in the episode. Ryan and Luke are initially dismissive of their friend’s fear she has become a villain. However, even at this moment, they overlook Mary’s concerns.
It’s not clear how long Mary is going to be a villain. Perhaps she is the season’s big bad, though that seems unlikely. In any case, “How Does Your Garden Grow?” really emphasizes the central theme of the season, the importance of being a good team member. As the characters grew apart, so did their bond and ability to keep Gotham safe. Now with Mary and Alice teaming up, it seems even less likely they can salvage the Batfamily.
So there we have it, Alice and Mary are partners in crime, and the Batfamily has suffered a significant blow. What did you think? Sound off in the comments.
