Welcome back to Gotham! The city’s own paragon of courage Kate Kane defends her city as Batwoman, but her life has been difficult. Not only does she have to try and stop her evil twin, but she has to figure out a way to save her good twin from a parallel dimension. So don your cape, grab your vial of miracle blood, and join us as we give you five thoughts on Batwoman season 1, episode 12 “Take Your Choice.”
1. Beating the clock is difficult when your city has become a police state.
At the end of “An Un-Birthday Present,” Kate’s seemingly happy ending is abruptly ended when Beth starts to suffer from migraines and nosebleeds. It turns out that the universe isn’t too keen on having multiple versions of one person living in it, and is causing immense pain and cell degeneration in both Alice and Beth. Mary, Beth, and Luke, three of Gotham’s smartest minds discover that both Beth and Alice have about seven hours to live. While this seems like a big enough problem, it gets worse. The Crows are on the hunt.
Having recently been humiliated by Alice, and encouraged by her mentor to use ruthless tactics, Sophie has elected to implement a B-42 on Alice. Shoot to kill. This makes attempts to transport Beth to places she could get help difficult. Turns out it’s difficult to transport a person with no documents and who shares the face of a psychotic mob boss leader. Things get even worse when Alice calls in an anonymous tip to The Crows that the person they’re looking for is at Wayne Tower, creating a full police search. The ticking clock moves on as Beth, Luke, and Kate hide in the Batcave watching Beth slowly suffer. Heightening the Crow’s hold over Gotham works well for the story because it puts good pressure on the heroes. Without free travel to get Beth help, it really makes them feel locked into this situation.
2. Things become even more serious for Jacob on the inside.
At the beginning of “Take Your Choice,” there seems to be a glimmer of hope for Jacob Kane, he and Sophie have convinced Gotham’s renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Cambpell to at least entertain the idea that someone could have made a skin mask good enough to steal his identity. But from that point onward, things don’t go his way. After getting stabbed in the shower, he has a lengthy confrontation with Dodgson where they not only exchange physical blows. Dodgson accuses Jacob of being the real monster. The Crows tampered with evidence and got good people killed, so he’s going to return the favor. The inmate from the previous episode saves Jacob’s life, but for no altruistic reason, now Jacob owes him.
The “Jacob in prison” plotline feels a little bit worn at this point, it’s not the first time we’ve seen a law enforcement agents have to deal with the people they put away. “Take Your Choice” really isn’t adding any interesting twists or spins to it either. I’m curious to see where this goes, but at the moment it’s not doing anything that feels fresh.
3. A metamorphosis is not enough to hide the Catipillar’s true nature
As soon as Dr. Campbell expressed interest in seeing Mouse, something felt fishy. He seemed wholly uninterested in even entertaining the idea until he gets the opportunity to talk one on one with the killer who could change faces. Even keen to give Mouse a psychological analysis. In the hospital room, it’s revealed that Dr. Campbell is actually a created persona for Mouse’s father and Beth and his tormentor. Johnny expresses shock, thinking that his father had died, but it’s revealed that it was all a ruse. After Johnny’s betrayal, Campbell decided to fake his death and create a new persona so he could have the adoration and respect in the field he should have been given all along. But after hearing that Mouse went into the family business, he had to see his son again.
While it wasn’t the best twist (I saw it coming after his intense interest in Mouse,) there were aspects of this story that worked well. The father’s insistence on winning back Johnny is just as good and creepy in his other performances, but the true star of these scenes is Sam Littlefield’s Mouse. “Take Your Choice” is the first time I’ve felt truly sympathetic to Mouse as an adult, adding some nuance to the otherwise one-note insane villain. He accuses his dad of torment and cruelty, by aligning with Alice the two of them could be free. The other aspect of the story that worked is that it puts into focus the lies of Campbell. He gave himself a new face and a new life, but it didn’t change the evil that was on the inside of him. His attempts to “fix” his son, only made matters worse.
Continued below4. A truly difficult choice ramps up the drama.
The universe is slowly killing Beth and Alice in a way to achieve balance, but the final revelation is the kicker. In order to save one, the other must die. If they wait too long, they both die. Alice realizes that she’s actually set herself up for success by giving Mary the antidote to the poison used to kill her mother. An antidote that apparently works on everything (including being a double from an alternate universe. Comics, they’re weird!) Mary is able to successfully get the blood away from Alice and gives it to Kate. The choice is hers.
The choice obviously seems like a no brainer. Beth is everything Kate wanted in a sister. She’s kind, empathetic, fun, and in many ways innocent. But Alice complicated things after confronting her other twin, reinforcing the guilt that Kate feels about creating Alice. In the alternate universe, Kate was able to save Beth and prevent Alice from developing. In one of the episode’s strongest scenes, Alice confronts a memory of Catherine, convincing her that Kate will choose her, that she can be saved and redeemed. The episode really plays well on Kate’s core guilt from the whole situation. While the choice seems almost painfully obvious, for Kate there is a small glimmer of hope about Alice. However, in the end she chooses Beth.
5. Taking a massive, monumental decision and then pulling the rug out.
The episode ends with Kate going and sitting with Alice as she slowly dies. Alice tries to piece together why she wasn’t chosen, how Kate never got the opportunity to see the true her. I’m always a fan of Rachel Skarsten and this is no exception. Her emotions are truly haunting as she tries to rationalize Kate’s decision. But, of course, fate has other plans. “Take Your Choice” ends with Luke and Beth successfully escaping Gotham, only for Beth to be threatened by Sophie. Sophie decides to the better of it, but Beth is shot by Campbell, attempting to break her hold over his son. Because Beth died, this rejuvenates Alice, who is now furious with Kate and knocks her out.
In a way, it works because it now truly has put a truly insurmountable wedge between the two. Kate literally chose to let her die. But it takes away some of the impact of Kate’s decision for fate to intervene thusly. I was actually kind of curious what would have happened if Beth lived, kind of surprised that it was the decision they chose to make. In the moment it was rather shocking, but as I thought back on it, it feels like having your cake and eating it too.
[break]So there we have it. The Caterpillar is back in a major way, the Crows seem to be getting more serious, and Alice is back with a vengeance. But where do we go from here? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and see you next week!
