Batwoman Season 2 is the Worst Show on The CW (Video Essay)

what is up youtube my name is gio and throughout my time on this channel i've sat through a lot of bad tv shows two seasons of titans one season of young justice and three going on to four seasons of the flash however i'd rather re-watch all of those while getting shocked every time i rolled my eyes if that meant i would never have to sit through another episode of cw's batwoman ever again this show is god-awful it's the first piece of media that actually has the ability to cause me tangible pain as i have never experienced something so badly written that woman is filled with plot holes the dialogue rivals the quality of a middle school play and almost every single character is just an awful person season 2 in particular took any little hope i had left for a writer to come in and fix this show and promptly threw it into the incinerator for the record this video is being written and recorded by the time episode 13 has been released so i won't be touching on anything past that point but if you guys want to see more videos about batwoman and the shows on the cw like subscribe and turn on the notification bell as it lets me know that you guys are enjoying the content and it helps me out with algorithm stuff anyway for those of you who have been smart enough to avoid the show battle in season 2 follows a girl named ryan wilder who takes up the mantle of batwoman after finding the suit in the debris from a plane explosion unbeknownst to ryan the plane that just blew up had on board the first batwoman k kane however ryan pays no mind to this as she sees it as a chance to get revenge on kate's psychopathic twin sister alice whose gang killed her foster mother right in front of her however during her hunt she runs into two members of the bat team luke fox who's batwoman's tech guy and prior to kick coming to gotham was the man in the chair for batman and mary who's kate's stepsister and personal doctor they tracked the bat suit in hopes that it would lead them to kate and weren't exactly thrilled when someone else was wearing the cowl but after having ryan help them out a couple of times they decided to let her be batwoman at least until kate comes back because they believe that she may still be alive however in the meantime the city needs a hero we later learn that the person who blew up kate's plane is connected to a lady named sophia she rules on an island called coriana and is the only place in the world to have a cure-all plant called the desert rose sophia claims to have kate and makes a deal with alice that she would give her back if alice is able to kill her brother ocean because he left the island with a desert rose meanwhile in episode 1 ryan gets shot by a kryptonite bullet and is slowly dying from the infection but the only way to save ryan's life is to get a desert rose it only gets more difficult for her as she is also under heavy watch from a private security force called the crows they were brought into gotham back in season 1 to help keep the city safe and are led by kate's dad jacob kane and her ex-girlfriend sophie who is jacob's second in command they are trying to find coriana in hopes to find kate and bring her back so we have alice trying to find ocean to bring back to coriana jacob and sophie trying to find the island to save kate and the bat team also trying to find coriana in order to not just save kate but also get a desert rose to cure ryan this all comes to a head when alice sophie jacob and ryan all get to coriana sophie and jacob are looking for kate ryan makes a deal for a desert rose and alice learns that sophia tricked her into believing that she had kate so in her age alice burned down all the desert roses before ryan could even get one ryan is about to accept death but luke then calls sophie and lets her know that they actually have a desert rose back in gotham so with some amazing pace sophie brings ryan back home to be cured and with an end credit stinger we learned that the villain black mask actually has the real k kane scarred but alive now with ryan feeling back to normal she is striving to take down black mask and his gang the false face society you hear me black mask you can hide your face but you can't hide from me i am coming for you now i don't remember much of season one my therapist said that is a normal symptom after experiencing trauma but what i do remember is that one of the biggest problems with the show was the character of kate kane who by the eighth time she just let alice go without capture barely counted as a hero so when i learned that the actress that played kate kane would not be returning for season 2 and we would instead be getting a brand new character to take up the cowl i'll be honest i was optimistic i thought that the showrunners would take this opportunity to address the problems with season 1 and use season 2 as a second chance to fix the show but i have learned that asking modern cw to improve a show's following season is like asking to see a unicorn or a good star wars movie from disney some things may never happen it's a real shame too because ryan is actually leagues better than kate ever was granted that is a low bar to jump over but at this point i'll take what i can get for one she actually struggles at being that woman at first she can't land to fall properly doesn't know how to use most of the gadgets and misses so many times with the batarang that she just runs out this gives ryan room to grow and improve which is a lot more interesting than having kate to be great at everything from the jump for example in season 1 kate couldn't use the batarang effectively because they weren't calibrated for her which ends up making it luke's fault that she's missing here ryan actually gets to have a nice scene with luke where she acknowledges her inexperience and promises to do better i got a few more made i'll work on my aim that'd be great she also has a lot more charisma than kate don't get me wrong she still has to say some horrible dialogue but at least there's some emotion behind it you see writers this is what is called the start to a character someone who is likable but flawed and is given room to improve unfortunately like most things on a cw nothing good ever lasts because it doesn't take long for the writers to turn ryan into a hypocritical unlikable ass who acts a lot like a villain for example one of the first times i realized that ryan was going downhill was in episode 5. here ryan has captured a criminal who has information about coriana so sophie uses the bat signal to call batwoman and offer her a deal so she and jacob can try and interrogate her prisoner ryan shuts her down and says this line so you can beat him with an edge of his life now look the crows aren't an amazing organization by any means but isn't it a little hypocritical to complain that the crows beat people within into their lives when you are currently starving your prisoner take it from a foster kid it is amazing how well you behave when you are literally starving what right do you have to call out the crows when your morals are just as twisted what about episode 8 when ryan is about to die and sophie comforts her so she won't be alone nice moment right ryan is finally looking at sofia is more than a crow and in her dying moments she is given compassion from her however after ryan survives she still doesn't trust or even respect sophie going as far as to call her crofy as a backhanded insult like ryan treats sophie like crap when she does so much to help her she put ryan's girlfriend angelique in protective custody so black mask couldn't get her erased her criminal history so the crows wouldn't find out that she is batwoman and saved ryan's life not once but twice like what the hell ryan this woman has done so much for you and it took you till the second to last episode before you showed her a little bit of respect never have i ever compromised my values to support a white supremacist organization drunk you ryan isn't the only character that makes me question my life decisions every episode the writers have also made alice the most frustrating part of the show this comes from the fact that they are trying to redeem her from being a villain yeah the same character that killed and maimed so many people the writers are trying to redeem now i'm not saying that it's impossible to redeem a character who has killed people before but the way they are trying to do it with alice is ridiculous basically before she went back to gotham city alice met sophia who brought her to coriana there ocean trained alice and throughout their time together they ended up growing fond of each other alice even gave up on her venetta she had against her family due to this time that she has spent with him however after alice and ocean try to leave the island sophia stops them and uses a hypnotist to make them forget their time with each other now here is where this gets really stupid apparently by having alice forget about ocean it also somehow made her lose her last tie to her humanity which is what caused her to be a heartless psychopath what so you're telling me that none of alice's actions are her own fault it wasn't my fault that is so lazy instead of i don't know making alice start to see the error of her ways slowly showing compassion and a need to make things right and then by the end of the season having alice turn herself into the authorities so she can face some justice for her crimes no she was just hypnotized it wasn't her fault this hurts the show on so many fronts for one it tries to take the blame away from alice meaning she doesn't really need to do any work to be redeemed two some people like myself think that alice can't be redeemed based on her actions and lack of willingness to change so we aren't going to buy into alice becoming an anti-hero or whatever the writers are trying to do with her and three probably the worst one is that if you accept that alice is trying to be redeemed then all the times of ryan trying to kill alice or more recently leave her ass for dead makes ryan look like a cold-blooded villain congratulations batwoman you managed to screw up your protagonist even more by trying to redeem your villain you can't save everyone the only character that actually gives me some relief from this show is luke he has some good character moments and is one of the few people who actually challenges ryan's decision making quick okay i'm just gonna say it finding angelique is not worth throwing the bat legacy down the train but even he can't go unscathed as the writers just decide to make luke dumb whenever the plot calls for it for example in episode 4 we learn that sophia claims to have kate on coriana and soon everyone on the bat team gets this information however mary thinks that this could be a lie while luke believes that the source can be trusted now this would be fine if the source relaying this information to everyone wasn't alice and the person who told sophie the kate's alive is named alice and alice heard it from some mystery woman named sophia who just hired a hitman to try and kill me so we are playing game of telephone with a bunch of homicidal women there's no reason luke should trust any information alice gives them as he is normally smart enough to know that yes we know that alice believes it to be true but luke doesn't know that so what reason is there to trust this [ __ ] luke's stupidity only continues throughout the season as he is always being told what to do and never takes initiative this is the guy that worked with batman as tech support and last season was able to crack a code in his father's journal that wasn't able to be solved by some of the best cryptologists and you're trying to tell me that he still needs people like ryan to point out obvious things for him to do when working on a case i i brought the plan i brought the game plan i call bull if crappy characters weren't enough to give me permanent brain damage trying to make any sense of season two's plot would most likely lead to me ending up in arkham asylum i can go in and dissect every issue with batwoman's plot but if i was to do that this would be like a 10 hour video so instead i'm going to look at one episode that is the biggest failing of writing and storytelling that i have ever seen i'm talking about episode 8 survived much worse this is the episode where every major character is heading to coriana alice has supposedly killed ocean and is off to deliver the body to sophia jacob and sophie are off to find kate in a desert rose for batwoman but after being ambushed and captured by sophia's men ryan has to spring into action and on a quick side note i think it's safe to say that the crows have to be the most incompetent organization in all comic book history i mean the amount of times they get ambushed or caught off guard is ridiculous especially because they're supposed to be expensive private security and you know this wouldn't be as bad if it didn't keep happening in the crow's own garage like how bad is the security in this building to where everyone gets jumped in the same spot no one thought that after the third time that this happened they should tighten security just a little bit or better yet how the hell do they get ambushed in the first place they're in the middle of a giant parking garage you are telling me they didn't see or hear anything oh and don't forget the amount of times that jacob or sophie just go someplace without any backup you have access to the equivalent of a small army's worth of supplies and resources so why are you always going into situations alone anyway due to ryan's weakened state because of the kryptonite poisoning she has to inject herself with a serum that will keep her in fighting shape the downside is that it only gives her roughly 24 hours to live so the race is on for ryan to save sophie and jacob and get herself a desert rose before it's too late now the first big problem with this episode's plot is its timeline the episode has a ticking clock of about 24 hours to get the desert rose and save ryan so it needs to make sure that all the time that ryan spends on the island matches up so it's believable that she can survive and after calculating the time it is safe to say that ryan should be dead why is this well when she first gets to the island luke lets her know that she has 18 hours to live i got it assuming that it took one hour to get ready that would mean that a trip from gotham to coriana takes about five hours by cargo plane the next time we have a reference for the time is when ryan meets with sophia and she exposes that alice really didn't kill ocean and instead put a fake face on a random guy alice is then thrown in jail with ryan and is saying that it looks like she only has a few hours left let's be generous and say that ryan only has four hours left the next time we see her is after alice sets the desert roses on fire and she looks like she's on the brink of death but ignoring that she's practically on death's door let's assume that she has three hours left this is where luke tells sophie to get ryan home because they have found a desert rose now gotham city is located in the real world new jersey the distance between it and the mediterranean sea which is where coriana is located would be about 5 810 miles also jacob and sophie's escape plan involved leaving in a private jet which has an average speed of about 600 miles per hour that means it would take our heroes over nine hours to get back home but given the show the biggest benefit of the doubt one of the fastest cargo planes goes at the speed of 515 miles per hour which means the time to get from gotham to coriana should be 11 hours instead of the five the show gives us so that means we need to scale down our calculations dividing our initial 5 hours by 11.2816 hours makes a difference of about 44 so by multiplying 9 hours by our 44 that means after our most generous calculations the trip should take 4 hours to get back to gotham ryan should be dead mathematically speaking this episode is complete besides the fact that these writers have no concept of time this episode also makes the desert rose a deus ex machina which is an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation especially as a contrived plot device for example the show tries to convince you that there is no hope for ryan after alice burns the desert roses as it was established that the plant was only on coriana and now they're all ash so ryan should be dead right that would be the case if this show was written by people that actually cared about stakes or consistency i said before that luke found the desert rose back in gotham just in time to save ryan but how did he find it well ocean did manage to escape coriana with a desert rose and what did he do with this plant that he risked his life for he gave it to his assistant angelique who just so happens to be ryan's girlfriend who just so happens to have given her the flower as a gift then before ryan left for coriana she gave that plant to mary in case she didn't come back but the flower didn't have all the cure-all powers at first so how is it able to heal ryan well the legend of the desert rose says that centuries ago the women of a village in europe banded together to escape their abusive husbands and they fled here with their children in tow months later the men they escaped tracked them down the next day a field of roses bloomed in the very spot of the battle they wrote that only a woman's life force could birth this medicine so obviously when an assassin from coriana goes to try and kill luke and mary didn't get knocked down just so happened to land on the flower twice the assassin's blood turned the flower into a full bloom desert rose now if you think that this is very convoluted and relies on a bunch of coincidences to even happen then congratulations unlike me you actually have a few brain cells left to spare this kind of bad writing is not just exclusive to this episode it is all throughout season 2 and makes the show damn near impossible to watch because the writers will establish something one episode only to wreck kanye later with no explanation like how at the end of episode 3 luke and ryan are finally seeing eye to eye but then two episodes later apparently he is now constantly comparing her to kate i need you to give me a chance a real chance till she's back yeah deal and you shouldn't compare yourself to her what everybody else is i assume you mean luke and this is only so ryan can have some reason to keep her injury hidden from the team no matter how stupid that reason is or even better what about episodes 7 and 8 where we see that ryan has given up her vendetta to kill alice ryan this isn't the girl i raised but she killed you i don't know what made you this way you're not worth it you remember what you said to me on your way out it's not my fault you were talking about why you are the way you are because as dark and screwed up as you are at the end of the day you're a victim of somebody too but by the end of episode 12 ryan decides to leave alice for dead i remember your mom i lied about like you said can't save everyone [Music] only because we need to have a character realize that black mask has kate under mind control and instead of writing a plot that would logically lead alice to be taken by black mask let's just retcon the very little character development that we have given ryan for convenience sake this has to be one of the worst written shows i have ever had the displeasure of watching and it makes it so that when the show tries to tackle controversial subjects it handles them with absolutely no grace or class yes we are at that part of the video how to the people now i promised myself i will never get political on this channel and i'm going to keep that promise but when a show's writing or plot is so dependent on discussing these issues it will be a disservice to not just the video but to you guys if i ignored it and for the record i'm not saying that comic book shows cannot talk about controversial and or deep subjects if you want to do it go right ahead but to understand why batwoman fails to talk about these subjects i want to look at a prior cw show that was able to take these on very well i am talking about arrow season 5 episode 13 spectre of the gun for those of you who may not know aero is a show about oliver queen a man who spent five years stranded on an island and came back with the goal to save his city from the people trying to destroy it as a result he became the green arrow and recruited many other vigilantes to his cause during season 5 oliver has become mayor of his home star city and in this episode a man committed a mass shooting at city hall now oliver has to deal with the political fallout of this action and have his team find the shooter before he strikes again obviously this episode is talking about gun violence and gun control and when you first hear that you try to figure out what side the show is going to take but the thing is arrow never takes a side instead it chooses to lay out both arguments point of view in a respectful way for example the two characters that end up butting heads throughout most of this episode are curtis holtz who takes the position of being pro gun control and renee ramirez who is anti-gun control now i don't have any problem with your right to bear arms so long as it doesn't conflict with my right to you know live look at what we do man our whole life is violence 18 people by the way what the mall shooting 18 people killed 12 injured one's a quadriplegic look i know where you're going with this but the feds had an assault weapons ban for years and it did nothing they end up going back and forth like this throughout the entire episode and neither side is shown to be objectively wrong we even get some nice backstory from renee that shows us why he feels the way he does turns out one night renee took his daughter to a hockey game and his wife convinced them to not bring his gun even though they were going to a dangerous part of town this was proven to be the wrong decision as when rene gets home he sees that his wife who unbeknownst to him has been using drugs is being held hostage by her dealer after not paying for her last fix this leads to renee fumbling to get his gun and when he finally shoots the dealer a stray bullet ends up killing his wife renee believes that if he had his gun with him that day his wife may still be alive this is what this episode of arrow does better than anything that woman has done it makes sure that the people representing both sides are fleshed out characters even the man who committed the mass shooting this episode has an actual character we find out his name is james edlud and he is angry that he couldn't protect his wife and daughter from the man that shot them a few years back and now he's taking out his anger on the city the show doesn't try to paint him as a great guy but they make james a human with faults and reasons for his actions no matter how misguided they may be in the end oliver gets james to turn himself in and the episode wraps up with oliver working with renee to pass a law that has nothing that makes it harder to buy or own carry a gun it also doesn't prohibit people from protecting themselves from gun violence now what is in this law they passed and how does it accomplish what oliver claims we don't know because they never tell us and you know what that is perfect the show isn't telling us what we should think rather it is laying out both sides and expects the audience to come to their own decision hell one of the main points of this episode is talking about the importance of being able to respect someone's point of view even if you disagree with them we used to talk about things as a society you know we debate and we would argue and we would still respect each other after can't help but wondering that maybe that's why our country is the way it is today yes it's very on the nose but you know what this is where batwoman fails season two puts a lot of its episode's focus on law enforcement and the effects it has on gotham however the show doesn't try to look at both sides equally they end up making every member of the crows or gcpd out to be either incompetent or mustache twirling villains they don't give us someone that could represent the good side of these organizations i mean they could have done it with sophie but every episode characters keep crapping on her because of her job and you know what if the show showed us the crows or gcpd being these horrible people it's because you lie and you cheat and you cover up murders then maybe within the context of the show i can understand making them villains the problem is that we never see the crows actually doing bad oh actually batwoman did do this in episode 14. that's right this part of the video was added mid-edit because i am here to say that this episode is one of the most insulting things i have ever seen the writers really hammer in the fact that the crows and gcpd are villains they try to make these two cops racist because they came into the bar ryan works at and was asking them to lower the volume of their music and it seems to be targeting them now this doesn't work for a hilarious reasons ignoring the fact that ryan was very aggressive with the cop when luke was trying to defuse the situation and the fact that someone actually called for the noise complaint in the middle of the day ryan works at an openly gay bar and there's no indication before the cops entered that it would be as ryan puts it a bunch of black and brown folks dancing to pop hits so if the cops came in with the intention of starting something wouldn't it make more sense if they would be homophobic rather than racist anyway they end up arresting ryan and luke while sophie goes to the bar to try and figure out what happened only to have the cops arrest her too because he doesn't believe she's a crow first off why doesn't sophie have a badge or an id card on her or something that a normal member of law enforcement would have on them off duty to identify themselves secondly how does the gcpd not know the second in command of the crows when they have been in gotham as law enforcement for over a year well because this was just done to put sophie in the same cell as luke and ryan so they could argue about sophie being a crow for the uptight time but you know what to give the show the benefit of the doubt they do use this moment to humble ryan a bit pointing out that she thinks that she has everyone and everything figured out when in reality she's just making assumptions which is in turn making her look like an ass i risk my life every day face exposed to the world to protect this city you know that so do not sit there and tell me that's not brave life hasn't been easy for you but none of ours ass you know what batwoman good on you even though the way we got here was incredibly stupid and made absolutely no sense i am glad that you are taking this opportunity to make ryan more down to earth and add to her i'm out i mean i'm leaving the crows god damn it that woman how hard is it to make ryan wrong about something or anything do you not want her to grow or be likable at all just because you're a member of law enforcement doesn't mean you're a bad person sophie is not a bad person for wanting to make the crows better hell she could have played a role like jim gordon did in the show gotham there his morals and values were so strong that he was able to change a corrupt gcpd for the better by setting a great example but no they can't be fixed we can redeem alice all we want but making the crows better by having a strong moral figure at the helm well that's just crazy talk at least the episode can't get much work [ __ ] you batwoman just why why shoot luke ignoring the fact that the crows pretty much teleported to the scene they got there so damn fast how does luke getting shot add to the story how does it change our characters how does it make sense that the person who in the same episode said this ryan i'm sure that you think that growing up with rich white kids taught me how to play nice but it taught me how to keep my head down i don't just run into fights when i know i can't win decided to do the exact opposite oh i have the answer because the writers don't see these people as characters they see them as tools to push whatever plot they want without ever thinking for a second if it makes a lick of sense luke can't grow as a character from this experience and ryan and sophie already hate the crows so what does shooting luke really do oh never mind i know it's to make headlines because that's all batwoman season 2 wants to do they don't care about telling a deep or consistent story they just care about stirring up attention it makes batwoman feel so preachy as it comes across as a show trying to tell you what and how to think both sides don't get represented there are no fleshed out characters within the gcpd or the crows instead it just becomes a montage of this and that's exactly why all these systems are broken all crows are bastards crowfish never have i ever compromised my values support a white supremacist organization you people what baffles my brain is that sites like screed rant actually praised these decisions saying batwoman has become the show aero should have been but when arrow's episode of gun control came out years ago the show apparently failed to tackle the topic yes not everything aero says in this episode is correct but the show doesn't treat its audience like sheep that need to be told what to think rather it respects that we can come to our own conclusions with the information given that woman's goal is to create headlines rather than doing the work to explore both sides and the end result is a preachy mess now if you made it this far into the video you're probably wondering why the hell am i still talking about this show if it's so bad can't i just stop watching it well for one i'm a glutton punishment but two i believe that to a certain extent there aren't bad ideas rather bad executions a batwoman's show could have definitely worked but the show fails to use its premise to its full potential like did you know that when the character orion was first revealed she was described as an ex-drug runner obviously the show didn't go through with this characterization and it seems that they have given those traits to the character of angelique but what if they didn't what if ryan actually started out as someone within black masks gang but looking for a way to get out she could find the bat suit and see that as a way for her to take down black mask from the inside and while her intentions start off selfish by being that woman and spending time with luke and mary she can learn what it means to wear the bath symbol and slowly turn more into a hero this is why i watch these shows there is always potential for something good it just so happens that the odds of this show producing something even decent is drastically low batwoman season 2 has become the worst thing to ever touch the cw yes supergirl is boring with horrible dialogue and the flash is on a constant downward spiral but batwoman is a different breed it fails in every possible way and just when you think it can't get worse the show says hold my beer bat woman is a walking contradiction as no plotline gets to be completed without having some part of it get retconned and it makes watching the show the most frustrating viewing experience i have ever sat through between the nonsense plot horrible characters and the lack of any competence in the writer's room i think it's safe to say that batwoman season 2 is the worst show on the cw well at least by the time this video is out the season should be done as it was only supposed to have 13 up are you can okay well at least no one would be stupid enough to renew this show for another mother anyway i do hope you guys enjoyed the video let me know in the comment section down below what are your thoughts on batwoman do you agree with me that it's this god-awful or am i missing something that shines the show in a different light honestly this has to be probably my favorite video that i made at least one of i've never gone in on the show this much before in all my time on youtube and i think i've really broken down why that woman is just so god awful if you want to stay updated with the projects that i'm working on follow me on instagram and twitter links are in the description and yeah i just hope you guys did enjoy the video if you guys liked it and you're new to the channel hit that like and that subscribe button also did your channel potential hit those same buttons and click on the notification bell so you get notified whenever new videos come out but other than that hope you guys enjoyed i will talk to you all later bass oh god that was a definite clap

Channel: G.I. Gio

Views: 446,012

Keywords: batwoman, batwoman season 2, batwoman cw, ruby rose batwoman, comics, review, ruby rose, javicia leslie, tv show, kate kane, ryan wilder, batman, gotham, luke fox, Batwing, Batman, batwoman sophie, batwoman sophie and ryan, batwoman alice, batwoman alice and ocean, gigio, G.I.Gio, GIGIO, GIGio, g.i.gio, G.I. Gio, dc comics, Batwoman is bad, arrow, arrowverse, oliver queen, green arrow, video essay film, video essay

Id: W6qQqUdLJzQ

Length: 33min 35sec (2015 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 02 2021