Batwoman Season 2, Episode 14 recap: Blood and guts

Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14, ‘”And Justice for All,” is not for the faint of heart. Gory, disturbing, and politically relevant, this episode is a wild and terrifying ride.

This season of The CW show hasn’t been afraid to explore how Black identities exist within the superhero genre. It’s delved into real-world experiences for Black communities in the USA. Sometimes, the political allegories have been hit or miss, but this episode? It’s something else.

The primary events of this episode take off when Batwoman tracks down a Snakebite buyer. And then walks right into a homeless community in an abandoned church and so much worse.

With Angelique and Ocean no longer under the Black Mask’s thrall, the False-Face Gang have had to adjust the Snakebite formula. This new Snakebite doesn’t quite work right. It’s turning people into flesh-eating zombies. If you have a weak stomach, look away!

Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14: Who’s Kate Kane?

Kate Kane doesn’t believe her sister, Alice, about her identity in Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14. She still thinks she’s Circe Sionis. It looks like Enigma really did a number on her.

And apparently, it won’t be as easy as to bring Kate back as it was to bring Alice’s memories of Ocean back. Not much reason for Alice to keep Enigma alive, is it? Realizing her dire situation, Enigma asks Alice to bring something unique memento of Kate’s. That will help Enigma bring Kate back.

Alice knows exactly what to use, and she encounters Ocean in the process. She tells Ocean that Kate is alive, and Ocean is ready to help Alice get her sister back.

So, what has Alice chosen? Kate’s motorbike keys. An interesting choice. But Kate loved her bike—it symbolized freedom from Gotham, her father, and Alice.

Enigma explains how the process will work, but then she drops a bombshell—there’s a codeword that’s needed to unlock Kate’s psyche. But before she can tell Alice the codeword, Ocean kills Enigma.

It turns out Ocean doesn’t want Alice to get her sister back. That’s why he killed Enigma. As far as Ocean is concerned, Kate has never chosen Alice. Ocean doesn’t believe Kate loves Alice, not the way he does. Where does this leave Alice?

Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14: The fundraiser

With Angelique in witness protection, Ryan has started a relationship with Imani in Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14. Imani has been fundraising for the new community center in Gotham. Of course, the double life is making things very difficult. And this relationship has only just begun.

The fundraiser is rudely interrupted by a pair of police officers, apparently answering a noise complaint. For a fundraiser at a bar? Ryan is furious, but Luke tries to diffuse the situation. Neither plan works—Ryan and Luke end up in jail.

When Sophie arrives at the fundraiser, only to find a gigantic mess, she too gets hauled off to jail. And she’s a Crow! These officers didn’t care about a “noise complaint”—they saw Black and brown people in a space together and decided to disrupt it.

This new issue puts Ryan and Sophie at odds, yet again, so soon after they’d started to connect. Ryan’s hatred of Crows and of Sophie for throwing her in prison makes it impossible for her to see what Sophie does every day.

For Sophie, it’s important for people to see a Black woman in law enforcement—as a child, she never saw that. Her community was policed by people who didn’t look like her nor cared about her.

And unlike Ryan, who gets to choose to be Batwoman whenever she wants, Sophie is out there all the time. This is certainly an important conversation to have now, but I’m not sure about the resolution.

It isn’t long before Gotham is calling for its savior, Batwoman. Except, she’s stuck in jail for doing nothing wrong literally. Fortunately, Imani comes to the rescue, hoping to salvage the evening with her girlfriend. Unfortunately, Gotham takes precedent.

When Ryan and Imani meet up again later that night, Ryan realizes that she can’t keep lying to Imani. They have to call it quits but maybe someday?

Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14: Gotham zombies

With the new Snakebite accessible to far too many people, Gotham has a bigger problem on its hands, one that GCPD can’t handle on its own in Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14.

While Mary helps her dad, Jacob Kane, recover from his addiction to the first version of Snakebite—thanks to Black Mask, of course—Mary gets a visitor. A man who’s injected himself with the new Snakebite is terrified of what’s happening to him. And he’s landed up at Mary’s clinic for help.

As Mary examines the new effects of the Snakebite, she figures out how to reverse the effects. The only problem is that everyone infected has to be injected manually by Batwoman. That means getting up close and personal with zombies. Poor Batwoman.

Meanwhile, Sophie may be out of jail, but she’s got other problems to handle—Tavaroff being on the top of her list. He’s getting the other Crows under his wing, and they take no time to bring up Sophie’s stint in jail.

But with Jacob incommunicado, Sophie is in charge, as she very calmly but firmly reminds Tavaroff that she’s acting commander. He’s trying to avoid the zombie attacks because apparently, the attacks are beyond the Crows’ jurisdiction. Sophie doesn’t care—people need help. That’s what the Crows do.

Not Tavaroff—he goes in guns blazing and kills these innocent drug-addled people for no reason. And Batwoman witnesses the whole thing. How will Sophie reign in Tavaroff and his fellow inhumane agents? She can’t. So, she’s leaving the Crows.

Batwoman has no time to recover from what she’s seen the Crows do. The man from Mary’s clinic escapes. When an officer—the same one who arrested Ryan and Luke at the bar—tries to calm the man down, he bites the officer.

Batwoman arrives and injects the man, saving the officer, who is so grateful to be saved by her. Considering that, thanks to his actions, Batwoman almost couldn’t be here to save him.

Zombies aren’t the worst problem for Team-Batwoman tonight. After all the evening events, Luke is trying to get home when he sees a carjacking take place. The man doing it was sharing the holding cell with Luke, Ryan, and Sophie.

Luke decides against calling 911—he thinks he has enough of a connection with the carjacker to make him stop. The guy, Eli, doesn’t even remember Luke. He goes on doing his thing.

But when the Crows show up—Tavaroff, of all people—Eli blames Luke for the carjacking. It’s a ridiculous situation, and Luke immediately looks for his phone to show the Crows proof that Eli is the thief and not him. Tavaroff thinks Luke is reaching for his gun, and he shoots Luke.

The last we see of Gotham’s tech hero is Luke falling to the ground, seemingly dead. What a way to end the episode before a three-week break.

Final Thoughts: Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14 is a violent, political shocker

That was such a shocking ending to Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14 that I’m still reeling from it. The CWVerse has killed off main cast characters before, but Luke’s supposed death was just too real. One hopes that Luke will be brought back in some way, but I can’t see how.

There were so many parallels to how Gotham law enforcement engages with white versus Black citizens in this episode that perhaps that ending shouldn’t have come as a shock.

While Imani and Ryan’s fundraiser is gate-crashed by GCPD, with Ryan and Luke being rather violently hauled off to jail, white Gothamites aren’t treated the same way.

For instance, the Snakebite victim is a white man. He’s clearly showing signs of distress and agitation but the white cops he encountered always tried to diffuse the situation.

On the other hand, as we saw with Luke, it didn’t take a moment before Tavaroff pulled out his gun and shot him. And this is something that has happened for decades in the US.

We’d seen Tavaroff kill with impunity earlier in the episode—he and his Crows saw unarmed people who were erratic and shot them on sight. I assume that was foreshadowing for what would happen to Luke.

What happens next on Batwoman Season 2? I can’t even begin to imagine. I desperately hope that Luke is injured but not dead. Maybe he can return to take on the mantle of Batwing, as he does in the DC Comics?

I also hope Alice sees the error of Ocean’s ways and tries to save her sister. It is going to be an unbearably long wait for the next installment of this show.

What did you think of the Batwoman Season 2 Episode 14? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Batwoman Season 2 is airing weekly on The CW.