Ryan Calls Out Luke In A Preview Of The Next ‘Batwoman’

The pace of Batwoman is one of the things which seems to be improving over the previous season — granted, the show was trying to establish itself and prepare for a major Arrowverse crossover all at once last year — and in this preview of next week’s episode, Ryan (Javicia Leslie) calls out Luke (Camrus Johnson) on his continuing refusal to accept her. His reticence to do so is something we’ve commented on before and it is nice to see the show doing something with it fairly quickly. Will it lead to them finally becoming allies or will Luke work his way right out of Team Batwoman? Also, why can’t Alice (Rachel Skarsten) remember Ocean? What else happened on Coryana and did it have more of an effect on her than she thought?

Back in this week’s episode, we have to say the pairing of Sophie (Meagan Tandy) and Alice continues to produce great dividends. So much so, we’re sad the real reason behind Alice’s desire to find Kate means the two will not be unwilling partners again. As Alice herself said, Sophie is buttoned-down and it made for a great contrast with the show’s nominal main villain. Also, it made her more than the love interest everyone lies to — but as the Season 1 love interest, the show has to work very hard to make Sophie her own character going forward. Oddly, keeping her away from Ryan goes a long way toward building her into someone we want to stay around.

Meanwhile, we also have to congratulate the show for telling a story it wasn’t really equipped to do last season: the way Black and minority missing children get ignored in favor of girls who look like Beth. Batwoman could’ve done such an episode with Kate, but we don’t think it would land the same way without Ryan experiencing it herself. When her character description first surfaced, Ryan’s homelessness and criminal past felt a little too stereotypical, but it is producing some compelling ideas as she is also a person the system, even the superhero system, completely failed. And considering the overarching plot is a missing persons case, we hope Ryan continues to champion for people who fall by the wayside in favor of those who get million-dollar rewards attached to their names.

Batwoman airs Sundays on The CW.