Batwoman Officially Connects To “Elseworlds” In “Mine Is a Long and a Sad Tale”

When fans of The CW‘s Arrowverse first met Batwoman it was during last year’s “Elseworlds” crossover event with The Flash (Grant Gustin,) Green Arrow (Stephen Amell,) and Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) heading into Gotham hoping to deal with Dr. John Deegan, the man who had the Book of Destiny and was creating the issues impacting their lives. When Batwoman got her own show, though, fans went back a bit in time to discover how Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) became the heroine with the show ultimately catching up to Elseworlds as of episode four, “Who Are you”. Now, Sunday’s “Mine is a Long and a Sad Tale” makes that catch up in-universe official by referencing the event.

In Sunday’s episode — the fifth for Batwoman‘s first season — while Kate is with Alice (Rachel Skarsten) learning of her villainous origin (and the truth about what happened to her following the accident that left young Beth Kane presumed dead) — Kate’s stepsister Mary (Nicole Kang) ends up at Wayne Enterprises with a frustrated Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson). However, the frustration sort of wears off and eventually the two somewhat come together trying to figure out the recent rash of skin thefts from Gotham morgues. Fox eventually locates a news item about Jonathan Cartwright, a man who had a hobby of stealing the skin from corpses, having escaped during the Arkham breakout.

Now, Mary isn’t aware of any Arkham breakout and it’s clear that it was fairly well concealed, but fans may recognize the breakout Luke is referring to: the one from “Elseworlds”. In “Elseworlds,” Dr. Deegan released all the inmates at Arkham as a form of distraction when the heroes came to confront him, thus creating the referenced breakout. While most of the inmates were captured, a few got away — including Jonathan.

Jonathan ends up being of particular interest for more than just his escape from Arkham, too. He ends up being Mouse, a critical part of Alice’s origin story and someone she now considers to be her “Brother” despite the fact that it was his father holding her prisoner that made her the demented villain she is when we meet her in Batwoman. It creates a direct line of connection between Batwoman and the rest of the Arrowverse in a unique and interesting way — and it will be even more interesting to see how things catch up to “Crisis on Infinite Earths” just around the corner.

Batwoman airs Sundays at 8/7c on The CW.