Batwoman Showrunner Addresses How the Coronavirus Pandemic Affected Season 1 Finale

The COVID-19 pandemic has made a profound impact on the world of television, with production on countless series still shut down for the foreseeable future. Because of that, many shows have had to end their seasons earlier than they’d initially planned, leaving some plotlines unresolved until production can begin again. One of the next series to face this challenge is The CW‘s Batwoman, which will be wrapping up its first season with its twentieth episode on Sunday, May 17th. While that is two episodes less than what was ordered for the series in October of last year, it sounds like the new finale will leave things on an interesting note. While speaking to ComicBook.com about tonight’s penultimate episode, “A Secret Kept From All the Rest”, Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries spoke about how the production shutdown impacted the way the season came to a close.

“It’s really a bummer from just a creative point of view. We had these last two episodes written and one of them was ready to be shot, so it was sad in that regard,” Dries explained. “However, I saw the writing on the wall happening with COVID a little bit before we shut down. And I just looked at what we had and I was like, ‘You know what? This is going to work out.’”

As Dries put it, these circumstances still didn’t prevent the show from airing an epic finale, as the new closing episode will include a “huge cliffhanger”.

“We have an awesome last episode, we have a huge cliffhanger, and we have all of these emotional stories that we were able to wrap up,” Dries revealed. “So I feel really, really blessed about how it all happened. And I’m really happy with episode 20 as our finale.”

“I’m always challenging the writers. I’m like, ‘We need cliffhangers, we need this build.’” Dries continued. “So when I was watching 19, I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s like always building and teeing things up.’ Thank God we did that in episode 20 as well.”

Batwoman is the latest of The CW’s original programming to air an abridged season, with fellow Arrowverse shows The Flash and Supergirl also being confirmed to end earlier than planned. Some of the network’s other shows – including Riverdale and Nancy Drew – have already aired de-facto season finales in recent weeks, while both Supernatural and Legacies went on indefinite hiatuses shortly after production got shut down.

Batwoman airs Sundays at 8/7c on The CW. Check back to ComicBook.com after tonight’s episode for more of our chat with Dries.