Batwoman References The Joker in Season 2 Premiere

Batwoman returned for its second season on Sunday night, and it did so with quite a lot on its plate. The hit The CW series properly introduced fans to an entirely new DC Comics superhero, as Ryan Wilder (Javicia Leslie) began her journey to take on the mantle of Batwoman. In addition to Ryan’s arc, the series had to deal with the nature of Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) exiting the series, and the various plotlines and moments that would come along with that. This culminated in a pivotal scene between two of the series’ characters — one that referenced one of DC’s biggest villains along the way. Spoilers for the Season 2 premiere of Batwoman, “What Happened to Kate Kane?”, below! Only look if you want to know!

The episode opened with a pretty significant approach to Kate Kane’s fate, by revealing that she was on a plane from National City that crashed into Gotham’s harbor. As Ryan recovered Kate’s suit and began to don it herself, the other supporting character grappled with what might have happened to Kate — and everyone reacted pretty differently. Jacob Kane (Dougray Scott) tried to pull his resources in The Crows to figure out what happened to Kate, while Elizabeth Kane/Alice (Rachel Skarsten) became verklempt about the fact that she wasn’t the one who potentially killed Kate. This culminated in a meeting between Jacob and Alice, during which Alice revealed to Jacob that Kate was Batwoman. Jacob initially refused to believe this fact, sarcastically joking that “Yeah, and I’m The Joker.”

This is far from the Clown Prince of Crime’s first mention in Batwoman, as the character has been tangentially involved with the series’ events ever since the pilot, when he was responsible for the car crash that killed Beth and Kate’s mother and made Beth go missing. He also was referenced by one of his comic-accurate civilian names, Jack Napier, when discussing the work of a prolific District Attorney who was murdered by The Executioner. Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson) also brought up The Joker when Kate was having PTSD about killing August Cartwright (John Emmet Tracy), with Luke seemingly insinuating that Batman had killed The Joker nearly half a decade before.

Of course, The Joker’s fate was never officially confirmed – much less on a public level within Gotham City – which makes Jacob’s reference of the villain all the more intriguing. Granted, the mention doesn’t serve as any sort of confirmation that The Joker could factor into the series, but it at least proves that some of Batwoman‘s characters think that he is still out there.

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