We’re officially into Season 2 of The CW‘s Batwoman, and it’s already given fans quite a lot to take in. The series will now be entering a new era, with Ryan Wilder (Javicia Leslie) taking over the series’ mantle from Kate Kane (Ruby Rose). With Ryan being an entirely new character (who, at this point, has only made one cameo appearance in the comics), fans have been curious to see what her origin story will entail. In this week’s season premiere, viewers got to see a lot of what is driving Ryan as a hero — including a rivalry with one of the show’s existing characters. Spoilers for the Season 2 premiere of Batwoman, “What Happened to Kate Kane?”, below! Only look if you want to know!
As the episode goes along, we get flashbacks and details to Ryan’s pre-Batwoman life — her mother died in childbirth and she spent much of her life in foster care, but she was inspired to turn her life around thanks to her adopted mother. The two of them moved into an apartment to start their “new life”, but were immediately ambushed by a group of squatters in the apartment, who ended up being members of Alice’s Wonderland Gang. The gang members murdered Ryan’s adopted mother and beat up Ryan, before Alice showed up and instructed them to disperse.
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The connection between Alice and Ryan is definitely unexpected, but intriguing — not only does it keep up the dynamic between Batwoman and Alice in the comics, but it arguably makes it more tumultuous than the complicated bond that Kate and Alice had. As Leslie told ComicBook.com and other reporters during a recent virtual press conference, that rivalry will also highlight some of the evil things that Ryan has done.
“What’s interesting about that dynamic is that people do things, and sometimes they don’t know how much it can affect other people. They blindly do things,” Leslie revealed. “And I think that for a lot of Alice’s life, she’s done whatever she wanted to do, and there might have been one specific goal, but she didn’t know how that goal impacted other people. I think this season is going to make her face a lot of the things that she has done in her past… Think about what Alice has been to the series. She has unleashed a lot of evil on Gotham, but the story never follows the homeless person that was in the alley that got affected by something she did. So now, she’s being been met with the impact of her actions. It’s definitely going to be a very interesting relationship between the two. It’s definitely going to be a huge part of the season, in Ryan’s journey, in Alice’s journey.”
Leslie also teased that Ryan’s desire to avenge her mother’s death will impact a lot of her overall approach to being Batwoman.
“She’s a person that hurt. She learned all these different martial arts so she can protect herself and her mother, and people that she cares about. And she could do nothing. It’s taken right from her, and she could do nothing to save her mother. So I understand the drive. So I will read the script, and I would innately and naturally attack that way,” Leslie explained. “Because if I’ve been set in that world and that history of being neglected, of my mom being murdered, of her murder going unsolved, and that justice never prevailed, I’m going to have that type of energy and that type of drive every single time I get a chance to avenge her death or save anyone.”
“Especially in the beginning part of the season, that’s Ryan. She’s head-first at everything, and I actually love that about her,” Leslie continued. “I love how messy that can come across, because she has to find a way to hone it. She has to find a way to focus. But I think that that’s what makes her so special, because she’s very authentic. She’s very raw. She’s very grounded in her beliefs. And really, it’s going to take root. It’s going to take Mary to show her there’s a bigger picture, and sometimes that bigger picture will not involve getting justice for your mother. That’s the journey that she has to go on, to be able to forgive, or maybe she doesn’t.”
Batwoman airs Sundays at 8/7c on The CW.
