[THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BATWOMAN S3E1: Mad As A Hatter]
Mary gets the shock of her life when an Alice fanboy becomes the new Mad Hatter and brainwashed her graduating class! The Batwoman Season 3 premiere kicks off with our favourite doctor struggling with not having her family there at her graduation. However, with the support of Ryan, Luke, and Sophie, they promised to be there. With Catherine dead, Jacob in prison, and Kate out looking for Bruce, the Bat Team is still Mary’s family.
However, things get messy when a man named Liam Crandle shows up wearing Jervis Tetch’s Mad Hatter hat. Crandle is as dark and twisted as the original. His desire, as a fanboy of Alice, is to make as much mayhem as possible and wants his idol out of Arkham. He targets Mary because Alice killed her mother, Catherine. Also, he has a real thing against doctors because their first prognosis is to call someone “insane”.
What’s more, is that the hat can mind control anyone and Mary becomes caught up in the drama when Crandle corners outside the auditorium. When she goes to read her speech, her friends instantly know something’s off as they know what she’s reading isn’t her own. They put in wireless earbuds to block the brainwashing transmission.
The whole situation takes an even more gruesome turn when Mary is forced to remove the organs of her professor while under the mind control hat. Also, the graduating class is told to kill themselves by using their stethoscopes to strangle themselves.
Bat Team To The Rescue
Luke, Ryan, and Sophie struggle to stop Crandle. What’s more, is Luke struggles with his new suit, but we have a sense there’s something else going on beneath the surface.
Sophie, meanwhile, is forced to watch as Mary kills her teacher. However, she comes up with the idea to let the professor die and then revive him. Though, we’re not sure how that works when Mary removed all the guy’s vital organs, except his heart.
The team becomes forced to break Alice out of Arkham so she can talk down the new Mad Hatter.
Please Step Forward, Doctor Mary Hamilton
Anyway, Mary ends up saved, and she does her graduation speech in front of her friends. She also receives a gift from Kate in the form of a lab coat that says “Dr Hamilton”. On the card, it is signed as “Your Sister, Kate”. That made us tear up as Kate has finally accepted Mary as her sister. It’s just a shame she couldn’t be there in person.
Sure, she’s sad that her family couldn’t be there, but the Bat Team is her family too. Also, she makes some valid points about how psychotic people like Alice shouldn’t be called “crazy lunatics”. Her father and Kate would be so proud of her.
Alice Suffers From Delusions And Mama Wilder News
Throughout the episode, Alice suffers from the delusion that her father is writing to her from his prison cell. It’s not until Ryan goes to break her out of Arkham that she is forced to realise that Jacob hasn’t been sending correspondence to her. Even her therapist has been trying to drum that into her.
At the end of last season, Alice dropped the bomb on Ryan that her biological mother was alive. We get a follow-through in this episode, and it’s not quite what we expected.
Using the information Ryan gives her, Sophie does some digging and discovers that Alice is telling the truth. However, there are things that don’t add up, but it has nothing to do with the crazed criminal.
During her research session, Sophie discovers that the doctor whose name was on both Ryan’s birth certificate and her mother’s death certificate was a massive fake. What makes it an even larger blow to the gut is that the bio mum paid $2 million to have Ryan’s birth covered up.
That makes us wonder why. Did she have an affair that resulted in Ryan? Was she being threatened? Who knows, but we have a feeling the woman who appears at the end of the episode could be Ryan’s mother. Who is she? Well, her name is Jada Jet. We’ll meet her son hopefully soon. The reason we think this is her is that someone tells her that someone has been looking through their servers for information on her.
Renee Montoya
The final part of this post we wanted to address is the arrival of Renee Montoya. In the comics, she has a romantic relationship with Kate Kane. However, the actress who plays her in Batwoman is the same one who played the character in Gotham. Though, we need to stress that this is a different version of the character.
Montoya plays a small role in the episode. She is convinced by Alice to get her out of prison which she does. Oh, and what really takes the cake is that Alice tells her who is behind the Batwoman cowl. According to what is said, Renee was a GCPD cop before the mayor, Michael Atkins put her in charge of the rogues unit.
What Montoya’s role will be in the season and how she works with Ryan will be interesting to experience.
