New Birds of Prey set footage shows Cassandra Cain getting arrested

We’re ready to see Birds of Prey already, but we’re grateful the production is taking its time. At least we have some new set footage of Cassandra Cain.

We haven’t even seen an official trailer for Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn), but we already know this film is going to destroy us in the best possible ways. We’ve seen set photos of Harley’s therapeutic new ink, and it looks like she’s absolutely thriving after breaking up with her abusive ex. Now, we have some new set photos of Dinah Lance (Black Canary, portrayed by Jurnee Smollett-Bell), as well as some footage of Cassandra Cain (played by Ella Jay Basco) getting arrested.

We’re starting a petition to free Cass Cain. Whatever she’s accused of, she didn’t do it because she’s never done anything wrong in her entire life! We firmly stand by that. We’re not sure what’s going on, but we don’t like it, and we aren’t exactly sure we can trust the “police” who’ve taken Cass into custody.

Not to paraphrase Jason Todd (but we kind of are), there are a lot of corrupt cops in Gotham City. Though cops in the footage probably are a part of the GCPD, they’re probably also working for a notorious Gotham villain, Roman Sionis (better known as Black Mask, portrayed by Ewan McGregor). Since we trust Cass when she appears to say, “I didn’t do anything,” at the start of the video, these cops could be on Black Mask’s payroll. We’re not sure what he’d would want with Cass, but he could be using her as leverage to get to her babysitters, Black Canary and Victor Zsasz (played by Chris Messina, who will inevitably make us crush on a fictional serial killer).

In the same video, we see Dinah running after the police car and Zsasz saying, “I gave her to you,” as he catches up to Dinah. Babysitting isn’t easy, especially not in Gotham, so we get it. (But we might suggest a different side job.)

Other than the mystery behind the possibly crooked cops, it seems like Birds of Prey might change Cass’ backstory a bit. After all, the movie already made some changes to the on-screen iteration by adding Harley to the BoP team.

Regardless, Cass canonically doesn’t talk very much because she was trained from birth to join Ra’s al Ghul’s League of Assassins. As a young assassin prodigy, she didn’t get a lot of opportunities to socialize outside sparring and various assassin-based lectures. Because of that, she had limited opportunities for education. Plus, her conspicuous training led her to talk a bit differently.

See, her dad, David Cain, taught her to cut down on time and only talk using the bare essentials. Instead of speaking in full sentences, Cass tends to omit words that add little meaning to a statement or anything that doesn’t get to the point. Because of this, her speech is a bit stiff. Essentially, her comic book speech bubbles usually portray her as talking similarly to Forager in Young Justice: Outsiders — if Forager was “raised” by someone who stole his childhood and tried to weaponize him.

Although we’ve only heard one brief sentence, it appears as though Cassandra Cain might have more opportunities to actually talk in the upcoming Birds of Prey film. The quality of the video is a bit blurry and the audio is a bit rough (given the wind and such), so we can’t read her lips or officially confirm that she said, “I didn’t do anything.” However, it appears that the production might change quite a bit about the team and the character to prevent us from unintentionally spoiling the movie before it even comes to theaters.

Footage and audio aside, we also got some neat photos of Black Canary. Featuring some of her casual wear because even superheroes need a day off, we’re excited to see some more of Dinah’s off-duty outfits. Don’t @ us, but heroes in streetwear are better than  heroes in their official costumes. While Dinah’s obviously trying to catch up with the cop car that’s hauling Cass, we love her iconic black and yellow look.

The Birds of Prey film really knows how to keep us invested in the upcoming production, and we’re not complaining.  While we’re still trying to piece together what the heck is happening in the leaked set footage, we’re more than ready to see the film. But mostly, we’re just ready to see even more set photos of the cast in character while we wait for the impending first trailer.