Batwoman season 1 episode 4 review: The truth will out

During this week’s episode of Batwoman, one thing became clear: You can’t have a functioning relationship without honesty. And the truth always comes out.

If the past few episodes of Batwoman set Kate up to put on the batsuit, this week’s taught her the first lesson of becoming Gotham’s new beacon of hope: Romantic relationships are probably best avoided, especially if you can’t share your secret identity with the person you’re dating. And while it was fun seeing Kate and Reagan hit it off for a bit, we have to admit that we agree with Kate: She isn’t ready for that sort of commitment just yet.

It doesn’t help that she and Sophie keep orbiting around one another. And Sophie is catching onto Kate’s lies about Batwoman far faster than Reagan. (To be fair, Kate isn’t the best liar out there. Bragging about your secret identity’s nickname to your ex? We see you, Kate.)

And Kate and Reagan aren’t the only pair having relationship troubles in “Who Are You?” The episode finally reveals what’s been going on with Catherine Hamilton-Kane — and admittedly, her intentions for wanting to keep Alice from Jacob aren’t quite as heinous as we’d anticipated (assuming she can be believed, of course).

Catherine finally tells Jacob the truth, owning up to the fact that she had her underlings at Hamilton Dynamics lie to the Kanes about finding Beth’s skull fragments years ago. It’s not that she knew Beth was still alive, though. She believed Beth was gone and knew Kate and Jacob would never move forward without a body and closure. Unfortunately, even if she had their interests in mind, Jacob is rightfully pretty angry about the whole thing.

It’s also possible Jacob is angry with himself. He’s been avoiding the likelihood that Alice is Beth, despite how much the signs suggest that she is. It’s clear he’s been struggling internally. He doesn’t want to believe his daughter has become a killer, but he seems to know deep down that it’s true.

And on the topic of Alice, she’s looking for a weapon from Hamilton Dynamics during this week’s episode. Why the company has such a weapon to begin with remains to be seen, as does Alice’s endgame. One thing that’s becoming more and more clear is that she isn’t the city’s only villain, though she does seem to be its most formidable.

We meet Magpie this week as well, and sadly, the DC villain is pretty easily defeated by Kate’s Batwoman. It seems that villain appearances are going to be episodic on this show, at least until Alice makes whatever big move she’s planning. Unfortunately, that means most of the Batman universe villains we meet early on are probably going to be underutilized in favor of giving Alice the spotlight. It’s a shame because we’d love to see more of them all.

But even with Alice overshadowing all the other villains, Batwoman still delivered a strong fourth episode — one that left room for plenty of great one liners, which are quickly becoming part of this show’s branding. Bat-splaining? Let’s get that word in the dictionary.

Batwoman airs on Sundays at 8 p.m. on The CW.