Every Rose has its Thorns.
Last time on Batman: Caped
Crusader, Gotham University proved to be a dangerous place to be. Multiple
students seemed to die of fright. This piques the curiosity of Batman, but also
Dr. Harleen “Harley Quinn” Quinzel. The Good doctor had been hiding out at
Montoya’s place for an undisclosed amount of time, and she was going stir-crazy
being unable to leave. She and Batman cross paths at the morgue with each other
as well as the mysterious Scare Crow (I separated it because he’s more of a
scary bird than a thing that scares birds) that’s poisoning everyone with the
fear toxin. They’re able to figure out that all the victims are connected to
one Dr. Charles Burton but find him murdered at the last potential victim’s apartment,
Jonathan Crane, Jr.’s. Batman rushes to stop the mad scientist and gets a face
full of gas for his trouble. He’s able to fight through his delusion (where he’s
an old man watching powerlessly as Gotham burns) and gives Crane a taste of the
gas. The episode ends wit Harleen saying goodbye to Montoya, as while she loved
being with her, Harleen knows she’s a liability to Montoya, and that she’ll go
nuts if she goes back to being locked up in the apartment. Enough recapping.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
Ep 17: Her Dark Reflection
We open at the Forrest Flower shop,
where father, Phil Forrest, and his daughter Rose are working on some plants.
Rose takes out a locket with a picture of herself and a man inside it and sighs.
Her father tells her not to be too upset. Phil is clearly a hard man to impress,
as he calls the guy, Freddy, soft and a bad bet. He claims that Freddy wouldn’t
have been as bad as Rose’s mother, but he wouldn’t have worked out long term. Rose
doesn’t disagree that her mom was bad but insists that Freddy would have been
good to her. Phil says that she needs a strong man that’ll get her out of the
hell hole that is Gotham. He tells her “no more breakdowns” and promises to
find her prince charming. Eddie and Lily come in, the Riddler tells his
girlfriend that he needs to handle a little business and then he’ll take her
some nice place. He shakes the Forrest’s down for protection money and offers
to have Rose work out a ‘private’ deal with him, if she wants. Phil tells him
to back off; his daughter isn’t a part of this. Eddy, whose ego could be bruised
with a soft pinch, angrily asks if Phil is trying to tell him how to run his business.
Phil says that he doesn’t want trouble, he didn’t have any with Thorne, and he
doesn’t want any from Eddie. But he was a cop for ten years, and he’s seen a
lot of guys like Eddie, and they all end up six feet under. Eddie looks pissed
but then laughs it off before leaving. Rose asks if they should call the cops,
and Phil says not to worry, as Eddie is all bark and no bite. Eddie proves this
wrong as he tommy guns the shop, killing Phil as he shoves Rose behind the
counter. She cradles her father’s body and starts to sob.
We cut to Rose being interviewed by
Montoya. Eel O’Brien gets a photo of the distraught Rose because, well, he’s
aptly named. Montoya tells Rose to call her if she thinks of anything. Montoya
compares notes with Flass, who confirms none of the neighbors ‘saw’ anything.
Both cops agree that no one is willing to cross the Riddler. Montoya reveals
that Phil used to be a beat cop with Gordon back in the day, but he retired after
his wife left him to raise Rose. He said that he didn’t have the right to risk
his life when she needed him, and Flass, being a dick, sneers and asked how well
that worked out.
At Wayne Manor, Bruce is reading
the paper. Riddler is the front-page story. Alfred mentions that it seems like
things in Gotham have been getting worse since Thorne disappeared. Brue agrees,
saying daylight crimes are way up. Alfred mentions that he hopes that Rose is
doing okay. Bruce asks if he knows her, and Alfred says, ‘in a manner of
speaking.’ He reveals that he was a regular at the Forrest Flower shop, as he
bought the bouquets that were placed on the Wayne’s graves there. Bruce,
visibly stunned, says that he thought that the cemetery covered that. Alfred
simply say that it does not. Bruce has noticed that the crimes are all spiraling
out from Gotham’s Narrows, the heaviest crime area of the city. Bruce orders the
car gassed up, as he’s going to investigate tonight.
Rose cleans up the shop, and finds
Riddler’s matchbook for his club, Stumpers, and pockets it. She heads upstairs
to her apartment and tries to get some sleep, though she’s clearly terrified. She
wakes up in the night, a severe look on her face. She walks across the room to
her dresser, and gently touches a photo of her parents back when they were young.
She remembers her father’s words about finding her prince charming. She takes
off her necklace and beats it on the dresser repeatedly, shattering it. She then
goes to her closet and pulls out her mother’s old showgirl outfit. Rose’s voice
has completely changed as she says that it’s about tie her mother was useful
for something, but it still needs something. Rose heads to a lingerie shop for
some accessories. She grabs a dark, longer haired wig, green lipstick, and a
spiked choker to complete her look. A cop stops her for breaking and entering.
She flirts with the cop a little, I think just to see if he’ll react to her. He
seems into it, but then she tries to attack him and they have a struggle. She
beats him to the ground, steals his gun and says that she’s asking for ‘it’ but
that he’s no the one who’ll give it to her. She knocks him out with the butt of
the stolen pistol.
I should note that they don’t name
this new version of Rose “Thorn” until the end of the episode, but I’m going to
start referring to her as such. Rose is no longer in the driver’s seat.
We jump to Stumpers where Lily plays
piano for the club as Eddie entertains some goons. Thorn walks in and immediately
turns head. Everyone in the club notices her, but especially Eddie. She heads
to the bar and gets a drink. Lily joins her and warns the other woman that
looking is fine, but she’s already called dibs on Edward Nygma. They have a
verbal spar over who Eddie is interested in before Lily leaves in a huff. Flass
comes into the club and tries to butter up Eddie, but the goon turned kingpin isn’t
interested in talking to him. Flass tries to offer his services to Eddie,
saying that he and Thorne had a very amicable relationship, and he’d like to
see that continue. Thorne cuts in, asking what good was that relationship.
Thorne was taken in by Batman after all. He was arrested, just barely dodged a
20 year stint at Blackgate, and now he’s hiding in his own city. Flass tries to
get Thorne to back off, but she grabs his hand and forces him to his knees.
Eddie tells Flass to get a drink, and sends off his other goons to have a
minute alone with Thorne. They have a flirty conversation, Thorne saying that
she wants everything, like Eddie, and she knows how to get it. He gets her a cigarette
and tells her to keep talking.
Rose wakes up the next morning to
someone calling her name. She finds herself naked in bed with a huge bruise on
her arm. She goes to her window to see a cop waiting to escort her to her
father’s funeral. She says she’s coming and rushes to get dressed.
Gordon delivers the Eulogy at the
funeral, and it brings Rose to tears. She heads back to the shop after and
starts arranging a giant heart display of flowers. She interrupted by Alfred,
who came to offer his condolences. He notices that there’s something a bit off
about Rose, asking if she really shouldn’t take some time off. She insists that
she needs to keep busy, her father was a believer about idle hands being the
devil’s workshop. Alfred gives her his card and says that he and Mr. Wayne will
help her however she needs.
That night, she’s at Stumpers again
and convinces Eddie to leave the club to do some crimes with her. He tells her,
“Baby, we’ll paint the town red.” We get a montage of Eddie and Thorn’s crimes
as Batman and the cops investigate. Batman starts to see a pattern develop. The
cops finally catch up to Riddler and Thorne, but he sets off a bomb to distract
them and races off. Batman starts chasing them in the Batmobile. Riddler and
Thorn give him the slip, but he sees their oil trail and follows them to a
junkyard.
Insider, Riddler and Thorne prepare
to blow a safe, but Batman throws a bat-a-rang to stop them. Batman fights off Riddler
and his goons, but quickly passes out. Thorn got him around the neck with her thorny
whip. She coats the thorns in poison that knocked Batman out. Riddler wants to kill
Batman immediately, but Thorne insists that they play with him just a bit
longer. They tie Batman up and put him in the cab of a car. They pull the break
and shove the car towards a canyon. Batman struggles to get free, but the car
goes off the broken bridge, exploding when it hits the ground. Riddler and Thorn
kiss in celebration, and they head out to cause more trouble. It’s revealed Batman
survived, having gotten his grappling hook out at the last second. He drags
himself back to the main shop and finds another Stumper’s matchbook. With how
often Eddie is tossing those around, it’s a wonder it took this long to find
one.
A dejected Lily watches and plays
piano as Eddie and Thorn celebrate the death of Batman. Eddie says that she’s
the ‘Cherry on this whole Sundae.’ Thorn says that she always thought of
herself as more of a Rose, clearly trying to tip Eddie off about who she is,
but the guy does pick up on it. He claims to have big plans, to spread into
Bludhaven once they’ve taken Gotham. Thorn asks if he plans to make this
partnership permanent. Before he can say much else, Batman arrives, throwing a
Bat-a-rang to get their attention. Batman beats up the goons, Eddie takes a swing,
but Batman knocks him aside. Thorn grabs him and says she knows where they can
lay low. Batman finishes the last goon, but Lily shoots at him, saying that she
won’t miss the next one. She’s all bark though, and can’t bring herself to
shoot Batman. She starts having a breakdown, saying that Eddie is HER’s, not Batman’s
or the cheap dime store floozy’s. She starts crying, muttering that everything
was going right until Eddie shot up that flower shop. That tips Batman off to
where to go next and he runs off.
Thorn takes Eddie to the back
entrance to Forrest Flower shop, there’s a cute little heart note with Eddie’s
name on it. She tells him to get inside, it’s open. He finds the big heart bouquet
that Rose had been working on. It has “Eddie Nygma, Rot in Hell” on the banner over
it. He asks if this is a sick joke. She says that Rose thought Eddie would like
it. He’s stunned to realize that Thorne is (sort of) Rose, saying that that
girl was a mouse. Thorne claims that Rose was a sweetie, and that she might have
even been able to forgive him in time… but she can’t. She woke up when Eddie
killed Phil. Eddie calls her a crazy bitch as she unloads a tommy gun into him,
killing him and knocking him into the bouquet. There’s an eerie shot of a white
rose dyed red in his blood.
Batman finds his body, taking one
of the flowers just before the cops arrive. Batman and Alfred hear about Riddler’s
death on the radio in the cave. Alfred is so disheartened to hear about more
trouble happening at Rose’s shop and thinks about checking in on her. Batman
tells him that he won’t be seeing Rose again. He pieced together that Rose and
Thorn (he dubbed her that on his crime board) are the same person. Alfred is
shocked that Rose did it, he says the girl he knew wouldn’t be capable of that.
Batman says she had a bad day, a really bad day. Alfred asks if she’ll be okay,
and Batman thinks that this’ll be the last they hear of her. The man that
killed her father is dead, so she’ll want to put distance between herself and
Gotham.
We see that Thorn has boarded a
train. She heads out of town. There’s a moment where Thorn looks at her
reflection in the glass and sees Rose looking back, but she’s gone a moment
later. Thorn stretches out and gets comfortable as the train rolls out of town.
Batman says that if she returns, he’ll be ready for her.
We then cut to a bar where Thorne’s
former gang have a toast to Eddie. One of the goons asks what they’ll do now. The
door to the bar opens and the Joker is standing there. He says that it’s very
simple, they all work for him now.
I’m… conflicted about this episode
and the whole Riddler arc of season 2. On the one hand, I get why some people like
it. This version of Edward Nygma is a deconstruction of the character with his
traditional love of riddles and word games is suppressed to instead focus on
his insecurity and anger issues. But if you take away the riddles from Riddler,
it makes me question why he’s Edward Nygma at all! If you take away his schtick
to this degree, you might as well just use one of the other mob type characters
like Falcone to fill the spot. He’s a bitter, angry man that gets distracted by
a shiny new bauble dangled just within reach and gets killed when he grabs for
it. That hardly feels like the Riddler at all to me. And like everyone who has
any knowledge of Batman knew that the Riddler was just holding the place for
the Joker to step up and take the spotlight for the finale, but like, they
could have tried harder to make it less obvious. Using Rose/Thorn as the
villain was an interesting choice. I like many saw a plant themed lady in the
trailer and assumed she’d be Poison Ivy. Maybe they’re saving Pamela for season
3. For those who don’t know, she’s actually a Golden Age DC villain that first
fought the original Flash, Jay Garrick, and then later fought and became
romantically involved with Alan Scott the original Green Lantern. That version
has plant-based powers, unlike the Caped Crusader version, but they do stick to
the fact that Thorn is the split personality of Rose. Having her be the one to kill
Eddy in vengeance for her father was thematically a good call. He was destroyed
by the monster that his rage unwittingly made and all that jazz. And I think it’s
kind of a neat decision that she’s the one that has arguably come the closest
to killing Batman. Not an assassin, not a mobster, not a supervillain, but an
angry woman that was just using him as a steppingstone to her actual target.
Shame Batman didn’t have much to do in this episode besides track them, almost
die a few times, and then find Riddler’s body. I liked the moment when Bruce
learns that Alfred is the one that lays out the flowers for his parents. While
their relationship is significantly warmer than it had been in the first
season, there is still a wall there that Alfred is slowly chipping away at to
get Bruce to open up to him. And learning that Alfred is doing his best to keep
the grave looking pretty all on his own is going to help that thaw
significantly, I think. The reveal that the Joker is now scooping up the
majority of Rupert Thorne’s remaining men is probably not good news for Batman.
But we’ll have to wait and see on that one. Next time, Batman meets an old fan
and a new artist.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/u2761062/posts/viewer-log-caped-173515145
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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