Kate comes to terms with the new Beth who has shown up. Mouse takes the sons of the mayor and the police commissioner hostage to force Alice's release.
Tropes:
- A Birthday, Not a Break: It's both Kate's and Beth's birthday, but Alice is still plotting a hostage scheme from jail.
- Alice Allusion: August Cartwright is meant to embody the character of The Caterpillar, given the incredible resemblance between his bizarre metallic surgical mask and pipe to the illustration of The Caterpillar in the copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that Beth just so happens to be reading at the time.
- Ambiguous Situation: Beth makes no mention of Batman or Batwoman on her Earth, although she does recognise Luke and mention Bruce, leaving it unclear as to whether Bruce or Kate ever became superheroes on that Earth (though if they did, Beth was certainly not aware of it).
- Artistic License – Animal Care: Keeping a kitten in a tiny room like that, without even a litter box or a constant source of food or water, would have severe impacts on the kitten even before its actual fate.
- Badass in Distress: Kate gets captured by Mouse, but she is eventually able to break free from her restraints.
- Bruce Wayne Held Hostage: The Commissioner's and Mayor's sons are arguing over whether Batwoman is gonna save them or not, while Kate herself is being held with them.
- Car Fu: The Wonderland gang ram Kate's motorcycle at an intersection as she's on her way to Wayne Tower to suit up.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Alice and Mouse's Trust Password is set up in a flashback and proves key to Mouse figuring out Beth's disguise.
- Alice uses the fishing line Mouse gave her to repair her copy of Alice in Wonderland as a weapon to help her kill two agents and escape.
- Cruel Mercy: Alice spares Sophie because she feels Sophie's put herself in a hell of her own making.
- Doppelgänger: The new Beth is originally from a different Earth, and is an anomaly from the different universes combining in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: At first, Kate and Mary react and treat the other Beth like Prime Alice. Once they get past the strangeness of the multiverse, this trope is averted. Beth, for her part, is happy to treat Kate as the twin she's always known despite her technically being a different person.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: Once she realises what's going on, Beth isn't overly thrown by her entire universe no longer existing, aside from a little angst about no one knowing her on Earth-Prime, and a rather chipper remark that none of her former exes know her anymore.
- Everyone Knows Morse: Mouse and Alice used both tapping, as well as coded language to communicate without Mr. Cartwright figuring it out.
- Eye Scream: Beth escapes Kate choking her by shooting pepper spray in her eyes.
- Fate Worse than Death: Alice considers Sophie's life of closeting herself and living a lie to be much worse than killing her.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Or rather, Fish on a different Earth where nobody recognizes her, in Beth's case.
- Flashback: More flashbacks are shown of Alice's time as a prisoner, and how she became Alice.
- For Want Of A Nail: Beth came from an Earth where Kate managed to pull her from the car before it fell. As a result, she continued to grow up and has a healthy relationship with her, much like the Kate and Beth of Earth-99. Less dramatically, on Beth's Earth, Kate had no tattoos (apparently because she joined the Crows).
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Sophie tries both the hostile, as well as the empathizing approach with Alice.
- Hannibal Lecture: Combined with Breaking Speech. Alice keeps turning the tables on Sophie throughout the entire episode, leaving her shaking in fear at the end when she makes her escape.
- Hidden Depths: Mary is able to accurately figure out the entire Multiverse (and what happened to it during the Crisis) while being drunk, though Kate of course brushes it off as nonsense to keep up the mask.
- Hope Spot:
- Kate decides to head off on her motorbike to free the hostages regardless of whether the Bat-Signal is turned on, only for the Wonderland gang to kidnap her as a third hostage.
- Beth is available to impersonate Alice, but is soon rumbled by Mouse.
- At the end of the episode Beth and Alice are celebrating their birthday, when Beth suddenly clutches her head in pain, while we see Alice doing likewise.
- Hourglass Plot: At the beginning of the episode, Alice is in custody while Mouse remains free as the commander of the Wonderland Gang on the outside. By the end of the episode, Alice has escaped, while Mouse is now in custody.
- I Have Your Wife: Mouse takes both Steven, Commissioner Forbes's son, and Bryan, Mayor Akins son hostage to get Alice freed. He later adds Kate to the count.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Mouse takes a length of rebar through his shoulder during a fight.
- Impostor-Exposing Test: Unfortunately, Mouse soon figures out that something is wrong with "Alice" (the good Beth in disguise) and gets confirmation when she is unable to answer "Are there any lions or tigers about here?", which they always used when hiding from Mr. Cartwright (the answer would have been: "It's only the Red King snoring.").
- In Spite of a Nail: On Beth's Earth, Kate and Beth still lost their mother in a car accident as they were coming home from their bat mitzvah, and Jacob still ended up commanding the Crows by the time his daughters were adults.
- Internal Reveal: Naturally, Beth learns all about the new world she is stuck in. She takes it surprisingly well.
- I Owe You My Life: Beth is quick to volunteer to pose as Alice, as she wants to pay back Kate for saving her life as a kid (even though this isn't "her" Kate).
- It's All My Fault:
- Kate goes back to blaming herself for Beth-Prime becoming Alice, as the new Beth's history convinces her that she could have saved her own sister if she'd gone back into the car before it fell off the bridge.
- Sophie blames herself after Alice escapes, but Jacob is quick to assure her that only Alice herself is to blame for her crimes.
- Kick the Dog: Mr. Cartwright has a few in this episode toward his captive Beth:
- On Beth's birthday, Johnny asks what she wished for after she blows out a candle. When she says that she wants to see her father and sister again, Cartwright tells her wishes won't come true if they're spoken aloud.
- He shows Beth a newspaper article about Jacob's marriage to Catherine and, subsequently, Mary becoming his stepdaughter and Kate's stepsister. Cartwright tells Beth this means she's been "replaced".
- Most cruelly, he kills Beth's secret pet kitten, which had been a gift from Johnny, in front of them.
- Kill on Sight: Jacob Kane flat-out orders Sophie to execute Alice when she finds her, as she's a dangerous fugitive who can be legitimately shot on sight as opposed to a prisoner in Crow custody. We don't see what Sophie's response is.
- Knows the Ropes: Alice uses the fishing line from her repaired copy of Alice in Wonderland as a weapon during her escape.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Luke is stuck with the unfortunate task of explaining certain awkward facts to Beth, like her twin sister has just been kidnapped by a gang working for her insane alternate self. Oh, and Commander Kane can't help because he's been framed for murder.
- Loved by All: At the end of the episode, the citizens of Gotham take it to the street, protesting against the GCPD not turning on the Bat Signal out of (at least ostensibly) homophobic reasons. She then appears and is cheered on by everybody.
- Make a Wish: Turns out Kate wished for a second chance when he blew out the candle on her cupcake. A normal Beth turns up from a timeline where she was able to save her twin. However when Kate reveals this wish next time she blows out the candle, Beth suddenly falls to the ground in pain, as per what Mr. Cartwright said about wishes not coming true if you speak them aloud.
- Mood-Swinger: Mr. Cartwright goes from threatening Beth and telling her that her father is never coming for her to comforting her and kindly asking her to use her stitching talents to make his son a skin mask (which she does).
- My Greatest Second Chance: Kate learns from Beth that, in her universe, Kate managed to pull her from the car before it fell. At first she treats it as My Greatest Failure, knowing that she could've saved Alice. When Beth is trapped in the trunk of a burning car, Kate gets another chance to save her.
- Mythology Gag: The article about Jacob and Catherine's wedding states that Jacob was a member of the 3rd Special Forces Group, which is an accurate bit of comic trivia.
- Nice Girl: The alternate Beth, with even Mary remarking that she now understands why Kate wanted to save her sister so badly.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Alice pulls this card on Sophie multiple times, bringing up the fact that she too is hiding what she really is.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: When Beth tells Kate about how she survived the car wreck, by Kate climbing back into the car and rescuing her. (Which she didn't do in this reality.)
- Origins Episode: Of a sort. The flashback portion of the episode leads up to the exact moment when Beth turned into Alice.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Or "Waffles", in Beth's case.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Played with; Alice takes quite a few shots at Sophie's sexuality during their conversations here, but whether she actually has any problem with LGBTQ people or is just screwing with Sophie is unclear.
- Public Secret Message: Kate tells Sophie twice to release Alice and asks her if she understands. After hanging up, Sophie explains to Alice that, as part of their training, any statement made twice under duress is taken to mean the opposite of what is said.
- Punk in the Trunk: Mouse locks Beth in the trunk and breaks off the lock so Kate can't open it. Kate has to remove the back seat and pry apart the metal supports to get her out Just in Time before the car is overwhelmed by flames.
- Quit Your Whining: When Kate is angsting over how he could have saved her sister after all, Luke gets her focused by reminding Kate that there are hostages who need saving now.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: Quite a few viewers took issue with the scene where Kate is hit by a truck, claiming that it broke their suspension of disbelief and that she should have been more severely injured. However, similar real-life accidents like this one
show that such collisions are not only survivable for the rider, but are able to be walked away from. Professional motorcycle racers also suffer similar spills at higher speeds without serious injury. - Sanity Slippage: The moment when Beth finally died and Alice was born, is when Mr. Cartwright forced her to make his son a mask out of human skin.
- Seen It All: Beth isn't particularly fazed by the whole Multiverse thing, having written a 300-page dissertation on theoretical extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology.
- Skewed Priorities: Commissioner Forbes refuses to turn on the Bat-Signal, even when his own son is kidnapped, because he doesn't approve of Batwoman being a lesbian.
- Spot the Imposter: Beth tries her best, but Mouse quickly realizes something is off with "Alice", especially when she wants to let Kate go far too easily. In her defense she's never met her alternate and the only advice Mary can give is Alice is always creepily pleasant and quotes Alice in Wonderland a lot.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Sophie feels this for Alice and tries to get through to her, to no avail.
- Take That!: The police refuse to call on Batwoman for help on account of her recent coming out as a lesbian and it's immediately pointed how patently absurd it is to let politics decide whether or not someone should be a superhero, a definite jab at people who object to LGBTQ+ superheroes in Real Life.
- That Man Is Dead: When Sophie tries to appeal to the old Beth inside of her, Alice once again makes it clear that she died a long time ago.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Jacob isn't willing to give Alice any more chances, he wants to have a bullet put into her. (Just as Beth arrives, which he and Sophie don't know about. What could possibly go wrong?)
- Trauma Button: Beth's disguise as Alice is so convincing that Mary is briefly triggered by it, on account of what Alice did to her and Catherine.
- Trauma Swing: After causing Beth to run away in fear of her life, Kate finds her again near the derelict waffle stand, sitting on a swing. By this time she has discovered that no-one remembers her.
- Trust Password: Alice and Mouse use quotes from Alice in Wonderland to confirm that they're alone. Beth not knowing this exposes her as an impostor.
- Villain Has a Point: Pretty much all of Alice's jibes at Sophie's sexuality and her miserable life are accurate, if unnecessarily cruel.
- Wham Shot: The final shot of the episode shows both Beth and Alice suffering from inexplicable intense headaches at the same time. The subsequent promo for the next episode suggests that this is a Never the Selves Shall Meet side effect.
- With My Hands Tied: Alice overpowers two guards while handcuffed with nothing but a fishing line taken from the spine of her copy of Alice in Wonderland.
- Who Are You?: Asked by Kate on meeting Beth, and Mouse on realising that 'Alice' is an imposter.
- You Remind Me of X: Luke once agains brings up the similarities between Kate and Bruce.
