The Batwoman season 1 finale broke the Arrowverse’s 8-year long streak of not having an on-screen Bruce Wayne as Warren Christie was revealed to be The CW’s Batman, but with a twist. Having introduced Tommy Elliot (Gabriel Mann), the DC foe became his comic counterpart Hush while also embracing the obsession with Bruce to the fullest. The sophomore season is currently eyed for a January 2021 debut along with several shows from The CW as the network pushed original episodes of all their series till next year due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Ruby Rose-led drama had only two episodes left to film before wrapping the first season prior to all ongoing productions getting shut down due to COVID-19. Christie's surprise casting created a lot of buzz following the season finale, titled "O, Mouse!" as it always looked like Batwoman would never or at least for a long time not be able to introduce Kate's cousin. When Supergirl first premiered, they avoided casting someone officially as Superman in season 1 as TPTB didn't want the Man of Steel to be a distraction. The following season, which premiered on The CW when Supergirl moved from CBS to the Arrowverse-based network, Tyler Hoechlin was cast as the Man of Tomorrow who is set to star in his own spinoff Superman & Lois next season.
But Batwoman took a different approach in bringing in the heroine's famous cousin by introducing how he looks through Hush while still casting the Alphas veteran as the Arrowverse's official Bruce/Batman. While DC TV has been allowed to play with a lot of big DC characters, the Dark Knight has always been one that the TV division hasn't been allowed to fully incorporate with Warner Bros. preferring Batman to be done cinematically, including Matt Reeves' upcoming The Batman franchise. Since the wait for Batwoman season 2 will be a long one, the season finale twist has now set up the potential of several big plots taking place in 2021 through Tommy having Bruce's face and what this means for the real Caped Crusader.
Batwoman's Batman/Tommy Elliott Twist Explained
Since his debut earlier in Batwoman season 1, Tommy had a particular obsession with Bruce through their friendship that began during childhood. However, in this incarnation of Hush, Tommy had discovered that Bruce was, in fact, Batman which became his driving force in the third episode “Down Down Down.” When Tommy reemerged in the second half of the season, that’s where his transformation as Hush truly began. While teaming-up with Alice (Rachel Skarsten) and Mouse (Sam Littlefield), Tommy agrees to let his face be cut-off so that he can escape Arkham Asylum as Alice makes another prisoner commit suicide while looking like Tommy.
Without a face, Tommy was given his iconic Hush look with the entire head covered in bandages. While it looked like it would be quite sometime before Tommy would get the new face that Alice had promised him, things escalated quicker than expected. After having helped Alice obtain and decode Lucius Fox’s mysterious journal, Tommy grew more and more frustrated with being faceless and being covered all in bandages. The final moment of the finale has Alice finishing Tommy’s new face as he now looks like the famous playboy billionaire.
While Tommy in the comics did it to himself, the Arrowverse incarnation was depicted as a real estate mogul rather than a neurosurgeon that performed plastic surgery on himself. That’s where Alice comes in and why she places a crucial part in Hush’s Arrowverse origin story as she has been established as being very masterful with her fingers hence her gift for altering faces. The reason she made Tommy look like her cousin Bruce is because Alice needs him to pose as Gotham’s famous rich boy to trick Kate into giving him the shard of Kryptonite, which is the only thing that can penetrate the Bat-suits.
What Batman's Role In Batwoman Season 2 Could Be
One of the dangerous aspects of Tommy is the fact that he knows that Bruce is the legendary Caped Crusader who protected Gotham City at all costs until the day he vanished. Having already proven to be a formidable foe physically, Hush is just as powerful intellectually which is why he has become one of Batwoman’s most compelling villains. When he eventually does begin his act as Bruce, it won’t take long before Gotham discovers that the Wayne Enterprises owner is back in town after being gone for over 5 years. Posing as Bruce Wayne will give Tommy a lot of power until Kate and her team can find a way to expose him, depending on when they find out that it’s not actually her cousin.
Since Tommy knows Bruce’s second life as a vigilante, it’s very possible that he could even pose as the Dark Knight to not only clash with Batwoman but “take back” his title as Gotham’s protector. One scenario that is very possible to happen is that Kate and the others fall for Tommy’s act for a significant amount of time and perhaps even teams up with her “cousin” as Batwoman and Batman. With the length that Tommy’s obsession has evolved with the Wayne/Kane family, it’s not impossible that he would love to have some fun with Kate before trying to take her down. Additionally, it’s possible that Tommy would be hooked instantly to the idea of taking the real Bruce’s place as Batman and live on that hero title.
Should Kate believe that her cousin really is back, it will, without doubt, have emotional ramifications as she has been without him for years. Is she worried that Bruce won’t respond positively to her becoming Batwoman and using his Bat-gear? Does Kate even hope that she can join Bruce on his crusade as Bat-allies? Given how close their relationship has been portrayed through exposition, Bruce’s return will shake-up Kate’s world. There haven’t been many live-action versions of the Batman mythology where an impersonator is trying to pass as the famous detective which gives Batwoman the potential for a compelling story next season.
Will The REAL Batman Appear In Batwoman Season 2?
While Batwoman has yet to explore where Bruce actually is, if someone were to impersonate him as Bruce Wayne or, perhaps more importantly, as Batman, it’d have to pull him out of the shadows. Since there is little information about what could have caused Bruce to leave his life in Gotham, it’s challenging to know where he is currently emotionally and even physically. The biggest detail that is known about Arrowverse’s Batman is that he broke his main code of not killing. According to Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson), Bruce actually killed The Joker which is why the clown prince of crime hasn’t seen or heard from. While it might not be the only factor, breaking his rule is certainly something that would cause him to question himself as a hero.
Living with that much self-doubt would easily make Bruce feel the need to leave everything in the city he grew up in and swore to protect. But Bruce has always, in any iteration, shown emphasis on his seriousness when it comes to someone wearing the Bat-symbol, especially if it’s fueled by evil forces. Whether it would be Tommy posing as Bruce’s public persona or even as the Dark Knight, this will likely get the real Bruce to return to Gotham City to stop this before it gets worse. Regardless of how long Tommy’s Bruce Wayne impersonation arc goes for, it’ll be out of character for Bruce if he doesn’t even make his concern known in some capacity. Depending on the circumstances, if Bruce physically couldn’t return to Gotham, he would at least have to try anything he can to stop Tommy from a distance.
With Tommy's new face and the power it gives him, both as Bruce Wayne and possibly as Batman, Kate's real cousin has to get involved to some degree. If the actual Bruce were to participate in the storyline in the flesh, it's possible it wouldn't include him donning the suit due to Warner Bros.' tricky rules with letting the Dark Knight fully be on the small-screen. But similarly to Titans' Iain Glen and Kevin Conroy as Earth-99's Bruce Wayne in Crisis on Infinite Earths, Christie getting to play Bruce without a suit is highly possible. Whether he gets to suit up as Batman or not, it's not a question of if Christie will get to play the real Bruce Wayne, but more about when and how which will hopefully be in Batwoman season 2 following the big development for Hush in the season 1 finale.