Batwoman: The Complete Second Season [Blu-Ray]

Cast: Javicia Leslie, Camrus Johnson, Rachel Skarsten

Release Date: September 21, 2021

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 7.5/10

 

Synopsis:

At the end of the first season, Crows Commander Kane (Dougray Scott) has declared war on Batwoman, forcing everyone around them to choose sides. Season two kicks off with a major game-changer that alters Gotham City and The Bat Team forever. A new hero emerges from the shadows. Relatable, messy, loyal, and a little goofy, Ryan Wilder (Leslie) couldn’t be more different than the woman who wore the Batsuit before her, billionaire Kate Kane. Living in her van, Ryan has been made to feel trapped and powerless by the system her whole life and believes the Batsuit is the key to breaking out of it. But what she’ll come to discover is that it’s not the suit that makes Ryan Wilder powerful, it’s the woman inside of it who finds her destiny in changing Gotham City for good.

Please Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

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Newcomers to ‘Batwoman’ are encouraged to consider starting at the beginning due to the show’s serialized nature and various continuing story elements. You can find our review of the first season’s Blu-ray release below!

Batwoman: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray Review)

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The second season of ‘Batwoman’ returns to Gotham as their new hero Batwoman has gone missing. While hope for finding Kate Kane alive slowly dwindles and the city gets worse every day, young and easygoing Ryan Wilder who lives in her van alone after being betrayed by the system comes across wreckage including the batsuit Kate donned. Putting it on for her own means, she eventually comes in contact with Luke Fox and the other members of the previous Batwoman’s team. While initially hesitant to trust this stranger and still holding out hope for Kate’s return, the group eventually begins working together for the sake of their city. But their newfound alliance and accompanying awkward situations will be the least of their problems once fresh and familiar faces begin wreaking havoc throughout the city.

The sophomore season of ‘Batwoman’ does a surprisingly solid job of handling the replacement of the series lead without ignoring her predecessor’s storyline and also introduces at least one notable Bat-villain to the story. All the while, it makes sure to serve up enough fun twists, turns and action packed excitement to keep things from getting dull. It does struggle to a degree as a result of having to tackle another origin story so soon after the previous one, but manages to make it work fairly well all things considered. At the same time wisely concentrating plenty of focus to build upon the storylines for the show’s other key characters that we’ve already had a season to become familiar with. Season Two of ‘Batwoman’ may not be a perfect season of television, but the series is showing clear signs of promise as it starts to really find itself and embrace many of its strengths.

Newcomer Javicia Leslie takes over the mantle of Batwoman this season, although fortunately not recast in the Kate Kane role, but instead introduced as a new character named Ryan Wilder who comes across the suit and soon begins finding her way into the role of a new Batwoman. Somewhat surprisingly, the season doesn’t simply dump the Kate Kane storyline like many shows would either, instead keeping her disappearance a fairly significant part of the second season’s overall storyline which is something to be commended and helps to keep the reality of everything better grounded. The new Batwoman does a nice job of taking over as the costumed hero and Leslie quickly showcases her own unique personae for the character that works quite well in the overall scope of the series without just being an unoriginal rehash of Kate. If you enjoyed the first season at all but haven’t had the chance to check out season two (or were hesitant due the casting switch up) I would strongly urge you to try and make a point of doing so at some point. The new lead and introduction of the replacement is actually handled better than most series out there and this season begins building toward what could be a promising series that’s worth giving a shot.

Overall, season two of ‘Batwoman’ is a largely enjoyable collection of episodes that does a rather commendable job of handling the key character’s replacement and balancing the new introduction with the continuing stories of its returning characters. All while also introducing some new villains and delivering plenty of twists and action packed excitement along the way; the series showing definite signs of improvement and really beginning to settle into itself nicely. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment’s 3-disc Blu-ray release of ‘Batwoman: The Complete Second Season’ brings home all eighteen episodes from the sophomore season featuring pretty great high definition video and audio presentations on each, along with some fun extras including ‘Deleted Scenes’ from multiple episodes and more. Altogether, it will likely make for another must-own release for fans of the series and anyone who collects all of the CW aired DC series who should be quite satisfied with this release if you were pleased with the quality offered on the season one Blu-ray set. For anyone already considering a purchase, the release is recommended.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Batwoman: The Complete Second Season’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the show’s original 2.00:1 Aspect Ratio on all of the sophomore season’s episodes. The video presentations look pretty great altogether and provide clean, smooth and nicely detailed presentations on every episode of the second season. They hold up quite capably even during the various darkly lit moments and fast moving action sequences occurring throughout, and never resulting in any unexpected problems arising along the way. Overall, these are solid high definition video presentations that do their job quite well and should please fans of the series, especially those who were satisfied with the first season’s Blu-ray release.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on all 18 Season Two episodes. These multichannel soundtracks deliver clean, sharp and hard hitting audio presentations on each episode that always sound crisp and smooth. They consistently take advantage of all five available channels in order to send characters, bullets and vehicles swooping throughout the various speakers, along with swarms of bats, weather and plenty more, all while making certain that any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously remain clean and fully audible at all times. Overall, these are great 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtracks that never disappoint and repeatedly contribute their share of extra fun to the viewing experience.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Batwoman: The Complete Second Season’ includes a few nice extras that fans of the series should enjoy. Included on the release are ‘Deleted Scene(s)’ from half of the season’s episodes (running approximately 10 minutes in length altogether) and a ‘Gag Reel’ for the new season (running approximately 8 minutes in length). We are also treated to a couple of Behind the Scenes Featurettes, they include ‘Villains Analyzed’ (approximately 16 minutes) and ‘Never Alone: Heroes and Allies’ (approximately 21 minutes) the second of which also includes content and discussions involving other DC shows on the CW.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Disc Rating: 7.5/10

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‘Batwoman: The Complete Second Season’ is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray & DVD from DC & Warner Bros Home Entertainment

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