The CW has found its new Batwoman: Javicia Leslie, who recently stared in the CBS series God Friended Me. She’ll replace Ruby Rose, who departed Batwoman abruptly in May.
Variety reports that Leslie will take over for Rose starting next season as Ryan Wilder, described as a woman who’s “likable, messy, a little goofy, and untamed.”
With no one in her life to keep her on track, Ryan spent years as a drug-runner, dodging the GCPD and masking her pain with bad habits. Today Ryan lives in her van with her plant. A girl who would steal milk for an alley cat and could also kill you with her bare hands, Ryan is the most dangerous type of fighter: highly skilled and wildly undisciplined. She is an out lesbian, athletic, raw, passionate, fallible, and very much not your stereotypical All-American hero.
The series is one of the latest additions to The CW’s Arrowverse franchise, initially following Kate Kane, Bruce Wayne’s cousin who steps into the role of caped crusader to protect the streets of Gotham City. The CW renewed the series earlier this year, but in May, Rose announced that she would be leaving the show after just one season. Shortly thereafter, showrunner Caroline Dries said that it wouldn’t recast the role, and it wouldn’t kill off the character, but instead have her disappear, forming a central mystery for the upcoming season.
That’s the role that Leslie will step into, and it sounds like her character will be well-equipped to take on the character. She’ll also pick up the show’s progressive legacy, saying in a statement that she is “extremely proud to be the first Black actress to play the iconic role of Batwoman on television, and as a bisexual woman, I am honored to join this groundbreaking show which has been such a trailblazer for the LGBTQ+ community.”
The show is expected to return in January 2021, provided the film industry resume production in the near future.
“She’ll also pick up the show’s progressive legacy, saying in a statement that she is “extremely proud to be the first Black actress to play the iconic role of Batwoman on television, and as a bisexual woman, I am honored to join this groundbreaking show which has been such a trailblazer for the LGBTQ+ community.”
I hate to be “that guy,” but I’m not sure if one season of a show is really enough for any kind of legacy (yes, I know Firefly exists). Also, Batwoman’s only been portrayed in live action once, so I’m not sure if there’s any trend for the casting to buck.
I’m not familiar with the actress, but I’m seeing a number of positive reactions from those who are. She certainly looks quite nice.
It’s interesting — casting someone so distinct from Ruby Rose in height, build, and ethnicity means that it’s going to be obvious to everyone in-story that a different person has taken over as Batwoman. So they’re going to lean into the change in the storytelling. There are likely to be questions about why the original Batwoman and Kate Kane both disappeared at the same time, and maybe whether the new Batwoman had anything to do with it.
I hope they can manage to do an episode where Supergirl comes to town to confront the new Batwoman and investigate Kate’s disappearance. They went to all the trouble to merge the universes but have hardly made any use of it since. And they were setting up the Kara/Kate friendship to be the replacement for Barry/Oliver. I hope they don’t just let it fall by the wayside without confronting the change.
@2/Hawki: Well, of course promotional speak tends to exaggerate a bit, but I don’t think legacy has to be defined strictly by duration; something that makes a strong statement or impression in a short time can leave a legacy too. Nor does it take long for a character to become an icon for a community if they’re the first, or one of the first, to represent that community. For instance, Black Panther has become an iconic character for many people after just one movie as the lead. It’s not the time, it’s the impact.
I suppose they can say that Kate Kane went looking for Bruce and hope viewers kind of forget about her. But that may become a weight on the show if remains unresolved and Ruby Rose never returns to wrap up her story.
Lost rack of this series about midway. The family trauma focus for an entire season was a bit tough to enjoy. I guess Bat stories are meant to be dark, but still… May not be a fair comparison, but it felt more like the Flash seasons that sagged in the middle (and also tended to lose me) by spending a seemingly interminable amount of time delaying resolution to the Big Bad storyline.
Flash largely fixed that issue. Maybe the new Batwoman will have more of a mix of stories and shorter arcs.
@4/Sunspear: “I suppose they can say that Kate Kane went looking for Bruce and hope viewers kind of forget about her.”
They won’t. The showrunner tweeted that Kate’s “disappearance will be one of the mysteries of season two.”
Holy Mane Event Batman! (I’m not sorry, but I hope you’ll all still forgive me for taking one look at that absolutely superb head of hair and letting my Delusions of Humour get the better of me). (-;
I wonder if they’ll change the Bat-suit to reflect the change in Batwoman? In any case I wish Gotham’s latest paladin all the best and will go on hoping that this pet plant they mention will be all the excuse needed to pull in Poison Ivy for an episode or two!
@CLB: that implies it may have a resolution. As in, you know… she went looking for Bruce.
It may become problematic if left open-ended.
It’s rare to see shows that change the main character flourish. Let’s hope this is more like Babylon 5 and not like Two and half men.
@8/Ryamano: Earth: Final Conflict also replaced its first-season lead in season 2, and like B5, it ended up running for five years (although the quality plummeted).
Also, let’s keep in mind that Legends of Tomorrow was initially a show centered on Rip Hunter and Hawkgirl. Changing its character focus saved it and improved it immensely.
So, the African-American character is a criminal. How “progressive”.
@10/Almuric: “The” African-American character? Hardly. She’ll be one of three black regulars, alongside Camrus Johnson as Wayne Enterprises security head Luke Fox and Meagan Tandy as Sophie Moore, a high-ranking agent of Crows Security. So fully half of the (currently known) regular cast of season 2 is African-American, and only two regular cast members (Rachel Skarsten and Dougray Scott) are white, with the sixth regular, Nicole Kang, being Korean-American. And that’s one black lead with a criminal record vs. two black leads in security work. You’re way off-base by failing to consider the context.
And in the larger Arrowverse, there’s also The Flash‘s Candice Patton, Jesse L. Martin, Danielle Nicolet, and (next season) Brandon McKnight; Supergirl‘s David Harewood and Azie Tesfai; Legends of Tomorrow‘s Maisie Richardson-Sellers and Olivia Swann (though neither is returning next season as far as we know); Wolé Parks and probably others in the upcoming Superman & Lois; and of course nearly the entire regular cast of Black Lightning. Plus numerous actors of other diverse backgrounds, playing a range of both good and bad characters.
“and not like Two and half men.”
we can hope EVERYTHING FOREVER is not like 2.5 Men :)
@11. Sorry, the new character then. Still not a great look IMO.
@13/Almuric: It’s bad to portray a black character as a criminal if they’re the only black character in the story. If people of color are represented more fairly and fully in a mix of different roles, then it’s not a problem. On the contrary, it would still be a problem if they were required to be overly idealized all the time rather than being allowed to play the same range of good and bad characters as any other actors.
Besides, obviously her story will be a journey of redemption. She’s playing the title heroine, after all, so her criminal past is something she’ll leave behind and make amends for. She’s hardly the only such character in the Arrowverse — see most of Team Arrow, maybe half the Legends, (Killer) Frost, Elongated Man to an extent, etc.
I’m slightly bemused at the idea of a hitherto unknown person turning up, putting on the Batwoman costume and getting all the supporting characters from the previous season to follow her instead. It’s not like Babylon 5 where they could just go “Oh, Earthforce have sent us a new captain.” The Earth: Final Conflict comparison is a bit more apt but that had a notoriously high cast turn-over and basically changed lead character again for the last season, with both of the previous leading men making guest appearances in a show led by the second lead from the last two years… I guess Robin of Sherwood managed to pull it off, mostly.
I still wonder, as was speculated earlier, if this character will turn out to have more of a connection to the cast than the character description suggests. Luke or Sophie’s long-lost sister, anyone?
@15/cap-mjb: “I’m slightly bemused at the idea of a hitherto unknown person turning up, putting on the Batwoman costume and getting all the supporting characters from the previous season to follow her instead.”
Well, of course it’s not going to be that simple, and the story arc for the first part of the season will presumably be about her having to earn that acceptance from the other characters and from Gotham. Stories are about conflict, after all. And TV seasons these days are serialized. Remember, it took three episodes for Kate to adopt the red wig and really come to terms with being Batwoman.
@16/CLB: “Remember, it took three episodes for Kate to adopt the red wig and really come to terms with being Batwoman.”
Ironically, it took the same amount of time for the new Robin Hood to accept his role back in the third season of RoS in the 80s, although whether or not he was still treated as new to the role after that varied from episode to episode and seemed to depend on the writer.
I guess there’s different ways to play it. It may be that Kate’s friends don’t even know who this new Batwoman is at the start and have to be convinced that she deserves the mantle.
@17/cap-mjb: ” It may be that Kate’s friends don’t even know who this new Batwoman is at the start and have to be convinced that she deserves the mantle.”
Seems unlikely, unless she starts out in some kind of low-tech makeshift costume before graduating to the real thing.
@18/CLB: Fair point, I’d forgotten the hi-tech nature of the Bat-suit. Still, if Kate’s disappearance is meant to be a major plot point of the season, and she had the suit with her at the time, a stranger turning up in the costume claiming Kate sent her to take over would have more mystery than Kate’s support crew choosing a new Batwoman themselves.
One thing I do hope for is that we’ll see a bit more from old Batman villains in future seasons; that the Old Arkham Crowd appear to have mostly been put out of business for good is a nice way to show that the local Dark Knight had a genuinely positive impact on Gotham (before his disappearance sent the city sliding back down the slipper slope), but if nothing else it would be interesting to see how the various Rogues have coped with being put out of work.
It’s easy to see The Riddler doing his Private Eye thing in the New Gotham, but while it’s easy to see Mr Cobblepot stick mostly to the Iceberg Lounge it would be downright hilarious to see him (mostly) inadvertently stirring up trouble by writing the most hilariously tell-all memoirs of the Old Days (because let’s face it, almost any other Rogue is either too secretive or too crazy to be trusted or simply wouldn’t know where all the bodies were buried).
I’d also love to see Harvey Dent doing his best to Campaign for a better Gotham while striving to hold things together after reconstructive surgery and some Serious therapy; it might be interesting to see a take on the old “Two-face is up to his old tricks! Oh thank God, this Two-face ISN’T Harvey – he really is back to Good” storyline from comics.
@19/cap-mjb: “Still, if Kate’s disappearance is meant to be a major plot point of the season, and she had the suit with her at the time, a stranger turning up in the costume claiming Kate sent her to take over would have more mystery than Kate’s support crew choosing a new Batwoman themselves.”
Javicia Leslie is significantly shorter and curvier than Ruby Rose. The costume would need alteration to fit her, and Luke’s the only person qualified to do that.
Although the scenario you propose is surprisingly similar to how Kamen Rider 2/Ichimonji Hayato was introduced in the original 1971 Kamen Rider series after the original lead broke his leg shooting a stunt for episode 10 and had to be written out for several months.
@20/ED: Seeing how Batman rogues have moved on could be worthwhile if it were done judiciously and infrequently; I wouldn’t want the show to start piling them on constantly the way Gotham did. Patton Oswalt would make a great Penguin.