Plot summary: Batgirl officially joins the family, as she, Batman and Robin race to take down Two-Face and rescue Jim Gordon.
Each Saturday and Sunday Matt Waters recaps an episode of the legendary Batman: The Animated Series, building an overall ranking along the way. Plus best performances, the ever-popular Villain Watch and more!
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Notes
Episode Title: ‘Shadow of the Bat Part II’
Original Air Date: September 14th, 1993
Directed: Frank Paur (13)
Written: Brynne Chandler (5)
… Robin’s motorcycle helmet disappears in one scene? I dunno, I’ve got nothing.
Recap
After our ‘previously on’ recap, Robin heads off to investigate Gil Mason, adamant that he ducked before any gunfire at the Jim Gordon rally. Great minds think alike though, as Batgirl arrives and the two trade barbs, with Dick doing his best to flirt, while Barbara resents not being taken seriously.
Gil receives a phone call, which Robin listens in on via some of his gadgetry, leaving Batgirl to do things the old fashioned way, using binoculars to read the address Mason scribbles on a notepad. She lets Dick think she’s heading home but both depart for the rendezvous.
Infiltrating the abandoned subway station, they both overhear Gil failing to identify ‘Matches Malone’, and Two-Face kindly spells out for us that he got Mason his job working with Gordon in the first place, giving him a man on the inside.
The rescue attempt goes south when Batgirl trips, leading to a full scale shootout. Actually I guess you can’t call it that when only one side are shooting… Two-Face, Gil and Mad Dog escape and detonate some remote explosives.
Bruce suits up (Robin brought his costume) and lectures Batgirl to stay out of it, but she ends up helping rescue Dick after water brought in by the explosion floods the subway.
Batman lets Barbara escape first, with Robin handing her some batarangs for protection. Unfortunately more water washes the Dynamic Duo away before they can follow suit!
Jim Gordon struggles through dinner in his cell while Harvey Bullock chows down on a slice of pizza. Their meal is interrupted when a pair of masked criminals blow a hole in the wall and kidnap the commissioner.
Back in the subway, Batman & Robin take refuge in a train carriage, which Bruce is able to decouple, sending them hurtling into a wall with enough force to smash through to safety.
Batgirl arrives at the sight of Jim’s would-be execution first, disarming Gil with one of the loaned batarangs, and then getting Jim to safety after distracting the villains with a smoke bomb. Batman arrives and makes short work of Two-Face’s men.
Mason makes a break for it on a speedboat while Bruce takes down Harvey (with another giant penny!), leaving Barbara to give chase. Gil unmasks her, but she still kicks his ass, reluctantly saving him before the boat crashes into the Statue of Liberty a big torch-wielding statue.
Summer Gleeson (remember her?) interviews Jim Gordon now that his name has been cleared. He gives his approval for Batgirl to operate in Gotham. Bruce and Dick do the same as father and daughter are reunited.
(An important thing to note throughout this two-parter: Barbara may know Bruce’s identity, but he and Dick are oblivious to hers. Furthermore she doesn’t know who Robin is and the two are headed down a romantic path. Their final lines in the episode revolve around this premise.)
Best Performance
Our cast is trimmed down a smidge, but the key players remain the same. Loren Lester is much better than in Part I, but Kevin Conroy, Greg Burson, Tim Matheson and Richard Moll all have fewer lines, which they don’t do an awful lot with this time.
Luckily our leading lady, Melissa Gilbert, remains excellent. Barbara is determined, defiant and frustrated in the face of Batman & Robin’s rejections of her help, but maintains a feisty sense of playfulness, such as when she lies to Dick about heading home. I also loved her self-critically talking to herself to help convey that she’s having to learn the job on the fly. Finally, like Conroy, she plays the ‘I know something you don’t know’ beats in game fashion.
Ranking
As is tradition with two-parters, more time is devoted to action in the conclusion than atmospheric scene-setting. It’s logical; you set your dominos up and then you knock them down. But it’s a pretty straight-forward wrap of the excellent story once Batman has been rescued. Still fun though.
Much like the direction made Batman look like a force of nature in Part I, this episode did a fantastic job with his two sidekicks. I particularly loved a scene where a guard is distracted by a shadow-covered Batgirl, leaving him easy pickings for Robin to take down. In fact this is the most competent Robin has looked outside of his quick takedown of Tony Zucco, and for the first time it seems believable that Dick could fly solo.
They also had to walk a fine line telling a story of how Barbara lacked Bruce and Dick’s experience without making it look like the typical ‘women can’t do anything right’ nonsense that you’d expect from the era. There were a couple of moments the scales threatened to tip the wrong way, but for the most part it worked. I’m not thrilled about the teased romance though, as Dick is basically… well… a dick to Babs, but she still has a little swoon over him. She also blushes when Bruce takes his shirt off, which is charming in a bubble, but reminded me of the animated version of The Killing Joke, which in this context is not a good thing.
- The Laughing Fish
- Almost Got ‘Im
- Heart of Ice
- Shadow of the Bat Part I
- I Am the Night
- Robin’s Reckoning Part I
- The Man Who Killed Batman
- Perchance to Dream
- Two-Face Part I
- Joker’s Favor
- Feat of Clay Part II
- Harley and Ivy
- Robin’s Reckoning Part II
- Beware the Gray Ghost
- Mad as a Hatter
- Heart of Steel Part II
- Appointment In Crime Alley
- Two-Face Part II
- Pretty Poison
- Shadow of the Bat Part II
- Feat of Clay Part I
- Off Balance
- Vendetta
- Birds of a Feather
- Heart of Steel Part I
- On Leather Wings
- See No Evil
- The Clock King
- It’s Never Too Late
- Joker’s Wild
- Eternal Youth
- The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy
- The Cat and the Claw Part I
- Zatanna
- Day of the Samurai
- The Mechanic
- The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne
- Terror in the Sky
- P.O.V.
- Christmas with the Joker
- Fear of Victory
- Be a Clown
- What is Reality?
- Night of the Ninja
- Mudslide
- The Cat and the Claw Part II
- Nothing to Fear
- Prophecy of Doom
- Tyger, Tyger
- If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?
- Dreams In Darkness
- The Last Laugh
- Cat Scratch Fever
- Moon of the Wolf
- Paging the Crime Doctor
- The Under-Dwellers
- The Forgotten
- I’ve Got Batman in My Basement
Villain Watch
Two-Face (Richard Moll) (sixth appearance)
I suppose it’s fitting that Two-Face has been taken down by a giant penny twice, but he did come across as a little more of a bumbling nobody here than he has in the past. I’ll give him kudos for not buying Bruce’s ‘Matches Malone’ disguise, and Moll does a good job of keeping him feeling dangerous when addressing his own men.
But once things got to the final confrontation, while he didn’t get KO’d in one hit or anything, he was made to look a bit of a dolt. We’ve got two (lol) more major appearances to go, which need to be strong for him to maintain his top 5 ranking.
Mad Dog (Greg Burson) (second appearance)
I don’t want to demote Mad Dog, because he’s not the outright idiot Professor Milo comes across as, or the laughably bad Sewer King or Boss Biggis, but there’s reaaaaally not much happening for him in Part II, even with a reduced cast to compete for screen time with. He’s there. Robin takes him down in the end. Yawn.
Gil Mason (Tim Matheseon) (second* appearance)
Listen, it was pretty obvious Gil was crooked after the first episode, but technically he was not put forth as a villain until now, hence listing this as a second appearance but not counting him last time. Admittedly, I put Two-Face as a villain before he actually did anything villainous in his debut, but this felt different. Whatever, sue me.
Anyway, it’s a nice little role that could have been even richer if he’d appeared a few episodes earlier (like how Harvey Dent got some face time before his accident), rather than the rules of Scooby-Doo making his deception obvious. Real nice of him to not reveal Barbara’s identity after his arrest!
- The Joker
- Mr. Freeze
- Poison Ivy
- Harley Quinn
- Two-Face
- Mad Hatter
- Catwoman
- Clayface
- Penguin
- The Riddler
- Clock King
- Killer Croc
- HARDAC (and Randa Duane)
- Lloyd Ventrix
- Count Vertigo
- Josiah Wormwood
- Scarecrow
- Roland Daggett (and Germs & Bell!)
- Rupert Thorne
- Sid the Squid
- Jimmy ‘Jazzman’ Peake
- Tony Zucco
- Man-Bat
- Hugo Strange
- Red Claw
- Arnold Stromwell
- Mad Bomber
- Tygrus (and Dr. Dorian)
- Kyodai Ken
- Gil Mason
- Talia al Ghul
- Ra’s al Ghul
- Nostromos (and Lucas!)
- Cameron Kaiser
- Dr. Dorian (and Garth)
- Mad Dog
- Professor Milo
- Romulus
- Sewer King
- Boss Biggis
- Montague Kane
Plugs
Eager for more long-form coverage of Batman? Why not check out my podcast with Mike Thomas, The Tape Crusaders, which reviewed every Batman movie and delved a tiny bit into the animated series.
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