Plot summary: Season 2 concludes with an unlikely team-up between Batgirl and Catwoman investigating a stolen cat statue.
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: ‘Batgirl Returns’
Original Air Date: November 12th, 1994
Directed: Dan Riba (10)
Written: Michael Reaves (15) & Brynne Chandler (7)
Being the last episode in the series, this is the final appearance of a lot of characters, but most notably it’s Melissa Gilbert’s last time voicing Batgirl, who will be recast… twice.
The Chemist is modelled on Doctor Sivana, who you may only know from Mark Strong’s portrayal in Shazam!
Recap
Batman attempts to fight off Joker, Penguin AND Two-Face. It doesn’t go well for him until Batgirl arrives to clean house. He leans in to thank her with a kiss and… oh, this is a dream!
Barbara Gordon wakes up to Dick Grayson shouting through her dorm window asking her to go get pizza with him. She declines on account of having to study… but when she reads that a Jade Cat Statue was stolen the previous night, she decides to take a break after all.
Suiting up as Batgirl, Babs investigates the scene of the crime (her own university, conveniently enough!) and immediately encounters the obvious prime suspect: Catwoman. Selina professes her innocence, pointing out the evidence doesn’t fit her renowned methodology.
Naturally, Batgirl is suspicious, but before anything more can come of it Robin arrives and Selina immediately escapes. Dick gives Babs a hard time for no good reason, ignoring her claims that Catwoman is innocent. She gets the last laugh though, calling him a dork. Daaaaaamn.
The next day, Barbara finds a note pinned to a board addressed to ‘The Winged Mouse’, inviting her to meet at a pier. Surprisingly, Selina gushes with praise and offers an alliance to find the real thief. Babs reluctantly agrees.
They start at The Stacked Deck, Gotham’s premiere criminal hangout, where Selina immediately pinpoints a goof called The Chemist, demanding his assessment of the acid used in the robbery. He runs, leaving the ladies to a bar room brawl.
Fleeing the scene (and the police) on a stolen motorcycle, Selina and Barbara head for the factory where Roland Daggett developed the chemicals that created Clayface, and sure enough discover the Jade Cat Statue in a safe.
Daggett confronts the pair, confirming he took the statue to frame Selina as revenge for the events of ‘Cat Scratch Fever’. Before his men can execute them, Robin intervenes and the trio take out all the henchmen.
Selina pursues Daggett solo, disarms him and takes the statue for herself. Not content to leave it there, she attempts to drop him into a vat of chemicals, but Batgirl & Robin make the save.
Babs chases Selina down, correctly deducing this was her intention all along. Catwoman agrees to go quietly… but the cop car barely gets fifty feet before she seizes control of the vehicle, tosses the police out, and drives off into the sunset.
Best Performance
When I say there can only be two candidates, I don’t mean that as a comment on the fact Adrienne Barbeau and Melissa Gilbert have most of the dialogue, but rather a nod to how damn good they both are. They make for a great double act, playing off each other effectively, and the two actors do a great job of selling the experience difference between them. Gilbert has been fantastic at playing a teenager who is trying to sound like a confident woman, and it’s even more pronounced when she’s paired with Barbeau, who makes Selina own every room.
Ed Asner really was a great get for the series, and I wish he’d been given more meaty material to show off his talents. Loren Lester is a laughable stick in the mud, with ‘Robin’s Reckoning’ feeling like another lifetime.
Ranking
In some ways this was a proof of concept for The New Batman Adventures, pushing Batman aside to let the supporting cast take the lead, while simultaneously assassinating Robin’s already middling character. I’m not overly mad at them for that, as he’s been lame more often than not in the series, but there is something funny about casting one of comic books’ most popular characters as a grouchy know-it-all who impedes the progress of two badass women. He even calls Bruce in Paris (oh, he was in Paris by the way) to snitch on them.
Anyway, this is yet another excellently written Batgirl story from Brynne Chandler and her then-husband. Chandler has a deft handle on the character, and it turns out she writes a great Catwoman too, with the pair making natural frenemies. It all makes me wish that she gotten a chance to write more episodes of the show… although ‘Sideshow’ was really bad.
The animation more than pulled its weight, and I particularly enjoyed the dream sequence and how it warped back to reality, as well as Selina tricking Daggett with shadows during the final standoff. The various fights and chases scenes were exciting too.
It’s not the most exciting series finale you’ll ever see, but given the show was not written to be serial, and the network aired episodes in a wildly different order than they were produced, you can’t hold that against it.
- The Laughing Fish
- Mask of the Phantasm
- Almost Got ‘im
- Heart of Ice
- Harlequinade
- The Trial
- Riddler’s Reform
- Shadow of the Bat Part I
- I Am the Night
- Robin’s Reckoning Part I
- Baby-Doll
- The Man Who Killed Batman
- Perchance to Dream
- Two-Face Part I
- Bane
- Batgirl Returns (NEW ENTRY)
- A Bullet For Bullock
- Joker’s Favor
- Read My Lips
- Feat of Clay Part II
- Catwalk
- The Demon’s Quest Part II
- Harley and Ivy
- Robin’s Reckoning Part II
- House & Garden
- Beware the Gray Ghost
- Second Chance
- Mad as a Hatter
- Heart of Steel Part II
- Appointment In Crime Alley
- Two-Face Part II
- Pretty Poison
- Deep Freeze
- Harley’s Holiday
- Lock-Up
- Shadow of the Bat Part II
- Feat of Clay Part I
- His Silicon Soul
- 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
- Make ‘Em Laugh
- Joker’s Wild
- Eternal Youth
- The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy
- The Cat and the Claw Part I
- Zatanna
- Day of the Samurai
- Avatar
- The Demon’s Quest Part I
- 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
- The Worry Men
- What is Reality?
- Fire From Olympus
- Night of the Ninja
- Mudslide
- The Cat and the Claw Part II
- Nothing to Fear
- The Lion and the Unicorn
- Prophecy of Doom
- Tyger, Tyger
- Blind as a Bat
- 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
- Time Out of Joint
- Sideshow
- The Under-Dwellers
- The Forgotten
- Showdown
- The Terrible Trio
- I’ve Got Batman in My Basement
Villain Watch
Catwoman (Adrienne Barbeaux) (seventh appearance)
It’s such a shame that we wasted so much time with Selina as a quasi-hero given how much more fun she is as an anti-hero/villain. Paul Dini proved that with ‘Catwalk’, and Brynne Chandler bolstered the argument here by giving us the best of both worlds. This episode underlines that she’s a god damn professional, judging the shoddy theft of the statue, cutting to the chase in the dive bar, and casually escaping police custody at the end. But it also highlighted the warmer side of her personality, with her soft spot for Batgirl seeming genuine to the end.
I think the most refreshing aspect to this final appearance is that by removing Batman from the equation, it proved she can be a fun character without being wildly flirtatious. Or rather, it proves that the character herself is good, not just the general enemies-to lovers-to-enemies dynamic that Bruce also has with Andrea Beaumont and Talia al Ghul. Her playful banter with Babs is still great, though. Again, best of both worlds.
I just don’t know if two strong appearances on the back end are enough to overcome things like ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ and ‘Tyger Tyger’ which harmed her character. I think I will leave her below Ventriloquist, but may regret it later.
Roland Daggett (Ed Asner) (fifth appearance)
It’s a nice continuity touch that Daggett held a grudge against Selina and was broke following the various legal expenses from his past appearances. It would have been nice to have had a line about Bruce Wayne being the one who was applying the legal pressure that ruined him, but you can’t have it all.
Asner continues to elevate what at times has threatened to be a middling villain into the top 25 (I’m bumping him up a couple of spots), but it is funny to think that he’s ended up being one of the larger recurring villains behind the usual suspects.
- The Joker
- Harley Quinn
- Poison Ivy
- Mr. Freeze
- Two-Face
- The Ventriloquist
- Catwoman
- The Riddler
- The Phantasm
- Baby-Doll
- Bane
- Mad Hatter
- Penguin
- HARDAC (and Randa Duane)
- Clayface
- Ra’s al Ghul
- Lock-Up
- Lloyd Ventrix
- Killer Croc
- Rupert Thorne
- Count Vertigo
- Clock King
- Nivens
- Roland Daggett (and Germs & Bell!)
- Josiah Wormwood
- Scarecrow
- Talia al Ghul
- Sid the Squid
- Queen Thoth Khepera
- Maxie Zeus
- Jimmy ‘Jazzman’ Peake
- Tony Zucco
- Man-Bat
- Hugo Strange
- Red Claw
- Arnold Stromwell
- Mad Bomber
- Tygrus
- Rhino, Mugsy and Ratso
- Kyodai Ken
- Condiment King/Pack Rat/Mighty Mom
- Grant Walker
- Gil Mason
- Nostromos (and Lucas!)
- Cameron Kaiser
- Dr. Dorian (and Garth)
- Mad Dog
- Ubu
- Professor Milo
- Romulus
- Arkady Duvall
- Sewer King
- Boss Biggis
- Montague Kane
- The Terrible Trio
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.
My other recap column, Marvel Mondays, just finished coverage of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. To fill the time before Loki begins, I’ll be going back to WandaVision, with two episodes per week. Injustice corrected!
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