“I’ll Give You a Clue” is episode thirteen of season two of Batwoman.
Five years ago, and Sophie is at Blackgate, speaking to a prisoner, Cluemaster. He wants to know how she solved his riddle. Sophie suggests not advertising a crime before it’s committed. Cluemaster provides the authorities with the clues, knowing they will not be able to solve them. He wants to know how Sophie did. She’s not saying. In the present, a guard enters Cluemaster’s cell, but he seems to be gone. Then the guard gets stabbed in the neck.
Ryan is taking down False Faces and Luke suggests she leave one conscious for the tracker. She’s planting the tracker, and distracting the thug, when Tavaroff shows up with some Crows. Ryan is giving them a lecture on how they just ruined everything, all their faults and that they suck at their job. Which is true. Then escapes.
Kane is in a park. He has another dose of Snakebite, and sees Beth and Kate on the swings.
Alice was captured by Kate – Circe Sionis, as she thinks – in the previous episode, “Initiate Self-Destruct”, and is strapped in a chair. Black Mask wants to know the name of Alice’s friend, Batwoman, which causes Alice to go off on one about how Batwoman isn’t her friend until Black Mask says Alice is the one supposed to being tortured. Fingernail torture. Rather nasty.
Ryan finds Sophie with Mary, sharing a bottle of tequila Sophie has been given for her five-year anniversary with the Crows. Ryan eventually agrees to one drink. Which turns into a game of Never Have I Ever. All have to drink for being saved by Batwoman. Sophie asks when she was saved. The original; Sophie couldn’t see how she could have been saved by the present one. The bottom of the bottle has a caterpillar, not a worm. A very poisonous one, according to Mary. But they haven’t had enough to be affected. Ryan doesn’t think they’re the target. Nor that the tequila came from the Crows. Because she’s found a riddle from Cluemaster, saying they have until midnight to save a poisoned girl.
Sophie explains that Cluemaster – Arthur Brown – was the host of Quiz Bowl. When he was fired, he went on a murder spree, leaving clues that stumped law enforcement. Ryan has discovered that Cluemaster has escaped. Mary wants to call; her father, but Sophie warns her not to; Brown will think that’s cheating. He thinks Sophie is the only one to solve his puzzles. Ryan heats the bottle and reveals a symbol of two crossed guns. Sophie recognises it.
Alice manages to escape from her chair, knock out Circe and calls her father, telling him to trace the call as she’s with Black Mask. He, however, is still; out of it, thanks to Snakebite, and Circe knocks Alice down again.
The logo was to a firing range that Sophie used. Cluemaster looked into her after she worked out he was going to blow up a party for all the Quiz Bowl winners. Except Sophie didn’t solve it. All rookies have to work the tip line, and a young woman rang in with the solution. And begged Sophie to keep it secret. Mary finds a bottle and lifts it; light come on revealing a young woman in a box. Stephanie Brown, Cluemaster’s daughter.
There’s no opening for the box, but there is a puzzle to solve. Four targets need shooting in the correct order. And thy have four bullets. Mary has to get Ryan and Sophie to focus. Sophie wants to be the one to shoot. Unless Ryan is hiding some skills. Sophie shoots and the box opens. However, things aren’t over; Stephanie has a cipher written on her body.
Alice is talking to Circe. She wants to kill Batwoman herself; Alice has had limited success with her vengeance schemes and she’s unfilled. When Circe mentions cutting her eyes out. Alice says that reminds her of fellow Arkham inmate, Circe Sionis. But she died. Circe says her father rescued her. Alice does not look to believe this. But she promises to tell Black Mask what he wants to hear. Which is not the same as promising to tell him who Batwoman is.
Stephanie, of course, is the woman who solved the puzzle and told Sophie; she grew up solving her father’s puzzles. They need to solve the next one quickly, though, so Luke gets called in. Stephanie tests his skill first.
Ryan spends most of the episode not in the Batwoman outfit; the only time she wore it was when attacking False Faces. Sophie keeps dropping hints that she knows that Ryan is Batwoman. Mary has to keep intervening as Ryan’s distrust of Sophie and the Crows is interfering with some things. Like staying alive.