“What Happened to Kate Kane?” is episode one of season two of Batwoman.
A young woman is asleep in a camper van at night, dreaming of arriving at a new apartment with her mother, when she’s woken by an explosion and something in flames dropping out of the sky. Followed shortly afterwards by a private jet. In the Batcave, Mary tells Luke that Gotham is raining aircraft parts. They try to raise Kate. The young woman is searching the wreckage and finds a homeless man apparently dead. She has a flashback to her mother being the same. Neither Luke nor Mary can get hold of Kate and the GPS is off. Mary asks if they could turn on the Batsignal remotely. Yes, until the Crows turn it off. The woman is now doing CPR, and remembering doing the same to her mother. It works this time; apparently it didn’t before. In the Batcave, Luke is checking when Kate flew in. The tail number of her plane is the same as the one that crashed. And Luke realises whose plane crashed. At the crash site, the woman has not found the Batsuit. Later, Kane and Sophie arrive at the site to look for Kate. Alice is watching.
The next day, at Wayne Enterprises, Luke tells Mary that Julia arrived at the scene and couldn’t find the Batsuit. Luke thinks it would have protected Kate, even from a plane crash. They then notice Bruce Wayne in the office. It isn’t, of course; it’s Tommy Elliot, who Alice had changed to look like Bruce in the season one finale, “O, Mouse!”. Kane calls Mary and she excuses herself. Luke suggests they go to the Batcave. Tommy doesn’t know how, and asks Luke to lead the way.
The woman from the crash, Ryan, is seeing her parole officer. She explains she can’t pay her court fines, because she can’t get a job to pay for them, because she can’t get anywhere to live because no-one will rent to an ex-con. Even if the drugs weren’t hers.
Julia and Sophie talk. They both heard the plane had a recalled engine part. Mary speaks to Commander Kane. She reassures him they won’t stop looking.
In the Batcave, Tommy accidentally lets slip he knows Alice is Beth. He covers it up. Luke explains that Kate had gone to National City to ask Kara Danvers if she could destroy the kryptonite. The only thing on Earth strong enough to penetrate the Batsuit. Tommy asks where the suit is.
Ryan is currently putting it on, remembering what happened when her mother died. She heads out in the suit and confronts two masked thugs. Accidentally activating part of the Batsuit and shooting one in the leg with a Batarang. Ryan is looking for someone.
To0mmy is enjoying Wayne Manor and what comes with being Bruce Wayne when a tipsy Alice, all dressed in black, shows up. Tommy has the kryptonite for her. Alice doesn’t see the point; her sister is dead. Tommy says Alice could have shot Kate dead at any time. Alice didn’t want to shoot her sister; she wanted her dead. She wanted their father to shoot Batwoman with the kryptonite. One of the models Tommy was sleeping with shows up and Alice kills her. For no reason at all.
Sophie is at the Hold Up when Julia arrives. Kate had asked Julia to look in her safe. Sophie wonders if Safiyah had something to do with this.
Ryan ends up getting more respect for Kate after reading more about her, whilst May looks into Ryan’s past. Luke is feeling guilting for insisting Kate go to National City. Tommy’s impersonation of Bruce Wayne is less than perfect. Despite his obsession with Bruce, there are things he doesn’t know.
A rather confused start to the second season, being effectively a new origin episode for a new Batwoman thanks to Ruby Rose deciding not to continue.