Plot summary: Batman and Detective Renee Montoya race to discover who is behind a series of grizzly murders on a film set.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 2 (S1.E2)
Original Air Date: August 1st, 2024
Directed: Matt Peters (1)
Written: Greg Rucka (1)
Animation: Studio IAM (2)
Music: Frederik Wiedmann (2)
Clayface’s appearance is patterned after his original design from his debut in 1940’s Detective Comics #40, wherein he was a bitter former actor murdering the cast of a remake of one of his films.
This episode pays tribute to a number of old films, including: The Pit and the Pendulum, The Lodger, The Mask of Zorro, The Mystery of the Wax Museum and The Return of Doctor X. Plus… Phantom of the Opera reference? You decide!
Combining both of the above pieces of trivia into one neat package, the sword fight on the stairs is taken directly from Detective Comics #40, which was in itself an homage to The Adventures of Robin Hood, which starred Basil Rathbone, the partial namesake of Basil Karlo (along with Boris Karloff.)
Jack Ellman, the shady doctor, is modelled on makeup artist Jack Pierce, the genius behind many of the Universal monsters.
Episode writer Greg Rucka is a pretty major name in comics, perhaps most notably co-writing Gotham Central with Ed Brubaker, the lead writer for Caped Crusader Season One.
Recap
Renee Montoya investigates the disappearance of actress Yvonne Frances, unaware Batman is tagging along after bugging her coat.
The most likely suspect, Frances’ co-star, Basil Karlo is found dead in his apartment, with the hideously disfigured killer eluding Batman while fleeing the scene.
Montoya learns from more cast and crew that Karlo was in love with Frances, but she rejected him, so he turned to an experimental beauty treatment.
Pursuing this lead, she is attacked by Karlo, still alive and able to mould his face to resemble anyone temporarily. Batman saves her and ‘Clayface’ is arrested.
Episode Ranking
I’ll be honest, on a first run through the debut episode had me a little worried about the quality of this show, but those fears were immediately put to bed by this excellent follow-up.
If I’ve made anything clear after four years of these reviews it’s that detective stories are extremely my jam, and while we got the slightest hints of that before, this is a full-on gumshoe mystery. Best of all it simultaneously did and did not adhere to the rules of Scooby-Doo, as it was in fact the very first suspect (discounting Bruce of course), but they did a solid job of convincing you they were perhaps subverting expectations with Basil Karlo’s ostensible death and then serving up multiple alternative candidates. I can’t imagine it’s easy writing this kind of franchise media; If you follow everything that happened in the comics, audiences know exactly what’s going to happen, namely Basil being Clayface after all; But if you try to mix things up a bit or – heaven forbid – do something entirely original, fans can throw a hissy fit. I thought this struck a nice balance, because I personally thought hey maybe they are going to go a different way with it. After all, there have been many men to be called Clayface in the comics, so maybe Matt Hagen was going to show up!
Beyond that it just played out quite nicely, with the lovely musical stinger when Montoya realises Karlo lied to her, the always fun rooftop chase (complete with forcing the hero to save a bystander in order to get away), murder investigations on big gorgeous empty movie sets, Batman using a mercury vapour lamp to find a removed/hidden inscription, freakin’ sword-fighting up a spiral staircase and some pretty gnarly corpses under a stage. Big fan of Bruce being able to estimate a time of death significantly before one of them was last seen, pointing to the Clayface reveal.
The pincer like approach, with Batman essentially making Montoya his unwitting partner was really good, as at times they’d arrive at the same lead from different angles, while in other spots he’d use intel he gained from the bug to press a matter further on his own. Honestly if not for the obvious invasion of privacy I’d call it cute.
Speaking of Montoya, I really enjoyed her interrogation of Bruce Wayne and what it does for both of them. For starters this is a much better ‘Playboy Bruce’ than we got last episode, and that it served as a test of Montoya’s character was fun. Likewise, Bruce being unable to help himself from reciting the exact time he dropped Yvonne off, almost letting the mask slip, and Renee picking up on that immediately. Just good shit! It also comes off as an ‘early days’ blunder, with Lucius Fox diffusing things and providing a distraction for Bruce to plant a bug, and you know how I love spy-games.
Tiny little thing, but Montoya makes a comment about what a risk it was for Gordon to make her a detective. The obvious read is because she’s a woman in a male-dominated force… but given Renee’s status as one of DC’s most prominent lesbians and the slightly more adult tone, I kind of like the double-entendre. Likewise the far less subtle line about Yvonne not being Darryl’s type.
- … And Be a Villain (NEW ENTRY)
- In Treacherous Waters
Best Performance
A much improved outing from Hamish Linklater, who sounds infinitely more relaxed as Bruce Wayne in the interview room, and his Batman voice sounds more natural now too. Something to monitor is how his amount of dialogue impacts his performance…
Dan Donohue is great as Basil Karlo though. It’s not just that he’s ‘doing a voice’, he’s also filled it with all manner of little affectations, including being able to do a menacing laugh that belongs to the character, not the actor. Hell, I think he may laugh differently in the movie Alfred watches for research than he does before murdering the producer. I think laughing in an accent is an underrated skill when it’s ONE distinct laugh… but two? Wow! I actually think that really highlights how good Donohue is by comparing him directly to Yuri Lowenthal as Darryl Manning. Everybody involved has clearly been told to ham it up to emulate the movie business of the 40s, but where Donohue has nailed it, Yuri has slightly overshot… although, given we learn this is actually Clayface in disguise, maybe that’s the point! Anyway, I think this might be my favourite villain performance of the season.
Once again, I have a soft spot for John DiMaggio, and his highly strung exasperated movie producer is really fun. Finally, Michelle C. Bonilla is extremely solid as Renee Montoya, but Donohue simply went too big with it to have any true competition.
Rogues Roundup
Clayface (Dan Donohue) (first appearance)
The BTAS version of Clayface was iconic but used sparingly as he was notoriously difficult to animate. While I don’t think many of the foes on this show are going to recur, the classic edition would be far easier to deploy given he can seemingly only reshape his face. That may sound worse, and I obviously loved the body horror aspect of the giant blob-man, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had here, including getting his face dented and warped when punched, and he is arguably just as interesting as a character.
Where Matt Hagen was deformed in an accident and wanted to hide it, Basil is… well, he’s… U-G-L-Y, he ain’t got no alibi, he ugly. Juvenile as I’ve made it, I actually think it was interesting to delve into the notion of actors being typecast regardless of their talent. Is it a smidge disappointing for him to also be an incel on top of that? Maybe! But this series seems less interested in sympathetic villains, and while you may not be into that, he’s undeniably a dirtbag you want to see captured.
I dig the outfit and returning him to a more straight forward killer, though he’s potentially a little too spritely given Basil’s age, leaping from a rooftop and catching himself on a ladder. Still, gets his ass kicked once it boils down to a straight-up fight, and I actually like that.
Harvey Dent (Diedrich Bader) (second appearance)
Again, barely even in the episode, but I enjoyed him once again being a villain almost by accident. It’s possible his suggestion of a mutually beneficial trial to boost both his and Montoya’s careers was sincere, but her immediate retort asking if any arrest will do or if it needs to be the murderer makes him look like a schmuck. It might have been good to see him initially be bothered by that, instead of doubling down by quasi-threatening Renee, but hey, more the villain, I guess!
- Clayface (NEW ENTRY)
- Rupert Thorne
- The Penguin
- Harvey Dent (-)
Title Card
The Matt Signal 
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