Plot summary: The carnival comes to Gotham, and with it a strange vampiric girl who is draining children.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 8(S1.E8)
Original Air Date: August 1st, 2024
Directed: Matt Peters (3)
Written: Halley Gross (2)
Animation: Studio IAM (5)
Music: Frederik Wiedmann (8)
Nocturna isn’t an overly prominent Batman character, though was originally set to appear in BTAS as a full-on vampire but Fox wouldn’t allow blood, so the idea was scrapped.
The group of orphans are modelled on the various Robins; Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown and Carrie Kelly, with Carrie getting to use a slingshot like in ‘The Dark Knight Returns’
Bruce’s date to the carnival is Julie Madsen, Batman’s earliest love interest from back in the 1940s.
Alfred is reading ‘Alias the Gray Ghost’ by ‘Max Grantwell’. Maxwell Grant is an alias of Walter B. Gibson who wrote 283 pulp books about The Shadow, who was the main inspiration for Batman. The Gray Ghost from BTAS is drawn to look far more like The Shadow.
The Fleischer designs of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen return as part of the press hounding Bruce.
Recap
Harvey Dent brings a carnival to Gotham (as promised in Episode 5!) as part of his mayoral campaign, where children begin to go missing.
Unable to act freely as he’s in attendance out of costume, Bruce is forced to take a beating from the carnies (including Killer Croc!) before heading to his car to change.
Connecting the disappearances to the younger sister of one of the performers who drains the children of their life force, Batman reveals she accidentally killed her brother, causing her to go quietly.
Elsewhere Dent gets cold feet about his arrangement with Rupert Thorne, and is rewarded by having acid thrown in his face…
Episode Ranking
A couple of episodes ago I talked about how I didn’t much care for the sudden shift into the supernatural on a first watch, only to have my mind changed on revisiting ‘Night Ride.’ Unfortunately this one didn’t have the same effect on me and I’m afraid it’s going to the bottom of the pile.
The episode’s strength is in what it does for Bruce. Starting out with the little wink and nod to Julie Madsen, and then bringing in Dr. Leslie Thompkins who gushes about his generosity to her orphanage. He brushes it off as a tax write-off, but we know better, and so does Leslie. It’s nice. On the subject of the opening, I liked Bruce pretending to be too weak to ring the bell with the hammer game, which paired nicely with him allowing himself to be beaten up by the carnies later on so as to not give the game away. It’s the kind of psychotic Batman 101 stuff I love. We also get to see how much more he’s motivated when children are in danger, though it’s awkwardly funny to see that turned against him as the carnies believe he’s got… other ideas. Naturally the situation is reversed once he returns as Batman and beats the snot out of Killer Croc.
I guess the circus is a natural pairing with Batman given Dick Grayson’s origins, the main villain being a clown, and Batman’s old-timey strong-man aesthetic. I’m sure it was fun for the art team to work on as well. It just doesn’t do a whole lot for me, but maybe I was just a weird kid who never wanted to go to the circus. (Bruce eating shit walking into his own reflection in the house of mirrors was fun though.) I think it’s more than just not being into that aspect though. It’s just quite a flat episode without very much going on. The Harvey stuff ends up feeling more important than the ‘A’ Plot, largely because Natalia & Anton aren’t very interesting, so seeing them bicker creates zero tension and I was left counting the minutes until Batman caught her (more below.)
Speaking of which, this isn’t exactly Batman’s finest hour compared to the man behind the mask. Sure, he knows Natalia was an audience plant and that she’s the one grabbing the kids, but when it comes to finding her he just kind of hangs out and waits, and luckily she topples a tree nearby so he swoops in and easily tosses her to the ground. Then he falls for her pretending to cry, gets his ass kicked and has to be saved by Carrie and her slingshot. Natalia has super powers, but it’s still not an overly satisfying few minutes of television, with our hero winning the day by just revealing she accidentally killed her brother… who she showed zero concern for when he begged her to get help.
They do stick the landing with Batman carrying her back to the carnival wrapped in his cape, refusing to leave her to die… but I can’t help but think of ‘Baby-Doll‘ and how much harder that ending hit because of how much better Mary Dahl was written throughout.
- … And Be a Villain
- The Stress of Her Regard
- Kiss of the Catwoman
- The Night of the Hunters
- Night Ride
- Moving Target
- In Treacherous Waters
- Nocturne (NEW ENTRY)
Best Performance
Hayley Joel Osment is a bizarre choice for Anton. He’s not bad by any means, and in fact I think he may be the best person in the episode. It reminds me a bit of David Krumholtz’s appearance earlier in the season where you have one of the more famous people in the cast doing a pretty small role. I don’t know if both were just huge BTAS fans or something, but here we are. Osment gets slightly more dialogue than Krumholtz, so I guess he can have the win.
Mckenna Grace is powerfully generic as his little sister, the intended villain of the episode. Which is a shame as the intended dramatic meat is meant to come from her and the dynamic with Anton.
Rogues Roundup
Nocturna (Mckenna Grace) (first appearance)
I’ll give you this: She’s creepy. But you also drew her to look like Wednesday Addams, and draining children of their life force is a pretty safe route to take. They try to punch it up a bit via the conflict with her older brother, who knows her whole deal and wants her to cut it out… but only to not draw attention to them, as he happily leaves her to ‘finish’ with Jason. And then she doesn’t give a fuck when he gets injured, so she’s just pure evil… oh and a vampire, I guess?
I just don’t think there’s enough here at all. She’s a one-trick pony with diminishing returns. When she gives up and wants to off herself via sunlight it’s simply impossible to care. Which is a fucked up thing to write!
Harvey Dent (Diedrich Bader) (seventh appearance)
Our final episode of ‘good’ Harvey, and he’s never looked more cartoonishly evil than in the first few minutes. His eyebrows are always pointed upward in the middle like this, but something about the carnival setting with children everywhere enhances it.
Speaking of which, I enjoy how brazenly transparent the entire thing is as a publicity stunt as he’s unsure how to behave around kids but knows it’ll score points. Even worse, when Leslie tries to get his help looking for the missing Stephanie he just brushes her off, though this is of course moments after he’s spotted Boss Thorne, and once that situation is dealt with he behaves far more humanly towards Leslie.
His downfall coming moments after his most morally upright showing of the season is solid poetic… injustice?
Rupert Thorne (Cedric Yarbrough) (third appearance)
Rupes lurking at the carnival, shooting Harvey a threatening grin is good stuff. Finally dropping the other shoe by demanding Harvey allow a criminal to walk in court was inevitable, but the scene is done decently.
It’s probably not as good of a take on the character as in BTAS, but they still do a good job of giving him a menacing aura where nobody can really say no to him. But I think Cedric Yarbrough is meeting the material more than half way.
- Clayface
- Harley Quinn
- Catwoman
- Flass & Bullock
- Firebug
- The Gentleman Ghost
- Rupert Thorne (–)
- The Penguin
- Onomatopoeia
- Harvey Dent (–)
- Jim Corrigan
- Nocturna
Title Card
The Matt Signal 
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