Plot summary: Carrie Kelly finds herself caught up in Batman’s search for Rupert Thorne, bringing them both into the clutches of Mister Zero.

For more reviews and rankings of The Caped Crusade, check out the show page. New episodes each weekend.

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 18(S2.E8)

Original Air Date: July 31^st, 2026

Directed: Matt Peters (6)

Written: Julie Benson & Shawna Benson (2)

Animation: Studio Grida (9)

Music: Frederik Wiedmann (18)

Mr. Zero was Mr. Freeze’s original name, dating back to his debut in 1959, the work of Dave Wood and Sheldon Moldoff, who keeps coming up in the show. The character was re-named Mr. Freeze when he was adapted to Batman ’66.

Carrie Kelley was one of the kids who appeared in Season One’s ‘Nocturne‘, saving Batman. She was created by Frank Miller in 1986 for his iconic story The Dark Knight Returns, which Bruce Timm clearly adores as he adapted it in TNBA‘s ‘Legends of the Dark Knight‘ as well as numerous references throughout his work.

But Carrie doesn’t get to wear the Robin costume, instead suiting up as The Gray Ghost of BTAS fame, while declaring herself Crime Smasher, a reference to World War II hero, Spy Smasher, who changed his codename after returning to civilian life. He had the tiniest cameo in JLU’s ‘Patriot Act‘.

Carrie asks “Think I’m scared of some crazy fake Basil Karlo?” which is of course the version of Clayface they adapted in Season One.

Napier Street is a double reference, both to the Jack Napier alias for The Joker in Batman ’89 and Alan Napier, who played Alfred in Batman ’66.

Recap

Batman is determined to track down the still-missing Rupert Thorne in the wake of his car being found at the bottom of a lake, following the clues to Mister Zero’s headquarters.

Instead, he’s knocked out and partially frozen, the intended masterpiece in Zero’s collection. Luckily, child vigilante Carrie Kelly ignored Batman’s earlier instruction to scram and rescues him.

The two join forces and take Zero down, with Carrie racing home, narrowly evading Harvey Bullock, who had been chasing her all episode.

Bruce interrogates Zero to learn who killed Rupert Thorne but Zero is silenced by an unseen gunman, leaving Batman with nothing but Thorne’s frozen corpse.

Episode Ranking

Something to acknowledge before we go any further is some people simply do not like anything that suddenly incorporates child characters. If that is the case, you won’t like this one and there’s no real point in trying to discuss it any further. My personal stance is I’m open to anything and will never dismiss something on sight… but I’m not going to pretend that most of the kid-heavy episodes of shows like this don’t tend to be worse.

Carrie is somewhat charming as these child sidekicks go, what with her lil’ costume that’s still a little too big, tracking down a lost dog and even cracking out a slingshot, her signature weapon in The Dark Knight Returns.

Cutest thing in this episode, though? Jim Gordon doodling the Bat Signal. Aww.

Something Carrie definitely does for them is allow a juxtaposition of tones that come slamming together. Batman warns her about how dangerous Gotham’s criminals are and it felt like he was being a little over the top. Yet she came back, determined to be a hero, and saved him, only to catch on later than everybody else that the ‘ice statues’ were in fact real people, frozen solid, a realisation she’s confronted with in grizzly fashion when a big chunk of one of them smashes off him with ease, exposing his still frozen brains. Her world comes crashing down for a moment and all the bravado is gone.

But then it’s time to fight and she’s fine again, helping distract Zero and retrieving Batman’s utility belt for him. The stereo flying kicks, evoking the lighting strike pose from TDKR might be a little much for some, but it was fine enough. If it bothers you that much, pretend only Batman’s kick did any damage. But I don’t know if I like her regaining her courage because what follows is her again realising she’s in too deep when she sees her invincible idol bleeding and runs away before he can offer her any comfort. I would have rather she were paralysed with fear the whole time but summoned up the bravery for a single action to turn the tide, instead of an adrenaline-fuelled multi-minute action hero sequence. Nice ideas here, but maybe not executed quite as well as they could have been.

Bullock seems to devote a lot of his energy to harassing a 10 year old, even considering slapping her around when he catches her out after curfew for the second time in the episode, but thinks better of it. I’m not sure how I feel about all of this. In theory it’s nice to not completely dispose of him after he was a pretty major background villain in Season One, which he starts to brag about here. He’s been punished with demotion after Flass convinced him to take the fall for the murder of Harvey Dent, and a confrontation between the two feels inevitable after Flass blew him off. But it also feels a little late to be picking up these threads as Bullock has been missing for so long. Gives Carrie an incredibly low-stakes nemesis, I suppose? He’s undone by not being able to keep up with her in a chase and then her foster-parents tell him to go screw while she makes a face. Fair.

This is half side-quest, honouring a sidekick Bruce Timm is clearly a huge fan of, and half some perfunctory admin, as Batman isn’t satisfied with Riddler’s death and wants to know once and for all what happened to Thorne. Mileage will vary on the former based on all of the above. The latter is kind of dull, unfortunately. The audience has known Joker killed Thorne since Episode One, and it feels pretty inconsequential for the big picture, even more so when you’ve seen the final two episodes. I probably shouldn’t use future knowledge to downgrade an episode, but… I do think you should be docked points if you don’t make good on things you set up.

Honestly, if you can get something out of the Carrie stuff, that’s good, but for me Mister Zero is carrying the episode, and he’s not SO good that he can save it from near the bottom.

1. Sudden Fear
2. … And Be a Villain
3. Deep Cover
4. The Stress of Her Regard
5. The Devil’s Due
6. Kiss of the Catwoman
7. The Spectral Hand
8. Rocket’s Red Glare
9. Brute Force
10. The Night of the Hunters
11. Night Ride
12. The Killer Inside Me
13. Moving Target
14. In Treacherous Waters
15. Savage Night
16. Zero Hour (NEW ENTRY)
17. Her Dark Reflection
18. Nocturne

Best Performance

Hamish Linklater gets really close. Him scolding Carrie to try and make her leave for her own safety is solid stuff, only for him to realise he desperately needs her or he’ll die and having to weakly ask her to keep helping. His attempts to bond with her over The Gray Ghost only to be… well… ghosted was good too.

I’ve also missed John DiMaggio being a major presence in the show. Regardless of my feelings about how they’ve handled Bullock, it’s a fun portrayal, especially his exasperation for being given the runaround by a child. He almost steals the show with his conflicted confrontation with Carrie around the midway point, with his threats of shoving her in juvie feeling a little hollow after his hesitation.

But I think I’d give the edge to Kevin Michael Richardson. He gives Mister Zero a twisted edge, using words like “moppet”, wailing about his art and admiring the ‘specimens’. That alone wouldn’t have gotten it done, but he also plays Carrie’s foster father and demonstrates the other thing he’s perpetually hired for: the big warm teddy bear routine.

Rogues Roundup

Mister Zero aka Mister Freeze (Kevin Michael Richardson) (first appearance)

Vic being fussy about the physical condition of his frozen taxidermy displays is a fun little personality quirk, especially as he gets some of them by offering his services to mobsters seeking to get rid of corpses, so doesn’t take kindly to bullet holes or knife wounds. He calls himself an artist and has a meltdown when one of the frozen victims gets damaged, it’s all very ‘get a load of this weirdo.’ And that’s before you get into the big metal voice box stuff. I would think people would enjoy that given they wanted the villains in this show to be weirder, but I’d also suspect drawing on his original name and design – and thus no Nora, no tragic backstory, no cold gun – means he’s an abomination to many.

I like the ice-block tongs as a weapon, too. I looked into them because I’m a dirty little freak who likes research, and they don’t look as deadly as this in real life, but they are apparently incredibly sharp despite appearances, which makes sense as they need to be able to pierce deep enough into blocks of ice to securely move them. Anyway, I like them here because they evoke Victorian surgical tools or something like that. And that’s before he snaps them in half to make two improvised swords, which was neat.

I like him!

1. The Mad Monk
2. Harley Quinn
3. Clayface
4. Roxy Rocket
5. Catwoman
6. Scarecrow
7. Mister Zero aka Mister Freeze (NEW ENTRY)
8. Two-Face
9. The Riddler
10. Thorn
11. Firebug
12. Rupert Thorne
13. The Gentleman Ghost
14. Hattie Tetch aka Mad Hatter
15. Flass & Bullock
16. The Terrible Trio
17. Jim Corrigan/The Spectre
18. The Penguin
19. Hugo Strange and the Monster Men
20. The Joker
21. Onomatopoeia
22. Nocturna

Title Card