The comic book stuff this week is far less important than the relationships, but “Tell Me the Truth” does introduce us to Alfred’s daughter Julia Pennyworth. Seems a little unlikely to me that she’d be yet another super-expert in unarmed combat, but there you go. Julia’s part of some super-secret organization tracking this week’s villain, who goes by the name The Rifle. Why they didn’t just use Deadshot I couldn’t tell you, especially since he gets away at the end. And he’s working for some other Big Bad Supervillain – apparently called “Soofiyah”? – who has some very bad blood with Alice.
Anyway, with Julia in town, Kate at last has a chance to throw her ex Sophie off her trail, by having Julia dress as Batwoman while Kate’s in civvies. And that’s what this episode is really about: Kate and Sophie finally letting the past stop controlling them. They broke up six years ago with a lot of very bad feelings that neither ever addressed and, through flashbacks and a discussion that gets interrupted an absolutely criminal number of times, including once by the bigoted owner of the restaurant where Kate’s trying to finally open up, they finally resolve things and move on. The episode even gets a happy ending with Kate buying the derelict building across the street from the restaurant and intending to open a gay bar there, with her stepsister helping with the design.
We had a really good discussion of the story with our son afterward. He’s understood that there are gay men and women and is an accepting child, as we’ve hoped. He just doesn’t like seeing anybody doin’ any smoochin’, period. But of course he’s young and while he understands and accepts people for who they are, he has not understood why Kate got kicked out of military school, why Sophie acts so ashamed, and why that restaurant owner was so snippy about Kate’s sneakers. So we had an upbeat little chat about how important it is to be free to in a loving relationship with people who accept you, and how important it is for other people than white guys to have representation on adventure TV shows. I also added that Supergirl got some praise early on because Kara was adopted, and foster families need representation on TV too. That’s more important than wondering why that guy who was so much like Deadshot had such a silly name. Why wasn’t he Deadshot?
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 