Batwoman star Javicia Leslie on Ryan's shocking discovery and that 'epic' season 3 tease
Warning: The following contains spoilers from the season 2 finale of Batwoman, which aired Sunday night.
And thus Javicia Leslie's first year as Batwoman new hero has come to an end, almost a full year after she was cast as Ryan Wilder, with a finale that saw Ryan embrace her power and set up several new obstacles for her to face in season 3.
In the CW superhero drama's season 2 finale, aptly titled "Power," Ryan, the Bat-team, and Alice (Rachel Skarsten) defeated Black Mask (Peter Outerbridge) and saved Kate Kane (Wallis Day) from Circe by restoring her memories. After the dust settled, Ryan paid a newly imprisoned Alice a visit at Arkham Asylum where the mercurial villain revealed that Ryan's biological mother didn't die giving birth to her and is still alive.
"I think I always had a feeling when we started this season that we never addressed Ryan's biological parents and that would always end up being something that gets addressed in a very tricky Gotham way," Leslie tells EW. "Now that we know that there is a possibility or maybe just it is the truth that Ryan's mother, her biological mother is still alive, I just am so excited for season 3 because this is just a whole [new] world that we'll be able to enter."
The CW Camrus Johnson, Javicia Leslie, and Nicole Kang on 'Batwoman'
Leslie anticipates Ryan will have several questions for her mother. "If I had to even say how I would feel, the first thing I would want to know is, 'Why did you give me up?'" she says. "So, I think that there's always going to be that thought in the back of Ryan's head, but I think that to know that there's any person that she's blood related to still alive that she could find, I think it would be very important to her. I think that her having a mom, a mother-daughter relationship with someone is very important for Ryan. So, I know that that's probably going to be a huge part of her focus for next season, figuring out if Alice is lying. And if Alice is telling the truth, then finding out where her mother is."
On top of the parental drama, Ryan will also have her hands full cleaning up the mess created in the season 2 finale: Penguin's umbrella, Mad Hatter's hat, and other villain trophies that Circe stole from the Batcave are now out in the world. In the final moments of the episode, they washed up on shore, where anyone could find them, and one of Poison Ivy's vines took root in the soil and started sprouting. And that's not great, Bob.
"So freaking epic," she says. "Like literally a lot of your epic Batman villains, we have all of their weapons and they've all been released into the river and people are going to find [them] and you're going to find the effects that these weapons have on these normal Gotham citizens and then becoming like these supervillains, and it's just going to be so much fun. I can't wait! I'm excited because we're about to start shooting season 3 and I can't wait to read the scripts and to see where it goes."
The finale also wrapped Kate's story (for now0. With her memories restored, the original Batwoman decided to venture off and find Bruce Wayne, her missing cousin, thereby leaving Gotham in Ryan, Luke (Camrus Johnson), and Mary's (Nicole Kang) more than capable hands.
"I love Kate's goodbye because it felt like it wasn't a goodbye forever," says Leslie. "So, it's like to me, a real passing of the torch, a real passing of the cowl. And I don't think we ever really had that throughout the season, we never had a moment where Kate and Ryan were able to really pass the torch and say, 'It's your turn.'"
When Leslie joined the show last year, she knew Ryan's predecessor would be recast and reintroduced midway through the season so that they could give the character a proper send-off.
"We really wanted to give the character its justice," says Leslie. "And so, I think we did such a great job, and hiring Wallis was so cool because I feel like she just, not only fit the part, but just fit our family so easily, so [quickly]. And so, it's been really fun to be able to be Batwoman while also still being able to play with the character of the original Batwoman."
Looking ahead at season 3, Leslie is particularly excited about exploring Ryan's new crime-fighting partnership with Luke, who finally suited up as the DC hero Batwing in the finale.
"He's going to be so much fun," she says. "It's funny because Cam does a lot inside [work], so he doesn't know the struggle of filming outside in Vancouver at nighttime in the rain so I just look forward to watching him suffer with me."
The actor also hopes Ryan makes some progress in the romance department next season. "I look forward to Ryan having her love story and just exploring that as an actor to ever play romance, it's so much fun. It's so beautiful, it's so tender on screen," she says.
Batwoman season 3 premieres Wednesday, Oct. 13 at 9 p.m. on The CW.
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