WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for "Off With Her Head," the latest episode of Batwoman.
Batwoman just broke Batman's cardinal rule.
In "Off With Her Head," the latest episode, Kate Kane gave into her anger. When Dr. August Cartwright revealed he had desecrated her mother's body, she strangled him to death.
Following a phone call from Luke, Kate discovered Cartwright was the one who assassinated Alice's doppelganger Beth. As Cartwright described Beth, though, he made a fatal mistake: he mentioned that Beth's necklace "even matched those damn earrings."
That moment gave Kate pause. After all, her mother Gabby had given her and Beth necklaces that matched her earrings on the day of their Bat Mitzvah. When Kate demanded to know what earrings he was talking about, he said, "The ones my mother so coveted, that caused all the problems."
The problem he was referring to had everything to do with Alice. When the Cartwright matriarch Mable finally got her hands on them, Alice recognized them as belonging to her mother. This led her to discover Gabby's head in a freezer, which made Alice snap. Alice subsequently killed Mable and started down the path that led her to become one of Gotham's worst villains.
"My mother wanted a fresh start," Cartwright explained to Kate. "She begged for your mother's face from the day I fished it out of the river. As she got older, her obsession only got worse, but I kept pushing it off, knowing it would cause trouble once she took on the face of a dead woman. It gave her something to live for. Your mother was a beautiful woman, Kate. It would have been a pity for her to go to waste."
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Kate went blind with rage. She tackled Cartwright and pinned him to the floor, her hands around his throat. "You stole everything from me!" she screamed, strangling him. By the time she came to her senses and released pressure, it was too late: Cartwright was dead. She tried to resuscitate him, but to no avail.
Jacob and Alice barged in only moments later. "Congratulations, Daddy," Alice said with a smile. "Now both your daughters are killers."
Batman's whole crusade is, of course, shaped by death. After all, his parents' murder is what drove him to become a masked vigilante in the first place. As a result, he acted under a strict code: no killing. In taking up his mantle, Kate intended to follow in his footsteps; during her time as Batwoman, she has never taken someone's life. Now, her divisive action will likely make her reconsider what she stands for and if she can still live up to Bruce Wayne's legacy.
Created by Caroline Dries and developed by Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, Batwoman stars Ruby Rose, Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Camrus Johnson, Dougray Scott, Elizabeth Anweis and Nicole Kang. The series airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.