SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for "What Happened to Kate Kane?", the Batwoman Season 2 premiere.
Where in the world is Kate Kane? That's the mystery that opens Batwoman Season 2, which kicks off with a fiery explosion high above the streets of Gotham City. In the wake of a plane crash, Kate is believed dead, but the lack of a body and a sinister note from an old enemy indicate there's more to this story than mechanical failure.
The Season 2 premiere picked up on the outskirts of Gotham, where new series lead Ryan Wilder lay sleeping in her van. The sound of the explosion startled her awake. She glanced out the windshield just in time to see a piece of the plane crash to the ground in front of her.
When she emerged from the van, Ryan looked up and saw a plane careening towards the ground. With another blast, the tail of the plane blew away, sending it straight into the banks of Gotham's river. Ryan headed straight for the crash, her first instinct driving her to help. "Hello! Can anybody hear me?" she cried, but received no response.
As she moved through the wreckage, Ryan discovered a homeless man who had been sleeping there when the plane came down. She performed some chest compressions and revived the man. With tears rolling down her face, she told him he would be okay and continued to search for more survivors, but finding none.
Instead, Ryan stumbled across something else entirely: Kate's Batwoman suit. As sirens blared in the distance, she walked shakily towards it. She bent down and ran her fingers over the cowl, seeing but not quite believing. "Oh my god," she whispered, holding the suit up against the flickering light of the flames. By the time emergency services arrived, though, she was gone -- and so was the suit.
Meanwhile, at the Batcave, Luke and Mary came to this horrifying realization on their own. Mary alerted Luke to the explosion and asked if Kate was already on it. "She hasn't checked in since she landed in National City," he explained, as he had encouraged her to ask Supergirl how they could destroy the Kryptonite. He attempted to flag Kate down over comms, but received no response. Mary also attempted to reach Kate on her phone.
"The suit's GPS is off," Luke realized, and Mary confirmed that was the case with Kate's phone as well. As they went over a few other ways to reach her, Mary said, "Are you sure she flew in from National City this morning?" Luke paused at that and checked flight records to confirm.
With dawning horror, Luke realized Kate's flight had been delayed due to weather and that it had departed in the evening instead. "She was set to land 20 minutes ago," he revealed, leaning back in his chair. He began to read off the flight logs, but stopped abruptly at 10:50 pm. He leapt to his feat, causing his chair to skitter backwards. "Luke, where is Kate's plane?!" Mary demanded with rising alarm.
Soon, Jacob Kane and the Crows -- including Sophie Moore -- arrived on scene. Jacob demanded to be let through and asked if any bodies had been recovered, as his daughter had been on the flight. "Not yet, but trust me, Kane -- go home, we'll call you if we find anything," the officer insisted. Before Jacob could go off on him, Sophie led him away with promises to help him search.
Their initial search turned up no bodies, though, leading Jacob to swear to an as-yet unnamed Commissioner that he wouldn't give up until she was found. "They think Kate's in the river," he told Mary. "They've shifted the search from rescue to recovery." Nevertheless, she begged him not to give up hope.
Later, Sophie approached Julia Pennyworth, her fellow Crow and love interest. "We're not finding her alive, are we?" she asked. Although Julia expressed hope, Sophie continued, "Investigators said that the plane was flying with a recalled engine part. Do you believe that?"
"Clear skies, the pilot's psych eval checked out," Julia acknowledged, but Sophie forged on, saying, "Because a few days ago, you showed us photographs of us being tailed by some mysterious woman named Safiyah. You two had drama, and I ended up in her crosshairs... I'm saying you and Kate were close too. Who's to say she didn't have the same photographs as her?"
Of course, Sophie was onto something, but perhaps not in the way she expected. As the episode drew to a close, Alice left Wayne Manor and returned to her base in the sewers. Her nighttime stroll was interrupted by the arrival of a paper plane, which landed at her feet. When she picked it up, she realized it was made out of a newspaper clipping -- specifically, a page about Kate's disappearance. At the bottom, scrawled in red, appeared on the bottom: "Consider us even. -Safiyah."
This delighted Alice. She fled to Mouse's side, as she had kept his body with her in her sewer home. "Good news, my dear Mouse!" she announced. "I have purpose once again! It was Safiyah who ruined everything, and now, I'm going to ruin her. It's lucky you're dead already, my dear brother, because there's a war coming to Gotham, and now there's no Batwoman to stop it."
While Kate may be gone, Alice's assessment that Gotham no longer has a Batwoman couldn't be further from the truth. Ryan is due to take up the mantle in Kate's stead, and she has an ax to grind with the leader of the Wonderland Gang. However, it looks like Kate's absence will continue to loom over the cast, as each member had a deeply personal relationship with her. What's more, with no body recovered from the wreckage, Batwoman leaves the door open for Kate to return at some point down the line.
Airing Sundays at 8 pm ET/PT on The CW, Batwoman stars Javicia Leslie as Ryan Wilder, Rachel Skarsten as Alice, Meagan Tandy as Sophie Moore, Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox, Dougray Scott as Jacob Kane and Nicole Kang as Mary Hamilton-Kane.