So I Guess Batman Killed The Joker on ‘Batwoman’?

Even though The CW’s Batwoman is about, you know, Batwoman (Ruby Rose), there’s still the appropriately lurking presence of Batman in the background. When the show kicked off, he was missing, and a few of his foes were still kicking around… But thanks to this week’s “A Narrow Escape,” we know one classic DC Comics villain who won’t show up on Batwoman: The Joker. Because Batman killed him.

Spoilers for Batwoman Season 1, Episode 17 “A Narrow Escape” past this point.

In the episode, written by Daphne Miles and directed by The Vampire Diaries alum Paul Wesley, Kate Kane/Batwoman is dealing directly with the fallout from the last hour where she killed villain August Cartwright (John Emmet Tracy) after finding out he kept her mother’s head in a fridge. I mean, reasonable, to be honest. But for a fledging hero, breaking the “no kill” rule is a big moment, and one that leads to some serious PTSD for Kate.

She’s also mostly swept the info about Cartwright’s death under the rug, particularly from her closest associate and tech guru, Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson). However, he’s dealing with a little death wish of his own, thanks to the reappearance of a villain called The Detonator. As revealed in the episode, The Detonator detonated Luke’s father, Lucius, and the younger Fox wants revenge. In order to talk him down, Kate reveals that she killed Cartwright, and it didn’t solve anything. Together, they manage to get out of The Detonator’s trap — he is trying to detonate them, you see — and save Gotham City. Also it helps Kate get past her PTSD.

But the most eyebrow raising detail is what Luke reveals to Kate after all the detonating is over… She opines that she broke Batman’s code by murdering a criminal, and didn’t tell Luke because of how he’d look at her differently.

“You think you’re the only one?” Fox shoots back. “Ever wonder why The Joker hasn’t reared his head in five years? He’s not in Arkham, Kate. Both you and Bruce stared into the abyss. The question is, how long are you going to let it stare back at you?”

So the implication there is pretty clear: Batman killed The Joker, something that has been teased and even occasionally happened in the comics. It doesn’t seem to be the direct reason Batman is missing from Batwoman — he’s been gone for three years when the show starts — but it stands to reason this is the sort of thing that would send him down into “the abyss” before giving up the cowl entirely.

It also teases an interesting question of what continuity Batwoman sits in. The real answer is it’s own continuity, or rather the Arrow-verse continuity. But previous episodes have teased an incident with villain Scarecrow that led to a change in Gotham’s rail system, something that seems to pull directly from the climax of Batman Begins. Batman killing The Joker, on the other hand, is something that doesn’t happen in the sequel to that movie, The Dark Knight; but it does happen in the comic book The Dark Knight Returns… Sort of.

In the Frank Miller classic, Batman comes within a heartbeat of killing The Joker, but can’t ultimately do the deed. Instead, The Joker snaps his own neck, to show he can go farther than Batman ever could, and in essence frame Batman for his own death. It’s entirely possible that these threads are what Batwoman is starting to pull on, which could lead to an out of costume Batman working in the underground to try and save Gotham, a la that comic tale’s own sequel.

But more likely, Batwoman is doing two things: 1) settling the question of where The Joker is, in the show; and 2) clearing the deck for Alice (Rachel Skarsten), who holds the same place for Batwoman that The Joker does for Batman. As much fun as it would be to see the clown prince of crime team up with the knife-happy Alice, better to let her exist on her own.

That said, there’s always the possibility that Luke is wrong, Batman lied, or The Joker faked his own death. Heck, people are always walking around with other people’s faces on their faces on this show, so who knows?

Batwoman airs on Sundays at 8/7c on The CW.

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