When the announcement for Batman: Caped Crusader first dropped, with Bruce Timm back doing a Batman animated series after redefining the character and superhero animation, I thought this would be the biggest show in the nerd world. But Warner Brothers selling it off to Prime Video, who subsequently dropped the whole season in one day, seemed to make it seem un-special. Changing and in some cases gender swapping villains also seemed to alienate a group of dipshits. But it was a really good show!
Now we have season two of Batman: Caped Crusader, that’s somehow even more violent and weirder than season one, and Prime is still dumping it all at once. It’s very confusing. But, I urge you to at least give it a chance if you haven’t yet.
Season two picks up right not long after the first season. We’re in a 1940s-coded Gotham City, even more so than Batman: The Animated Series. The premise being that the first appearance of Batman from the comics is canon to this series but everything else is reimagined. So, we have a more violent Gotham, extremely scary at times, really indebted to crime fiction of the era, but also with nods to Film Noir and German Expressionism. At the same time, this is an idealized fictional version of the ’40s. Women and people of color are in more positions of authority and some of the villains reflect this approach.
We have a host of returning characters. Batman, of course, voiced by Hamish Linklater remains the brusque, humorless detective/face-puncher with his faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth (Jason Watkins) providing aid. Their relationship growth in the first season was one of the highlights and I wish we’d seen a little more warmth early in in season two. But nevertheless, we also have a trio of perhaps the only upstanding civil servants in the city. Commissioner Gordon (Eric Morgan Stuart) and his daughter, the public defender Barbara (Krystal Joy Brown) and their ally Detective Renee Montoya (Michelle C. Bonilla) find themselves the thin line, along with the Batman, against the corruption.
Villains this year include a few heavy hitters, all major reimaginings. The Mad Hatter is now Hattie Trench, voiced by Laraine Newman, an uber-conservative gossip-based talk show host. Rather than Mr. Freeze, we get Mr. Zero (Kevin Michael Richardson), a creepy dude who cleans up after mob hits. Even the Joker (Matthew Needham) gets a different vibe, a chilly European murderer who turns people into cackling rage monsters.
All of these work for me, or at least provide some interesting changes that fit the characters at hand. The one that I confess does not work for me is the Riddler. As voiced by Ronan Raferty, this version of “Eddie” Nygma is a sadistic enforcer for Rupert Thorne who doesn’t pose riddles to people, but instead riddles them with bullets from his Tommy gun. It’s definitely a unique take, but the Riddler is one of my favorite villains and this felt a bit like they didn’t want to engage with the character on his own terms.
Despite this, the ten episodes of the season are largely all triumphs. They provide a good mix of very sci-fi concepts (or horror at times) along with gangland drama and police procedural. The ongoing story arc of the Joker’s quiet ramping up of chaos in the city really pays dividends by the end, but we still have plenty of time for one-offs. It is a good idea to watch the first season first if you haven’t already, given a couple of episodes are direct responses to things from last go-round.
My favorite episode of the season actually doesn’t contain that much Batman. The third episode involves Batman going under cover as his petty criminal persona Matches Malone. While in the big house, he gets close to an associate of the Riddler’s to try to get in with the gang and it ends up being a weirdly touching and heartfelt exploration of friendship. As this Batman doesn’t have much in the way of friends, even under subterfuge, it’s interesting to see him start to open up.
While I think the first season is, as a whole, better, this season still has loads of great Batman adventure. It’s a shame that Prime has chosen to dump it all in one day again. We’re seeing how much hype X-Men ’97 gets every week when they drop a new episode. Certainly X-Men ’97 is a better series than Caped Crusader, but there’s no reason why a Timm-produced Batman series of this level of quality shouldn’t get an equal chance to succeed.
As we have to wait now until 2028 to see live-action Batman on the big screen, it would be nice to have a series like this that can hold us over. I hope Batman: Caped Crusader gets a chance to continue, but if not, at least we’ve got 20 really fun, weird, and freaky episodes.
Batman: Caped Crusader drops all 10 season two episodes July 31.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.