Batman: Caped Crusader Season 2 Review - Darker, Deadlier, but Still Flawed

This is a spoiler-free review of Batman: Caped Crusader Season 2. All 10 episodes of Season 2 will premiere on Prime Video on Friday, July 31.

Batman: Caped Crusader may be the latest in a long lineage of Batman-themed animated series, but its appeal has always been crystal clear. It’s a project that not only brings Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm back to the forefront, but one that allows Timm to work wholly unencumbered by the technological and content limitations that hindered the original BTAS. This is an adult-oriented show that fully leans into the violence, sex, and film noir roots of the Batman franchise. The results continue to be well worth a watch in Season 2, even if the series tends to settle for being different from BTAS more than actually trying to be the superior product.

Season 2 moves forward from its predecessor’s Harvey Dent-focused storyline as Batman (Hamish Linklater) confronts an even more ominous era in Gotham City. The fight to take down resilient crime boss Rupert Thorne (Cedric Yarbrough) is further complicated by the emergence of new Gotham City power players like Riddler (Ronan Raftery) and the enigmatic Joker (Matthew Needham). More than ever, the Dark Knight needs a few good friends by his side, something he’s still learning to accept in Season 2.

The thing about Caped Crusader is that it’s strangely disinterested in Batman himself. That’s a criticism that’s often been overblown when leveled against the various live-action films, but here it certainly holds water. Compared to the many villains and supporting characters on display in the series, Bruce Wayne and his alter ego come across as bland and almost psychologically inert. For a guy who gets his kicks dressing as a bat every night, that’s certainly a choice on the part of Timm and the writers. It’s an issue that is only compounded in Season 2, which keeps Bruce at an even further remove because he’s no longer being psychoanalyzed on Harley Quinn’s (Jamie Chung) couch. Thanks mostly to Linklater’s solid vocal performance, the series is great about drawing a distinction between billionaire playboy and grim vigilante, but it very rarely cuts to the genuine person who exists at the intersection of those two personas. Only Episode 3 strives for something deeper with Bruce.

Ultimately, though, that’s only a significant problem when you don’t consider the utter glut of Batman media on the market. If a more complex psychological portrait of the Dark Knight is what you’re after, there are other, better avenues to explore. Caped Crusader is very clearly more interested in delving into the psychology of the Bat rogues and the supporting cast.

There, Season 2 is largely much more successful. The series places a real premium on allowing viewers to understand and empathize with many of these characters, whether it’s crusading defense attorney Barbara Gordon (Krystal Joy Brown), the righteously vengeful inventor Roxy Rocket (Wunmi Mosaku), or the mentally unstable Rose Canton (Fryda Wolff). I’m perhaps most impressed with the show’s continued handling of Detective Flass (Gary Anthony Williams), a character who’s elevated from one-note bad cop in the comics to a genuinely intriguing figure. Batman himself may be an implacable presence in the series, but so many of these characters exist as complex mirrors of his psyche.

One also has to credit Timm and company for not simply replaying the hits from BTAS when it comes to the antagonist characters. Nearly every villain feels fundamentally different in terms of appearance and background. At times, these characters come across as different for the sake of being different. Take someone like Hattie Tetch (Laraine Newman), a gender-bent version of Mad Hatter who’s so far removed from the source material she might as well be an original character. But for every Hattie, there are several iconic villains who receive major and enjoyable overhauls in Season 2. And there are some returning favorites, for good measure. Chung’s Harley Quinn is once again central to one of the best episodes of the season.

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But what of Riddler and Joker, the two characters who form the twin backbones of Season 2’s serialized narrative? Suffice it to say, Caped Crusader finds far more success with one than the other. Like Hattie, Eddie Nygma is distorted to the point of being almost unrecognizable. His love of puzzles and mind games is seriously downplayed. Instead, the show depicts him as a raving psychopath who “riddles” his victim with bullets. None of the fascinating intellectual rivalry between Batman and Riddler is on display here, eliminating the entire point of the latter character in the process.

But Joker is another matter entirely. The show takes its sweet time putting this character into the spotlight (as you’d expect), but once it does, Season 2 really hits its groove. As evidenced by the villain’s dour, shadowy appearance, this is a version of Joker almost wholly inspired by the early Golden Age comics and actor Conrad Veidt’s character Gwynplaine in 1928’s The Man Who Laughs. He’s not a preening trickster or comedian, but a brooding terrorist who holds Gotham entirely in thrall.

Unlike Riddler, Joker never feels different for the sake of being different. He’s simply drawing from a slightly different well than we normally see in Batman media. The character also benefits from an excellent performance by Needham, who brings just the right sort of quiet yet zealous attitude the role demands. He may spend much of the season staring ominously from the shadows, but Joker’s belated presence helps elevate the final few chapters of the season in a major way.

Visually and musically, Caped Crusader still exists in the shadow of its parent series. It makes the most of Timm’s iconic aesthetic, and generally beats out the animation quality seen in DC’s various direct-to-video films, but there are flaws to be found. The series is almost too clean at times. The figures lack the same grimy texture that permeates the environments, and many of the CG-animated vehicles look a bit odd in motion. And while Frederik Wiedmann’s moody orchestral score does its job nicely enough, never does it reach the heights of Shirley Walker’s work on BTAS. That’s sort of the common theme with Caped Crusader. It’s a different and more intensely noir-flavored answer to Batman: The Animated Series, but not necessarily superior.