'Batwoman' Episode 5 sees Alice drag Kate down the rabbit hole of her past and almost kill their father Jacob
The first scene of 'Batwoman' episode 5 titled 'Mine Is a Long and a Sad Tale' begins with Alice aka Beth stealing the skin of dead corpses from morgues in Gotham. Alice is preparing a gift for someone very close to her, and she doesn't want Kate to interrupt the big plans that she has for Gotham. So, Alice has planned a trap. She used the chip that Kate, as Batwoman had embedded inside Alice's boyfriend Chuck Dodgson. Initially, we see Kate bring Alice in, and lock her up. She asks Alice what she has been planning with Mouse, and why she has been stealing skin. That's when Alice finally begins to reveal what happened in the past after the car crash happened.
Since Alice's appearance in Gotham, and when Kate realized that Alice was her sister Beth who was presumed dead after a car crash, she had wanted to understand why her sister had changed so drastically. She had wanted to know where Beth had been after the accident, and so when Alice finally started talking about the past, Kate fell - hook, line and sinker.
The fascinating thing here is the fact that though this was a trap, Alice was telling the truth. She was confessing the truth about the initial days after the crash, which was a nightmare for her. Beth was rescued by a man and his son who were out hiking and brought to their home. The son, has a face disfigured from an accident because of which he has become an outcast among his peers. His father, who had always wanted his son to find a higher purpose that he can chase and achieve, saw Beth as an opportunity. He tells Beth that she would now be Mouse's friend. When Beth disagreed, he imprisoned in the basement among his experiments.
Turns out, the man, whose name Beth never mentions - was experimenting with human skin to give his son a brand new face that would help lead a normal life. Initially, Beth is scared and even mentally disturbed by everything that man does to the facial skin. But when she tries to escape and manages to place a call to her father, this man threatens her. He tells her that he would kill anyone who comes searching for her and so Beth ends up staying silent in her room. She hopes for twin sister Kate - who did come down calling for her, to sense Beth nearby. She expected there to be some kind of twin bond that would help Kate find Beth. But that was not the case. This moment marks the end of Beth.
Later, when Mouse sneaked into the outside of her door and asked her to be his friend, Beth silently gave in. She began to find solace in Mouse's company and the gift that he gave her - a copy of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland'. Just as she confessed her past, Alice also manages to drug Kate and take her in as a prisoner to the same house where she was held captive. Their father Jacob Kane (Dougray Scott), and his agent Sophie Moore (Meagan Tandy) follow Kate's location by tracking her, and when her cell phone is turned off near a house that Jacob had visited long ago to find Beth, he understands just what's happening.
He arrives in time to help her, but instead, comes face to face with Alice. Between finally accepting that Alice is his daughter Beth, and trying to stop her from hurting herself, because Alice holds a knife to her wrist - Jacob has to make sure that both his daughters are safe. His first question to Alice was "Where is Kate?" and this incenses Alice's anger. He has been worried about Kate all this while, but Alice asks him when was the last time he worried about Beth and that really is the reason why Alice has been seeking revenge all this while. She hates the fact that she was forgotten by her father. She stabs him with her knife and even goes to the extent of shooting him, but Kate arrives on time with her own hostage - Mouse.
Throughout the episode, which saw very little of Batwoman and more of Alice and Kate - the one thing that was hinted at was Alice's need to remain in people's memory. Be it Mouse, her sister Kate or her father Jacob - Alice doesn't want to be forgotten.
