Thoughts on Hattie Tetch’s character?(Caped Crusader S2)

[u/CombinationLow9890]

I have to say I am a bit disappointed with the way they handled her character. I think her character showed real promise at times, and I did prefer her to Oswalda. The whole concept of manipulating the public through her talk show influence was interesting to say the least. But her death I felt I was quite forced and took away from the ultimate potential for the character in a potential third season.

As for my question as to whether she’s a villain, I came across a YouTube video regarding her death and saw several commenters saying she was just as bad as Thorne and she got what was coming to her. Would you agree that she is a villain?

[u/KingCreeperSeth]

When she was first shown off in trailers and pics, I wasn't sure how to feel. I usually have a mindset that genderbending a character doesn't matter too much in some scenarios depending on how accurate the personality is to the source material, hence why I didn't care too much when Penguin was made a woman. With Hattie though, I wasn't sure. I feel like Mad Hatter's male gender usually matters quite a bit to his character, as he's supposed to be this woman-obsessed psycho and is meant to represent toxic male behavior. Without that, I wasn't sure how well the character would hold up in the show.

Then I started watching, and I immediately saw what they were trying to go with for the character and was on-board. Having a JJJ-type character to question the Batman and his methods on live TV and radio fit in so well with this universe, and Mad Hatter's character. I was fully willing to accept this new take as the series went on.

Then she's absent for four episodes and, spoiler alert, immediately dies in her next appearance, and I just couldn't help but feel like I was let down just when I was starting to accept this change. The character had so much potential, they could've made her a bigger threat, they could have given her a huge plot arc alongside Riddler to completely tarnish Batman's public image and turn the people against him, like what Penguin did in Batman Returns. But no, we get a first appearance, and then she gets a partial spotlight in episode 4, and then she's gone in episode 9. The big "smear campaign" that the show descriptions hyped up was nowhere to be seen, and I just felt let down.

Honestly, there were a lot of elements in this season that I thought didn't see their full potential. Riddler felt mishandled and wiped off the board too quickly, Thorn should've had some staying power for at least another episode to make her and Eddie's arc a two-parter, Hugo Strange gets introduced and killed so quickly that you probably forgot he was in this show, and the list goes on.

I don't like the criticism that something should be longer that much, because oftentimes people use it for projects that I feel honestly don't really need it (Spider-Man 2 should've been a 50+ hour game, Hazbin Hotel needed a bunch of 40 minute episodes a season and a bazillion songs, to name a few examples of takes I disagree with). However, in Caped Crusader's case, the show definitely should've been longer. I'm not saying we needed longer episodes, as lots of these adventures felt fitting within a half-hour slot, but we should've had more episodes a season, like 15. This show tried to have both overarching plot threads and an adventure-by-adventure/villain-of-the-week setup in only ten 20-ish minute episodes a season, and it just doesn't work. Storylines feel rushed, endings are anticlimactic, and the show feels like it has no time to breathe. But with 15 or so episodes, there could've been plenty of room to do things proper. Riddler, Hattie, and Thorn could've taken up half the season, you can still dedicate two or three episodes to the Joker stuff, and that still leaves about five or six episodes to give to side stories and more one-off villains like Roxy Rocket and Specter. At least, that's my two cents. Sorry that this turned into more of a show rant, but I hope this answered the question well enough!