Whoa, is this how Batwoman is writing Kate Kane out of the series?

The news of Ruby Rose abruptly exiting The CW’s Batwoman was a dagger in all of our hearts. Over the course of the first season, Rose brought life to the character in profound and exciting ways. But in the end, it simply didn’t work out, so now we must look ahead to how the show will recover.

Recently, it was revealed that instead of recasting the role of Batwoman, the show would bring in a new character altogether. I have to admit, it’s taken me some time to warm up to the idea of such a drastic shift. Depending on how they explain Kate Kane’s absence, there is one storyline in particular that will suffer from the shakeup: Without Kate, how will her sister Alice feed her appetite for bloodthirsty revenge?

And what about all that hype behind the Kryptonite and the connection it implies between Batwoman and Supergirl? Will that just go out the window?

During the virtual ATX TV festival, Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries talked about the decision to go with a new character over simply recasting the role. The new character is named Ryan Wilder, who appears to be a brand new addition to the Arrowverse. “I’m inventing a whole new character who in her past was inspired by Batwoman, so she will take on the mantle and is completely maybe not the right person at the time to be doing it, so that’s what makes it fun,” she said.

Dries explains that they ultimately decided to go with a new character with the help of executive producer Greg Berlanti, the man responsible for creating the Arrowverse. “To be honest with you, I did consider the soap opera version for a hot minute, selfishly because we had already a couple of episodes written, and transition-wise it would be seamless,” she said.

"Upon further reflection — and Greg helped me make this call, he is way smarter than me about this sort of stuff — he said, you know, we should just reboot the character in terms of reboot Batwoman as a different character, and also respect everything that Ruby put into the Kate Kane character. And I just think it helps the audience a little bit too, that we are not asking them to not address the elephant in the room."

I’m still not sure how I feel about this, but given the success of Batwoman’s first season, I will give the creative team the benefit of the doubt and hope they will handle the transition as best they can. Until then, we’ll have to sit tight to see how this plays out.

UPDATE: The Direct claims to have exclusive info on how exactly Batwoman will write Kate Kane out of the story, and it’s a doozy. Please read no further if you don’t want to be exposed to SPOILERS!

Okay, so according to and “insider,” the show is going to kill off Ruby Rose’s character Kate Kane. That’s reasonably enough; being Batwoman is a dangerous job, and it would set up the opportunity for Ryan Wilder to get ahold of the Batsuit and take up the mantle herself.

According to The Direct, Wilder will be inspired to fight crime after the Scarecrow, a classic Batman villain who has yet to show up on Batwoman, murders her mother. As for how the other villains the show already had will play into this, we don’t yet know.

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h/t Deadline