Bruce Wayne and Batman have cast a long shadow over the first season of Batwoman, and in last night’s episode “O, Mouse!” his face was finally seen, if not the man himself. The only problem is that the visage is not one that’s new to the Arrowverse.
A minor subplot of the episode involved Tommy Elliot/Hush demanding the new face Alice promised him, and in the closing moments he got his wish, only for it to be revealed that she gave him the features of Bruce Wayne to allow him to walk into Wayne Tower and steal the Kryptonite necessary to craft a weapon to kill Batwoman.
The actor now playing Tommy, Warren Christie, appeared way back in the first season of Arrow, turning up in the sixth episode, “Legacies,” as Carter Bowen, a high-flying surgeon turned philanthropist. He shows up in two scenes, first at a lunch for some of the Queen family’s high society friends and later at a fundraiser Tommy throws for Laurel’s law firm to prove himself to her, with Tommy’s jealously being provoked when Carter dances with her. Oh, how far we have come.
To be fair, at this point Arrow had barely established itself, and the notion of the Arrowverse hadn’t even been dreamed up, so keeping a note of the actors appearing in it in order to avoid future contradiction wouldn’t have been considered necessary.
Actors being recycled is hardly an occurrence unheard of, either, especially if a show has gone on for long enough – Supernatural, having run for 15 seasons, is notorious for it – and you can often catch the same faces cropping up in minor parts. Also, a vast number of TV shows film in Vancouver, so actors local to the area frequently find work with guest roles in many of them.
Christie’s appearance in Arrow was a one-off and barely of any significance, with Carter’s presence merely acting as a minor catalyst to slightly advance the relationships of some of the main characters, so him taking on another role for Batwoman is far less of an issue than, say, David Ramsay playing Lucius Fox in flashbacks.
Now that Batwoman has given Bruce Wayne a face though, the door has been firmly wedged open for him to return to Gotham, so there’s every possibility of the two Bats eventually teaming up.