Batwoman Casts Dominion Alum as Safiyah — Get Storyline Details
When it comes to the oft-mentioned Safiyah, Batwoman is finally putting a face to the name.
Dominion actress Shivaani Ghai has been tapped to join the CW drama’s Season 2 cast in the pivotal recurring role, TVLine has confirmed. (This casting, minus storyline details, was first reported by FandomWire.) Safiyah — who was referred to on multiple occasions in Season 1 — is the “fiercely protective ruler of a small community on the island of Coryana,” per the official character description obtained by TVLine. “A woman with as many enemies as aliases, she is compassionate and charismatic with both physical and psychological prowess. She is beloved by her people and will stop at nothing to protect what’s hers. No one goes unnoticed by Safiyah, specifically when it comes to those who have encountered the Desert Rose.”
In comic book lore, Safiyah had a history with Kate Kane (played by former leading lady Ruby Rose), but the Arrowverse drama flipped the story and tied her to Alice instead.
Regarding the decision to delay the character’s introduction until Season 2, Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries previously explained to TVLine, “I didn’t want to bring her on in Season 1, because I think she would have gotten lost with Hush and all the cool stuff we were doing with Batwoman coming into her own, and obviously Batwoman and Alice. So we just hinted at her. But now that we’ve established her as a person that Alice is terrified of, I’m excited to bring her in as the Big Bad, at least from Alice’s point of view, because she’s the one person, we’ll find out, knows how Alice’s mind works, and is able to manipulate her.”
Batwoman is slated to kick of Season 2 (with new headliner Javicia Leslie) in early 2021.
Still makes no sense anymore. I’ll watch the first episode to see how they try to write themselves out of the trainwreck of a decision to kill off Kate.
Also: What happened to WordPress? TVLine not using for logins anymore? Hard to track conversations.
They aren’t killing off Kate. They made that very clear.
So Kate might still be back at some point.
I like this actress – she played a hit man on ‘The Catch’ a few years ago.
I still think it was a disaster to remove Kate Kane from the show – because she is supposed to have a history with the villians on the show.
The random new ‘Batwoman’ is described as a drug dealer – how is she going to get access to Batwoman’s money and Batcave?
She also won’t have any history with Alice or Julia Pennyworth .
“Ryan” is Bruce Wayne’s step-daughter, via Catwoman?
i agree. Stoopid not to recast Kate Kane.
In response to other comment – they have stated they are not killing off Kate. I don’t get why people think the show can’t go on just because all the characters won’t be related anymore? Yes it ends those storylines abruptly but doesn’t mean new relationships and feuds can form between new Batwoman and existing characters. It’ll work or it won’t. Watch or don’t. I’m excited because this obviously means Alice will still be a big player and she was my favorite part of the first season anyway. Totally into seeing where new storylines bring her character and how she’ll react to a new Batwoman.
Because fans of Batwoman are Kate Kane fans.
The whole show is setup on the premise of these people around her having a connection with Batwomen. If they hadn’t made these connections so integral then it might have been fine going this direction but as it is they should have just recast Kate and I just can’t see the logic in not doing so. It almost seems like they had wished they had cast a black actress from the off but knew they couldn’t really if they recast so used it as an excuse to do so at the expense of the storytelling
Yes and now it will be a new premise with a new Batwoman, yet still incorporate same supporting characters. Not even going to comment on your race issues with the recast.
But those same supporting characters now have no connection to this new character. Kate had strong inbuilt connections with them that were only made stronger for the viewer over the season. Now its a complete reset, not only does this new character have to build relationships with the characters but we as viewers have to. We now basically have a season 1 and all the problems any season 1 has all over again
And what you think they could have cast kate black after a season of her being white and with a family that is all white. I know its a comic book show but race changing someone part way through is pushing it. They could have made Kate black from the off without a problem, hey if Ruby Rose had quit/been fired sooner they actually had a way of making Kate black after crisis. As it is their desire to have a black batwoman has had them sacrifice story to do it
I was glad to see that Alice would still be around as well. She was the best part of season 1.
AGREE…242%!!!
she looks amazing for 45!!!
I think that woman season two is going to suck because you can’t just change the bat woman is for one she’s not black and that’s gonna ruin the whole thing is people at CW in DC comics are just screwing up everything the whole roll of Batwoman.
Oh please…
Legacy characters aren’t something new. They’ve been done to the death (often literally) by comic books for years.
Some of them are just god awful. Others turned out great and were loved by fans.
Miles Morales (Spider-Man), Kamala Kahn (Ms Marvel), X-23 (Wolverine) were beloved besides being massively different than their original title holders.
Sure, it could be terrible. It could be great.
Most likely, it will be in the middle.
We’ll have to wait and see.
I might as well call the show black woman instead of batwomanIt’s just gonna be stupid because now that woman’s gay that’s not gonna fly and if it does then you people are just stupid!
Loved her in The Catch already.
And she is a beauty (no idea if I am allowed to say something like that in a politically correct climate ;))
This is good casting.
I think the problem will as much end up being, with Batwoman not being Kate, she’s almost secondary to all the other plots and relationships. This bad guy seems like she will be keyed on Alice; the “desert rose” thing, which I think was the cure Mary took, will also key her on Mary. For a Batwoman who is not Kate, both of these facts are pretty trivial since she isn’t family to either of them.
Greg Berlanti is so out of touch when it comes to show running
He is the one who gave the bright idea to create a new character to caroline the head showrunner
If they had cast javicia at the beginning I would be so excited for her. As I would love to see a black batwoman
But she is being set up for failure since the show is so based on Kate’s personal ties to the characters
I want this to succeed but I don’t see how when the new character has no ties to the others. I’ll give it a try but I think this is going to blow up in their faces by seasons end
So Alice is still around? Best news on the whole thing.
The whole changing of Batwoman might be terrible might be good. Who knows.
We’ll wait and see.
Though I can’t help but ponder how they’ll twist things around to have Alice around without Kate. I mean she literally killed Mouse because he wasn’t part of the whole let’s mess Kate up.
I’m still waiting for the “Psych!! We actually recast Kate Kane with Javicia Leslie of introducing a new character to be Batwoman” news before I decide to tune into season two.
Safiyah with no Kate just feels wrong but I’ll reserve judgment. This was one of my favorite shows so I’m willing to give this new version a shot. They got a great actress for Safiyah though! Loved her on The Catch.