Batwoman season 2 will feature a new lead character after Ruby Rose’s departure

When actors step away from an important role in a series, it is always a difficult decision for the producers to decide if they replace the actor entirely or find a way to write them out of the script and possibly bring a new character in instead. Given how Ruby Rose, as the lead in CW’s Batwoman was such an integral part, it was no doubt going to be a difficult decision once it was announced that she was hanging up her cape and cowl. However, given that you can’t just take the focus away from the lead character, it was always assumed that the studio would simply look to recast her role to someone else and let the script kind of pretend that everything was exactly as it always was. After all, its worked so many times in the past.  

In a rather surprising twist, Decider has revealed (and The Hollywood Reporter confirmed) that CW is not planning to recast the character of Kate Kane at all. Instead, according to a new casting notice which they stumbled upon, the studio is looking for a new actor to play a starring role, as a character identified as Ryan Wilder. With the following details attached to what they are looking for:

She’s likable, messy, a little goofy and untamed. She’s also nothing like Kate Kane, the woman who wore the bat suit before her. With no one in her life to keep her on track, Ryan spent years as a drug-runner, dodging the GCPD and masking her pain with bad habits. A girl who would steal milk for an alley cat could also kill you with her bare hands, Ryan is the most dangerous type of fighter: highly skilled and wildly undisciplined. An out lesbian. Athletic. Raw. Passionate. Fallible. And very much not your stereotypical All-American hero.

So, just who is this mysterious Ryan Wilder who will be donning the Batwoman suit? Well, it’s not clear and it is likely it may be placeholder name with the actual character name to be revealed closer to the time. With Rose leaving the show, the series was always going to take a different turn but based on this above description, Batwoman season 2 is going to be vastly different from what fans have come to love and it could be quite an interesting and exciting change for the CW Arrowverse to as well. It will also be interesting to see exactly how the writers go about writing Kate Kane out and introduce this new hero.

Last Updated: June 3, 2020