2x11 Chill of the Night!

9.5/10. Of course Paul Dini wrote this one! It feels much more like an episode of B:TAS than it does Brave and Bold. That's not a bad thing either. That's not to malign Brave and the Bold--a show that I really enjoy. This episode is simply a dose of that old darker Batman that we got to know so well under Dini's watch in the old DCAU.

But there's nods to lots of prior Batmen going on, from Adam West's tremendous turn as Thomas Wayne (even getting in an "old chum") to Kevin Conroy playing Phantom Stranger as the angel on Batman's shoulder in contrast to Spectre as the devil on the other shoulder. It helps lend a sense of gravitas to the proceedings.

And the story itself is well structured, with Phantom Stranger and Spectre basically making a Job-like wager for Batman's soul and leading him along the way. Getting to see this week's Batman team up be with Batman's own father was a very enjoyable treat, and framing it as a detective story as much as it was a morality tale really worked. I especially enjoyed the twist that the villains blamed Chill for making Batman and were not interested in saving him. (Joker was especially enjoyable - nobody else writes the character like Dini does.)

The only reason I knocked it down half a point is that a lot of "Justice vs. Vengeance" stuff was a little too on the nose. Using Spectre as the reason the ceiling fell in on Chill takes away some of the sense that it's a convenient excuse for Batman not to kill but still have the bad guy end up dead, but it's still a little contrived. But still, this was a great episode that dealt with interesting themes in the Batman mythos, and did so in a compelling, poignant, and at times even funny way. One of the series' best episodes so far.