Seconds

"**Seconds**" is the eighth episode of the fourth season of *The Batman* and the forty-seventh episode overall.

## "Seconds"

### Episode

9 (production order)8 (airing order)
48 (overall)

## Synopsis

The Bat Team goes up against an unstoppable thief who knows their every move.

## Plot

A thief, Francis Gray, breaks into a chemical lab at Gotham University and steals a canister, bungles the theft, and a guard captures him. Then he resets time going back to where he messed up, and does it perfectly. The guard still notices him and gives pursuit, but the thief’s foreknowledge lets him take the man down.

The entire Bat team is at the manor, a day before New Year’s Eve, when they get an alert of another theft at a chemical company. Batman confronts the thief and knocks him down, but the thief concentrates and “rewinds” time until he can anticipate Batman and get away.

Batman goes over the tapes while suspecting that the thief somehow knew everything that was going to happen. The thief meanwhile is working on some device and vows revenge on behalf of his wife and child. He thinks back to how he was a clock repairman with his family in debt. To cover his bills, he stole a clock but set off the alarm. He bumped into a policeman, sent a nearby hot dog stand into the streets that caused a major car pileup, power outage, and a tanker truck to explode. Gray was put in jail for 17 years and his wife left him. The Bat team figures out who Gray is and Batman realizes there’s a time discrepancy, and determines that Gray has put together the ingredients for a poison gas and needs one final component.

The team goes to the final chemical warehouse where Batman begins to realize things are repeating. They confront Francis and Batman figures out what Gray has been doing. Gray reveals that while in jail serving “time,” he learned how to see time unravel and then figured out how to reverse time, but only up to 20 seconds. The team comes after him but Gray is already ahead of them, having lost the battle dozens of time until he has everything memorized and can anticipate their every move. Gray escapes in his car and they give chase, but he still manages to reset time to anticipate them and get away.

Batman figures out where Gray’s son Matthew is, and that Francis is going to release the poison at the center of the city in Gotham Times Square when the clock strikes midnight. Batman sends Batgirl on a special mission while he and Robin confront Gray. The poison is in the New Year’s Ball and as it starts to descend with one minute to midnight. They go after him with freeze grenades but he’s still able to rewind and anticipate everything. Batman tries to stop the ball and fails, but Robin goes after the ball while Batman holds Gry. Gray has rigged the ball with an electrical device while Batman tries to convince Gray to not endanger all the innocents. When that fails, Batman starts to anticipate Gray, having been through the rewinds enough to get a sense of what is coming. It’s not enough for Gray to knock out first him and then Batgirl when she first arrives. But Batgirl has succeeded at her mission: bringing Matthew to the rooftop.

At midnight the ball explodes, and everyone except Gray (who has a gas mask) dies, including Matthew. Gray grief-stricken by this, unconsciously boosts his power and reverses time all the way back to when he stole the watch and set everything into motion. Gray decides not to steal the watch thus undoing the events that led him on his dark path.

Back in the manor a day before New Year’s Eve, the team is together again, but this time Gray is their clock repairman and works with his son, as their family is now happy together.

## Cast/Characters

* Rino Romano as Bruce Wayne/The Batman
* Evan Sabara as Dick Grayson/Robin
* Danielle Judovits as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl
* Alastair Duncan as Alfred Pennyworth
* Dave Foley as Francis Gray
* Townsend Coleman as Campus Guard
* Matthew Gray
* Beth Gray
* Ventriloquist (photo)
* Melanie's Cameraman

## Events

- Character debuts:

* Francis Gray
* Matthew Gray
* Beth Gray

- Everyone dies, including Batman. Luckily, Gray reverts everything back.

- Francis redeems himself.

## Trivia

* Despite being the ninth and tenth episodes of season four, ***Seconds*** and *Riddler's Revenge* were first broadcast before the eighth episode *Two of a Kind*.
* Chronologically, this episode has to take place before *Two of a Kind*, as said episode was in Valentines Day, while this is in New Years Eve.
* This episode references *Batman: The Animated Series* twice. Robin jumps a bridge in a way similar to *Robin's Reckoning*. And Francis Gray attacks Gotham on New Year's Eve in a similar way as the Joker in *Holiday Knights*.
* The NBC series Heroes is referenced in two ways. During Francis' flashback of being in jail, he discovers that he can manipulate time and strains himself to control it, much like Hiro Nakamura from the series. Also, Gray works in a clock shop similar to the one Sylar worked in before he began stealing people's powers. It is also to note that Sylar's true surname is the same as Francis.
* As this episode takes place in New Year's Eve, Bruce turned 29 sometime earlier.
* Melanie's cameraman is the driver in the flashback. So he either used to be a truck driver, or it is a modelling error. Additionally, this is the only time besides his debut where he talks in the series.
* The title is said multiple times in the episode.
* Matt's voice is uncredited.
* As of this episode, the bat-transition's end has a sound.
* This is one of the rare instances where the word "die" is used; Batman says "deadly".

## Errors

* After the heroes go to the Batcave after being alerted from the Batwave, the Batcomputer displays the later scene of Batman standing on a building waiting for Francis to strike.