Yeah, a huge pet peeve of mine. It worries me that the word has been that DC intends to employ more screenwriters. NORMALLY, comic books are written with greater plot coherence than film/TV. My theory is you can read comics at your own pace and easily turn back pages to clarify the plot, and comic writers and editors know this. Film and TV move ahead inexorably, and you just have to keep up, pay attention to the moment. Action films are designed around spectacular set pieces, and the rest is just glue to somehow get you from one such scene to the next, hopefully reasonably paced, and with some theme and character development.
Don't get me started on Arrowverse shows! And they aren't engaging enough to hide the plot holes. If deus ex machina is your thing, these are the shows for you! (I watch them anyway, but ask myself why!)
But with comics, you can pour over the "script" as it were, at least the parts that made it to the page. I can analyze and re-analyze these two issues of Batgirl in a way I usually can't after watching a film, since my scene-by-scene recall is insufficient.
Yes, I think you've got it, and it's surely as close to BQM's intentions as anyone could conclude, or that he would have any right to expect given what's on the page.
I would suggest a slightly different interpretation based on what we know from #2 and the conversation and thoughts in #3, page 2.
They haven't buried the hatchet yet. Steph knows that Barbara is pissed at her, and Barbara thinks that she could "kill" Steph. Given how they left things in #2, why would she have involved Steph at all in something this dangerous (or any mission at all), let alone guide Steph to get there before the police (who I assume Oracle tipped off). So I think Steph tracked them independently, and lets Barbara know when she's there, and while Barbara hopes Steph waits for the police to arrive, says she can't stop her from going in alone. That said, she offers plenty of help once Steph heads in.
Maybe BQM intended that Barbara gave Steph the location, but that doesn't add up to me. It might be a case of a TV writer not bothering to think through all the details.
There's an art to comic book writing to advance plot and character in minimal words, with the art hopefully carrying the rest of the load. (I obviously wouldn't have that skill
.)
Either way, things proceed fairly rationally from there.
I guess Scarecrow has Steve and the other lackey fight to the death partly for sport, but that doesn't seem like the best time for him to be fooling around. So maybe it's just that they serve him no further purpose, having released the Thrill at the Harvest Festival per his orders. They're not like his guards; they're just a useless bunch of addicts.
But most likely BQM has established no real motivation behind it, and he puts it in there to illustrate how insane and dangerous Scarecrow is, and to provide another graphic reminder of the level of insanity the Thrill gas can induce and the danger Steph is facing. Which leads well into Steph's hallucinations.
Yup.