Catwoman

Airdate: July 19, 2004

Plot
Artist and graphics designer Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) is a meek people pleaser whose only support is her best friend Sally (Alex Borstein). Patience works for a cosmetics company called Hedare Beauty, which is ready to ship a new skin cream called Beau-Line, that is able to reverse the effects of aging. However, as Patience visits the factory where it is being manufactured, she overhears a discussion between the scientist, Dr. Ivan Slavicky (Peter Wingfield), and Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone), the wife of company owner George Hedare (Lambert Wilson); speaking about the dangerous side effects from continued use of the product. Laurel's guards discover Patience and are ordered to dispose of her. Patience tries to escape using a conduit pipe, but the minions have it sealed and flush Patience out of it, drowning her. Lying washed up on the shore and lifeless, Patience is mysteriously brought back to life by an Egyptian Mau cat, who appeared at her apartment earlier, and from that point on develops cat-like abilities and an insatiable desire for vengeance and milk.

With the help of the Mau's owner, eccentric researcher Ophelia Powers (Frances Conroy), who tells her that Egyptian Mau cats serve as messengers of the goddess Bast, Patience understands that she is becoming a "catwoman" reborn with abilities that are both a blessing and a curse. Wearing a mask to disguise her identity, Patience stalks the night as Catwoman seeking the answers to who killed her and why. Eventually, her search (which involves finding Slavicky murdered and being accused of it) leads her to Laurel. She asks Laurel to keep an eye on her husband, to which Laurel agrees. However, when Patience confronts George (who is at an opera with another woman), he reveals he knows nothing about the side effects. The police arrive and Catwoman escapes. Later on, Laurel murders her husband for his infidelity, and admits to killing Dr. Slavicky as well for his attempts to take the product back to formula. Laurel contacts Catwoman who is framed for the murder and taken into custody by the police, but not before Laurel reveals the side-effect of the cosmetic product: discontinuing using it would make the skin disintegrate while continued use would make the skin as hard as marble. She also plans to release the Beau-line in the market the following day.

Patience slips out of confinement and confronts Laurel in her office, revealing that Laurel is the one responsible for Patience's death. During the fight, she scratches Laurel's face, and Laurel nearly plummets to her death when she falls out of a window, grabbing onto a pipe for dear life. Laurel sees her face in a reflection and, horrified by her skin's rapid disintegration, fails to grab hold of Patience's outstretched arm and falls to her death. Though Patience is cleared of any charges made against her regarding the deaths of Dr. Slavicky and the Hedares, she chooses to continue living outside the law enjoying her new-found freedom as the mysterious Catwoman.