Gotham Season 2 – That Geek Thing

Gotham S02E08 “Tonight’s The Night” REVIEW

February 29, 2016

by thatmediathing with No Comment Reviews

Gotham S02E08 “Tonight’s The Night” REVIEW

• Bridezilla

Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 10pm
Writer: Jim Barnes
Director: Jeffrey Hunt

Essential Plot Points

barbara

Barbara walks down the aisle. Everything is fine.

organist galavan

The priest describes the bride and groom as “unlawfully wedded”. It’s fine.
The priest is Penguin. Fine.

congregation

The congregation is made up from Gotham inmates. FINE.
Barbara pukes up a bird and… yeah it’s a nightmare.
She wakes up, is comforted by the sight of what seems to be bondage gear on the bed and a present from Galavan.
Nearby the evil twins are surveying their city. Tabitha’s… you guessed it! Bored! Theo fills her in and explains that to get Bruce to sign over Wayne Industries, they need to distract him from the fact they’re about to kill Gordon. Barbara comes in, and Theo tells her today’s the day she gets to kill Jim.
MEANWHILE, AT THE GCPD!

Barnes

Jim and Harv pitch Barnes their case. Barnes is fully conscious this week and points out they have the word of two criminals against the most popular mayor in Gotham’s history. Nonetheless, they go for it.
Nearby, Leigh politely tells Jim to watch his obsessive tendencies juuuuust as Barbara walks in.

Jim and Barbara

Jim is the only one Barbara will talk to. So he interviews her.
Alone.
And then kisses her.
And then is somehow not instantly suspended for sexual harassment.
She tells him she has a surprise and they should go get it. It is so clearly a trap that in the background you can hear Detective Ackbar punching the air and yelling, “WHAT AM I ALWAYS TELLING YOU, GUYS?!”
In Barnes’s office Leigh points out Barbara is mentally ill and needs to be treated. But MEN are talking so that sensible idea is overruled in favour of macho nonsense. Officer Ackbar can be heard yelling, “Oh you guys SUCK!”
MEANWHILE, IN A SCENIC GOTHAM FOREST!

-Oh God. OH GOD it’s the Ed plot. Ed drives out to the Gotham Woods with a trunk that clearly has Miss Kringle’s sawn-in-half corpse in it. He digs a shallow grave, makes a picnic and salutes her for helping him become himself. A hunter appears, asks what Ed’s doing and is immediately killed. On some level, we envy him. Ed goes to get more Murderer Tools from his car and when he returns, the sandwiches from his picnic are gone and a trail of blood leads away.

• This Is A Thing

This is all stuff that happens. It happens throughout the episode, is all just awful and has been combined here in one block to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. We’ll see Ed at the end of the recap too. Sorry about that.
MEANWHILE, AT EVIL TOWERS!

• Bruce and Galavan

Bruce comes to see Galavan who pitches him an idea; sell him Wayne Enterprises and he’ll clean it up. Plus he’ll give Bruce the file he has on his parents’ killer. Bruce resists, pointing out the company is all he has left of his parents.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT A STATION FULL OF PEOPLE TOO TERRIFIED TO ADMIT NONE OF THEM KNOW HOW TO DO THEIR JOBS!

• Jimshirts the next generation

The GCPD tool up. Because that always ends well. Jim is introduced to new Jimshirts. Leigh calls Jim on his nonsense in a way that’s pointed, affectionate and justifiably angry. Again, Jim ignores her. AS MEN DO! GCPD! AWAAAAAYYYYY!
To the surprise of no one, Barbara isn’t talking. To the surprise of no one other than Barnes, Jim and Harv keep driving into a trap.

• Harve sees it coming

A trap is sprung.
Several Jimshirts are shot.
Jim is kidnapped. To be fair he clearly regrets many recent life choices as he’s drugged and carried away.

• JIm Regrets

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE GCPD!
Barnes tears Harv apart verbally and sends him home. Harv, bearded rebel that he is, gets to work.
MEANWHILE, AT THE TEENCAVE!

• Teen Cave

Bruce is brooding. Alfred comes to find him and Bruce tells him everything. He asks how long the training he’s doing will take. He weighs the years of training and life of horror that awaits him against selling his legacy. Alfred, because Cockneyman is on occasion wonderful, tells him that Bruce is the only legacy that matters. The kid breaks down, sobbing and asking if he’s weak for just wanting it to be over. Alfred assures him he’s not. For five whole minutes, this show is amazing.

• cockney man to the rescue

MEANWHILE, AT THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN THE CLOSING SCENES OF THE FIRST TIM BURTON BATMAN MOVIE, THE CROW AND AN ACTUAL BILLY IDOL VIDEO!

• Jim wakes up in church

Jim wakes up tied to a wheelchair in Gotham Cathedral. Barbara, magnificently, shows up in her wedding dress and with a sawn-off shotgun. She points out how much he lies to himself and Leigh, then wheels Leigh in to prove that this is true.

• White Wedding

MEANWHILE, BACK AT HARV’S STEADILY GROWING FEELINGS OF SHAME AND FONDNESS FOR OTHER HUMANS

• Harvs special thinking glasses

Harv does police work! Actually, he has to listen to a tape where Barbara mentions one single place twice before figuring out she went there but still, points for effort, big guy! He talks down Barnes and they roll out. Again.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT GOTHAM CATHEDRAL!

• Today

Barbara is pleasantly surprised, and kind of enraged, to find out Jim and Leigh are honest with each other. She reveals the mayor is still alive and at China Dock. Starting to realise that Leigh and Jim are, despite Jim being an awful human being, a legit couple, she snaps. She pulls a knife on Leigh and vows to cut her face off. At the last minute, Leigh distracts her by asking about her wedding dress.

• Leigh and crazypants

Yes. This actually happens.
And Jim, who’s been working on his bonds, rips free! There’s a face-off (not in the awful, gory way Barbara was threatening thankfully): a gunfight in which several thugs are killed, Tabitha injured and Barbara escapes. The GCPD storms the building and Jim confronts Barbara in the attic. They fight, she smashes through the cathedral’s main window and falls, after telling Jim she loves him one last time.

• Yeah we saw this coming

As they clean up, Leigh perfectly reasonably tells her hideous dumpster fire of a boyfriend that once this is done, they are going to TALK. He listens juuuust long enough for Barnes to sweep in and take him off to China Dock. GCPD, AWAAAAAAAY

• Mayor In A Box

Hurrah! The mayor’s still alive. And manages to be annoying very rapidly.
MEANWHILE, AT EVIL TOWERS!
Bruce is about to sign, changes his mind and the meeting is stormed by the GCPD. Jim punches Galavan and arrests him. As Galavan is led away, Bruce realises he’ thrown the file into the fire. Bruce screams at the embers, demanding to know who killed his parents.

• arrests_galavan

Aaaaaand for some reason the episode finishes with Ed, who follows the blood to a caravan. The door smashes open, he loses his glasses and for no reason at all, we’re supposed to think there’s a zombie coming towards him. Instead, it’s a badly injured Penguin who begs for help.

• Penguin meets Ed

Review:

Unlike last week, this is not a terrible hour of television.

It’s frequently a very, very bad one though.

Let’s deal with the rancid tea sandwich at the murder victim picnic, first. The Ed plot is now officially the absolute worst thing this show inflicts on its viewers on a weekly basis. Moving aside from his sudden fondness for dismemberment, it’s a total failure of tone and pacing. Again, this week it tries for dark comedy. Again it misses by several thousand miles. It’s not even subversively nasty; it’s just nasty. And, worse, pointless. The Ed plot destroys any pace the episode had this week and ties in to absolutely nothing we see. It looks like a blatant attempt to either fill air time or put in motion something a few episodes down the line. Regardless, the kindest thing you can say about it is that the episode has in-built bathroom breaks.

• hi hooooo

Also bad, but not entirely, is the Barbara plot. The awful stuff here is the awful stuff Gotham always does; with the notable exception of Leigh, it has absolutely no idea what to do with its female characters. Aside from a female character obsessing over her wedding as a defining life moment, there’s the fact her dialogue is shot through with the sort of things Jessica Rabbit would dismiss for being too unsubtle.

That being said, the closing moments of the Barbara plot work surprisingly well. Erin Richards has always been one of the cast members this show had no idea how to use and here at least she’s given plenty to sink her teeth into. The confrontation between her, Jim and Leigh is nicely tense and Richards succeeds in showing us the tragedy in Barbara even as the script fails to do so. At the end of the episode it’s mentioned she’s alive but seriously injured. We don’t see her taken to Indian Hill so here’s hoping the show really is done with her. Barbara deserves the rest and this is about as good a swansong as she was ever going to get.

Despite all the problems, some stuff works surprisingly well this week. The Jim and Leigh material changes gear in a really interesting way this week. Leigh points out Jim’s being stupid, Jim acknowledges that – Jim is stupid and it gets lots of people badly hurt. He’s a surprisingly awful guy in many ways and for the first time this season the show is not only showing us that but showing us Leigh seeing that. The fact she still loves him does more for Jim Gordon as a character than any episode this season and I’m honestly interested to see how this plot goes. I suspect Jim will fall much, much further before he starts the journey towards Commissioner. I hope, for his sake, Leigh is there with him.

• Cockney man ave iit

But what works absolutely this episode is the Bruce and Alfred plot. David Mazouz, like Erin Kelly, has been badly served by plenty of scripts in the past. Here he’s given something which is weightier, smarter and more poignant than anything else we’ve seen from the show this year. The deal with Galavan is a beautiful knife twist; compassion wrapped around business and vengeance and Mazouz shows us every inch of Bruce’s torment over it. The moment he breaks down and Alfred hugs him is one of the best things the show’s ever done and gives those two characters a real emotional foundation that the show desperately needs to build on. If, as seems likely, Bruce’s investigation is moving front and centre in the back half of the season, that can (hopefully) only be a good thing. Mazouz, and the ever-dependable Pertwee, are more than ready to carry the plot for a while.

“Tonight’s The Night” is a big improvement on last week but it needed to be. It’s still hobbled by terrible writing on the female characters, the toxically awful Ed plot and the show’s need to keep a dozen plots in the air at once. But it’s a start. And after last week’s disaster, that’s enough.

The Good:

“Doesn’t being mayor mean you can sleep in?” Tabitha gets a line about something other than being bored, horny or wanting to punch things!
“Galavan is dirty, I’d bet my life on it.”
“Well DON’T!”
“What?”
“DON’T BET YOUR LIFE ON IT!” Every At Home With Jim And Leigh moment is great this episode. Especially every time Leigh points out what a colossal disaster of a human being Jim is. There are a lot of those.
“Must be killing you. All that righteous indignation with no place to go.” One of Barbara’s few genuinely great lines this episode.
“Her sickness and yours feed off each other.”
“What do you mean? I’m not sick.”
“You see an abyss and you run toward it. That’s not healthy.’” You tell him! He won’t listen but still, tell him!
“There’s a fine line, Alfred, between extortion and negotiation.”
“Yes there is, Master Bruce but there’s still a LINE.” Cockneyman is on great form this week. Gotham’s take on Alfred can be child slappingly misplaced but this week it’s right on the money.
Hooray for the Jimshirts being gender-balanced and ethnically diverse!

The Bad:

Tabitha mentions how bored she is again. I swear it’s on a flash card somewhere in the writer’s room.
Every time the show does something good with Barbara, it rushes to do something bad. Her “naughty girl” mannerisms are bad. Saying “DO ME” to Jim in the closing scenes? In her wedding dress? Holding a knife? That’s just a perfect storm of awful.
Leigh distracts Barbara by asking about her dress. On the one hand, you can see her playing into Barbara’s psychosis. On the other, I hope we see a male villain distracted by someone asking if they work out later this season.
The GCPD are so terrible at their jobs it still astounds me. Jim being the only one Barbara would talk to? Fair enough. Jim being the only officer in the room? Nope.
JIM KISSING A SUSPECT?!
That’s a “badge, gun, cardboard box to clear your desk and another to move out of your girlfriend’s apartment” move. It’s not just staggeringly unprofessional it’s deeply disturbing and wrong. The show has made reforming the GCPD such a tentpole issue that seeing Jim do this kind of nonsense week in week out never fails to annoy and disturb
Also this week Jim possibly gets three Jimshirts killed, endangers the lives of countless officers and is rewarded by making the arrest of his career. But hey at least he doesn’t fire heavy weaponry through walls kind of in the direction of the bad guys this week.

• Ed Kills The Hunter

After the horrendous rolling catastrophe of last week’s Ed plot you’d think this week would be an improvement, right?
Yeah.
No.
There’s nothing good here and increasingly there’s nothing salvageable either. The suddenly dismemberment happy Riddler is a bum note. The “comedy” murder he perpetrates and the dialogue, to himself, explaining why this is weird is so far beyond terrible it defies description. Cory Michael Smith does heroic work here but this entire plot is just straight up and down awful. And, unfortunately, not going away. Which is a shame as, without that plot this episode would have gone up at least a half star.
Silver. Not that she’s bad this episode she’s just completely pointless and as ever more than a little skeevy. What’s terrifying is how likely this show is to do the ‘Silver seeks revenge’ plot, probably involving hysterical crying in the rain, stabbing and a prom dance. Because let’s face it, after Barbara’s “wedding”? We’ve found the level.
Boo for no names for the Jimshirts! Also, Barnes got two brand new recruits killed by putting them in awful situations. WHY ARE THE ACADEMY STILL SENDING HIM PEOPLE?!
Mayor James is back.
Oh joy.
To be fair, Richard Kind is a massively well-respected actor and they need an authority figure now Galavan’s under arrest. But Kind tends to come at this kind of role with one=note and that note is LOUD AND SLIGHTLY INCOMPETENT! He’s annoying with maybe a minute’s screen time.
What the Hell is up with the “Oh, is it a zombie?” fake-out when Ed meets Penguin at the end? Of course it’s not a zombie! Zombies hate sandwiches!

The Random:

Richard Kind really is a very well-respected character actor. His “slightly crap, slightly evil” politician schtick was at its best in the remarkable Spin City but he’s also been seen in Glee, Leverage, Burn Notice and Elementary among others. He’s also a regular voice actor for Penguins Of Madagascar and American Dad. And he absolutely nails it as BingBong in Upside Down.
Oh, BingBong…
Sniff.
Shot Of the Week could be anything from the interrogation scene. This show, even at its worst, is shot with incredible beauty and this episode is no exception.

• Shot of the week

But the winner is this; Barbara and Leigh, separated, but occupying the same space.

• other shot of the week

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other Gotham reviews

Gotham S02E04 “Strike Force” REVIEW

February 2, 2016

by thatmediathing with No Comment Reviews

Gotham S02E04 “Strike Force” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 10pm
Writer: Danny Cannon
Directors: TJ Scott

Essential Plot Points:

Penguin is holding court and it looks FABULOUS. Like a Duran Duran video exploded inside a Mad Max knock-off. He demands to know who was responsible for recent events and decrees that no one undergoes any major criminal activity without checking with him first. As the meeting disperses, Tabitha Galavan, probably grateful to be in more than one scene this week, tells him her brother would like to chat…

At the GCPD Gordon is yelling at a corrupt cop. Must be any day of the week, ever. The argument is disrupted when Captain Nathaniel Barnes arrives, breaks a chair, screams at the cops and tells everyone that if they don’t feel ashamed now is their chance to quit.
No one quits.
Barnes reads out the names of the officers he knows are corrupt and Harv visibly looks for exits. Barnes reads out six names, none of them Harv, lines them up and fires them. When one cop resists, Barnes arrests him inside his own precinct.

He then calls Gordon into his office and explains he’s also ex-military. He makes Gordon his second in command and tells him they’re going to clean up Gotham. Gordon is super pumped about this. Harv, we suspect, less so.

With the mayor and deputy mayor both varying flavours of dead or in the wind, an election is needed. We see Theo Galavan watching a news cast that mentions the two other candidates – Janice Caulfield and Randall Hobbs – but says the election is really about him. He is of course delighted.

He’s even more delighted when Tabitha, now in two whole scenes and counting, shows up with Penguin. They chat and Galavan unveils his plan for Gotham.
Which looks a surprising amount like Delta City from RoboCop.

Penguin, who’s seen those movies, points out that the new development involves bulldozing residential homes.
Galavan agrees and asks him to be his executioner, murdering the other mayoral candidates so he can stand unopposed. Penguin refuses, showing rare and honestly touching civic pride in his horrific Dante’s inferno of a city.

Tabitha points out that they have Penguin’s mother. Penguin agrees, reluctantly, to do it.
Leigh answers the phone the next morning to Captain Barnes. He asks for Jim, tells Gordon to meet him at the Police Academy and reassures him that “everyone knows he’s banging the ME”. This is a thing that happens.

At the Academy, Barnes tells Jim his plan; a new Strike Force of fresh recruits who haven’t been tarred by the city. Along with one of Gordon’s old training officers, they interview a group of elite recruits. Barnes names them Strike Force Alpha and places them under Gordon’s command. There is obviously nothing that can go wrong here.

Galavan gives a press conference and is asked to run for mayor. He’s halfway through denying to when a driveby hurtles past and he saves everyone. Galavan almost literally says, “Oh, okay then…” and the campaign is on.

Elsewhere, Penguin murders Caulfield at her campaign headquarters. It’s a nasty, off-kilter scene. But Butch being avuncular and threatening to her staff is kind of nice.

MEANWHILE AT GOTHAM PREP! Alfred is waiting for Bruce. As is Selina. Until Alfred slaps her for killing his mate Reggie last season. He, disappointingly, does not tell her to sling her hook but the intent is clear.

Splendidly, Alfred hands Bruce his PE kit and tells him to run home. After all, they are training again…
Nygma agonises over asking Kringle out. Again. He then asks her out.
Barnes gives the Strike Force a pep talk. Gordon is totally pumped. Harv could not be less pumped. The GCPD get word that Caulfield is dead and roll out to the crime scene. There, Gordon intimidates a witness and they finally get a description that’s clearly Penguin.
Elsewhere, Galavan takes Bruce out to dinner and promises to help him investigate the murder of his parents. He also all but promises him his ward, Silver St Cloud. Yay, Gotham women.
Penguin drops Zsaz off to murder Hobbs and, because he’s a great henchman, Butch asks his boss what’s up. Penguin comes clean about his mom and Butch reassures him. Bless.

Zsaz has big fun in Hobbs’s house and dismantles his guards with his usual ease. He’s about to finish the job when…JUSTICE WAGON! Gordon, Harv and the Strike Force roll up and do surprisingly well. They see Zsaz off, save Hobbs and the only bad thing that happens is Josie gets shot because women can’t be competent in this show.

Kringle and Nygma have dinner. Nygma lets slip he’s glad her former boyfriend is dead. This is news to Kringle and when Nygma yells “GET OUT!” she thinks he means her. He, in fact, means Tylder DurdNygma and, amazingly, he tells her this. Even more amazingly, she’s okay with it! Even more amazing still, it’s a Kringle/Nygma scene this season that’s actually good!
Jim goes to see Penguin who calls him on his sanctimonious nonsense and points out Barnes would throw him off the force if he knew the truth.

The Strike Force is celebrating and ribbing Josie about taking one in the vest because ha! Girls right? Harv points out how dead they all nearly were and Barnes gives them their first target: Penguin.
Jim is not pumped.
MEANWHILE! AT GOTHAM PREP! Bruce and Silver bond.
MEANWHILE! IN THE SLUMS! Selina is haunted by her encounter with Alfred.
MEANWHILE, AT EVIL TOWERS! Galavan plans his campaign.
MEANWHILE, AT PENGUIN’S HEADQUARTERS, he rages as the search for his mother continues.

Review:

Okay, first off: there is nothing on Earth that is not improved by Michael Chiklis. His arrival as Captain Barnes kicks a hole in the speaker, pulls the plug and busts the show for corruption while yelling about being a warrior. He’s GREAT, like some colossal justice bulldog and that goes from fun, to charming, to kind of terrifying, to actually terrifying.

Barnes is a very tough, very competent cop who is horrifically naïve and I think we’re going to see Gotham break him if it hasn’t already. There’s a crucial moment in here where Gordon quietly raises concerns about sending rookie cops into the line of fire and Barnes basically goes, “Enh! Most of ’em will come home!” The look on Gordon’s face is the same as the one on ours; the sneaking suspicion that this immensely good-natured, well-meaning guy is also a terrifying naïve Dudley Do Right who is going to get a lot of people killed.

That whole plot is big fun, although as you’ll see below the Strike Force suffer awfully from the needs of TV drama. A good chunk of this week’s other major plot is fun too, with Galavan attacking the city on multiple fronts. One of those, his mayoral campaign, is surreal in its rapidity. Seriously, he sets up the most obvious press opportunity in human history and… it… works. It’s an immensely weird scene, the whole thing shot like Tim Burton got his hands on an unused Adam West script and violenced it up. It’s fun, certainly, but it is patently ludicrous.

The other half of Galavan’s plot, well, that’s just skeevy. We see him cosy up to Bruce and in doing so essentially pimp out Silver St Cloud, Galavan’s ward. It’s played breezily but Galavan is, at best, weaponising a child here. At worst he’s shoving her into Bruce as a means of wrapping the Wayne heir around his little finger. It’s certainly an evil move for an evil man but if it’s done wrong – as, let’s face it, it might very well be – it’ll be a disaster. Galavan right now is teetering on the edge of pantomime villainy and if anything knocks him over the edge it’ll be this.

Elsewhere we get some nice business with Alfred teaching Bruce how to get fit and a deeply nasty moment where he slaps Selina in the face and tells her to take a hike. Selina remains horribly underused this season but her reactions to that moment, not to mention Alfred’s own, sell it as the one piece of violence that feels like it has real weight this episode. I’m interested to see where that will go and if nothing else that’s a promising do over for one of season one’s most difficult plotlines.

But while the core of this episode is fun, the cracks are showing everywhere else. Penguin being blackmailed into being Galavan’s hit man feels rushed and unearned, with Carol Kane reduced to an on-camera cameo. Worse still, the show continues to have absolutely no idea what to do with its female characters. Josie is deliberately set up as the weak link of the Strike Force, the only female mayoral candidate is the one we see die and the regulars are reduced to bit parts or single lines. It genuinely feels like the writers’ room has no idea what to do with the female characters and, in the case of Tabitha in particular, seem genuinely annoyed at having to write her. Compared to the occasional flashes of nuance and complex stuff you get in the Gordon/Barnes relationship it stands out a mile. And, I get the nasty feeling, it’s only going to get worse.

Gotham is still the fastest-paced, often nastiest, hour you’ll see on TV. That’s carried it through the first month of season two with none of the glacial pacing and unwieldy character arcs of last year which is a really good thing. I just hope that new-found focus hasn’t come at the cost of anything for the female characters to do. And, right now, that’s exactly what it’s starting to look like.

The Good:

The direction and art design. Just stunning throughout the episode. This, shot of the week, is one of a dozen gems.

Harv not bothering to stand to attention is a lovely, meaningful character beat.
The Strike Force being ethnically diverse, and no big deal being made of it is brilliant.
Zsaz’s growled, “UNEXPECTED!” in the fight with the Strik Force is great. As is his clear annoyance at having to deal with these kids.
Hightower was corrupt?! You son of a-I WATCHED ALL THOSE POLICE ACADEMY MOVIES! EVEN THE ONES YOU WEREN’T IN!
“You’re a troublemaker, a fighter. That an accurate description?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good.” Barnes is a touch macho.
“Welcome to my unit you sadass army hump. Tough is what we eat for breakfast.”
“Jarhead huh? Who woulda guessed?” Did we mention Barnes is kinda macho?
“Gotham doesn’t have straight lines.” Harv has been here before and it never ever ends well.
“You need an assassin! This is Gotham you can find them in the phonebook, under A.” Some good Oswald stuff this episode, this being his finest moment.
“You’re a warrior, Jim. So am I.” Hey Barnes! Mention war again! It’s been about ten minutes!
“I remember this guy, he argued a lot.”
“I like to think I was raising questions.” There’s a subtle sense of relief to Gordon’s interactions with the Academy staff, like mutual relief he’s not there anymore.
“Gotham gun range. One of my mother’s three jobs was cleaning it. When she died the owner let me go there after hours and practice till I worked out my anger. I still go there.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Darlin’? I got no freaking idea.” Oh, Butch you’re so sweet. Everything he does in this scene from the slightly too tight arms round the witness’s shoulders to moving them out of his boss’s way is a delight.
“So you do yourself a favour, treacle and JOG ON!” ’AVE IT Alfred Pennyworth! None more cockney innit!
“…So they move well.” Harv’s grudging admiration of the Strike Force is adorable.

The Bad:

“Get ready to get real busy. We’re going to be sending you a whole lotta dead bad guys.” Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Let’s break this down: you are woken by your boyfriend’s new boss who good-naturedly yells at you, then politely informs you that your job is about to get way busier because he’s going to clean up the GCPD by essentially turning a blind eye to the shooting of suspects. HOW IS THAT NOT TERRIFYING?
One single female officer qualifying for the Strike Force is rubbish. Especially as she doesn’t even qualify for a second name, an interview or any personality other than “Good at badly staged TV boxing”.
We desperately hope Barnes’s gung ho, “Send the kids in to a meat grinder! OORAH!” approach is going to bite him on the ass very soon. Judging by Jim’s facial expression at that moment, he’s certainly expecting it to.
Tabitha Galavan, Queen of the Four Lines or Fewer Per Episode.
In fact, every single female character gets a crappy deal this week. Again. Silver is pimped out by her Uncle, Leslie gets to be good-naturedly yelled at by Captain MachoPants, Kringle gets to do nothing because Kringle is a plot hook rather than a character, Tabitha gets to be grumpy and bisexual and Barbara gets to hand a male character a drink, explain she’s bored and leave.
Oh and Josie gets shot. And, apparently, has no last name. Because Gotham.
Penguin’s mom being entirely off-camera. Did they only have Carol Kane for half an hour or something?
Also there are two mayoral candidates; one man, one woman. Guess which one gets horribly killed. Yeah.
Galavan’s, “Me, run for ma… GET DOWN!” *MACHINE GUN FIRE* “WELL OKAY THEN I WILL!” approach is possibly the single stupidest thing this show has done. And remember, this is the show that thought Tabitha Galavan having a whip fetish for a whole entire scene was a good idea. That bar is LOW.
The single female team member being the one Zsaz gets the ego boosting hit in on is sexist nonsense and even this show should damn well know better.
Fight nerd moment: Josie’s heroine moment in the boxing ring at the Academy shows that even in this ridiculously good age of TV there are still limits. Firstly, the choreography is a mess, chock full of movement to disguise the fact that neither actor is as well-trained as their characters. Secondly, there’s the fact that any trainee boxer anywhere ON EARTH throwing punches that hard is going to get warned, warned and then thrown the Hell out, let alone two trainee police officers.
And finally? HEAD. GUARDS. Concussion trauma is a thing that happens A LOT. It’s the dirty little open secret of every contact sport on the planet and this sort of nonsense just perpetuates the belief that you can take full force shots to the noggin with no lasting effects. It’s not irresponsible, quite, but it is a really bad call. Do better, Gotham. Especially given what a great job the show did a couple of weeks ago when Aaron turned Gordon into bloody pulp.
Speaking of that, where the hell is Aaron?
HEY! TEAM ALPHA! *HEADGUARDS*! I get it, I really do. You’ve got lots of actors on screen, you don’t want their faces covered. But it’s a bum note the episode just doesn’t recover from. Gordon and Harv lead a group of kids into an insanely dangerous gunfight with no headgear and face off against the best hitman in Gotham. It’s a miracle they’re not all dead.

And The Random:

I choose to believe Penguin’s mom is going to survive this ordeal, move to the other side of the city and became Kimmy Schmidt’s landlady.
Galavan’s “Oh YOU!” moment at the TV when he’s getting positive press is adorable. Which makes his pimping of his teenage niece even skeevier.
The music over Nygma’s cooking montage is “Just A Gigolo” by Louis Armstrong. I suspect it was his choice and not Tyler Durdnygma’s given that it’s a) kind of dorky and b) chipper.
Natalie Alyn Lind who plays Silver here has appeared previously in One Tree Hill, The Goldbergs and Flashpoint amongst others.
Butch is back this week! Yay! Drew Powell’s amiable, over-articulate teddy bear of a thug is always a pleasure to see. Powell’s always great, and he’s turned in memorable performances in two episodes of the excellent Leverage, one episode of the also excellent The Librarians and was a recurrent player on The Mentalist.
Fellow kick-ass Big Guy Character Actor, Michael Chiklis makes his debut this week as Captain Barnes. It’s a nice piece of casting as Chiklis is best known for his role in The Shield. An excellent and staggeringly nasty cop show it starred Chiklis as Vic Mackie, the sort of cop Barnes would fire and who would return later that night to burn the precinct to the ground.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

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Gotham S02E03 "The Last Laugh" REVIEW

January 26, 2016

by thatmediathing with No Comment Reviews

Gotham S02E03 “The Last Laugh” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 10pm
Writer: John Stephens
Directors: Eagle Egilsson

Essential Plot Points:

Literally the first thing we see this episode is a man being hurled from a window. Jim and Harvey interrogate his terrified friend and he offers to help. They tell him to put the word out that the GCPD are coming for Jerome. Then throw him out of the window too. Never switch to decaf, Jim!

MEANWHILE, AT EVIL TOWERS! Barbara and Tabitha have, it’s implied, spent the night together. Tabitha is getting suited up to go clean up a loose end. And, this being Gotham, her idea of incognito is bullwhip, knives, all-leather catsuit and stiletto heels. Barbara kisses her, tells her to bring back bagels and then has breakfast delivered by Theo. Tabitha does not look happy. Neither do we.

Theo, whose toast rack is awesome by the way, explains that the Maniax are just stage one and Barbara will be front and centre for stage two. He explains his family built Gotham and have been forgotten and he plans to change that.
Back at the GCPD, Gordon coordinates the surviving officers. They chase down leads on the circus Jerome grew up in. Gordon sees someone take down the crime scene tape over Essen’s office and he cooks off, yelling at the other cops.

Leslie finds him and they chat. She reminds him of the charity gala that night and Jim flatly states he can’t go. She jokingly mentions there’ll be a magician and he relaxes for a moment. They kiss and Harvey appears to explain they have a lead. Jerome’s dad left the circus and is still in the city…

At Jerome’s dad’s apartment, the blind old man is met by his son and Tabitha. Jerome torments his father, explaining that his callous worldview is what made Jerome what he is. He plants plans for Arkham, knockout gas and letters with secret coded escape instructions and prepares to kill the old man. Defiantly, his father tells Jerome he’s a curse and…

…Jim and Harvey knock on the door. They hear a scream and kick it in to see Jerome’s father dead with a knife sticking out of his eye. Jim runs for the window, Harvey disturbs the knockout gas boobytrap on the body and they stagger outside. Jerome and Tabitha attack them but Tabitha warns the young man off. She calls dibs, kicks Jim in the face because that’s pretty much all she’ll get to do this episode and they leave.

MEANWHILE, AT THE GALA! Alfred and Bruce rock up. Bruce complains that he has to be there and Alfred points out the Waynes were patrons of the charity so he has no choice. Leslie greets them, looking stunning and Alfred clearly forgets how to think anything other than ‘…’ for several seconds.
He recovers, sends Bruce for a water for Leslie and flirts with her in a surprisingly good natured and charming way.

The Galavans are talking to the deputy mayor who good naturedly drills Theo on his past and how he does everything he does. Tabitha replies, “He’s a monster in the sack.” In other words, “My brother is excellent at sex and I MIGHT have firsthand knowledge of that.” The deputy mayor gets the hell out of dodge as Theo wonders what’s got into Tabitha and we wonder if this show is ever going to write a non-hetero woman who isn’t a ravening psychopath.

Anyhoo, nearby Bruce spots Selina and tries to make up. The young thief is busy working and shuts him down, hard. Alfred suffers the same fate and when Bruce returns he asks to leave. The butler turns him down and, with Leslie on MC duties, she persuades them to stay,
Backstage, an aide asks someone how he knew their magician had had to cancel. Jerome, in a frankly hilarious beard, replies, “Magic!”

The show begins and there’s a neat fakeout where it looks like Jerome and Barbara as his lovely assistant are about to cut Bruce in two. Instead the young boy escapes unscathed. Then, Jerome calls the deputy mayor to the stage…

Back at the GCPD, Jim and Harvey are resting up from the effects of the knockout gas. Harvey politely calls his partner on his, “I AM THE NIGHT, I AM JUSTICE!” schtick and points out that not only did he know Essen longer, but he owed her more.
At the gala, the mayor heads to the stage. Barbara bows, her mask falls off and she winks at Leslie. Leslie calls Jim and is immediately kidnapped as, on stage, Jerome murders the deputy mayor. His henchman lock the doors and all Hell breaks loose.

As does Alfred who kick so much arse to get Bruce clear. Bruce instantly spoils this by going after Selina and Alfred gets knocked out. The Bat-Teen and his not-quite-girlfriend escape though.

Jim rolls up and tries to call Leslie. Instead he finds himself negotiating with Jerome who is still broadcasting live. Leslie is now tied up on one of those spinning wheels magicians throw knives at and Jim decides to go in to get them. The GCPD officer on site, not unreasonably, points out that Jerome murdered a lot of his friends and they’re not equipped to deal with him. Jim spots Selina emerging from the entrance she snuck in through and decides to go it alone.

Theo Galavan makes his move trying to talk Jerome down. He gets knocked out for his trouble, after begging for the audience to be released.
Bruce, who refused to leave without Alfred, watches as Jerome threatens his butler with death unless Bruce reveals himself. He’s just about to when Gordon, who snuck in with Selina’s help, stops him. He gives the teenager a gun and sends him out. Alfred hugs him, takes the gun and Bruce takes to the stage. Jerome sends someone to check behind the curtain and…

ACTION! Jim and Alfred demolish Jerome’s cronies but he still has Bruce. Neither man has a clear shot and it’s a standoff until Jerome is stabbed in the neck… BY THEO GALAVAN!

EPIC TWIST! Galavan apologises to the confused young psychopath as he dies. He had other plans…
Barbara makes a run for it and, magnificently, escapes via one of the magic tricks. Evil Debbie McGee lives to fight another day.

Nearby, the Penguin watches in disgust as Jerome dominates the air waves. Harvey arrives and threatens him, telling the new King of Gotham to leave Jim Gordon alone. As he leaves, he reminds the Penguin that Harvey still owes him for Fish Mooney…

As the scene is cleared, Jim and Leslie thank Galavan and Alfred for their help. Bruce points out he, Alfred and Jim are a team and Jim, in an ever so slightly creepy moment, tells Leslie to kiss him. She does so and Alfred gets the point. The audience breathes a sigh of relief as one love triangle is exorcised before it can fully form.
At Evil Towers, Theo and Barbara watch the news, pleased with how things went. Tabitha watches as they kiss and the audience screams as the worst version of a love triangle takes form in front of us! NOOOOO!
At the GCPD, Jim and Leslie take down the tape over Essen’s office.
All over the city, news of Jerome’s death is greeted with relief by some and horrible joy by others. We watch as his maniacal laugh is adopted by murderers, thugs and monstrous pieces of humanity. We cut to the Gotham morgue and Jerome’s face, frozen in a terrifyingly familiar grin as his father’s line about him being a curse plays one more time…

Review:

Well that escalated quickly. Jerome is no more, but the Joker is alive and well and everywhere. We’ll get to Gotham’s treatment of that in a moment. First, the very good and the very, very bad.

I cannot say enough nice things about the direction on this show. Eagle Egilsson does great work this episode and the final scene in particular is a brilliantly handled piece of bottled-up action direction. It’s also just a little bit over-the-top, and Egilsson has a lot of fun with slow motion, intense perspectives and close-ups. Plus it fits absolutely with the previous two episodes. This is a show that has a really strong visual identity and that helps paper over the cracks that are starting to form in the story arc.

Thankfully none of those cracks involve the central characters. Jim Gordon, grumpiest man in Gotham is being particularly well served so far. Ben Mackenzie’s always been great in the role but this episode sees him start to step into a leadership role and has the courage to show him not being very good at it. Jim is a weird combination of a ruthlessly efficient soldier and a slightly demented gunslinger and we get to see them both here. Even better, we also get to see him buy into his own hype and the moment where Harvey gently but firmly calls him on his nonsense is really nicely played.

Even better, Jim and Leslie continue to be an actual couple of actual grown-ups with occasional issues that don’t make you want to put your foot through your screen. Morena Baccarin brings an effortless intelligence and engagement to Leslie Thompkins that would have been all too easy to make passive. Instead, she’s consistently written as a smart, perceptive woman who is acutely aware of the shortcomings in her boyfriend. She doesn’t try and bully him into fixing them either, rather steering Jim towards the best version of himself. It’s a subtle, sweet relationship that anchors the salvation of Jim Gordon without taking anything away from Leslie and the show’s to be applauded for that. Similarly, Harvey’s reinvention as dutiful, if still cheerfully violent, cop is very welcome.

That brings us to the bad guys. Jerome first off, because the little fella wouldn’t want to wait in line. Cameron Monaghan has been a massive asset to this show and it’s been amazing to see him go through the toyboxes of previous Jokers and see what he’s keeping. We’ve had the mannerisms of Nicholson, some of the delivery of Ledger and the gleefully malicious theatricality of Hammill all wrapped around his own unique delivery.

Superficially it’s bad that he’s gone. In practice I think this is the best possible way they could have handled it. The idea that Jerome inflicts the wound on Gotham that becomes the Joker is one the comics have played with before and it’s very well handled here. Jerome, to borrow a line from Nicholson, gave a name to Gotham’s pain. Whoever comes next will give it a face. I don’t envy them given the talent that’s played the role before. Talent Cameron Monaghan deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with.

Elsewhere on the dark side of the street, things take a turn for the worse. Tabitha Galavan is reduced to little more than eye candy, not that she was much more than that previously. Worse still, the show runs exuberantly at the lowest hanging fruit of all drama tropes; the love triangle. I talk in detail about just why this is an awful plan below but one of the largest reasons is also the simplest; it’s boring. Worse still, its ground the show has trodden before during the season long horror fest that Barbara endured last year. She deserves much better, the show deserves much better and so do we. The bag of clichés that the show’s non-heterosexual characters keep pulling from didn’t work last year. This year it’s even worse and, if the show keeps going down this road with Barbara and Tabitha, then it’s going to go very wrong very fast. And when it does, it won’t even have Jerome to use as a distraction.

The Good:

Gordon and Harvey do actual police work! That involves actual thinking! As well as throwing guys out of windows!
Jim and Leslie are just straight up adorable. Plus Leslie’s magician joke makes Jim do this face.

Alfred’s rabbit-in-headlights reaction to Leslie’s frankly stunning outfit and hairdo is one of the most endearing moments the series has yet produced. There’s the slightest hint that Mr Pennyworth is trying to get more in his life than simply training Bruce. I’d really like that as, out of all the versions of Alfred we’ve seen, this is the one that seems to need it the most.
Galavan’s turn to camera and introduction during the hostage situation is wonderful. You can almost hear the maniacal chuckle he’s tamping down.
Alfred and Gordon dismantling the Maniax is both a great action scene and a good character beat. These two guys are ex-soldiers. They will kill to protect their friends and get the job done. Even then, there’s clear distance between them. Gordon is focused entirely on the stage and Alfred, you’ll notice, takes time to shoot a downed criminal in the head. Which is both very very grim and speaks to just what level of bad man he used to be.
“Bring back bagels.” For a single shining moment it’s just possible Barbara and Tabitha are a happy, if psychotic couple. Then it all goes to hell.
“We carved the bed rock on which it stands but there is not a bridge, an alley, a DITCH that carries our name.” James Frain is so good here. There’s real malice and intellect below Galavan’s good natured, ebullient psychopathy.
“Look, I’m just sayin’ I’ll chuck mokes outta windows till the cows come home but at some point we gotta go see Penguin.” Harvey Bullock, Gotham’s Finest.
“Sarah Essen and nine of your brothers were killed in this house! IN OUR HOUSE! Their murderer stood right there and he LAUGHED AT US! Never forget that!” For the first time, Jim’s starting to feel like a natural leader. He’s a really tightly wound one sure but still.
The“‘but there’s going to be a magician” running gag is one of those deliciously odd gags that only Gotham can really land. I love how everyone’s so excited about it, even Jerome and Barbara who clearly have huge fun doing the stage act.
It’s nice too that Bruce and Selina are the only two who don’t dig it. For the adults, the magician is a chance to be a kid again. The children of Gotham have lost their innocence already so they don’t see the point in it.
Like I say it’s an odd gag but it works. If nothing else for the ludicrously sweet Grumpy Jim/Leslie moment it gives us at the top of the episode.
“Hiya pops. Long time… NO SEE.” A little on the nose, Jerome but hey, never turn a good pun down.
“You will be a curse on Gotham. Children will wake from sleep screaming at the thought of you. Your legacy will be DEATH and madness.” Excellent speech you awful awful man.
Every evil bastard in the world was just a kid once.” This all-new, all-contemplative Harvey is really fun. I hope we get to keep him.
“Alfred says there’s gonna be a magicia…” “I’m working. And I hate magicians.” Aside from how great the magician running gag is, this piece of delightful teenage awkwardness is just lovely.
“Well it gets a bit tedious after a while, parachuting into one global hotspot after another, warlords putting ridiculous bounties on your head. Gets a bit boring.” Alfred Pennyworth, international man of mystery ladies and gentlemen
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” “True but… not the point.” Oh Jerome. You precious, spiky, terrifying little flower.
“47 million dollars, a helicopter obviously, the dry cleaning I left at Mr Chang’s – be careful the man is a crook – and oooh, I don’t know… a PONY!” Cameron Monaghan never met a line he didn’t chew up during his run on this show and that’s what makes his proto-Joker so great. This entire speech.
The seamless gear change from the maniacal laughter to, “I think that well,” is perfect. Oh Jerome, we will miss you.
“See, someone like that has no interest in building things.” This show is WEIRD. The same episode that deals with Tabitha with all the subtlety of a Whitesnake album cover gives us this. One single line and we know everything that makes the Joker and the Penguin different. Cobblepot wants to build. The Joker, as another version of Alfred says, just wants to watch the world burn.
“Aw bugger.” “Alfred.” “You knew didn’t you?” “I didn’t know, Alfred.” “You did, you let me make a right mug of meself.” I will take an entire episode of Sean Pertwee and the increasingly great David Mazouz arguing any time you want to produce it, Gotham.

The Bad:

“Some people say Bruce has a split personality.” On the nose, Jerome. WAY too on the nose.
The Leslie/Alfred/Bruce love triangle is an awful idea that passed so close to being real we can feel the breeze as it passes by. Thankfully, it leads to a moment that’s actually kind of sweet and funny.
The Galavans/Barbara love triangle is an awful, AWFUL idea that hits centre mass. Let’s move aside the implication of incest that we pretty clearly get (because EWWWW) and take a look at just why this is rubbish. Firstly, it robs Barbara of pretty much all the agency she spent the entire first season being denied. She’s a pawn, again, this time between two siblings. Now there’s every possibility she’ll either see that or is already playing them off against one another but even that’s a bad move. Because if she is then Barbara is another in the long line of, “bisexual equals slut” pseudo characters that TV inflicts on us every time it tries to be edgy.
Secondly, it pretty much officially turns Tabitha into this season’s Barbara. Poor bloody Jessica Lucas, playing a character who looks like a 1980s BDSM fantasy, isn’t even given a name for her first episode and whose job appears to be “grumpy horny lesbian sniper”. Tabitha’s an empty space where a character should be and tacking something as cookie cutter as a love triangle onto her only makes that so much worse.
Right now, Gotham is saying that being bisexual, or a lesbian, means you’re either insane, a criminal or also enjoy sleeping with a relative. The fact that Lucas is now the only non-Caucasian cast member there is upgrades this from simply extremely bad to full on disastrous. Fix the character or write her off and take a third run at writing a non-heterosexual woman who is both sane and defined by something other than her libido.

And the Random:

Deputy Mayor Harrison Kane is played by Norm Lewis, a giant of Broadway and the first African-American actor in history to play the lead role in Phantom Of The Opera.
Paul Cicero, the oh so doomed father of the proto-Joker, is played by the magnificent Mark Margolis. He’s been in loads of stuff including recent turns in Elementary and Constantine, a memorable role as Tio Salamanca in Breaking Bad and Antonio Nappa in Oz. He’s also Ace’s landlord in one of my favourite scenes in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
The music playing as we see people enter the gala is “The Dirty Boogie” by the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

Shot of the week is Theo Galavan’s epic Blue Steel

Review by Alasdair Stuart

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Gotham S02E01 "Damned If You Do…" REVIEW

January 11, 2016

by thatmediathing with No Comment Reviews

Gotham S02E01 “Damned If You Do…” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 9pm
Writer: Bruno Heller
Director: Danny Cannon

Essential Plot Points

Previously on Gotham: The Waynes killed! Commissioner Loeb! Baby Joker! Barbara goes mad! Penguin goes to the top! SECRET CAVE BENEATH STATELY WAYNE MANOR!
And we’re off!

At Wayne Manor, Alfred and Bruce discover a set of stairs leading down to a key-locked door. They try the keypad but can’t open it.

Bullock is tending bar. In doing so, he carefully wipes the bar down, lifts a drunk off it, wipes under and keeps going. Welcome back, Harv. We’ve missed you.
Penguin is welcoming someone new to the fold… just long enough for Zsaz to execute them.
Barbara walks into Arkham to begin her stay and all eyes are on her.
Jim gets dressed for work in his new position working traffic.

Elsewhere, a man in improvised armour is fed a curious liquid by someone we can’t see.

The man arrives at Jim’s traffic stop, proclaims himself ZAARDON THE SOUL REAPER! And proceeds to cause very incompetent havoc. Jim takes him down and arrests him. In doing so he shoves his replacement, late on shift.
At the station Jim books Zaardon and chats briefly with Edward Nygma. He doesn’t pick up on how nervous the scientist is before being called to Captain Essen’s office. Edward’s other personality berates him from the mirror and he leaves, trying to block it out.

Commissioner Loeb has received a complaint of assault from Jim’s relief, the man he shoved earlier. Essen argues for her officer but Loeb insists he be dismissed. Jim accepts, thanks Essen for the chance to work with her, shakes Loeb’s hand and vows to bring him down.

Later that night, Leslie and Jim talk. She’s relieved Jim is off the Force but he can’t let it go. He admits there’s something he can do, which would be outside the law, to get his job back. She tries to reason with him but sees he’s obsessed.

In Arkham, Sionis has taken a fancy to Barbara and sends Jerome over to talk to her. The young psychopath explains she needs a friend and a bored, annoyed, Barbara gets the biggest man in the room on her side in under a minute.

At Penguin’s offices, Jim arrives to ask for a favour. Penguin welcomes him and sends his coterie, aside from Selina, away. He explains exactly what Jim wants without the former cop having to say a thing. He’ll get Jim reinstated, and all he has to do is collect a debt for Penguin. Jim refuses and leaves.

He goes and gets drunk at Bullock, who’s been sober for a month. His former partner points out what a good man he is and that he’s happy off the force. Jim embraces him and goes to see Bruce, who he apologises to for not being able to fulfil his promise. Bruce, clearly a little angry and distracted by the secret door, coldly forgives him and also points out that sometimes the right way is the ugly way. Then rushes to the secret door as soon as Jim’s left.
Back at Arkham, Barbara asks Sionis for a phone.
Jim goes to collect Penguin’s debt. It goes horribly, badly. In short order he’s threatened, assaults three men, robs the man he came to collect from, flees the scene, narrowly avoids being arrested by former employees and shoots (albeit in self defence) the man he just stole from.
This bothers him. A LOT.
MEANWHILE! BACK AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR! Bruce is building a fertiliser bomb. Extremely badly. Alfred tries to reason with him but finally gives in and helps. As well as putting the kettle on.
Gordon hands the money to Penguin, disgusted at the realisation he was set up. Penguin denies it, almost sincerely, and Jim returns home. Where Barbara calls him, and then Leslie. Leslie suggests they leave the city and that nothing is keeping them there. Jim admits he did something bad and they can’t leave.

Commissioner Loeb wakes up to find Penguin and Zsaz in his house. Penguin, in the episode’s best scene, has both sides of the conversation with the commissioner. He ultimately concludes the only way Loeb will give him what he wants is to kill him and forces Loeb to accept the alternative: retirement.
The next day, Essen is sworn in as new Commissioner and Jim is reinstated. At the ceremony, Theo Galavan, a major new civic figure in Gotham gives a speech. But unknown to everyone, he’s the one who gave ZAARDON THE SOUL REAPER! The potion.

And speaking of ZAARDON THE SOUL REAPER! He’s admitted to Arkham, picks a fight, passes out, belches knock-out gas and dies. It turns out Galavan, a gifted scientist, set him up as an elaborate stun grenade for Barbara, Jerome, Sionis and co. They’re knocked out and a mercenary team storms the Asylum and rescues them.

At the ceremony, Essen assures Jim they’ll do good work together. And, seconds later, he learns that Barbara has escaped.
The inmates come round in Galavan’s penthouse. There he introduces himself and his sister – who led the rescue – and tells them he has a plan. They will be a team of masterminds who will bring chaos to Gotham. Sionis refuses to participate, offers to buy his way out and is killed. The others are all in.

MEANWHILE! BACK AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR BOMB SCHOOL!

The fertiliser bomb is done. Alfred and Bruce hide, detonate it and the door is blown off its hinges. They step through into a cave filled with dusty computers. Bruce finds a letter from his father that implores him to choose happiness unless he has a calling. As he reads it, we see Gordon suiting up to go back to work…

Review:

Gotham had a big problem last season: it had no idea what it wanted to be. The wild, feverish camp-with-added-blood approach worked sometimes. A hard-bitten police procedural worked others. Nothing worked, or was on screen, for very long. Most egregiously, it horribly fumbled the ball with Barbara Kean, Jim Gordon’s doomed fiancé.

This, howwver, is the best episode of Gotham to date. The reason is simple: it’s still feverish and changes gear a lot. But now it’s having fun with it.

The Bruce plot is a perfect example. Its classic adolescent whining, and some glorious sass too, mixed with real poignancy and mystery. Bruce is a child in a situation adults would find horrific and the tragedy of it is Alfred is utterly unequipped to help. Even better is the fact Alfred is trying to do the right thing in raising the boy and realises he should be doing the ugly thing, and helping him find out the truth. It’s subtle, clever, weird and involves a fertiliser bomb and the world’s most obvious code, all at once.

The Jim plot is much the same. We sprint through him being fired, turning criminal and being restated in a single episode. It all makes narrative sense too, with the notable exception of the world’s least successful smash and grab. As mentioned below, that’s a low point for the character and the show really needs to come back to it in later episodes. Jim Gordon, the paragon of virtue in the GCPD is also now an armed robber. That distinction should be uncomfortable and for a long time.

There’s some other fun stuff going on here, especially a great Penguin and Zsaz scene but the real highlight is Barbara. Who knew that would ever happen? From the moment she walks into Arkham like she’s dressed for a premiere, she owns every scene. Brilliant, bored and angry she’s immensely fun and signifies the show’s first stable tone. She, Sionis, Jerome and the rest are the villains from a classic Adam West episode. The only difference is in the present day they’re both broad, exuberant characters and terrifying villains. They also clearly can’t wait to cause some havoc and their maniacal energy powers the whole episode.

Something big has come to Gotham, and there’s going to be a hot time in the old town before it’s done. In other words, Gotham’s back and this time, Gotham is embracing its… issues, just like Barbara. And, just like Barbara, it’s ready to cause some trouble.

The Good:

“Zaardon, that spelt how it sounds?” “Two As.” This episode is really funny, always on purpose too. I love this little exchange.
“May I ask why? Police work in Gotham is such a thankless job?” “Good pension.” This one too. The perfect summation of Jim’s gravelly manliness and Penguin’s cheerful sociopathy
“I’m sober. I have a woman who does not dislike me. I live in a house…” Aim high, Harv!
“Surely sometimes the right way is also the ugly way.” Such a lovely turn of phrase and the axis the entire episode revolves around. Do a bad thing to get something good later and hopefully it’ll take the red off your ledger.
“You don’t know the first thing about bomb making do ya?” “I READ A BOOK, ALFRED! IT SEEMS SIMPLE ENOUGH!” This entire exchange is glorious but this the best line.
“And I’ll put the kettle on.” Best Butler EVER.
“Sexual jealousy always poisons the well.” We don’t get much from Galavan this episode but this line promises much in the future. He’s clever and has tried this before. Interesting to see how this latest… erm… Suicide–ish Squad plays out.
“You can’t have both happiness and the truth.” That should be the city motto.
The episode looks GORGEOUS! Cannon makes every frame sing and the slightly wobbly feel Gotham had last year is replaced with something that looks like an explosion in an art deco factory. Hurray!
Barbara’s evil makeover is immense fun. Yes it’s over-the-top but it ties into the “Adam West Batman but soaked with blood” vibe the show is playing with. Plus, after a year of having to suffer frequently terrible writing of her character, Erin Richards seems to be relishing cutting loose.
The episode is frequently very funny in the exact, jet-black, off-centre way that it seemed to aim for but rarely hit last year.
Ben Mackenzie. He’s the anchor of the show, he’s playing a man who’s trying to be good and frequently being anything but and he’s nailing it. Just an amazing central turn.

The Bad:

Jim Gordon just killed a man. A LOT. Probably on surveillance footage. Whilst running from his property with money he stole for Gotham’s new mob boss. It’s EPISODE ONE of season two. Jim is obviously going to fall a long way before he gets back up. But honestly I’m not entirely sure how much lower they can go. Here’s hoping there’s consequences to his actions this week. If nothing else Penguin has dirt on him now.

The Random:

I choose to believe that the always-excellent Todd Stashwick as Richard Sionis was killed off so he can go be in 12 Monkeys season two lots.
Alfred getting all cockney every time he gets agitated is adorable. I especially liked the, “GET IN!” when the bomb worked.
Danny Cannon’s a hell of a director with a hell of a pedigree. As well as making every shot in this episode look brilliant he wrote and directed the superb Young Americans in in 1993. Two years later he directed the first Judge Dredd movie which probably makes him persona non grata to some people. That’s their loss because since then Cannon’s directed and produced for the CSI franchise, co-created Dark Blue, worked on Nikita and Alcatraz and currently serves as an executive producer on Gotham.
Bruno Heller co-created and wrote a vast chunk of the HBO series Rome, which gave us the bloodiest version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ever in Vorenus and Pullo. He’s also the creator of The Mentalist as well as Gotham.
James Frain is one of the best, and prolific, villain actors of his generation. Throw a rock and it’ll hit a TV show he’s been in including the likes of Spartacus, 24, Lie To Me, Flashpoint, True Blood, The Cape and most recently a memorable turn as Leet Brannis in early episodes of Agent Carter.
Jessica Lucas has a series of excellent performances in movies to her name, with Cloverfield being the particular standout. She was also great in the Evil Dead remake and has done good work on TV too in the likes of CSI, The L Word, Melrose Place and most recently Gracepoint.
David Fierro, who has a memorable cameo here as ZAARDON THE SOUL REAPER! is one of those character actors who turns up everywhere. You’ve seen him in The Blacklist, Birdman, Blue Bloods and Side Effects amongst others.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• More on Gotham

Gotham S02E01 “Damned If You Do…” REVIEW

January 11, 2016

by thatmediathing with No Comment Reviews

Gotham S02E01 “Damned If You Do…” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 9pm
Writer: Bruno Heller
Director: Danny Cannon

Essential Plot Points

Previously on Gotham: The Waynes killed! Commissioner Loeb! Baby Joker! Barbara goes mad! Penguin goes to the top! SECRET CAVE BENEATH STATELY WAYNE MANOR!
And we’re off!

At Wayne Manor, Alfred and Bruce discover a set of stairs leading down to a key-locked door. They try the keypad but can’t open it.

Bullock is tending bar. In doing so, he carefully wipes the bar down, lifts a drunk off it, wipes under and keeps going. Welcome back, Harv. We’ve missed you.
Penguin is welcoming someone new to the fold… just long enough for Zsaz to execute them.
Barbara walks into Arkham to begin her stay and all eyes are on her.
Jim gets dressed for work in his new position working traffic.

Elsewhere, a man in improvised armour is fed a curious liquid by someone we can’t see.

The man arrives at Jim’s traffic stop, proclaims himself ZAARDON THE SOUL REAPER! And proceeds to cause very incompetent havoc. Jim takes him down and arrests him. In doing so he shoves his replacement, late on shift.
At the station Jim books Zaardon and chats briefly with Edward Nygma. He doesn’t pick up on how nervous the scientist is before being called to Captain Essen’s office. Edward’s other personality berates him from the mirror and he leaves, trying to block it out.

Commissioner Loeb has received a complaint of assault from Jim’s relief, the man he shoved earlier. Essen argues for her officer but Loeb insists he be dismissed. Jim accepts, thanks Essen for the chance to work with her, shakes Loeb’s hand and vows to bring him down.

Later that night, Leslie and Jim talk. She’s relieved Jim is off the Force but he can’t let it go. He admits there’s something he can do, which would be outside the law, to get his job back. She tries to reason with him but sees he’s obsessed.

In Arkham, Sionis has taken a fancy to Barbara and sends Jerome over to talk to her. The young psychopath explains she needs a friend and a bored, annoyed, Barbara gets the biggest man in the room on her side in under a minute.

At Penguin’s offices, Jim arrives to ask for a favour. Penguin welcomes him and sends his coterie, aside from Selina, away. He explains exactly what Jim wants without the former cop having to say a thing. He’ll get Jim reinstated, and all he has to do is collect a debt for Penguin. Jim refuses and leaves.

He goes and gets drunk at Bullock, who’s been sober for a month. His former partner points out what a good man he is and that he’s happy off the force. Jim embraces him and goes to see Bruce, who he apologises to for not being able to fulfil his promise. Bruce, clearly a little angry and distracted by the secret door, coldly forgives him and also points out that sometimes the right way is the ugly way. Then rushes to the secret door as soon as Jim’s left.
Back at Arkham, Barbara asks Sionis for a phone.
Jim goes to collect Penguin’s debt. It goes horribly, badly. In short order he’s threatened, assaults three men, robs the man he came to collect from, flees the scene, narrowly avoids being arrested by former employees and shoots (albeit in self defence) the man he just stole from.
This bothers him. A LOT.
MEANWHILE! BACK AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR! Bruce is building a fertiliser bomb. Extremely badly. Alfred tries to reason with him but finally gives in and helps. As well as putting the kettle on.
Gordon hands the money to Penguin, disgusted at the realisation he was set up. Penguin denies it, almost sincerely, and Jim returns home. Where Barbara calls him, and then Leslie. Leslie suggests they leave the city and that nothing is keeping them there. Jim admits he did something bad and they can’t leave.

Commissioner Loeb wakes up to find Penguin and Zsaz in his house. Penguin, in the episode’s best scene, has both sides of the conversation with the commissioner. He ultimately concludes the only way Loeb will give him what he wants is to kill him and forces Loeb to accept the alternative: retirement.
The next day, Essen is sworn in as new Commissioner and Jim is reinstated. At the ceremony, Theo Galavan, a major new civic figure in Gotham gives a speech. But unknown to everyone, he’s the one who gave ZAARDON THE SOUL REAPER! The potion.

And speaking of ZAARDON THE SOUL REAPER! He’s admitted to Arkham, picks a fight, passes out, belches knock-out gas and dies. It turns out Galavan, a gifted scientist, set him up as an elaborate stun grenade for Barbara, Jerome, Sionis and co. They’re knocked out and a mercenary team storms the Asylum and rescues them.

At the ceremony, Essen assures Jim they’ll do good work together. And, seconds later, he learns that Barbara has escaped.
The inmates come round in Galavan’s penthouse. There he introduces himself and his sister – who led the rescue – and tells them he has a plan. They will be a team of masterminds who will bring chaos to Gotham. Sionis refuses to participate, offers to buy his way out and is killed. The others are all in.

MEANWHILE! BACK AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR BOMB SCHOOL!

The fertiliser bomb is done. Alfred and Bruce hide, detonate it and the door is blown off its hinges. They step through into a cave filled with dusty computers. Bruce finds a letter from his father that implores him to choose happiness unless he has a calling. As he reads it, we see Gordon suiting up to go back to work…

Review:

This, howwver, is the best episode of Gotham to date. The reason is simple: it’s still feverish and changes gear a lot. But now it’s having fun with it.

The Good:

“Zaardon, that spelt how it sounds?” “Two As.” This episode is really funny, always on purpose too. I love this little exchange.
“May I ask why? Police work in Gotham is such a thankless job?” “Good pension.” This one too. The perfect summation of Jim’s gravelly manliness and Penguin’s cheerful sociopathy
“I’m sober. I have a woman who does not dislike me. I live in a house…” Aim high, Harv!
“Surely sometimes the right way is also the ugly way.” Such a lovely turn of phrase and the axis the entire episode revolves around. Do a bad thing to get something good later and hopefully it’ll take the red off your ledger.
“You don’t know the first thing about bomb making do ya?” “I READ A BOOK, ALFRED! IT SEEMS SIMPLE ENOUGH!” This entire exchange is glorious but this the best line.
“And I’ll put the kettle on.” Best Butler EVER.
“Sexual jealousy always poisons the well.” We don’t get much from Galavan this episode but this line promises much in the future. He’s clever and has tried this before. Interesting to see how this latest… erm… Suicide–ish Squad plays out.
“You can’t have both happiness and the truth.” That should be the city motto.
The episode looks GORGEOUS! Cannon makes every frame sing and the slightly wobbly feel Gotham had last year is replaced with something that looks like an explosion in an art deco factory. Hurray!
Barbara’s evil makeover is immense fun. Yes it’s over-the-top but it ties into the “Adam West Batman but soaked with blood” vibe the show is playing with. Plus, after a year of having to suffer frequently terrible writing of her character, Erin Richards seems to be relishing cutting loose.
The episode is frequently very funny in the exact, jet-black, off-centre way that it seemed to aim for but rarely hit last year.
Ben Mackenzie. He’s the anchor of the show, he’s playing a man who’s trying to be good and frequently being anything but and he’s nailing it. Just an amazing central turn.

The Bad:

Jim Gordon just killed a man. A LOT. Probably on surveillance footage. Whilst running from his property with money he stole for Gotham’s new mob boss. It’s EPISODE ONE of season two. Jim is obviously going to fall a long way before he gets back up. But honestly I’m not entirely sure how much lower they can go. Here’s hoping there’s consequences to his actions this week. If nothing else Penguin has dirt on him now.

The Random:

I choose to believe that the always-excellent Todd Stashwick as Richard Sionis was killed off so he can go be in 12 Monkeys season two lots.
Alfred getting all cockney every time he gets agitated is adorable. I especially liked the, “GET IN!” when the bomb worked.
Danny Cannon’s a hell of a director with a hell of a pedigree. As well as making every shot in this episode look brilliant he wrote and directed the superb Young Americans in in 1993. Two years later he directed the first Judge Dredd movie which probably makes him persona non grata to some people. That’s their loss because since then Cannon’s directed and produced for the CSI franchise, co-created Dark Blue, worked on Nikita and Alcatraz and currently serves as an executive producer on Gotham.
Bruno Heller co-created and wrote a vast chunk of the HBO series Rome, which gave us the bloodiest version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ever in Vorenus and Pullo. He’s also the creator of The Mentalist as well as Gotham.
James Frain is one of the best, and prolific, villain actors of his generation. Throw a rock and it’ll hit a TV show he’s been in including the likes of Spartacus, 24, Lie To Me, Flashpoint, True Blood, The Cape and most recently a memorable turn as Leet Brannis in early episodes of Agent Carter.
Jessica Lucas has a series of excellent performances in movies to her name, with Cloverfield being the particular standout. She was also great in the Evil Dead remake and has done good work on TV too in the likes of CSI, The L Word, Melrose Place and most recently Gracepoint.
David Fierro, who has a memorable cameo here as ZAARDON THE SOUL REAPER! is one of those character actors who turns up everywhere. You’ve seen him in The Blacklist, Birdman, Blue Bloods and Side Effects amongst others.

Review by Alasdair Stuart