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Sunday, April 05
Gotham S02E17 “Into The Woods” REVIEW
The main plot’s cracking but the Penguin sub-plot is just embarrassing… >>>
Gotham S02E16 “Prisoners” REVIEW
Gotham S02E16 “Prisoners” REVIEW
Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 10pm
Writer: Danny Cannon
Director: Scott White
Essential Plot Points:
- Inmate Jerkface is adjusting to his new life. It’s actually not awful. He eats alone, he jogs, he’s mostly ignored. Just 39.8 years and a wake-up to go.
- Then the Warden tells him he’s being moved to F Block. General population. Where a lot of the guys he put away are being held.
- On the way, the Warden also cheerfully tells Jim that Commissioner Loeb sends his regards.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE VAN DAHL HOUSE!
- Penguin bonds with his father and not even the slightest bit with the rest of the family. Elijah has a hole in his heart and is being given medicine regularly. What he doesn’t realise is that Grace – whom he fell for when he went to her diner after years of being kept in the house – is a golddigger waiting for him to die. He apprenticed as a tailor with his father but it didn’t work out and he ended up being homeschooled.
- Tormented by nightmares of his criminal past, Penguin meets Dad sleepwalking and the pair bond. Finally, Penguin breaks down and admits his past. Elijah forgives him and admits that his own father had dark, violent tendencies and that led to both his death and Elijah being sheltered by his mother. Penguin is stunned by the realisation that he may have inherited his past behaviour.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE GCPD!
- Harv is working every angle and none of them are adding up. In desperation, he goes to see Jim and breaks the news to him that Lee lost the baby. Jim is crushed, and barely seems to notice when an inmate beats him up. Another inmate, Puck, attempts to intervene. They’re both taken to the infirmary while Jim’s assailant is sent to solitary.
- In the infirmary, Jim finds out Puck’s sister was abducted by child snatchers whom Jim brought in. Puck is a sweet, funny, decent kid who’s inside for stealing a car (well, borrowing) to take a girl on a date. He’s sentenced to six years but seems oddly okay about it.
- The Warden arrives and walks them both straight back to genpop. On the way he sneeringly tells Jim that he knows about the miscarriage. Because that’s Lee’s job this week; to be an absent human tragedy that Jim is continually beaten with.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE WEIRDLY PACED COBBLEPOT HOUSEHOLD!
- Grace confronts Elijah with the truth about Penguin. He instantly forgives his son. She resorts to Plan B which is, of course, sex. She sends her daughter to try and seduce Penguin. Penguin, to his eternal credit, reacts exactly like you would.
- MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE BIG HOUSE!
- Jim is warned by a sympathetic guard that his assailant is on his way out of solitary. Jim braces for an attack but instead is held down and forced to watch as Puck gets living hell beaten out of him.
- MEANWHILE, AT ALCOHOL!
- Harv goes to Carmine Falcone for help. For the first time, he makes progress.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE WEIRDLY PACED COBBLEPOT HOUSEHOLD!
- Penguin is being fitted for a suit by his dad when he passes out.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE GRIMMEST EPISODE OF PORRIDGE EVER!
- The sympathetic guard, Bishop, gets Jim in to see Puck. Puck tells him to choose to live and not be beaten by the prison. Jim tells Puck to stay away from him. He’s told it’s movie night and he needs to be ready.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AGAIN AT THE WEIRDLY PACED COBBLEPOT HOUSEHOLD!
- The Doctor tells the Van Dahls it’s time to put Elijah’s affairs in order. He asks Grace to call his lawyer and make arrangements for changes to the will.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT FOLSOM PRISON!
- Jim is directed to a specific seat and sits watching Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. As the movie hits a high spot, his previous assailant tries to kill him. He’s elbowed out of the way by another man who stabs Jim repeatedly in the chest. He bleeds out on the floor.
- His body is transported out and, as it goes, he snaps upright. Jim’s not dead! It was a telescoping knife and a blood bag and maybe some kind of knockout drug! Yay! Harv, part of the escape team, tries to get him to go but Jim is adamant they need to go back for Puck.
- They do and are confronted by Warden Evil. Bishop knocks him out and tells Jim to get going. They escape! Hurrah!
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE COBBLEPOT PLACE!
- Grace decides to poison Penguin. She leaves a decanter with Elijah and Penguin who talk, and Elijah tells Penguin he’s home and loved. He toasts his son with a drink and instantly dies. Grace and the kids have messed up big time.
- MEANWHILE, AT A BRIDGE SOMEWHERE IN GOTHAM COUNTY!
- Jim and the Escape Ambulance are met by Falcone. He gives Jim a choice between leaving the country or staying. Jim wants to find and protect Lee. He goes to tell Puck they made it out, then realises the young man has died of his injuries. He vows to stay and protect Lee and clear his name. Only this time he really REALLY means it.
Review:
You get two stories for the price of one here and neither quite work.
Let’s start with Inmate Jerkface. Jim’s time in prison continues the show’s increasing fondness for the dark. It’s a nasty, intimate story that manages to play with both Jim’s guilt and his sense of right and wrong. The opening sequence is arguably one of the most balanced moments he’s had so far in the series. His regulated prison life isn’t a bad one and Jim, for the first time, seems to have made peace with himself.
That, of course, does not last.
What does is the familiar sense of gnawing unease you tend to get with prison stories. Normally that’s a feature not a bug. Here though, it’s made worse by the repeated ways that Lee’s miscarriage is used as a cheap shot on Jim. We talk a little further down about exactly why that’s bad for Lee but it also damages the episode. This plays as unusually mean-spirited even for Gotham and the surprisingly brutal beating Puck takes only drives that home.
Then there’s Puck who may be the oddest character the show has used to date. And remember, this is Gotham. That takes effort.
Puck is a sweet, perceptive car thief who is happily serving a horribly long sentence for an almost victimless crime. His admiration for Jim is nicely handled as it gives Inmate Jerkface a light at the end of the tunnel and he’s well-played too. But, he’s also redundant. We spend a lot of screen time with Puck purely so Jim can get over himself. Once he’s done that, Puck dies and off we go again. There’s a sneaking suspicion of the show running in place, to say nothing of how badly this episode devalues Lee.
That pacing problem is far worse in the second plot. Penguin’s new-found family are front and centre in a series of staccato, oddly paced scenes that take a very long time to not get very far. Once you stop and look you see that’s not entirely fair; Penguin gains a family, learns an interesting thing about his past, bonds with his father and narrowly avoids murder. But when the episode is running those points take an inordinately long time to reach. It’s not that the work itself is inherently awful it’s just… weird. Like changing gear from first to fourth without anything in-between.
Weird and lumpy about sums “Prisoners” up. There’s some excellent Jim stuff, some good Penguin stuff and some major tonal and pacing problems. The show’s still running at speed but this week it maybe stumbles. It’s not a collapse but after last week it’s a definite comedown.
The Good:
- Jim’s first words on hearing Lee lost the baby are, ‘How is she?” That, right there, is the Jim Gordon that will one day be the beating, battered heart of Gotham.
- “Hey, DON’T LET THIS BEAT YOU!” I really love this version of Harv. His concern for his partner and, at this point, only friend is genuine and touching.
- “I know something you don’t know.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“I know what kind of man you are.” Again, that’s Jim Gordon to a tee. - “You are loved and you are not alone and the sun will come up tomorrow.’ The Penguin family storyline is weird for a whole bunch of reasons. But, somehow, his relationship with his dad is genuine and sweet.
- Continuity! Nice to see Carmine Falcone back. Also a nice meta note that for all the cosmetic changes in Gotham, the old kingpins never quite die.
- Marc Damon Johnson as guard Wilson Bishop is great. The fact we get so little time with this stern, compassionate badass is actually one of the episode’s biggest problems.
- The rest of the supporting cast are also great. Ned Bellamy does his best evil Dan Castellanetta impersonation as the Warden and Peter Mark Kendall is great as Puck. The character himself? Not so much, but the performance is spot on.
The Bad:
- “I’m not going to die in here.” In fairness Puck doesn’t but he doesn’t make it to the end credits. HAS HE NEVER SEEN ANY HORROR MOVIE? EVER?
- Continuity! Jim is assaulted by the brother of a member of the Red Hood gang! Who’s black! Because of course he is!
- And, in fact, he threatens to find Lee and have her gang raped. Because at its worst this is a show that has no concept of boundaries. A point proved by the fact the Warden basically says, “Ha! Your girlfriend lost the baby! You suck at breeding!” to Jim. Which isn’t just a profoundly horrible thing to say but objectifies and denigrates Lee as little more than a faulty womb. This plot is in fact so nasty, it’s left an unpleasant taste in my mouth just writing these words down. Let’s move on.
- Except we can’t, because the episode doesn’t. Puck is fun, sure but he serves no purpose here. Jim’s grieving girlfriend is out there somewhere and he needs to find her. Also? HE HAS BEEN FRAMED FOR A MURDER HE DID NOT COMMIT.
There is no reason for Puck other than to motivate Jim to get justice. Something he’s already motivated to do. And, because it’s Puck’s death that causes him to make the call that actually denigrates Lee even more. Which is an achievement. Just a very bad one.
- The Elijah stuff is paced very strangely. Tonally it seems weird at first too, but that’s more because it’s playing out alongside the strait-laced Blackgate plot which simply serves to make the Elijah plot seem even more absurd.
- But the pacing is very strange. In particular, the discovery that Elijah is going to give everything to Penguin manages to somehow be split across two scenes. The entire thing feels very staccato and for the first time in a while there’s a sense of this being here to serve the arc not the episode.
- The poison smokes and hisses as it hits the carpet. Sure. Why not?
- Where the hell did the bag of blood go? And indeed come from?
The Random:
- Ned Bellamy has a ton of excellent work to his name. His work as Ed Winston, a deeply traumatised security guard in the much-missed Sarah Conner Chronicles is a standout for us though.
- Marc Damon Johnson is another long-term, consistently impressive character actor. Odds are you’ve seen him as multiple people in Law & Order, Jesse Brandt in Person Of Interest and Colonel Ian Maris in Army Wives.
- Peter Mark Kendall is still another excellent character actor. His work has appeared in The Leftovers, Girls and upcoming movie Louder Than Bombs. He plays Hans on The Americans and Joey Thomas on Chicago Med.
- Jim is in prison for one episode. ONE. I’m not saying I wanted a mini-season of Oz or anything but this plot goes by so fast you almost don’t see it.
- Morena Baccarin isn’t on the show right now because she’s pregnant. Ben Mackenzie’s the dad which goes a LONG way towards explaining just why every Lee and Jim scene is so sweet.
- The song playing over the montage of Jim’s early days in prison is “Gorecki” by Scala and Kolacny Brothers. They’re best known for their haunting piano version of Radiohead’s “Creep” used on the trailer for The Social Network.
- Shot of the week is this. Gotham hunkered low on the horizon.
Review by Alasdair Stuart
• Read our other Gotham reviews
Gotham S02E15 “Mad Grey Dawn” REVIEW
Gotham S02E15 “Mad Grey Dawn” REVIEW
Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 10pm
Writer: Robert Hull
Director: Nick Copus
Essential Plot Points:
- MEANWHILE, AT THE GOTHAM MUSEUM OF ART! BECAUSE THAT NEVER ENDS BADLY!
- Ed places a very large statue of a grenade in the museum, retreats to a safe distance and then triggers the fuse attached to it. When everyone runs out (the bomb never actually explodes) he steals a particular painting and leaves a green question in its place.
- Detective Jerkface and Harv roll out, but on the way Barnes takes Jim to one side and tells him that an anonymous tip has named him as the prime suspect in Galavan’s murder. Jim’s poker face hasn’t got any better.
- It’s made worse by Ed wanting to talk to him about Kringle. He blows him off and heads out to the crime scene.
- MEANWHILE, AT CHATEAU DU BUTCH!
- Butch and Tabby are chilling by the fire when Penguin arrives. He tries to be friends and, while they point out he killed Tabby’s brother and chopped off Butch’s hand, Butch relents. He lets Penguin go, realising he’s a pathetic shell of his former self. But they have a little fun first…
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CRIME SCENE!
- Harv asks Jim what’s going on and Jim tells him. Harv, the second person in the episode to do it, all but says out loud he knows Jim killed Galavan and offers to help via a contact he has in internal affairs. Jim thanks him and agrees.
- They’re shown round the crime scene by the curator and realise that two other paintings were vandalised. The one that was stolen depicted an explosion at a railway station. The names of the other two artists translate to “Market” and “Street”.
- They deduce that the thief has planted a bomb at the train station on Market Street.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE SECOND STAGE OF THE PLAN!
- The GCPD arrives and evacuates the station. Gordon finds a locker with a green question mark spraypainted on it since he’s seen at least two movies about bomb disposal, he has a plan.
- The plan is to crowbar the door open and throw the bomb four feet into a gothic minaret.
- He may have slept through those movies.
- Nonetheless it works! Cautious yay!
- As the scene is cordoned off, Ed – who was there all along – pretends to arrives and gets Officer Pinkney to sign a form…
- Nearby, Harv takes Jim to one side and… well the news is not good. IA have named him as the primary suspect in Galavan’s murder.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE HARD KNOCK LIFE!
- IVY! Selina takes Bruce to see season one’s least-well-used character. She’s running botany for a gang selling magic mushrooms. They need money, so she’s slipped the gang some harmless psychotropics. They pass out, Bruce and Selina grab their big stash of money and are interrupted by Butch’s nephew, Sonny. Sonny is not happy. The gang, the mushrooms and the money are all his.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT WHAT’S STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A GOOD SEASON OF DEXTER!
- Ed is playing with the crowbar Jim used at the station when Penguin comes in. He’s been tarred and feathered. He tries to bond with his old “room mate” but Ed’s having none of it. The life of crime is working out pretty well for him…
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE DARKEST VERSION OF OLIVER TWIST EVER!
- Selina tries to provoke Sonny. Sonny responds by attacking her and, when Bruce defends her, him. He beats the hell out of Bruce, who remembers the advice of Obi Wan Pennyworth, to beat a bigger guy by wearing him out.
- It’s good advice and he lets Sonny use him as a punchbag until Sonny makes a gag about his parents. Bruce then proceeds to go Gotham 3:16 on him and they run off with both the money and the mushrooms.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE PENGUIN’S INCREASINGLY TERRIBLE LIFE!
- Penguin visits his mother’s grave and is met by Elijah Van Dahl. The polite well-to-do man talks to Penguin about his mother and, before long, the two men realise they’re related. In fact, they are father and son. Elijah embraces his long-lost son and takes him home to meet his family. Penguin, happy at last, breaks down in relief, sobbing.
- MEANWHILE, AT AN EPISODE OF AT HOME WITH LEE AND JIM WRITTEN BY HAROLD PINTER!
- It’s awkward silence night at the Thompkins’ place. Lee pushes on the bombing and Jim being in the frame for Galavan’s death comes up. Lee kicks off, entirely justifiably and Jim claims he can fix it.
- He absolutely can’t.
- And they both know it.
- Harv calls, giving Jim some good(ish) news. They found where the bomb was activated from. A payphone on Dewey Avenue. Desperate to get out, Jim agrees to go take a look.
- MEANWHILE, AT DEWEY AVENUE!
- Ed arrives at Officer Pinkney’s apartment and beats him to death with the crowbar.
- Jim arrives not long after, looking for the payphone. He notices the door next to it ajar and opens it to find Pinkney’s body. This is bad.
- When Barnes arrives at the scene too having received an anonymous tip things get much, much worse.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT FAGIN’S PLACE!
- Bruce is MESSED UP. One eye is swollen shut, and he’s covered in cuts and bruises. Selina compliments him on his toughness and Bruce, in yet another example of why David Mazouz is the best part of this cast, explains why he could take it. He knew he couldn’t be broken. He felt peaceful. He felt reassured.
In the middle of being beaten up. - MEANWHILE, BACK AT SOMEWHERE VERY DARK
- Barnes interrogates Gordon and Jim slowly realises just how screwed he is. Harv’s report was swapped out for one by Ed, Jim’s fingerprints were on the crowbar and he had no real explanation for being in the building.
- Especially as Pinkney was apparently the witness to Jim murdering Galavan (that’s another or Ed’s set-ups). With every avenue shut to him he asks for his union rep. Disgusted, Barnes arrests him and perpwalks him through the precinct to County Jail. On the way, Jim begs Harv to help. Nearby, Ed watches his plan pay off…
- MEANWHILE, FOUR WEEKS LATER
- Jim is found guilty and sentenced to 40 years. Nearby, Bruce and Selina bemoan his fate.
- Lee visits Jim in prison. He tells her to move on and that he won’t reply to any more messages from her. He tells her to go far away and forget about him, leaving a weeping Lee watching the father of her child be taken to prison for the rest of his life.
- Harv rides with Jim on his way to jail, and swears he’ll help him. Jim thanks him and is led away to a jail filled with men he put there.
- And in Arkham, Barbara Gordon wakes up…
Review:
Ed finally takes the spotlight and the result is glorious. After weeks of being a bumbling Tyler Durden-alike, his first actual supervillain outing is exactly what this show is at its best; Byzantine, ’60s-style scheming crossed with emotional weight.
Seeing Ed walk his colleagues through his trap is huge fun and the through-line of this art thief-cum-bomber makes perfect sense at this point in the show’s timeline. We’ve had the Maniax, Galavan, the fall of Fish Mooney and Penguin. Now someone else is seizing power and doing a remarkably good job of it. That’s because Ed has one goal – at least right now; end Jim Gordon as a threat.
And he succeeds.
This is the episode we’ve been waiting for since Jim executed Galavan and it doesn’t disappoint. Ed’s scheme is a big part of that but the rest is the acting. Gotham at its worst is a retirement home for terrible performances but on its best days you get this. There are so many good performances here, several from cast members who’ve frequently been saddled with terrible material. Michael Chiklis’ Captain Barnes is especially great; disgusted and ashamed at his one-time protégé and unable to see how he’s being played. Likewise, Morena Baccarin and Donal Logue are well served by the script and Ben Mackenzie clearly revelling in finally embracing Jim’s dark side.
This is a tragedy, a story that can only ever end one way and everyone involved is at the top of their game. Cory Michael Smith in particular is on top form as the newly calculating, even malicious Ed. The Riddler is a very easy Batman villain to get wrong. A few more episodes like this and Smith could end up as defining a take on the role as Robin Lord Taylor’s Penguin. There, again, subtle, sweet acting is the order of the day and his scenes with Paul Reubens are honestly poignant. Especially as this is Gotham; nothing good lasts and Penguin’s days of retirement are most certainly coming to a middle.
But again it’s David Mazouz who impresses the most. His monologue about how he felt during the fight with Sonny is a definitive Batman moment and a perfectly placed justification for Bruce’s actions. He doesn’t just fight crime for the city. He does it to exert bloody, two-fisted control over his own life. It’s a simple, horrible realisation and Mazouz drives it home with very ounce of force he has.
There are still problems, but this is a show that’s really breaking stride. The serialised format helps immensely, the cast are on great form and the chickens are all coming home to roost. Jim may be in serious trouble but Gotham continues to improve.
The Good:
- “Lies, huh? Tell me the truth again?” Captain Barnes is the first to basically tell Jim he sucks. He is not the last.
- “HELLO?!” Butch’s perfectly timed reminder of the hand he “lost” in service to Penguin.
- “What kind of art thief would take time to defile such masterpieces?”
“An ignorant one?” Good job, Harv. - “While it was happening, it was like nothing else existed. Everything I’ve been struggling with – emptiness and confusion – it just vanished. For the first time… in a long time… I knew I was going to be okay. I knew that whatever Sonny did to me I could take it. That he couldn’t break me. No one can.” This is the best moment of the episode. Mazouz, again, showing us the core of dreadful quiet at the heart of this horribly damaged boy.
- “Is this a dream?”
“It’s not a dream my boy, you’re home.” It’s clearly going to end very badly but this, and Penguin sobbing as his dad welcomed him home was un-ironically very sweet. - “Pinkney was one of us! He deserves that! I DESERVE THAT!” Some excellent Barnes material this episode. Especially the disgust he feels at Jim’s increasingly desperate tactics.
- “This isn’t right. This can’t be right.”
“Tell me something that is.” Except, of course, it is right. Which makes it much, much worse. - “HOW CAN YOU NOT BE WITH US?!” Again, Morena Baccarin is a vital part of the best elements of the show. This scene is some of the best work she and Ben Mackenzie have done to date.
- Ed’s plan is wonderful. Intricate but not overthought, complex but not perfect. Very much the plan of a supervillain in training.
- We love that Gotham’s ludicrously pointy architecture saves the day with the bomb.
- We actually really liked that everyone had figured out Detective Jerkface had killed Galavan. Jim is the worst liar ever for starters. But Harv’s total lack of surprise and the fact Barnes is more disgusted at Jim apparently murdering Pinkney is a really nice touch.
- Butch! Looking good, buddy! Love the new hand!
- Ed’s scheme is actually really well done. It’s a ridiculous Heath Robinson affair with way too many working parts but that’s Ed. The payoff – and the fact that even as the trap closes Jim can’t see who’s behind it – is especially great.
The Bad:
- Jim crowbars the locker with the bomb in it open. Because obviously he was sleeping through the DON’T POKE BOMBS class at Police Academy.
- The show wanders right up to “HA! SONNY’S STUPID BECAUSE HE’S FAT!” but never quite gets there. It still gets WAY the hell too close though.
- The drug dealer sleeping with a cookie tin full of money is, shall we say, a touch on the nose.
And The Random:
- Paul Reubens! Best-known as PeeWee Herman, beloved and deeply odd TV character of the 1980s and 1990s, Reubens has had a memorable recent run on The Blacklist. He’ll always be the hammiest vampire ever in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer to us though. Oh and he’s played Penguin’s dad once before – in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (1992).
- Paul Pilcz, who plays Sonny, has previously appeared in Mildred Burke and Boardwalk Empire, where he played William Wilson.
- Shot of the week is Ed’s magnificent Adam West-ian enormous bomb.
Review by Alasdair Stuart
• Read our other Gotham reviews
Gotham S02E14 “This Ball Of Mud And Meanness” REVIEW
Gotham S02E14 “This Ball Of Mud And Meanness” REVIEW
Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 10pm
Writer: Jordan Harper
Director: John Behring
.
Essential Plot Points:
- Penguin sits in his house, tied to a chair. His mother asks why he isn’t eating the vast plate of food in front of him and commiserates with him. As he watches, another version of himself walks in and beats her to death with a baseball bat.
- His therapy’s going rather well.
- Doctor Hugo Strange orders the “ice cream” test to confirm Miss Peabody’s findings that Oswald is newly docile and friendly. He’s released into the canteen with a huge scoop of ice cream on his meal tray. An enraged inmate attacks him for it and Oswald doesn’t resist.
- He’s cured.
- Maybe.
- MEANWHILE, IN THE AVENUES AND ALLEYWAYS, WHERE THE SOUL OF A MAN IS EASY TO BUY! (Good grief, we ought to give a no-prize to anyone who gets that reference – ed.)
- Bruce meets with Selina who’s brought him a gun. She makes sure he knows what this means and gives it to him. He returns home to find Alfred preparing to start the hunt for Malone. They begin planning, Alfred unaware of just what his young charge is REALLY planning. Their first port of call? A geezer called Cupcake… (hint: this is an ironic name.)
- MEANWHILE, AT THE AWKWARD MIS SEASON ANGSTY BIT OF AT HOME WITH LEE AND JIM!
- Lee comes to see Detective Jerkface and asks him to look into Miss Kringle’s whereabouts. Her paycheques were never picked up and she’s suspicious. Jim agrees, tries to do… you know… emotions and Lee sensibly leaves before he does himself a mischief.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE OPENING SCENE OF A LOT OF MID ’90s RAP VIDEOS!
- A group of punks are gathered around a street fight. Alfred introduces them, asks to speak to Cupcake and explains the situation. Or he does until Bruce starts talking. Cupcake, who is a very large, very jovial, very scary man likes them so he makes an offer: if Alfred fights him he’ll reveal Malone’s address.
- Oh, and he’ll also have that 50 grand that Bruce – who is the poster boy for White Privilege even more than usual this week – offered him within literal seconds of meeting Cupcake.
- They fight. Alfred gets the living crap kicked out of him all the while instructing Bruce in just why this is happening and what he should not do. Alfred weathers Cupcake’s attack, watches the bigger man tire, then chokes him into submission and they get their information.
- Then Alfred falls over.
- Bruce takes Alfred to hospital and his butler tries to get the future Batman to promise not to do anything without him.
- Bruce waits for Alfred to pass out, then leaves.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT ARKHAM!
- Hugo Strange uses word association and hypnosis to continue working on Penguin. It works but… Oswald is not digging this. He’s fighting, just a little…
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT GCPD BLUE!
- Jim sees Ed who is increasingly wandering around like the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Despite this, Detective Jerkface questions him about Kringle, notices nothing unusual and leaves. Ed is convinced that Jim’s onto him and something must be done. Something… enigmatic…
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE HOSPITAL
- Harv and Jim give Alfred some frankly pretty deserved stick about being hospitalised again. He explains that they were looking for Malone and that the plan was pretty much to kill him. Harv is disgusted, not by the plan but by the fact he’s being told it. Alfred gives them the information and Jim heads off to the address that was given to Bruce.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE NEW BEST THING IN THIS ENTIRE SHOW’S RUN TO DATE!
- LORI PETTY! Bruce arrives at a nightclub playing looped footage of Jerome and filled with people cosplaying as him. The lead singer of the band crowdsurfs over to him, knows him by name and agrees to have a chat.
- The following conversation is wonderful verbal sparring as Bruce politely asks her questions, pulls a gun, is given critique on how he’s using it and finally leaves. Impressed by the steely determination of the kid, Jeri gives him Matches’ address.
- On the way out, Bruce runs into Jim who tries to talk him down. Jeri, back on stage, puts a spotlight on Jim and weaponises a mosh pit to give Bruce the time to escape. SHE’S THE BEST.
- MEANWHILE, AT MATCHES MALONE’S HOUSE!
- Bruce arrives and hands Matches a wad of money. He says he wants to hire him…
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT LAW AND ORDER: DETECTIVE JERKFACE!
- Jim tries to interrogate Jeri. It goes wonderfully badly for him. She doesn’t care, can’t be intimidated and like with Bruce only tells him something when she’s ready. Matches’ address in hand, Jim sprints out as…
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT MATCHES MALONE’S HOUSE OF IMMINENT DEATH!
- Bruce confronts Matches, tells him who he is and… Matches doesn’t care. Or remember. He’s killed lots of people and only gradually realises who Bruce is. Even then he accepts his fate with barely controlled emotion. Matches, on the verge of tears, faces down the death he knows he deserves and finds time to critique Bruce on technique. He’s not a monster. He’s just a tired, broken man who’s done awful things.
- Bruce leaves the gun and the apartment. As he does, Jim arrives. They hear a gunshot. Matches has done Bruce’s jon for him.
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT ARKHAM!
- Oswald is thrown into the treatment room where the inmate who assaulted him earlier is tied down. There is a charming selection of sharp objects nearby but, instead of revenge, Oswald introduces himself, tells the man to calm down and cuts him loose.
- Strange declares Oswald sane and releases him to return to the city. Miss Peabody is dubious but as Strange explains, deeper plans are at work…
- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE GCPD!
- Harv, who presumably was taking a coffee break for the last half of the episode, explains that Malone hadn’t worked for a while so he was off their radar. Which is about as good an explanation for the GCPD passing over an immensely successful contract killer in the search for two high profile murder victims as we’ll get.
- Jim talks to Ed who freaks out even more and actually starts monologuing in public about how much he’s going to fix Jim’s little wagon.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE BAT CAVE!
- Bruce leaves Alfred a letter explaining that he’s going to live on the streets with Selina for a while. He knows now that evil isn’t something that can be definitively beaten but can be understood and defeated. In order to do that, he has to learn how not to be a rich white kid.
- MEANWHILE, AT ED’S APARTMENT!
- Ed cuts a clipping of Jim out of a newspaper and draws a green question mark over it…
Review:
There are two vital things that happen this episode. The first is the death of Bruce Wayne the victim. The second is the new perspective the episode offers on Gotham.
Bruce has been a pawn, a sacrifice and a victim for as long as the show’s been on air. He’s struggled for control but has spent close to two full seasons reeling from the horrific murder of his parents and the destruction of his innocence. This episode, he gets everything he’s wanted since the start of the show. This episode, the very first question the show ever raised…
…Who killed the Waynes…?
…is answered.
And it doesn’t matter.
Or rather, it doesn’t matter enough. Because it was never going to. Matches Malone isn’t an evil genius. He’s not a man with a plan just a man with a gun. He even tells Bruce that walking through back alley could have got his parents killed. Gotham is a dangerous, stupid, cruel place and bad things happen at random. Matches, at least, ensures that bad things happen when he gets paid. He’s murder with a schedule, death with a client list so long he can’t remember everyone he’s killed.
That mundane, almost banal approach is exactly what this show has desperately needed. Matches doesn’t grandstand or show off he just kills people for money. He’s a monster, certainly, but he’s a very simple, very sad one. And there are thousands like him.
When Bruce walks into the apartment with Matches, he does commit murder; his innocence dies in that room and Bruce, at last, sees the city, and himself, for what each are. One is a crucible gone wild, a feral landscape of human predators unable to be anything else.
The other is a good-hearted, frightened rich young man whose family helped build hell.
That’s why Bruce leaves the manor. Because he knows that part of his life is a foundation and it’s time to build something new. He’ll screw up again, undoubtedly, but that’s the point. He’ll screw up and be endangered on his terms now. His journey towards being Batman has begun and Bruce knows exactly what it will cost him. The fact he’s doing it anyway proves he’s already a hero.
His new perspective is shared by the show. In particular the introduction of Jeri, played with incredible, brittle charm by Lori Petty, does fascinating new things to what we thought we knew. Jeri runs a nightclub filled with people who hero worship Jerome. The old Maniax straitjackets are everywhere, the face of the original Joker plays on screens and Jeri herself dresses like him. This is a subculture we’ve not seen before but which fits the show like a glove. Gotham, a broken city, in love with its monsters and trying to become them. Bruce, a broken young man, trying to save them from themselves and each other.
That’s heady, tragic stuff and the episode nails it. Even the subplots feed into this central idea and finally begin to show us a different side to both the city and the show. Next week it could be awful again. But here, at last, is the city how the show wants us to see it. Absurd and horrifying, funny and tragic. Awful and brilliant.
Welcome to Gotham. Good luck. You’ll need it.
The Good:
- The reference to the Crane formula is a nice callback, and forward, to the role the Scarecrow will play at Arkham.
- “He was arrested seven times with a geezer called Cupcake… I suspect there’s irony at play there…” How true, Alfred.
- “Alfred actually yells, “WHAT YOU WANT SOME?!” during the fight. Only the presence of Lori Petty is better than this moment. We also sincerely hope he yells “’AVE IIIIIT!” next time.
- “Are you okay?”
“I’M ABSOLUTELY FLIPPIN’ PEACHY, MATE!”’ Oh Cockneyman, if the rumours of an Alfred spin-off are true I will be so happy. - “AGAIN?” This show is starting to grow a welcome sense of its own absurdity. Jim’s eyeroll at Alfred being in hospital again is a lovely example of it.
- “Again we’re the cops – DO NOT TELL US STUFF LIKE THIS!” As is this. We love that Harv’s disgust is from knowing this stuff because if he knows it he has to do something about it and we all know how much Harv hates doing stuff.
- “You my boy are the childish hand of fate… Well, that makes me God in a way doesn’t it?” Jeri is magnificent in a way no one in this show has been since Jerome. Much, much more of her please.
- “This is gonna go a lot better for you if you don’t make me angry.”
“Anger is your natural state isn’t it? You are the infamous Jim Gordon.” Witness this moment where Jim does his usual chest pounding nonsense and she all but yawns. Wonderful stuff. - “DON’T CALL ME SON.”
“Why? I do what you think I did, I made you what you are. Just like Gotham made me. Just like the rich folks like your parents made Gotham.” This is crucial to the whole episode. Gotham is a good idea curdled by human nature. The people born and built in Gotham are curdled the same way. None of this is Bruce’s fault. All of it is his responsibility. This is the episode he realises that. - Matches walking Bruce through how to kill him is as heartbreaking as it is disturbing. Also Michael Bowen is just amazing here. The emotion in his final moments is extraordinary.
- “I’m a monster. You need to kill me.”
“I wish you were a monster. But you’re just a man.” There’s no dragon to slay. No single cathartic release of violence and gunpowder. Just a broken city and a young man realising his blessing, and curse, is being in the right place to do something about it. - Alfred’s fight psychology is absolutely on point. Cupcake’s a big, untidy brawler. He’s going to take some big hits but Cupcake’s got very little in the gas tank and Alfred outlasts him.
- Also Alfred’s suit is on POINT this week.
- David Mazouz is amazing this week. He runs the gamut from rage to horror to a moment of real emotional maturity. Bruce, the child, dies this episode. Bruce the adult in training is born. His final monologue in particular, and the tragic air to it, is stunningly great.
- Top notch guest turns this week too. Michael Bowen and Lori Petty are brilliant throughout.
The Bad:
- Where does Harv go for the back half of the episode? Is he so sick of Detective Jerkface that he ditches him?
- Ed delivering a monologue about vengeance ALOUD IN A ROOM FULL OF POLICE OFFICERS is very very stupid.
The Random:
- Alfred passing out after a fight like that is a very, very bad sign. It implies a bleed on the brain which requires a lot more than a couple of hours in a hospital bed. Still, he’s at least benched for the entire episode so while it’s made light of at the time it clearly has an effect.
- Michael Bowen, who’s so damn good as Matches Malone here has appeared in numerous big movies including The Godfather Part III, Beverly Hills Cop 3 and Django Unchained. He was also Jack Welker on seven episodes of Breaking Bad.
- Lori. Freaking. Petty. The undisputed queen of ’90s genre cinema graces Gotham with her presence and the show is so much more fun with her in it. She did iconic work in Point Break and A League of Their Own and owned the screen in the amazingly weird and sporadically brilliant movie version of Tank Girl. More recently she’s appeared in a memorable run of House episodes and as Lolly in Orange Is The New Black seasons two and three.
- Shot of the week is of course, the iconic green question mark.
Review by Alasdair Stuart
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