Gotham, Season 2, Episode 1: Damned If You Do
Wow, what a glorious mess. On paper, there are definitely some good things in this episode -- we get a nice little theme of the duality of what Bruce Wayne says in the middle of the episode. Something about duality, and about the ends justifying the means and all that. And choices, as well as duality, is a running theme throughout this episode, with Gordon being forced to choose between continuing his foolhardy crusade after he got his ass randomly fired at the beginning of his episode or to choose to make another deal with the devil. We've got Bruce and Alfred choosing to dig up the past and a still-irritating B-plot. We've got Loeb making his choice to, uh, save his life, or something. And we could make an argument about how Riddler struggling with his own demons and newcomer Theo Galavan showing one face to the world and another to his people... or some shit. I dunno. The point is, they at least put in some effort in making a cohesive theme throughout this episode, so props for that.
But the actual execution? It's bordering on bad fanfiction, honestly.
First up, we get a recap of what's happened since the season one finale, and apparently the whole 'Bruce discovers the proto-Batcave' cliffhanger gets left off with a handwave of them not being able to unlock the door. Which is utterly stupid. And while we did get some hilarious sarcastic quips in between Bruce (who got a sudden growth spurt, which felt unnatural but what can you do) and Alfred... but ultimately simply just scene padding because there is no real reason for us to spend dicking around with these two building fertilizer bombs. Why can't Bruce just discover the proto-Batcave at the beginning of this episode? Jeez .
We see that Penguin's basically the boss of the mobs, Bullock's been fired and is running a bar, and Gordon is reduced to a street cop. Who immediately gets fired within less than ten minutes into the episode, because why not? It's just awkward especially since we just came off a relatively hopeful ending from season one, and I thought the dynamic for season two would be a power struggle between Loeb and Gordon as they try to passive-aggressively take each other out. Well, nope, it just gets resolved in a rather truncated manner. Loeb fires Gordon for pushing another officer which is utterly moronic. Gordon angsts. Leslie is reduced to nothing but a satellite character.
Then Gordon goes off to find Penguin, ends up taking a job from him, basically does what he gave Bullock massive amounts of grief for in season one... and accidentally shot some random mafia dude dead. Whoops. It's in self-defense, granted, and Gordon's not thinking straight thanks to some words spoken to him by little Bruce... but let's get real, here. If Gordon got the "which is more important, the greater good or your own ego?" speech from someone who isn't Proto-Batman, we'd be booing and hissing... moreso than we already are.
It is dumb, is what I'm saying.
And for this favour, Penguin and Zsasz decide to head off and torment the ever-living shit out of Loeb, he resigns and Gordon is back. Zsasz actually plays around with a decapitated head, which is a nice little nod to his comic-book counterpart. For what it's worth Penguin and Zsasz really play off each other well and their interrogation scene is easily the highlight of the episode. Ben McKenzie isn't a slouch either in the acting department, performing pretty well -- it's a shame the script really doesn't give him much to do.
Also, joining Leslie in the 'downgraded to satellite character' role is Selina, who is reduced to Penguin's pet (no, not that kind of pet) and we get another eyeroll-inducing lines of "OH SHE IS LIKE A CAT NO WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND SUBTLETY"
Likewise, despite supposedly being one of the few allies Gordon has left, Essen (who gets promoted into commissioner this episode) also gets like ten seconds of screentime total with a couple of dialogue that just establishes she's on Gordon's side.
Though to be fair, Bullock, too, got a downgrade into a one-scene wonder, but that was a hilarious scene. Drunk Gordon for the win! It's at least a nice, believable development for Bullock...
Which isn't really what I could say about Riddler. Yes, he's made his first kill and we should get his descent into madness and villainy. Arguing with a psychotic voice in his head that manifests as a mirror, though? Again, like the other main actors, Riddler's actor gives a really strong performance... it just doesn't suit Riddler. Riddler is like this dude with super obsessive-compulsive disorder, not someone with a split personality. Those are two wholly different conditions akin to saying a gangrenous feet is the same with a broken rib, and while Riddler's argument with his imaginary friend -- who urges him to rape Ms Kringle in yet another display that's sure to offend feminists -- is hilarious to watch, it's also, y'know, a weird scene in general.
I've been talking about downsized characters all throughout the review, and while Gordon and Penguin do get a fairly significant amount of screentime as befitting the two leads of last season... the one that receives as much screentime is Barbara Kean, who makes her appearance strutting in yet another fanservice-y outfit... while she's being put into Arkham Asylum. What in the actual hell. She then proceeds to be the most hilarious parody of a bitchy character ever, and, well, that's a way to make use of a character that's reviled by the audience, I guess. She, uh, kind of randomly flirts with several people in the Asylum, and while it's not shown selling her body to Black Mask is implied to have happened simply for Barbara to go all yandere and go "Gordon it's her fault not mine" and "LESLIE I KEEEEELL YOU" and it's really just so badly written that it truly is hilarious to watch. Yeah, the writers clearly have no idea what to do with her. And it's a riot.
Also I know Arkham Asylum is a crapshit prison asylum thing, but yeah, good job, prison managers, for putting your young female prisoners in a body-fitting prison suit around with all your crazy, burly male prisoners. I mean, it's a good thing Barbara is ready to become Black Mask's bitch, otherwise she's rape fodder, isn't she? Yeah, from the Riddler-rape thing from earlier in this episode to the implied BDSM brainwashing with the Ogre and Barbara and whatnot, I'm not quite sure what the writers of this show are smoking.
And then we have the utterly ridiculous Zaardon the Soul Reaper, who would be embarrassing to watch even in the Adam West Batman TV, let alone this grimdark version of Batman. And apparently Zaardon the Soul Reaper with his ridiculous hammy scenery-chewing performance is part of some convoluted plot to sneak him into Arkham Asylum so he can burp out blue gas so he can knock out a bunch of people who happens to be the people his employer needs so that he can be a distraction for Tigress to break said people out.
Yeah, and I thought Arrow's Ra's Al Ghul had a stupid-convoluted plan. This is worse.
Way to make me have confidence in you, Theo Galavan, you brand-new character who I don't care about. He's just a generic evil businessman with some master plan to... uh... make the Suicide Squad? Or some bullshit like that? He and his sister, Tabitha -- who's apparently a brand-new incarnation of minor supervillain Tigress -- kidnap Barbara and her Arkham buddies. Barbara and Jerome (a.k.a. Proto-Joker) are down with it, but Richard Sionis (Black Mask Senior) is so keen on banging Barbara that it's all he's focused on. So Tigress stabs him to death for his troubles.
Yep, bring back two characters we've only seen once! Well, at least Jerome the Proto-Joker seems to be shaping up to be a major character, and, well, Gotham does do its psychopaths justice. Barbara's somehow delved from a disturbed girl with psychopathic tendencies into a master people-manipulator with shades of seductress in-between seasons, which does not particularly make sense. At all. Richard Sionis gets taken out like a bitch, but then I realized I don't care about this particular incarnation of Black Mask, so yeah, why the hell not?
This is a wreck of a train ride, isn't it? It's definitely fucking entertaining, though, in a morbid way. I know this thing's going to crash and burn, but while it's bad... at the same time it's so bad that it loops all the way back to be good and I guess I can find some enjoyment in just laughing at the insane writing choices they pick here. All the weirdness in trying to be both absurd and grimdark, all the meandering around with some plots and truncated feel of others, all the scenery-chewing, all the random allusions to rape... it's just so awful it's hilarious.
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