Gotham S03E06 Review: Choices, Choices

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 6: Follow the White Rabbit

Random Gotham review! I just, well, decided to watch one episode. What? Variety is the spice of life.

It's a pretty good episode, too. The premise of the episode is pretty simple, but it's the presentation and tying up the plot threads running through this half of season three that makes it such a treat to watch. The fact that Mad Hatter might easily be the most compelling and sinister of Gotham's villains short of show regulars Penguin and Riddler (more on them later) is a huge bonus, as well. Mad Hatter is just so... creepy. Being forced to show that the good guys are better than the bad guys has been a theme in Batman stories ever since Killing Joke. The whole 'one bad day is the only thing separating the good guys from the bad' theme, the fact that when it comes down to it, the good guys can easily succumb to evil, has been a constant thing that the more psychotic villains like the Joker have been trying to force our heroes to fall down to, and it's a bar that they struggle to clear.

This time around, Mad Hatter goes around hypnotizing random people, like sending a kid to stand in front of a truck and a pair of newlyweds (as an extra gut-punch, we get to see them happy and exiting the church before the Hatter kidnaps them) to jump off a building, forcing Gordon to choose one. Several more people die in Hatter's sick game of cat-and-mouse throughout the city, with a vibe that seems to invoke Mr. Zsasz and the Riddler's creepy city-spanning side-quests from the Arkham games. Gordon is fucked if he chooses -- someone else dies, but if he doesn't choose, Hatter chooses for him and kills both hostages.

This, of course, gets translated to Gordon's own personal love life, and both Lee and Vale get kidnapped by Hatter at the climax of the episode. The show has been trying to show that, yeah, Gordon has moved on, Lee is happy with her new fiance (who gets a brief role in trying to get the jump on Mad Hatter, but gets locked up for his troubles)... but Hatter kidnaps both of them, and Gordon tries his best to talk Hatter down and play mind-games with him. It's a tense, tense moment because you genuinely don't know which of the two will get shot.

Gordon eventually tells Hatter to 'shoot Lee', causing Mad Hatter to shoot... Vale. Now obviously Gordon wouldn't want either of the women to get shot, but is Gordon really choosing Vale over Lee? Or is he pre-emptively choosing Lee, knowing that Hatter will shoot the woman he loves? And what guarantee is there that Hatter will shoot Vale in the gut instead of, oh, in the head? There's a bit of an oddity to that whole scene, though it is tense enough to grab my attention. I really loved how Hatter's sick game of choice ends up being seen to the end, with none of Gordon's plans (how stupid is it not to arm Mario with one of his guns?) from Mario's ambush to getting Hatter to shoot him to just mind-games with the truth about Alice all not working, and no one -- not Bullock, not Barnes, not Alfred, not Falcone, not Penguin -- shows up as the cavalry. That was dark and awesome.

Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Penguin is in love with Riddler and can't spit it out, which is hilarious. Anything regarding the Penguin is hilarious,  and it actually feels like an organic development from last episode. The adaptational sexuality change for Penguin doesn't even really feel out of place, honestly, Penguin is such a emotionally-strained individual that him having a chance at happiness makes me go 'aww'. The thing is... we know Riddler likes girls, so are Oswald's feelings even reciprocated? Or does Riddler only view Oswald in the platonic, respectful sense? It's all complicated, of course, in Riddler apparently standing Oswald up on their night dinner date because a random lady who looks like Kringle shows up with a riddle. It's a hilarious, fun and completely madcap side-plot.

Meanwhile, Barnes isn't quite turning into Mr. Hyde yet, and is still mostly in control, but the Alice blood is causing him to gain super-strength when he's angry, and apparently his crippling injury at the hands of Azrael last season has been healed by it. Nothing much beyond that. 

Overall the whole dark choice bit that Gordon was forced to do is easily the highlight of the show, and it's a surprisingly well-done episode thanks to that.