Gotham S03E12 Review: Who You Gon' Call?

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 12: Ghosts

I'm not quite sure why this episode didn't quite work, but it didn't. It took me three separate attempts to actually finish this episode, and it honestly isn't even super-bad. I dunno. It's just kind of bland, where it tries to change up the status quo in various ways, but it didn't quite hit the right spot with any of them, mostly because of how inconsistent it is. It meanders around and tries to deliver a bunch of huge plot twists, but none really are things that end up having an impact. 

Bruce, Selina and Alfred meeting Selina's mother Maria ended up delivering absolutely nothing beyond a bit of a 'aw they hugged' moment which means not much considering I've watched an episode starring her but I don't know anything at all about Maria Kyle, and thus why should I care about her, or the random angry dude that she accidentally caused to hunt Bruce? For all the buildup she's gotten, all she has here is 'deadbeat mom, ran away, came back.' I don't care about her at all.

It's actually a bit of a genius for Riddler (and Barbara, Butch etc, but mostly Riddler) to employ Clayface, who we haven't seen since season two, to push all the right buttons with Penguin in fuck him up... which is kind of ruined by how utterly silly the whole 'Penguin is haunted' storyline really is before the big reveal that it's Riddler and Clayface messing with his head. Considering how Gotham has shoved utterly bizarre plotlines before to side characters (the Dollmaker, Penguin's family, Barbara's weird lesbian affair) it's honestly not too much of a stretch to believe that the show would suddenly go for a random ghost story, especially with the ghost showing up every time the corpse is desecrated... again, the reveal that it's Clayface is actually somewhat genius, but that doesn't really make all the previous scenes any less blah. 

Zsasz is easily the MVP of the episode, being consistently entertaining and very clinical in his approach to murder, with his scene telling Jim that he doesn't want to kill him but it's his job, and his very cheery "Kay going home now" when Falcone shows up to call off the hit. He's literally the only entertaining thing from the Jim storyline, because everything about it kind of ruins the relatively good cliffhanger from last episode. Sure, there's the token discovery of a cult trying to resurrect Jerome, but nothing really came out of that other than setting this up.

The thing is, everyone involved in Jim's life does a huge 180 and it's absolutely annoying. Lee goes from, well, Lee to a very angry widow quite literally demanding for Gordon's death, then after a brief conversation with crazy Barnes he goes back to Lee and is all "noooo call off the hit." Falcone, too, goes from tranquil fury mafia godfather to fatherly anti-villain in the last act... for no good reason. The change and the impact from Mario's death really wasn't felt at all, considering how wildly the characters are jerked from one characterization to the next, and Jim's just being boringly brooding and Harvey's just along to make it somewhat entertaining by being smarmy about it.

So yeah, pretty much a disappointment in all aspects. Zsasz's cool though, even if he probably needs to get some new contact lenses considering how much of a crap shooter he is for being a self-professed super-killer.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Jerome-worshipping group is more of a cult here than a gang, but they seem to be inspired by the Jokerz from Batman Beyond, who rally around the dead Joker as a symbol and commit heinous acts in his name.