Gotham S03E14 Review: Batman v Joker

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 14: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies

I don't think I've ever identified little Bruce in Gotham as proto-Batman. I mean, he's little Bruce Wayne, but he's never done any real Batman stuff, just being a snotty little kid with a strange code of honour, waltzing around with his plot armour. I guess there's that moment with Silver St. Cloud during the whole Azrael subplot, but none that really felt as Batman-y as this episode. And a good part is because of Jerome. Or the Joker. Whichever you choose. 

The confrontation between the two, which includes Jerome dragging Bruce off to a Joker-trademarked circus of horrors, before talking about how he has just unleashed the inhibitions of all the people of Gotham, giving nothing but simply doing the little push needed for family and friends to stab each other and prove his point that everyone is as crazy as he is. Jerome's just a sick, psychotic portrayal of the Joker, and I love it. We're never going to get a proper Batman versus Joker, but we can have Bruce versus Jerome, and that battle of Jerome sticking Bruce onto a carnival pillar, about to shoot him with a cannon loaded with knives and nails, with Bruce himself adorning some clown makeup, to the brutal beatdown in the house of mirrors...

And it all ends with Bruce brutally beating Jerome up in a scene that resembles one infamous one from the Dark Knight, only to show that Jerome's point -- that everyone's as terrible as he is -- is wrong, and Gotham has a hero. Even thinking that Alfred is dead (also, how awesome is Alfred taunting the Joker goons earlier in the episode?) which isn't too far an assumption considering how the scene is set up and what would happen had Alfred not been protected by seventeen layers of plot armour... Bruce Wayne still doesn't kill, showing that, yes, while he's still got a long ways to go before being Batman, he is still the boy that would become Batman one day. 

Also Jerome just tossed the ultra-important crystal owl thing apart. Whoops, there's a casualty of all the chaos that's happening -- to Bruce and the audience, that is an important piece of the Court of Owls plot that our heroes fought over for the first half of the season. Jerome? Whoops, ugly owl go smash.

I want to call special attention to Jerome's psychotic circus. Psychotic circuses is like a running theme with the Joker, but I don't think I've ever seen one as graphic as this where random citzens are put into whack-a-moles, shoot-the-target, try-to-drop-the-man-into-an-aquarium-of-piranhas sideshow stands. Plus Joker painting Bruce's face up with the blood from the guts of one of his henchmen is a very unsettling moment.

All this Jerome goodness is interrupted with the nonsensical Riddler/Penguin plot. Riddler reveals his true intentions to Penguin, sets up an Adam West acid plot, Penguin gets randomly freed by a random policeman, only to be captured by Butch and Tabitha, and then captured by Barbara, and then Penguin gets ready to die for love, and Riddler shows up and it's apparently all part of a convoluted plan to get Penguin to admit that he's incapable of love, and then Riddler shoots Penguin and drops him into a river anyway. What is the what what? The actors are talented, as usual, and it's cool to see Riddler growl every single line out at Penguin, giving the due a menace he never truly had... but I just am not feeling it. It's just so stupid, convoluted, and Isabella is such a stupid plot device that I still don't buy Riddler going this far in the first place. 

Still, mustn't complain. the Jerome stuff was way too entertaining for me to frown at the end of this episode.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• What, beyond the Batman's "I won't kill", Jerome setting up shop in a circus, a confrontation in a house of glass, the whole Batman versus Joker thing? Okay, then.
• Jerome's painting Bruce's lips with blood is similar to a controversial variant cover to the Killing Joke where he does that to Batgirl, while the original threat of Bruce someone smile with the knife is similar to his running gag in The Dark Knight.
• The motivation of Jerome wanting to show that everyone is as bad as he is in the dark is similar to his motivation in both the Killing Joke and the Dark Knight. 
• Also from the Dark Knight is Batman/Bruce beating up Jerome/Joker to a pulp while the latter laughs and later tells him to "do it, kill me" while egging him on.
• Jerome's "Bruce, darling..." seems to be a callback to a similar scene in the Dark Knight Returns, where that version of Joker has some very... foe-yay subtext with Batman.
• Piranhas as a method of murder has been used by Joker over the years, though one example that stands out is in the Batman: the Animated Series episode "Mad Love", where Joker couldn't figure out how to make killing someone with piranha fish 'funny'.
• Alfred asks one of the Joker goons if he's going to bash his head in with a crowbar -- the method that the Joker used to kill Jason Todd (a.k.a. Robin II) in the comics.
• Penguin falling into a river as his blood blossoms around him is similar to how the Penguin in Batman Returns died.