Gotham S04E18 Review: Why So Serious?

Gotham, Season 4, Episode 18: That's Entertainment

Oh man, I really like this episode. Again, I'm probably super-lenient on Gotham because it has the fucking Joker in it, and Cameron Monaghan really embodies the character in a way that few other on-screen actors have been able to do. And it's a pretty fun episode, too!

Ultimately, though, the episode's main plot feels a bit too small-scale for the whole "holy shit, we gathered all the supervillains in the city!" buildup we had last episode. We did get a lot of cool scenes like Mad Hatter, Scarecrow and Mr. Freeze raiding a Wayne Industries laboratory, and then hijacking a blimp, but for the most part it's just the Joker show with Firefly as his fire-shooting thug. Jerome take the mayor and other city heads hostage, takes over a music concert and demands Gordon hand over Jeremiah and Bruce Wayne over as hostages. And right after Bruce Wayne got a Not-Batmobile for his birthday, too!

It's all just to gather a crowd so that Mad Hatter's mind-controlled blimp can fly and drop the laughing gas onto the assembled group of sane people. We get a neat little storyline where Oswald has finally had enough, and tattles to Gordon... causing Scarecrow and Hatter to whack him in the head and dump him in the blimp... and then Oswald gets free and helps steer the blimp away. Okay? That felt really convenient, but Oswald has always been more of a sane crime boss, so him balking at all this maniacal madness does make sense. 

Meanwhile, while Alfred and Selina calls Bruce out for risking his life, Bruce gives this speech to both them and Jeremiah about taking responsibility and being heroic, which... okay, I'll bite. He's Future Batman, after all. Bruce actually doesn't do much in this episode beyond that, though, since we end up with Jeremiah trying to stab Jerome, and Gordon shooting Jerome in the gut. It's a lot more tense and impressive than that, with Jerome and Gordon's confrontation on the side of a building as Jerome refuses the helping hand and declares that he's going to be survived by his ideas as he falls to his death is pretty epic. I think it'd be cooler if it was Bruce and Jerome instead, since Bruce and Jerome already have a proto Batman/Joker rivalry bit going on... but eh. Still a neat scene.

Plus, while this is the Joker and death's merely a setback for Joker, it seems that Jerome is going to be succeeded by his ideas in a very literal sense as a comical gift box douses Jeremiah with some laughing gas, seemingly turning Jeremiah into a Joker as well. Again, time will tell if Jeremiah will continue as the new Joker, or if Jerome will be revived later down the line. Regardless, a neat little conclusion (if a bit too low-stakes for my liking) for the Jerome storyline, and a lot of great acting on Cameron Monaghan's part. 

If nothing else, Jerome's army of Arkham breakouts are still out there, yeah? They can maybe do something. 

The bit that doesn't really work for me is the Barbara storyline. She ends up getting super drunk with power and destiny, tosses Tabitha out, and sort of believes that she's the reincarnation of some old flame of Ra's thanks to a painting that is supposed to look like her (and I agree with Tabby, no it doesn't). Barbara's glowing hand is still silly, the fact that her first scene in this episode opens with her using the League of Shadows to kill a bunch of random gang dealers is silly, and a bunch of other League of Shadows people recruiting Tabitha to fight Barbara and revive the original Ra's is all pretty bleh to me. I dunno. None of the League of Shadows stuff feel really that engaging, honestly. Doesn't really ruin an otherwise good episode, though, since the scenes are acted pretty well as much as I don't care for the B-plot storyline.  

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The shot of Jerome's death and his dead body is a direct allusion to the 1989 Batman movie, where Jack Nicholson's Joker died in a similar way, falling down back-first from a great height.
• The whole bit where Gordon tries to save Joker, only for Joker to choose falling to his (apparent) death, is a scene seen in multiple pieces of media, with Batman standing in for Gordon, of course. 
• Blimps being involved in Gotham City is codified by the opening of Batman: The Animated Series. 
• Jerome tells off the mayor for being "so serious", clearly a nod to Heath Ledger's Joker's famous catchphrase, "why so serious?" from The Dark Knight.
• Jeremiah's laughing-mad shot seems to be trying to copy the Joker's post-transformation pose from The Killing Joke comic. The Killing Joke is also the comic that codified the Joker's pre-transformation psyche as a very down-to-earth nice guy. 
• During the hostage situation, one of the background goons plays the 60's Adam West Batman TV series on the guitar. 
• The bulletproof, jet-black sports car is obviously a proto-Batmobile, isn't it? 
• Selina noting that Bruce's party-boy bit is 'an act', and it's always a running theme in multiple Batman stories that the rich playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne is a facade and a mask, and Batman is the real person.