Gotham, Season 1, Episode 3: The Balloon Man
Well, that was a lot better than the first two episodes! It's the first Gotham episode which I would say that's actually good, or at least up to my standard for an average, not-particularly-good, not-particularly-bad episode. It certainly was entertaining, for one.
This episode stars the Balloon Man, who, to my knowledge, isn't an existing Batman villain. Five minutes of looking it up in the interwebs, I can only find a reference to a giant balloon robot enemy of the Metal Men, so yeah, the Balloon Man is presumably a brand-new character in the Gotham series. And, wow, they really went for a strange direction with this villain, didn't they? A freaking psychopath who kills people by handcuffing them to weather balloons and letting them float up, screaming, still alive, and either die because of the extreme cold or from the fall all the way up from the stratosphere. That's not a nice way to die, and I really feel sorry for the jerkholes as they scream and sob while the balloon slowly lifts them up to their eventual deaths.
And at the same time it's freaking hilarious, because, come on, you freaking kill people with balloons. How can that not be anything but hilarious?
I think the dude's called David Lemont or something, and he's basically sick of the corrupt everythingness of Gotham City, which is fair since practically everyone in Gotham that's not Gordon, Allen, Montoya, Alfred or Bruce are technically criminals of varying degrees. And it ties in actually quite well with last episode's sending-orphans-to-upstate, which kind of ties in well with how Gordon's interactions with Selina early in this episode kind of pays off when they track down the Balloon Man.
Also, I do like how the Balloon Man is targeting a bunch of influential corrupt people at random and not just working on some big overreaching vendetta like most villains in these kind of crime stories do, which I thought was a nice little variation from formula.
Man, a villain themed on balloons. I never thought I'd see the day that something so ridiculous would be featured on an actual live-action show. Granted it's not exactly the best thing to do this early on when it's trying to gain all the viewers in can get, but you know what? It sold me that Gotham isn't afraid to tackle the more ridiculous aspects of the franchise, unlike a certain overhyped and so-quote-unquote-realistic film series that adapts Batman. But that's a rant for another time.
The episode is basically your average 'track down whoever the villain is' which is all fine. We've got the Balloon Man successfully killing three of his four targets -- some Ponzi scheme dude, this bitch-ass cop Bill Cranston who gets a short scene early on brutalizing a poor sap, and a pedophile priest. How Gordon and Bullock just get to reach the Balloon Man is pretty okay, moves from one setting to the next without lingering too much and making it boring. I don't think whatever the explanation for that yellow strip was clear, or if I just missed that entirely.
Throughout the episode Gordon's conflicted about the whole state of Gotham. Throughout the entire series it's been hammered, perhaps a little too anviliciously, that the city of Gotham's administration is filled with corrupt assholes from the bottom to the top. We've got arguments between Bullock and Gordon, both on differing sides of the black-gray-white scale of goodness. And I do like that! It makes me think a bit. There's the whole 'he deserved to die, the fucking bastard' logic with the first victim which Bullock says. And I think I agree with Bullock; Ponzi scheme people are pretty scummy bastards. And Bullock does affirm that there's a bunch of people who even committed suicide thanks to the Ponzi Dude, and as the show establishes, he's about to pay off everyone involved in his trial and get away relatively scot-free.
And I thought that was a nice way to get members of the audience to agree to the 'kill them if they're evil' logic that Bullock and the Balloon Man employs, and kind of illustrates the need for someone who refuses to budge in their morality like Gordon and Bruce Wayne. I thought it was neat about the theme concerning how criminals need to be punished, not murdered. And I do like the disgust that Gordon exudes when the police department starts to go all-hands-on-deck when it's not a corrupt businessman that gets killed but this superviolent douchebag of a cop.
Barbara also actually serves as a nice little thing to bounce dialogues back so Gordon gets to think a bit, and I do like how Barbara goes all 'Gordon you're a hero, do you know what catching the Wayne Killer means?' while Gordon knows he caught and killed the wrong guy. It's a nice little touch there. We've got the whole 'everyone must matter, or nobody matters' logic that Gordon's working, which is naive but definitely fits Gordon (and Bruce). It's a shame that the philosophical debate is wholly interrupted by the Balloon Man just flipping out in the end and trying to kill Gordon and Bullock anyway.
Also I do like how neither Essen (who gets more screentime even if she does nothing) nor Bullock really denies just how dirty the police department is.
Bullock is still fun. He's got some of the best lines, and considering that I agree with him regarding the whole 'they're bastards who can cheat the system, they deserve to die' logic... he's still funny. There's the fun little montage of Bullock looking for information from hookers, from beating up random people in the street, and just approaching Gordon with a shrug, and the short montage ends with Bullock eating a hot dog. It's long enough to be funny, but not too long so as to drag on forever.
There's also this scene where they're arresting this one dude where Bullock gets beaten up by a woman while trying his darnedest to just get her to stand down, and finally having to ask Gordon for help, which I thought was fun! It's the pacing that's been my main problem with Gotham for the first two episodes, and so far they're doing well with fixing it.
Gordon also gets some nice characterization throughout the episode. It's nothing new, being the only cop that's clean in the city doesn't really lend to much chances, but I thought this episode does it pretty well. I do think that the final scene with Gordon trying to free the Balloon Man as Bullock sends him up into the sky 'hoisted by his own petard' and yelling at Bullock to shoot the balloon? I thought that was a pretty powerful scene that shows just how much better Gordon is than people like Bullock or the Balloon Man.
We get a short scene with Selina in the first half of the episode, which I still thought should've happened in the previous episode and give it a little bit more meat. It's no fault of the actors playing Selina or Gordon, because I do like both of them, but I thought the scene ran on for a bit too long. Basically Selina demonstrates a bunch of her pre-Catwoman abilities like apparently being able to see in the dark, being a bit of a kleptomaniac and being able to break out of handcuffs. Selina tells Gordon some information about the Wayne murders which doesn't really go anywhere but just a build-up, and Gordon is at least not naive enough to trust Selina that much. It's a bit of a distraction to pad out the time, which at least makes the main plot move faster so there's that.
We get a fair bit more Alfred and Bruce, and at first I thought Alfred was actually training Bruce in the art of fencing, but no, it's just them having a good old time. I do like how Alfred's finally not being a constantly-angry old man anymore, and there are scenes where Alfred's shown to really care for Bruce. We see a bit of Bruce's rage problems where he just snaps and lashes out at Alfred, which could just be him letting out the rage from his parent's murder or something. We've also got Bruce apparently attempting to investigate the murders of his parents himself, and I thought the line with 'I'll have nightmares anyway' when Alfred tries to dissuade him from doing so is a powerful one. We've got some moments with Bruce refusing to eat and finally deciding to do so at the end, which I thought is a nice callback to how Alfred and Bruce is often shown to interact in TAS, whether intentional or not.
We get a few nice nods to Bruce's future role as Batman, with Alfred calling him 'Detective' at one point which is nice... it's been so long since Batman's been called Detective. Bruce is shown to have as good a heart as Gordon, going all 'he killed people, that made him a criminal too'. Well done, Bruce, that's why you're Batman and not me. We get a nice lingering teasing shot at Bruce's face when the news reporter goes 'who will defend the people of Gotham?' And I thought it's nice how there's a vigilante that goes too far as a comparison for who Bruce Wayne will eventually become.
We just need, you know, a god damned Batman TV show because it's never going to amount to much since Bruce's never going to be Batman based on this show's premise.
Again, I'm still not sure what Bruce and Alfred have to contribute to the show, but for now they don't bother me. They just feel out of place compared to the other secondary characters like Barbara, Oswald and Selina who at least still somewhat have relevance to the main Falcone-Maroni gang war plot at the moment.
Fish gets a couple of scenes, of course. She tells Montoya and Allen, who's investigating Cobblepot's disappearance, that she 'heard' Gordon was hired by Don Falcone to kill Cobblepot. And she burns any sort of sympathy the audience may have onto her by basically playing the cops against each other, and telling his men to get rid of Lazlo (who's just worried for her, poor sucker) and arranges an 'accident' for Falcone's girl Nadia or Natalia or whoever she's called. Man, Fish is a bitch.
Falcone, of course suspects Fish, but can't really prove much. We see a small confrontation between Falcone and Fish and it's definitely tense even if they're both civil. Don't think there's much to talk about on this end.
Oswald! Oswald is still a riot, and he finally returns to Gotham. He's clearly got some screws knocked loose in his head, rambling about how he sees what's coming, how he's Gotham's future, and the actor certainly does an excellent job at portraying this sniveling, fast-talking little wretch who can easily snap and turn into a psychopath in the next minute. It's a nice take on the Penguin character which I heartily agree with. I do like the scene where he just looks at all the bribing and the pickpocketing and the whores and whatnot and feels home. I do like the scene where he seems to just be begging to be spared when one of Fish's goons sees him, before suddenly just slicing and murdering the dude. And then promptly uses the dead guy's money to buy a tuna sandwich.
What is it with Penguin eating sandwiches right after killing people? He did the same thing in episode one, in a hilarious manner how the scare chord builds up as he's buying/eating food. I thought it's funny.
And we get some rather filler-y scenes of Oswald trying to get to work at an Italian restaurant and I thought it was a bit too much and was wondering where it's about to go, and the the twist that he's working at Don Maroni's restaurant! Maroni finally makes his debut, and it's certainly not something I saw coming. It's a nice twist, and a nice way to reintegrate Oswald into the plot again. We get Maroni being a nice big hammy dude who bribes 'Paulo' with some money to keep quiet.
Maroni, obviously, is going to go head-on-head with Falcone, and there's apparently some big change involving Arkham Asylum. It's been hinted since last episode, and I think either Fish or Falcone or both mentions it as well. Quite curious. And at the end of the episode, Oswald shows up at Gordon's doorstep! That was fun and unexpected too. Oswald's easily my favourite character among the cast.
Barbara gets a bunch more scenes in this one compared to the last. We've got her going all 'you can tell me everything' to Gordon, which is mind-numbingly annoying and stupid considering just what she did last episode when Gordon off-handedly tells her something. What a bitch. Again, she's actually useful to bounce off dialogue from Gordon and give Gordon some nice moments, but Barbara herself is pretty shitty. Oh, and she snorts coke and apparently had a bit of a quasi-abusive relationship with Montoya, and thankfully they broke up.
Her main point of interaction is with Montoya. Montoya and Allen are investigating Cobblepot's disappearance and while they don't have much proof beyond Fish's words, they confront Gordon about it anyway. And then instead of, you know, conducting an investigation or whatever about it, Renee Montoya, the Alpha Lesbian Bitch, just breaks into Barbara's house and goes all 'your boyfriend is a murderer I mean I don't really have solid proof but he is I can feel it you are better off without him' like some clingy jealous stalker ex. And I don't really have a problem with homosexual characters, but Gotham's Montoya is just a massive bitch. It's one thing if she actually is working to find the truth like how Gordon is portrayed, she's just being a bitch and only using the information to get Barbara and Gordon to break up. I mean, she breaks into Barbara's house uninvited -- she could just wait outside the door like a normal person. She could've waited until Barbara freaking got out of her bathrobe. But no. What a bitch. Man, no wonder Barbara broke up with you.
And this was what I was worried about in season one: Barbara and Montoya being ex-lovers seem to just be a cheap way to ramp up the drama needlessly. And I personally hated how they fucked Montoya up in this show -- back in TAS Montoya is just... this cop. This nice, upstanding cop that just happens to be both a minority and a lesbian. It's not stated outright, it's not made a big deal of, it's not a big hissy fit drama like this, and she's a wholly likable, if slightly flat, character. Gotham's Montoya, on the other hand? She's just this big angry alpha bitch and it's just annoying.
Other than Montoya and Barbara, though, the show's starting to gain traction. Looking forward for more, actually.
No comments:
Post a Comment