Gotham S1E9 Review: Two-Face & Bombs

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 9: Harvey Dent

There's a bit of a disappointing mish-mash of plot threads in here. Granted it's nowhere as bad as Agents of SHIELD recently, but it's still a step down compared to the previous episodes.

The main plot, unlike what the episode title might lead you to believe, does not involve Harvey Dent in any form or way, which itself is a bit of a letdown. We get a normal generic cop show cliche episode where the mentally ill mad bomber Ian Hargrove gets broken out while being transferred from Blackgate prison (though it's nice to see Blackgate prison) to a mental health facility, and ends up being used by the remnants of Nikolai's faction, working under Fish's orders, to break into Falcone's vault and steal his money. It moves on the main Fish-Falcone conflict on ever so slowly, and it really isn't all that interesting other than to see the fact that Fish is finally doing something to take down Falcone instead of just using Liza. It's all pretty generic and uninteresting because Falcone doesn't even show up and Fish doesn't even do much.

It's all a bit boring to be honest, although the idea that Hargrove is being forced to do this against his will and the constant reminders that he is sick instead of outright evil ends up establishing the change that Arkham Asylum has became a prison for the criminally insane... which really isn't that big of a deal.

There is the introduction of Harvey Dent, who's already a young DA at this point in time apparently, who wants to spread out the word that they have a witness to rattle the actual perpetrators of the Wayne murders to confess, but Dent seems to just want to bring down Dick Lovecraft. We get the obligatory toin-tossing sequence, and apparently Dent uses a double-headed coin (two faces, get it? Oh, Gotham, you're so transparent) to fool little kids to rehabilitate and stuff, and he has a side personality where he gets scary and stuff. It really just seems to be a bit of a foreshadowing to next episode, Lovecraft, and while Harvey Dent is slightly intriguing, I find that I don't particularly care.

The third major running plot, if you could call it that, is the completely random decision to let Selina Kyle (who showed up at the end of last episode) in the Wayne Manor. And we get some scenes between the two children Selina and Bruce that's at least a bit fun, with Selina commenting on just how weird Bruce's desire to hone his bodies despite the fact that he has everything is, Alfred training Bruce in boxing and teasing him about Selina, and the little food fight... we also get a little tearjerker moment where Selina tells Bruce about her mother that's alive, honest, she's just being this super-rich actress that's secretly a government secret agent and she'll be home someday. That is pretty sad and haertbreaking for such a normally strong and sure-of-herself Selina.

But other than the unexpectedly welcome strong performances by Selina and Bruce, the rest of the cast kind of just... m'eh. Bullock and Gordon don't really do anything interesting, we get more of the same Nygma moments... Even Penguin's scenes aren't enough to grab my interest this episode, which is a bit of a disappointment. He finds out that Liza is the spy for Fish, and kind of threatens her a little... but then tells her to continue spying on Falcone. The scene with Penguin took a fair amount of time for absolutely no payoff, and I'm not really sure what Penguin plans to do.

Also, the whole Barbara sideplot... I just don't really fucking care. Barbara walking out is kind of a positive thing for the show, and we see Gordon angst a bit in the beginning and the end, but that's it. Also apparently Barbara is sleeping with Montoya, to the utter and complete surprise of nobody because Barbara is, as I have said many times, a poorly-written, shallow, idiotic love interest that adds nothing to the show other than to annoy me.

Overall there are a couple strong parts, but really not enough to make this episode anything but filler. It really is just setting up what Penguin is planning to do about the knowledge regarding Liza, and the whole Harvey/Selina Wayne witness situation.