Gotham S1E10 Review: I'm the Butler

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 10: Lovecraft

So I totally missed this episode back when I was binge-watching Gotham... better late than never, eh? Alas, this episode doesn't show Gordon and Bullock facing off against Cthulhu and the Elder Gods, but it does show Alfred Pennyworth being the most hardcore badass in the entire series, which is kind of a fair tradeoff.

The main villain for this episode is another comic-book originated villain... or rather, a villain based on a video game's race-flipped, gender-flipped, power-swapped version of a comic book villain. Namely, a villain based on Arkham City's female Copperhead, which, beyond the name and snake theme, has really nothing in common with the colourful white snakeman in a orange-and-green costume from the comics.

This Copperhead isn't explicitly named per se, but she is a black woman who works as a hired assassin and her fighting style is basically based on contortionist-based martial arts. And there are some shots laid over with sound effects resembling snake hisses, so yeah. Copperhead isn't particularly engaging, but she's interesting enough to hold the episode. She's this super-professional hired killer who isn't afraid to bring in backup, or go for little girls, but she doesn't want to kill Bruce (and, as it seems, Gordon when she knocked him out), simply because they are not on her contract. The poor gardener working for Bruce Wayne is apparently fair game, though, because not only was he killed, he got cut up only for Copperhead to fake being injured.

She's threatening enough, though, and more importantly we don't find out who hired Copperhead. It could be either the Falcone or Maroni families, or whatever mysterious organization that that Wayne Enterprise's worker Molly Mathis is working with. The League of Assassins? Or something new? Or maybe it's just the Falcone/Maroni conflict and I'm thinking too much.

Anyways, Copperhead's cool, but she was massively overshadowed by the awesomeness of one Alfred Pennyworth. And he would like you to know that he isn't a valet -- he's a butler. I was a bit iffy about Alfred, but this episode makes him just so freaking awesome. You have been redeemed in my book, Alfred. He's just so freaking determined to find Bruce that he just isn't afraid to do anything. And it's a heartwarming moment in the end when he finally does meet Bruce. But the journey there with Bullock? The two are assholes of varying degrees, and it is a riot to watch them work together so seamlessly. Alfred starts off wrestling three-on-one with professional assassins, then using a goddamned cane to beat the crap out of one of them. He also manages to shrug off a shot to the shoulder enough to land a killing shot against one of the assassins, and tells the cop nursing his wound later on to fuck off. He gets to call Gordon out on his stupidity of putting Selina and Bruce at risk, and basically goes on a rampage with Bullock. He bribes street kids easily, and that moment with Fish's lackey Butch where he just calmly starts off what sounds like an anecdote, before shoving a shiv to his throat. And then he wins over information from Fish with some sweet talk.

And Alfred is just a butler.

He is awesome.

The main focus of the episode isn't Lovecraft as the title implies, and indeed the man in question only appears for like five minutes and alludes to some big conspiracy before Copperhead kills him. Instead, the episode focuses mostly on Bruce and Selina on the run. Bruce initially is such a massive dick to Selina, who indeed was just trying to make conversation and he's all like 'you have an ulterior motive, and you are not a nice person'. Man, Bruce, what an antisocial dick. But despite being two annoying kids and me just anticipating for more Alfred and more of the mafia wars stuff, I do have to admit that the two child actors were phenomenal, giving a pretty awesome performance. And I do like how this is a bit of a wake-up call to Bruce, how he goes from just trying to balance himself on the stairs to actually be in a life-and-death situation.

He's like super worried about Alfred, he's having his stupid naivete and detective work all broken down by both the more cynical Selina and the world in general... and Selina herself is pretty fun, with her sass and her 'hard love' and just generally winding Bruce up. She's basically kind of broken inside and trying to compensate for that by acting tough and kind of screwing around with Bruce, but it's kind of subtly implied that all her insults about 'orphan' and her asking Bruce just what Alfred is shows that she's envious of Bruce having a family. There's also some scenes of realism versus optimism between Selina and Bruce, which while not quite perfect was explored quite a bit. Also liked Bruce's sudden reaction to Selina attempting to hawk off the Waynes' treasures (including Thomas Wayne's watch that Bruce used to bash Hush's face in a while back) and being absolutely fucking indignant not because Selina was trying to sell them, but because the prices they were talking about are too low.

The jump scene was a bit too long for my tastes, and at least it isn't a super-extended scene. The second half of the episode does feel a little too padded out with 'tense' scenes stretched out more than they should. Eventually Selina does leave Bruce behind with Copperhead, but to her credit she does wait until the cops have definitely arrived and Copperhead has done her 'I don't like killing people outside my contract' spiel. And Selina does come back to say good bye, return stuff to keep things honest between them and give Bruce a kiss. That was nice.

It's... the most relevant to the episode the two have been, and while I'm not quite a big fan of having the two of them getting so much screen time, it's at least not annoying enough. I do like the atmosphere of the Flea, this underground scene that looks pretty atmospheric.

The climax of the episode happens when Selina visits her fence, Clyde, which is kind of an idiot ball on her part despite being genre savvy enough for the rest of the episode. Basically everyone from Fish to Copperhead to Bullock to Alfred have connected the dots, and of course Clyde sells them out. And of course Clyde leaves them alone in a room instead of posting a guard or two to keep watch after them. Clyde is scum. He looks like a creepy ass douchebag. It's a good thing he gets arrested.

Also, Selina keeps some weird metal box with some markings as a souvenir from Wayne Manor. I'm not sure if this is going to be significant later on or not, but I'm betting it is.

Also, Poison Ivy makes a surprise appearance! And she plays up the creepy angle so much, that even Selina, the sassy girl who mouths off at everyone from cops to the mafia, is visibly terrified of her. Her mother's apparently committed suicide and she ran away from adoption. And I do like how she's not a full-out psychopath. She has some semblance of sanity, how she knows the people adopting her are 'nice folks' and how she can make an argument to not be angry at Bruce Wayne, but there is something definitely off about her and that 'crazy-but-not-quite' really is unnerving.

Gordon himself doesn't do much this episode, other than the short interrogation of Lovecraft and uncovering some huge-ass conspiracy for the city. Being present at Lovecraft's death and kind of helping Dent out in bringing down the 'foundation of the city' or whatever causes the asshole Mayor, who's definitely spooked, to come down hard on him and ship him off to Arkham Asylum as a guard, which I guess is going to be part of the second season's plot -- Arkham Asylum and the huge mystery conspiracy.

Bullock gets more screen time, with some fun dialogue back-and-forth with Alfred although not quite enough. He gets in Gordon's face for hiding the whole Wayne murder case from him, which was hilariously shot down by Alfred. Bullock doesn't do much, but I do like how at the end he is attached enough to Gordon to miss him when he's gone.

Harvey Dent, for all the build-up we got, doesn't get to do much either, other than being relatively incompetent enough to leak out Gordon's name to let whoever is behind Copperhead to put two and two together. And Dent is visibly more concerned about bringing down Lovecraft compared to, y'know, assassins going after the children or the information leak or whatever, going all 'this is a technical win!' and all that. Yeah, Dent isn't exactly the nice two-shoes that he usually is pre-Two-Face. He's a bit of a tool, really.

Nigma's awkward goodbye to Gordon is handled quite well, I thought. That was heartwarming in that 'I have no social skills' way.

The rest of the episode revolves around Don Falcone, and the plot cuts back and forth between the whole Bruce/Selina situation and Don Falcone attempting to figure out just what the fuck has been going on from last episode, and his little tantrum has caused both Penguin and Fish to move their own agendas up. First up we see Falcone arranging a not-so-peaceful meeting with the Penguin, and Falcone blames Maroni for the whole money thing from last episode, and he's pissed over the fact that he thinks Penguin had betrayed him by not telling him about the money rob.

But Penguin, of course, knows nothing about this being from Maroni, though Falcone is kind of distrustful enough (rightfully) to blame Penguin possibly being a Starscream. And he also dismisses the Penguin's personal vendetta against Fish without adequate proof. Penguin sees Liza and then suggests to Falcone that there might be a mole, as well as noting that Maroni has the subtlety of a brick so it can't be him. Falcone sets Penguin off to do his dirty work, and Penguin's driver, a dude named Gabriel, asks Penguin why he doesn't tell the truth... and the Penguin, apparently, has plans. Liza is apparently a time bomb that Penguin wants to set off at the right time. I'm highly interested in just what Penguin is planning.

Falcone, meanwhile, kills one of the members of his family, Bannion, for failing to guard the armoury. Kind of reasserting his authority and possibly trying to get Fish to give herself away. I do like the atmospheric image of Bannion with his face slumped in pasta, though. Fish, meanwhile, does indeed start trying to gather her resources. Falcone's increased demands for pay or whatever has caused several family captains to fall under Fish's influence, and it's kind of a smart move on her part, capitalizing on Falcone's rather rash decision.

Fish also knows all about the Lovecraft case and the Wayne witnesses, showing some awesomeness on her part to gather information, which is nice. Fish is getting kind of more and more competent recently, and while I am still not a fan of her she does make for an exciting antagonist. She also apparently has enough of a tender side to get caught under Alfred's sweet talk and appealing to her honour to give him the information he needs. Or it could simply be Alfred's aura of freaking awesomeness.

Overall it's a pretty decent episode. It's not quite as strong as several earlier ones, but it's definitely a stark improvement from the earliest episodes of the series. I'm having relatively high hopes that Gotham could go from a slightly-below-average show to something far better.