Gotham, Season 1, Episode 11: Rogues' Gallery
There are many things in this episode that I can easily divide into the good and the bad. Rarely have I been so divisive with an episode before, where I really like the inclusion of some things, and just don't give a fuck about everything else.I dunno. I've been cranky lately.
Anyway, the biggest thing for me here is the introduction of longtime Batman supporting character, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, which is actually a pretty sensible choice to include in Gotham which I never really thought of before. She's pretty likable, even if her personality is the generic 'likable person in a sea of assholes'. Granted, her personality never really grew beyond that in the comics I've read, but I don't mind having Leslie around. She's got a fair amount of scenes, but I don't think there are anything particularly noteworthy. I could rant about how she should be the age of Alfred instead of looking as young as Gordon, but honestly that doesn't bother me too much.
Jack Gruber, the only smart and sane inmate in Arkham Asylum, of course, escapes to survive another day. I do like Jack Gruber, who, as the internet informs me, is meant to be a new incarnation of the Electrocutioner. He's an extremely minor Batman villain who shows up to die in Arkham City. Gruber is definitely a different Electrocutioner from the one in Arkham City (who's named Lester Budchinsky or something like that), and goes around with a pair of gigantic electric gauntlets and shocking people around. This Electrocutioner is a soft-spoken dapper psychopath who goes around doing electroshock experiments on Arkham inmates to bend them to his will. It's a rather interesting villain and one that I think has almost as much staying power as Zsasz or Penguin does.
Of course, the other theory is that he's possibly going to become the Joker in the future because his name is Jack and he's crazy and being built up as a villain. Yeah no.
The third comic-book character in this episode is one that I am extremely happy to realize without having to look up, which is another minor Batman villain, Amygdala. Known only by his first name Aaron in the episode, Amygdala here is shown in a relatively faithful depiction as a really mentally ill man who is unable to tell lies or have a proper moral compass, so he follows the orders of anyone who seems smart... which happens to be Gruber, here.
I'm also a rather big fan of the scene where Bullock just storms in all swaggering to help out his buddy, arresting that asshole head warden or whatever and generally being so happy to help Gordon out. Bullock is fun.
That's about all the really good things I like about this episode, though. It's an atmospheric one, setting up the Arkham Asylum and what seems to be a recurring villain, but at the same time it's so padded out. The whole cop show routine of Gordon trying to figure out what's going on, who's the killer and interviewing the crazy inmates and failing, and the supervisor being a gigantic obstructive douchebag... It's just really boring and it just drags on and on and I am entirely bored in any scene that doesn't have Bullock or Gruber in it. Did we really need that extended sequence of them doing that stupid play in the beginning?
Props to portraying the insane inmates as actually insane instead of just angry prisoners, though.
And we cut off to a lot of other scenes, because so much is going on yet nothing of significance is really happening. We have a little B-plot where the Penguin fucks up and spends the episode in jail, we've got Fish slowly inching her plot for domination forwards, we've got Fish's second-in-command Butch wrestling with his loyalty to a close friend or to Fish, we've got Selina helping out Poison Ivy, we've got the grand return of Barbara who proves to nestle straight back into "alpha bitch" territory, plus the stupid romance with Renee...
There's just too much going on, but nothing really does happen beyond the introductions and the setup. The main Gordon/Arkham plot is basically just a glorified filler episode that really is padded out, with some cryptic hints to whoever is really running the city and has a lot of agendas, of course. And a lot of the people introduced in this episode on the Arkham side ended up being red herrings. The black supervisor jerkass dude who 'knows stuff' ends up getting killed by Gruber at the end of the episode, and the not-Leslie nurse who at first seemed to be the villain-of-the-episode gets trampled right after the big reveal. (There really was no tension to that reveal, though, since Leslie is a lot more obviously a good guy even without prior comic knowledge.)
Also, how in the flying fuck can an inmate pose as a nurse without anyone realizing it? Even the boss, as much as a jerk he is in trying to get Gordon fired, would have thought that the moment someone gets lobotomized the first suspect would be her. It took a long while of Bullock grilling him that he finally relents. Jeez.
Though I guess this is Arkham Asylum.
Anyway, the other characters... Penguin started off well, with the whole 'I'm the Penguin', seemingly having embraced his identity... and then spends the entire episode waffling and generally being submissive and having fucked up, getting torn apart verbally by Bullock and later by Maroni, which is kind of jarring considering just how entertaining and how much of a 'I have a plan' he has been these past few episodes. And I just don't see the point of everything, beyond driving a rift between Penguin and Maroni, which really could've been done far more elegantly. It really begs to question if this is going to mean something down the line, or if it's just showing Penguin for the sake of showing Penguin... in which case it's the first time in the series that it falls really flat on its face.
The Fish/Butch angle was kind of obvious. I mean, it's done kind of well and Butch does get some personality, which I like. Butch has to choose between his close friend Whatshisface and his loyalty to Fish... except if, y'know, it isn't so blindingly obvious what Butch's answer is going to be. Felt kind of dragged out, but nowhere as much as all the other B-plots in this episode.
I did like how Selina is nice enough to help out the dying Poison Ivy despite Selina being scared shitless of Ivy last episode... but knowing Ivy's backstory, Selina really should've known better than to bring her to Gordon's apartment to recover. Ivy's really playing the creepy child card really well, and I guess she's going to have a personal vendetta against Gordon somehow despite being a scrawny little girl? She seems to have discovered the identity of the house's owner anyway. Also we totally needed that ten seconds of the camera panning on a shot of Selina perching on the balcony. Because that's totally necessary.
Ivy is, apparently, a vegan when she was a child. I find this darkly hilarious.
And, of course, there is Barbara, who really needs some goddamned therapy. Firstly she's a gigantic bitch to Renee simply for her trying to look out for her best interests. Secondly, she's a gigantic bitch who refuses to address all her problems like a mature woman. Thirdly, she apparently cannot tell a ten-year-old girl's voice from what I assume to be her thinking that it's Gordon's new girlfriend. (Also, damn hypocrite if she gets pissed if Gordon moved on when she left him to sleep with Renee in the same night). Fourthly? She's a gigantic bitch.
Technically it's a pretty serviceable episode, sufficiently engaging enough, but it's so padded out and the general premise is kind of boring at times and that kind of eclipses all the good vibes I would've otherwise gotten. I get the same feel that I did from the Agent Carter pilot where beyond a couple specific points, I just can't bring myself to care about much that's going on.
Or maybe I'm just sleepy. Eh.
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