Gotham S04E01 Review: Year One

Gotham, Season 4, Episode 1: A Dark Knight: Pax Penguina

I genuinely am sometimes surprised that Gotham has reached its fourth season, as well as am surprised at how actually good the show has gotten, compared to its roots of being a way-too-gritty mess of a prequel show that's too serious for its own good. It started off as a show that seemed reluctant to even approach and make the characters into who they're supposed to be. There's only so many times you can make Edward Nygma go "riddle me this" without actually turning him into the Riddler, or have Selina Kyle sneak around and have romantic relationships with Bruce Wayne, or have Bruce Wayne just be sullen and heroic without a payoff. Or that's what I thought, anyway. We've slowly turning these characters one by one into a far more truer-to-text versions of who they should be, and I genuinely am glued to my television screen with unabashed glee as I see tiny little kid Bruce Wayne basically be Batman. Batboy? Well, whatever. He's kicking criminals' asses and jumping from building to building. Sure, he's missing the bat motif and some WayneTech gadgets and a League of Assassins training, but we see him actually grow into his future Batman role and it's amazing. This part of the series is subtitled "A Dark Knight", and honestly, I don't think I've ever been more excited about the series than I did with this season. 

Of course, that's not the main focus of this particular episode of Gotham. It's been some time since the whole League of Assassins mess from last season's finale, and Gotham City is getting to its feet. There's a new shakeup in the status quo, though, and we get to see the arrival of these 'Licenses', with criminals that are captured by BruceBat and Gordon demanding to be set free because they have a License to do crime. 

Yes, it's a bit of a weird concept, but it's one that honestly works in the setting. The Penguin did show up and 'save' the city in a fashion from so much criminal scum, and as Zsasz shows by interrupting a wedding being robbed by a gang, Penguin's going to control the amount of crime in town -- those without a license isn't allowed to do crime, but those that are can crime all they want. It's an absolutely stupid system on paper, but considering the shit Gotham City's been through, I would buy that the citizens and the mayor would shrug it off -- better to have like a couple of criminals run around and steal a bunch of money, rather than to have the complete anarchy of maniacs and monsters that plagued the town in the previous three seasons. And Penguin calling out the GCPD, noting how many times the police precinct has been attacked (ha ha!) and how utterly ineffective the police force has been are relatively best points. Penguin's hamming it up as the boss of the criminal world, and it's definitely well done.

As a side-note, can I just say how much I missed and absolutely enjoy just how cool Gotham's version of Mr. Zsasz as this sassy murderer is? Yeah.

Of course, unionizing crime isn't actually much better than crime itself, and that seems to be Gordon's game plan here. With Harvey Bullock and the rest of the police force being unwilling to really go up against Penguin (at least for the time being) Gordon is faced with a one-man crusade against Penguin, something that is presented pretty well. 

It also makes the need of a vigilante far, far more justifiable, in a roundabout way, as Bruce's argument to Alfred that a teenage kid with a bare minimum of fighting skills is required. Yes, young Bruce might be perching on top of the side of buildings like his future Caped Crusader self, but he's got a long, long way to go. Even if he does pull off the disappearing trick on Gordon in an absolutely hilarious manner in the episode. But his biggest victory in this episode comes in his Bruce Wayne guise, as he questions Penguin's methods at a public gathering under the eye of the media. 

The Bruce/Selina stuff is... okay? It's not bad, but I am just completely uninvested in Selina and Tabitha's part in the story. Selina whacking an entire alley's worth of gangsters is amazing, though.

The main villains of the episode is a gang led by... someone or other. A bunch of asshole mooks, bassically, who refuse to kowtow to Penguin's new rule. And they basically 'borrow' Jonathan Crane (YES!) from an asylum. We get a brief recap of Crane Senior, who showed up way back in season one, and Jonathan Crane's quite fucked in the head. He knows how to make the fear gas that the Jackass Gang wants to weaponize in their fight against Penguin's crew, but he's still scared shitless of his own personal demon, the 'Scarecrow', that the fear gas has him hallucinate all the time. Of course, the Jackass Gang are gigantic dunderheads who force Jonathan to stare at a scarecrow puppet for no real reason other than to shit with him, traumatizing the poor kid so much throughout the episode that he ends up conquering his demons by becoming the thing he fears, becoming the Scarecrow. Scarecrow's my favourite Batman villain, so seeing his full debut is a huge cheer-worthy moment for me.

The Jackass Gang's basically trapped as both Gordon and Penguin fight for the right to arrest them and prove that they're the real protectors of Gotham City, respectively. The gang's arrested by Gordon, giving him a bit of a victory while Penguin blubbers incoherently when he gets gassed and sees a scary glowy-eyed Riddler, while Scarecrow seemingly murders the final member of the gang, setting up him as the big threat this season. 

The episode starts off the season really strong, very solid as it tells a pretty neat plot and setting up the new status quo, and we even get to see the cool Iceberg Longue with the frozen Riddler (Penguin makes up a sob story about how Nygma has a disease and has to be cryogenically frozen but wants to be seen by the world). There's nothing super-new, but it's entertaining and that's all that matters, right?

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Bruce disappearing while Gordon's back is turned and he's talking is, of course, a common trick that Batman often pulls on Gordon in the comics, movies and cartoons.
• Penguin's story about Riddler -- cryogenically frozen until a cure can be found for his life-threatening rare disease -- is actually suspiciously simmilar to why Mr. Freeze's wife Nora is traditionally kept in ice in most other adaptations.