Gotham S05E10 Review: Born in it, Molded by it

Gotham, Season 5, Episode 10: I Am Bane

I'm... definitely not particularly impressed by this version of Bane ending up as being essentially a ripoff of Dark Knight Rises Bane. Who I realize probably has his fans out there, but while Tom Hardy (and Shane West here) is a great actor and made Dark Knight Rises Bane pretty entertaining, he has always felt like a mis-adaptation to me. What's with the asthmatic Vader-ripoff mask anyway? Senator Walker ends up being revealed as the alter-ego of Nyssa al Ghul, taking over Talia from Dark Knight Rises and basically sort of ripping off that entire plotline. She wants to kill Bruce and Barbara for causing the death of Ra's, and... I dunno. It just feels so mundane and derivative, especially considering how batshit crazy Gotham has became, carving out its own identity. "Bane" himself hasn't been much of an entity, showing up for around an episode as Gordon's buddy turned evil, but honestly... not very impressed.

Still, we got a plot, and Hugo Strange ends up injecting Bane full of Venom (not named, of course) and gives this huge speech of "you are the bane of all who oppose us" nonsense. We get another brief time-skip to reunification day and... yeah, we're really breezing through things, huh? Barbara's ready to give birth, Riddler's built his goddamn submarine, and we get some classic Penguin/Riddler hijinks as they prepare to leave Barbara behind as they ride their dumb-ass submarine back to the mainland. Everything looks great for all our main heroes. The military arrives to help Gordon officiate the reunification, Lee calls Gordon to tell him that Barbara's about to give birth, and, hell, even Alfred and Selina share a very good moment about new beginnings and blowing up your past and whatnot.

And then Bane shows up with a truck, smoke grenades and sleeping darts, and ends up kidnapping Bruce, Gordon and the general dude. Bane gets a brief "I was tortured!" backstory dump, before Walker-Nyssa reveals her identity and her full plan to Bruce. It's at this point that Nyssa seems to remember that it's actually Barbara that killed Ra's, and then goes off to hunt down Barbara while Hugo Strange intends to turn Gordon to another Bane, I guess, with a mind-control chip? Also, Nyssa wants to activate the military's Protocol Ten contingency plan to blow Gotham City up into rubble? It's a bit muddled. Nyssa's not a very organized woman.

Oswald and Nygma realize that Barbara pilfered a part of the submarine, and the two storm into the hospital and yell at each other, and we get some hilarious comedy about pointing a gun at Barbara's unborn child, with everyone present -- even Oswald himself -- being horrified that he would even do such a thing. Man, you gotta love the sheer insanity of Gotham's cast. Nyssa and Bane's forces arrive, and while Leslie wheels away Barbara on her wheelchair, Oswald and Nygma stay behind to hold off Bane and his goons... and we get this utterly hilarious shit scene of Riddler jury-rigging a rocket with oxygen tanks and it absolutely fails to do anything at all.

Oswald and Nygma hamming it up is hilarious, but so is Lee whirling Barbara around on a wheelchair while having contractions and dual-wielding pistols. God, this show is insane and I will pay good money to see the behind-the-scenes of Morena Baccarin and Erin Richards doing spinny-spins with wheelchairs. Nygma apparently stayed behind long enough to protect Lee, which is a nice callback to Gotham's ridiculously convoluted love dodecahedrons, but also to steal the sub part from Barbara. The Penguin and the Riddler exits the hospital, stage left.

While all of this is going on, Bruce ends up escaping with the aid of a conveniently-placed candle, kung fu kicks two goons. Gordon, meanwhile, gets injected with Venom and... and Hugo Strange is also not an organized man, because Gordon breaks free, kicks Strange in the face and saunters off. The military general that Gordon and Bruce rescues is revealed to be under Strange's control with the microchip, though. Which... yeah, why not?

Meanwhile, Barbara gives birth, because that's the short of insanity that this show is built on. There's some silly stuff of Lee screaming at Barbara to have faith in Gordon, before the baby's eventually born. Bane arrives... then gets ran over by a car, which is hilarious. Alfred and Selina come out and fight Bane, and Bane ends up beating up both of them (yeah, beating an old man an a little girl. Very impressive, "Bane") and slams poor, poor Alfred onto a telephone pole and leaves him bleeding and unconscious on the ground.

And then, well, it's a typical 'darkest hour'. The mind-controlled General Wade activates the special order that summons a fleet of helicopters to firebomb Gotham, while Nyssa is revealed to have arrived at Barbara's bar and killed every single one of Barbara's assassin minions (forgot those were a thing), and now holds Barbara, Leslie and what I assume is Barbara Jr hostage.

Overall, you can totally see just how batshit crazy this entire episode is, and how much of it just hinges on me shrugging and going "yeah, why not". Nyssa's plan, as I mentioned, is not very well organized and she and Bane seems to change targets and priorities at a whim. I'm also not a particularly huge fan of the final villain being Nyssa and Bane, two characters who barely get any buildup in this series. But despite that, this entire episode manages to grip me and entertain me, and honestly, I'm definitely going to miss Gotham's unique brand of insane, hammy madness when it's gone, something that's going to happen in a couple of episodes' time.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Bane's backstory in this episode mirrors that of the Bane from Dark Knight Rises, where he is revealed to just be the brutish enforcer of a daughter of Ra's al Ghul (Nyssa here instead of Talia), who is seeking vengeance for the death of her father. 
• To that end, Bane having an epic arrival before being taken out by a car also happens in Dark Knight Rises. This Bane gets up, though. 
• Nyssa al Ghul makes her Gotham debut! While Talia was the far more well-known daughter, Nyssa would later be introduced as another daughter who leads a splinter faction of the League of Assassins. She's since made multiple appearances across different media, most famously the Arrow series. 
• Venom isn't named, but the visuals of green fluid being injected through tubes is definitely there.