This week on Gotham: A turf war, a civic debate, a breakup, and a devastating lack of Harvey Bullock. The slowest episode to date sets up important story lines that will matter in the future, but doesn’t do much to entertain. It’s spoiler central down there.
1. Lessons in Real Estate
The last remaining portion of undeveloped property in Gotham is up for grabs. Falcone and Maroni are just dying to get their grubby little, crime bossy hands on it. Where is this hallowed ground, you ask? Why, it’s the area surrounding Arkham Asylum, of course. Before their murder Thomas and Martha Wayne had plans to build a new asylum on the property. The benevolent couple thought serving Gotham’s least fortunate in a meaningful way would give the rest of the city a reason to hope. This idealistic notion has gone to hell in a hand basket since their deaths. Instead of being a source of hope, development of that land has become a source of fear. As two rival crime families vie for control of the land, tensions between them escalate, and the threat of an all out gang war looms over the city.
In an effort to quell the violence, and to protect himself, Mayor James abandons the Wayne plan and attempts a compromise that will satisfy both families. Maroni is given permission to build a waste treatment facility in the area, and given the contract to refurbish the decrepit asylum, so that it can be reopened. (That’s going to go well.) Falcone will build a low-income housing project in the area. King Solomon splits the baby and the tenuous balance of order within the city is preserved. This plot line begins to draw several seemingly separate threads together, and it will probably be important as the series continues. Right now though, it is more important than it is interesting. Not since Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor has real estate been so important to a comic-book inspired storyline. The battle for Arkham does give us an interesting henchman, Richard Gladwell. An unpredictable free agent, Gladwell has some good lines and dynamic scenes. Hakeem Kae-Kazim gives a great performance and breathes some much needed energy into this episode.
2. You See What We Did There?
The writing in this episode is almost unbearably heavy-handed. Every plot point is mercilessly explained and revisited; emphasized and diagrammed ad nauseam. The constant explanations throw off the pacing of the entire episode. Scenes do not seem to play out to their natural conclusions, interactions seem unnaturally aware of themselves, and the dialogue becomes repetitive. Even the one-liners seemed forced. In an effort to make sure that the audience is following the Falcone/Maroni dispute in and among all the other things going on, this episode loses its voice.
3. All’s Fair…
In this episode, Barbara confirms to Jim that she had a relationship with Renee Montoya, a fellow detective at GCPD. She discloses this information after he confronts her directly, and seems very reluctant to do so. She says that she didn’t tell him because Montoya is his coworker (which seems kind of, as my dad would say, ‘chicken shit’) and because she is a woman (which we will discuss further in a moment). To his credit, Jim takes the information in stride, but hardly has time to react before Barbara continues her inquest about his involvement with Oswald Cobblepot. Jim refuses to tell her anything about this, and Barbara gets upset.
Later, she comes down to the station to continue the conversation. Again she assumes Jim had a problem with her relationship with Montoya because they were both women. He assures her that he has a much bigger problem with her dishonesty. She then demands that he be honest about Cobblepot. Yes, brilliant, let’s discuss my illegal activities in the middle of the precinct, shall we?
This scene is really beautiful, in regard to its visual composition, but even the nice shots and fantastic lighting can’t save this train wreck. Barbara breaks up with Jim because he won’t tell her about Oswald. Her ultimatum seems childish and her lack of awareness of the potential consequences of him giving into her make her seem obtuse. She is also incredibly insecure about having had a relationship with a woman, placing much more emphasis on Montoya’s gender than on the fact that the relationship itself was rocky, or that she lied to Jim about it. There is some serious self-hatred going on with Barbara. Her character devolved really quickly in this episode, in my opinion. Instead of seeming conflicted, as she did in the last episode; she seems very self-involved, unaware of anything but her own feelings. I found this scene really hard to watch, even if it was pretty.
Continued belowStill, this entire plot line is handled with much more grace and subtlety that whatever the hell is going on over at Fish Mooney’s place in this episode. I can’t even process all that mess, feel free to tell me what I am missing.
4. Bruce is Becoming a Detective
In this episode, we see Bruce Wayne taking a stab at detective work. Bruce takes a break from his normal schedule of brooding and self-harm long enough to start working his way through all the files related to his parents’ plans for Arkham Asylum and the surrounding area. He tells Alfred that he is looking for a connection between the murders of his parents and the councilmen. He is turning to information in lieu of action, which seems significant for his character now, and for the role he will assume in the future.
This short little scene raises an interesting point. Because such importance has been given to the relationship between Jim and Bruce, it might be that Bruce is emulating his ally. In this way, does Jim Gordon create Batman in his own image? What does that say about his role in this universe? Later in the episode, Bruce asks Jim if he believes that Gotham can be saved, and Jim responds, I think we should try. What is he telling this kid? What hath Gordon wrought?
5. Oswald Cobblepot-stirrer
Oswald Cobblepot is up to no good, and out for himself. This is not news. What is news? He’s really good at being the bad guy. This little penguin is playing every angle, and doing so with a shrewdness and icy remove that makes him seem truly villainous. A master manipulator completely devoid of a conscience, he is quickly moving up the ranks within Maroni’s organization. In this episode we see one good example of the lengths he is willing to go to in order to rise to power. He orders an attack on Maroni’s restaurant, that is easily blamed on the Falcone family. Found sitting in a freezer, clutching the only bag of money he was able to ‘save,’ he frames himself as a hero, and gains the boss’s approval. Maroni promotes Oswald from dishwasher to restaurant manager, a logical move since the previous manager was killed in the robbery. Oswald then poisons the men he enlisted to do the job, making off with the loot that was stolen from his place of work. He has no loyalties, and he will stop at nothing.
This characterization makes Oswald’s relationship with Jim Gordon even more troubling. Oswald positions himself as an informant, telling Jim that he wants to help him. We all know better than this, it seems even Jim knows better than this. Because Jim supposedly murdered Oswald, he is forced to keep his return to Gotham a secret. Short of actually killing him, there is little Jim can do to prevent Oswald from going about his business. If word gets out the Oswald is alive, Jim fears they will both be killed. In the meantime, Oswald knows where Jim lives, he knows about Barbara; he represents an incredible threat for the detective. The two characters could not be more opposite, and now it seems their fates are irrevocably tied together.
