Gotham has struggled to find its footing ever since its start, you can tell they want to push this show into some dark and weird places, and that sometimes works, other times it comes off awkward and disjointed in tone. This week’s episode for the most part hinged on Fish and her little gang of future surgery patients. Ever since Fish became a pseudo prisoner for doctor Dulmacher (Ugh…) I thought it was a strange place to take a brand new character that we never got to know or like one way or the other. I think Fish can be interesting, but I’m not rooting for her to win or anything. So while her escaping in a helicopter with a bunch of nobody’s including Kelly. Who apparently she cares about for some reason Was a fine ending and a good twist for her to end this episode. I wasn’t all that excited to see her escape, and I wasn’t all that sad to see her get shot. I’m somewhere in the middle because I’m not sure if she has any redeeming qualities, we were never shown them in any substantial way.
The second biggest subplot of this episode was Gordon and Bullock Tracking down a handsome serial killer known as “The Ogre”. It was a pretty good set up with a pretty good payoff in the end. A young cop urges Gordon to take this cold case because he admires him. When in actuality it was all set up by Loeb, someone who has floated from episode to episode disappearing altogether sometimes. I think Loeb can be a significant counter to Jim, the reason Gordon took the job was because of his hero complex. And Loeb was counting on that. Even though the final scene felt a bit abrupt, I liked the confrontation in the middle of the police station. Hopefully, this gets fleshed out towards the end of the season. But another bright spot throughout this episode was the Villain itself while Harvey and Jim learn more about the Ogre we got to see him in these flashbacks. That showed the last moments of this poor woman’s life, the villain wasn’t caught at the end, which may leave you either frustrated or excited, but either way it was neat to see this weird, handsome, serial killer at work.
“How does his hat look? Be honest.”
The smaller fragments this week were penguin buying a bar and Bruce getting his first taste of interrogation with Selina. It was tough to get excited to watch Penguin try and buy a bar, and there was a simple pay off by him revealing that he plans on killing Maroney in this bar, why this bar I’m not sure and why does he need to own it. But these things may become clearer in future episodes. As for Bruce tracking down Alfred’s old drinking buddy it was interesting to see him continue to work on his detective skills. Granted he just got all the info from Alfred before he collapsed and had Selina do all the heavy lifting but still it’s a small step towards the dark knight. Probably the most ridiculous moment in the most recent episodes thought was when Reggie reached out the window to grab his bag of “Medicine” he seemed to take forever to simply grab it and pull it back in. And then on top of that was Bruce awkwardly reaching towards him as if he was contemplating murder. But it’s nice to see this Wayne Enterprises explored a little bit. Bruce now knows that his family’s company plans on quitting him if he continues his investigation. Why they think a ten-year-old could affect a billion dollar corporation I’m not sure, maybe they know he will be Batman one day.
“Have you read Fifty Shades of Murder?”
Still struggling to find its a consistent tone and rhythm Gotham has made some significant steps in trying to right the ship, from a much more interesting and explored villain to an antagonist for Gordon. And its always a plus to not see Barbara, no offense to that actress I think she’s great. But the writers have no idea how to use her, and you can tell they made “Lee” the anti-Barbara as a response. As with most Gotham episodes, this one had some solid stuff surrounded by some weird stuff, like penguin stopping mid-walk to acknowledge that Bruce Wayne is nearby as if he has future deja vu. Or that the reason “The Ogre” has never been caught is because he kills the loved ones of fellow cops, when nothing we saw in those great flashbacks would suggest that. But as things move on you can tell they are learning from individual mistakes hopefully that continues.
