Last week’s Gotham ended on an intriguing note Barbara and the Ogre standing in his murder dungeon. Well this week picked up on a confusing note, it started with presumably those two waking up from a night together, now first off what did Barbara think of that crazy 50 shades of grey room? Because when he brings up the topic of murder she sounds stunned? This instance of itself illustrates the problems Gotham has had all year in terms of writing, it feels as if they are playing musical chairs with the writers and don’t give a lot of thought to what happened previously other than the broad strokes. Why show her that crazy room last week if she wasn’t going to understand what it was by the time she finished sleeping with him.
Granted Erin Richards had some solid work this week, given no other choice than to submit to the ogre Barbara began what seemed like a free fall of self-esteem, at first it was all about her defying him and then by the end of it she wanted Jim just to leave them alone so can be together. And you could tell that Barbara had lost her mind by the time the Ogre made her choose to kill someone otherwise he would kill her. Seeing her parents dead was a striking and horrific shot, but you have to imagine we would care more if we were given any reason as to why Barbara would choose them in distress or why they were so mean to her in her own eyes. We are at the end of the season, and I doubt we will see her again this year, but it was a solid end to a character that felt like it was going nowhere to start.
“I promise to keep you as safe as milk…”
Gordon, on the other hand, was taking no prisoners when it came to finding Barbara. On one hand, he felt guilty and, on the other hand, his job, and current girlfriend were on the line. It seemed early on that this may start to drive a wedge between Leslie and Jim, but thankfully it didn’t since she is suppose to be the ‘level headed’ one. But the line at the end about him always choosing her over Barbara felt like a bit much. In no way was she asking him to choose and he clearly cares for Barbara at least a little bit, that line felt unnecessary. Gordon losing his cool when it came to Penguin was interesting but it seemed similar to Penguin coming to his house early in the season so it’s not like he went to some crazy new place in terms of a character’s line in the sand. The FireFox club is just another example of how bawdy and over the top this show can’t get while also trying to keep a real life tone. It’s very jarring, I won’t spend much time on that club (Because Ew…) but it gave Gordon and Bullock the location to our creepy villain for the past few weeks.
The Ogre has kept my interest at least a little bit for these final few episodes and he’s still awful and scary a standout moment for me was when he was talking to Barbara and said. “Barbara, I love you. I love you like nobody has ever loved you but if you try and escape I will tie you to the ceiling and cut you now come over here,” as weird as it sounds I did think he cared for her in some weird off-putting way. He certainly doesn’t have any sympathy, but he sure helped build some for Barbara. As for our other group of villains Penguin played Maroni and Falcone like instruments and pitted them against one another, this paid off pretty well. I liked how it all came together in a cohesive way that the previous episodes didn’t have for penguin. And picking that specific bar also paid off in a tiny way because nostalgic reasons. The final episode is primed and ready for an all-out gang war, but I wish we had seen some of Falcone’s build up to this point, he has disappeared.
“Gimme your best Morgan Freeman impression Bruce.”
Bruce had a tiny and all be it truncated story this week; we went from learning about his father’s corruption to then learning that he was a good man all in the span of about ten minutes. Maybe space those out next time, and Lucius telling Bruce that his Father “kept his real self-hidden” was a bit of an “Ugh” moment but hopefully all this corporate espionage by a twelve-year-old will pay off in some way next week. Our other short plot this week was Nygma, its Gotham script writing 101 for Miss Kringle to come knocking at Ed’s door when he’s disposing of her boyfriend but we didn’t learn a whole lot about him or her other than he seems to have gotten away with it. And that she’s now single.
The end of this episode certainly picked up a bit, learning about penguins plan then the final confrontation with the ogre all played out pretty well. The Eyes Wide Shut party was a bit much just to throw in the middle of this episode. But now that Barbara is certifiable, and Bruce knows his father had some secrets I think Gotham can stick some kind of landing to set up a much better season two.
