It’s tough to sympathize with the villain, sure plenty of stories do it well, but when you can’t chart their journey it’s watching someone do horrible things for loved ones. And when we don’t care about their loved ones your left wondering why do I care, or why should I care. This week Gotham took some characters to dark places and I’m not totally sure how to feel about some of them Penguin lost his mind at some flower delivery man. Ed Nigma took the first step down his eventual path to the Riddler and the Ogre, Last weeks villain, went after Gordon’s less than loveable Barbara.
When you watch Gotham or any show, you really wish was better than the sum of its parts you tend to appreciate anything they give you. For example the idea that the Ogre would go after Barbara rather than Leslie (I refuse to call her Lee) is a smart and almost clever choice. Gordon has been documented with her so it would make sense for him to go after her. That being said I’m not sure how much praise I should give that decision, it’s just basic storytelling I suppose. But you grab on to what you can. David Mazouz had some good stuff this week as well. I think he’s a good young Bruce Wayne. His scene with Alfred and a few of his scenes at the Charity Ball were nice. Selina is still a bit stiff but it would seem the only way to keep these two characters integral to the show is to have them together.
Surprised it wasn’t a leather dress.
So for the rest of the show its a bit of a push, Nigma stabbing some watermelons to death was some nice foreshadowing. But I’m still not a fan of Ms. Kringle, and I don’t know why Nigma is either. Sure she’s pretty but she has no redeeming qualities, it would seem that the dickhead cop deserve each other. (obviously spousal abuse is wrong) But Why was that cop so one note. He was simply a bad guy for the sake that we saw that Nigma was justified in his murder. When in reality its much more interesting to see some layers and difficult choices to be made on both ends. I will say the Scene of Nigma and the cop being murdered was nice on its own, everything that lead up to it was a bit boring.
Our other future villain has slowly become annoying and has taken more and more baby steps the longer this season goes on. Once fish left the picture, and it was revealed that Penguin was a double agent the writers have had no idea what to do with him since then. He has been setting up a plot to kill Moroni for weeks now. So Penguins mom finding out that he has been lying to her fell on deaf ears mostly, And I’m not sure what Maroni’s game plan was for simply walking into the club, flirting with Penguin’s mom and then spilling the beans. It only made him mad and if you are a fan of Batman, (Which is probably the only reason you’re still watching this show) then you know penguin won’t die. So the show needs to create other tensions with that character.
“Do you want to see my whip collection?”
Barbara finding out her and the Psychopathic serial killer had some things in common was probably the most “Barbara” thing to happen to her since she tried to get back with Gordon and found out he had moved on. This woman and this actress can’t catch a break. But I will say this was certainly the most enjoyable plot for her at all this year. That’s not saying much, but it’s nice to see her in some way involved for substantial reasons. She also seems to have lost her mind a bit, saying that everybody hates her but doesn’t understand her is a line directly stated to us because we haven’t seen anyone ever say she was crazy or nuts unless you read Gotham message boards.
The Villain makes it through a whole episode again and seems to have Barbara on his side? I guess, I’m not too sure what to make out of that final shot maybe she’s a big 50 Shades of Grey fan. The finding that he was screwed over by some crazy old lady at a young age was an interesting touch in his ever growing backstory, we certainly don’t agree with his methods but at least we found out why he murders women. Building out their villains is about the only thing that Gotham does better than other Comic book TV shows. And another positive was the fact we didn’t get to see fish. I can’t imagine what kind of plot she will play at all in the final two episode, she by far has absolutely nothing to do with the other stories of Gotham, All in all there were some solid character moments for certain people like Barbara and the Ogre and Bruce and Alfred. But Gotham is still plagued by uninteresting writing.
