The dead body of a young investor leads
Gordon and Bullock into the underworld fight club of Richard Sionis.
Sionis encourages those who apply for his company to fight to the
death for the auspicious roles available. Meanwhile Bruce Wayne has
finally returned to school and is having trouble with bullies.
Now American television loves theming,
it can’t get enough of it. This week’s episode of Gotham revolves
around the theme of physical violence. Jim Gordon, following last
week’s abandonment by his fellow police officers, is very angry at
the world. Due to this he is far more aggressive in his attempts to
bring down Sionis. Sionis is obsessed with the idea of the ‘warrior’
and his fight club is an extension of this obsession with violence.
Bruce Wayne is being terrorised by a bully and is unsure of how to
respond, he doesn’t know if force is something he is capable of.
Somebody stop me!
The frequent issue with theming is
consistency, or more so a lack of it. Once you are using a core idea
in your story you need to remain true to both the theme and the
intended messages in it. Gordon’s arc is that he has been abandoned
by the police, so he has become a man obsessed with justice at any
cost. Now typically speaking a narrative such as this plays out in
one of several ways. Either your central character has to learn a
lesson or your audience learns a lesson from the characters failure
to do so.
Now this episode makes an attempt to go
down the first path. Gordon’s temper puts him at risk from Sionis,
he is trapped and forced to take part in the fighting himself. So
typically at this point Gordon would be rescued by the police and
he’d learn that he can’t do everything himself; he would learn
that he is only one man. Now these things do happen, but only after
Gordon has successfully taken down every opponent single handed! It
really confuses the message to have Gordon able to function fine by
himself when the clear intended message is that he shouldn’t act
alone. Jim’s obsession with law and order, the ‘correct’ way of
doing things is what separates him from Batman.
Now Bruce Wayne’s story is designed
to mirror Jim Gordon’s. However, Bruce comes to realise that the
only way he can see justice done is if he is the one dishing it out.
Bruce realises that he enjoys beating bad people up, it fills the
void that his parents’ deaths left in him. This psychological
underpinning is what separates the characters of Bruce Wayne and
James Gordon. It is a shame that Gordon’s side of the story is
somewhat messy in the intended message. Alfred’s character journey
into Batman’s accomplice is also being nicely handled. Alfred seems
to take great joy in Bruce’s new found enjoyment of violence, even
if it is only because it is making Bruce happy again.
A mention needs to go out to the new
Harvey Bullock. For whatever reason the Bullock character seems to
have undergone a pretty major tonal change. The angrier Bullock, who
wouldn’t risk anything for anybody, is now replaced with a kinder
more sympathetic character. It is a bit of a shame to see the rough
edges being removed from him but at least the dumb comedy sidekick
angle seems to have been dropped.
The actual story holding together the
episode is fine, it’s ok. The Sionis Investments fight club is a
bit silly but the t’s have been crossed and the I’s dotted in the
details, so it holds together ok. A few lines are thrown in to
mention how impossible it is to get jobs in the field and how the
participants have signed NDA’s. Adding some explanation of how this
unbelievable situation exists goes a long way to helping the audience
accept it.
So this episode of Gotham is a little
confused thematically but it is still pretty strong. Fish Mooney and
Oswald Cobblepot continue to shine as brilliantly played characters.
We get to see another nice scene with Oswald and his mother in this
episode, showing her darker side. It is a scene that shows just how
much she has in common with her son. The previous episode of ‘Gotham’
marked a distinct change in the series, one that I am happy to see
remains in place. Weird inconsistencies continue to plague Gotham but
the big issues seem to have faded away, hopefully.
Just when I thought I was out, ‘Gotham’
keeps pulling me back in! So up to this point, ‘Gotham’ has had a
somewhat uneven output. For every good and interesting episode we’ve
had one that feels lazy and indulgent. With episode 7 however,
‘Penguin’s Umbrella’, things are finally starting to fall into
place creatively.
So Jim Gordon has been saved from jail
but he is now at the mercy of Don Falcone. When Jim refuses to
accept Falcone’s summons, he is targeted by Falcone’s key
enforcer, Victor Zsasz. Now as I’ve said before, ‘Gotham’ works
best when it largely ignores the more fantastical parts of the
mythos. Now the character of Victor Zsasz is relatively strong and
could easily be adapted into a more serious world, he could be but
isn’t. Where we could have the almost religious Zsasz who believes
he is ‘saving’ those he kills, we instead get another cartoonish weekly supervillain. To be precise we get the Kurgan from Highlander.
That being said, Zsasz is still a
credible threat. One of the nicest scenes in the episode is between
Gordon and Zsasz. Zsasz arrives at the GCPD to collect Gordon, Jim
believes that he will be protected by the police but they abandon
him. The power play between Gordon and Zsasz is well handled and they
have good chemistry. The budget this week seems to have been raised
along with the stakes. The ensuing gunfight between Zsasz and Gordon
would be pretty impressive for a film, let alone a weekly television
show.
While Gordon fights for his life, a
fight is also taking place between Maroni and Falcone. Falcone wants
the return of Oswald Cobblepot; Maroni wants to keep him at his side.
The back and forth attacks are brilliantly staged and directed. These
scenes also give Robin Lord Taylor more opportunity to shine as the
Penguin. Every new episode allows his character to grow and develop
yet more unpleasant shades of the crime boss he will one day become.
Jim Gordon, having been saved by
Montoya and Allen, decides to make one last stand against the
corruption of the city. Gordon, along with a drunken Bullock decide
to arrest the Mayor and Falcone for their crimes, even if it kills
them to do so.
Now the entire episode has been very
heavy on twists, most have been nothing major and they have been well
handled. The final big twist of this episode is great. It is
fantastic but it is also kind of stupid. I suspect that future
re-watches of the series will only undermine the twist more, hence
why I’m not spoiling it. To say the final twist is contrived would
be a huge understatement. To tie everything up in a neat bow in this
way doesn’t really fit with the tone of ‘Gotham’. Having said
that it genuinely surprised me and it has left me with excitement for
how things will play out from this point on, everything a cliffhanger
should do.
Now this episode
of ‘Gotham’ is really strong, the strongest so far. It is
brilliantly paced, wonderfully directed and was a genuine pleasure to
watch. That being said it still has some issues. The handling of
Victor Zsasz is not brilliant and Gordon’s unexplained friendship
with Bruce Wayne returns. We are constantly shown that Jim Gordon is
one of Bruce’s closest friends but we don’t know why, all we know
is that Jim promised to find the Wayne’s Killers but that isn’t
enough.
We as an audience know that Jim is in the extreme minority in
wanting to solve the Wayne case but Bruce doesn’t know this, or if
he does we haven’t seen this reveal. If ‘Gotham’ is going to continue
to pretend that Batman is as interesting as his villains it needs to
make a lot more effort to establish the character of Bruce Wayne, a
lot more. This week has shown however that Gotham is still growing,
so hopefully Bruce Wayne is next on the list of things to fix.
The Spirit of the Goat has reappeared
in Gotham to murder the rich children of Gotham. The Goat case was
considered solved ten years earlier when Harvey Bullock gunned the
mask killer down. Is a copycat killer continuing where the Goat left
off or has the Spirit of the Goat returned from the dead to find a
new host? Can Harvey and Jim solve the mystery before the Goat
strikes again?
Why does Gotham tease me so? Every time
something good happens in the program something stupid undermines it.
This week’s episode makes a real effort to expand the character of
Harvey Bullock. We see a flashback to ten years ago, when Bullock was
idealistic and wanted to save the city. We then skip forward to the
present day and follow the older, less honourable Bullock having to
investigate the same case. This idea works well as it allows us to
see the good in Bullock and his reawakened passion in trying to solve
the case.
The problem comes in that the case is
painfully easy to solve. Within seconds of being introduced to the
‘real’ killer I guessed the final twist of the episode. Now even
assuming that Bullock couldn’t immediately solve the case in this
way, he seems to miss vital details. Harvey and Jim know that the
original Goat had keys to the victims’ houses. They also know that
the new Goat can get into houses without forcing their way in. It
bothers me that Jim and Harvey have to talk for several minutes to
figure out that maybe the new Goat also has keys to where the victims
live.
The police also don’t think to
investigate the original locations of the Goat murders. I would
assume that if a copycat killer were operating you would consider
checking out the previous locations he killed people in? It’s nice
to see the character of Bullock being given a redemptive arc but this
episode largely undermines it by making him look incompetent.
While Harvey is obsessing with the
case, Jim has his own problems. He is attempting to fix things with
Barbara but this is complicated as Montoya and Allen, of the Major
Crimes Unit, have finally managed to get a warrant for Gordon’s
arrest. It’s nice to juxtapose Harvey’s redemption with Jim’s
possible fall. That being said, this element of the plot takes the
back seat to Harvey’s story and it might have been better served
with its own episode.
Edward Nigma is vastly expanded in this
episode, his compulsive nature demonstrated. I’m curious about his
obsession with his co-worker, Christine Kringle and where this plot
point is going. Nigma seems to be presented as somewhat comedic at
this point; I hope that he doesn’t become a completely comedic
character. As much as I laughed, Nigma’s question mark mug fills me
with concern.
Oswald Cobblepot finally visits his mother in this episode and
things get weird. Mrs Cobblepot and her son have a very strange,
almost oedipal relationship. As much as this episode possibly over
egged this theme, it was good to show the unconditional love of his
mother. It’s easy to see why the Penguin thinks of himself as a king,
given that he was brought up to believe that he is one.
Jim and Harvey’s stories intersect as
all the plot points of the episode converge. The cliffhanger to this
episode is pretty strong but it has already been used once already in
an earlier episode. Overall this episode was reasonably strong but it
could have been a lot stronger. Failed good ideas still started life
as good ideas and hopefully Gotham will learn from its mistakes.
‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’ follows
the daily adventures of the Yamada family, who live in Japan. The
film is a collection of short unconnected vignettes, each of these is
based on separate themes or family members. ‘My Neighbours the
Yamadas’ is based on a comedy Manga titled ‘Nono-Chan’. This
film was the first entirely digital production from Studio Ghibli.
‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’ is a
hard movie for me to review. I didn’t like a lot of things about
the film but I struggle to find many tangible reasons for my dislike.
‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’ succeeds in everything it’s trying
to do but I don’t really enjoy what it is.
My first immediately issue with ‘My
Neighbours the Yamadas’ is the animation style, I don’t like it.
Now I didn’t completely hate the visuals of the film, it had some
really nice sequences. The scenes that mixed 3D animation with 2D
designs were really nice for example. I just didn’t enjoy the
overall style very much; I thought it was a bit too minimal.
My second somewhat personal criticism
is that I didn’t find the movie very funny. ‘My Neighbours the
Yamadas’ has actual jokes but very few of them worked for me. The
jokes are very broad in nature and they feel intended for the
largest audience possible. They are jokes that an entire family can
laugh at together. Therefore we get jokes where family members
accidentally dress up in each other’s clothes or accidentally eat
each other’s food. It’s all very safe and unexciting, as if
developed by somebody who has had comedy described to them and is
giving it a go for the first time.
Another issue with the comedy is that
it is very culturally Japanese. A lot of the jokes are based around
breaking cultural norms that those outside Japan don’t have. I
found myself confused as Japanese social etiquettes were lampooned
and I found myself unsure of where the intended joke was. As with the
animation complaint, comedy is entirely subjective and I for those
who like this kind of family comedy it is a good example, a harmless
one at the very least.
The comedy is this movie does bring
forward my first more legitimate complaint however. The pacing in
this film is atrocious. The timing on the jokes is mostly fine but
many of them feature a pause afterwards, as if to allow the audience
to laugh. Jokes are sometimes followed with as much as five seconds
of dead air, where the characters don’t move and the film seems to
wait for the audience to calm down. As you might imagine this becomes
incredibly frustrating if you weren’t laughing at the joke. It
feels as if ‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’ was made for a badly behaved cinema audience, one that is easily excitable and very loud.
Although the majority of the jokes are
paced fine, some jokes seem to go on for far too long. One sequence
is about how eating ginger makes you forget things. This scene goes
on for seemingly hours as somebody forgets something
and each time the animation pauses to let us laugh at each member of
the family for that exact same reason. I can’t get over how bad the
post comedy pauses are, it feels like Dora the Explorer is going to
ask for your help to find the joke any second.
The tone is also somewhat weird and
inconsistent in ‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’. An effort has been
made to inject real life drama amongst the comedy scenes. This has
been done to create a more balanced view of life, a life with ups and
downs. The issue is that these scenes seem to come entirely out of
nowhere. One sequence shows the grandmother, Shige, visiting her
friend in hospital. The scene is played for comedic effect before the
friend breaks down in tears and explains that she is dying. The real
issue is that the tragic scenes are played out like comedic scenes,
complete with a surprise depressing punchline.
The dramatic scenes that work best in
‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’ are the ones that feel more organic.
One quite nice scene revolves around the family tackling some loud
bikers and the fallout this confrontation brings. This sequence
functions well because it works comedy in when necessary but lets the
drama dictate the dramatic pace of the scene.
Mixing comedy with reality is always
tricky. ‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’ also makes an attempt to add
Simpsons-like domestic violence for comedic effect. The issue being
that the Simpsons is constantly exaggerated so Bart being strangled
has no dramatic weight. When ‘Yamadas’ does these same types of
jokes they feel far more grounded and dark. This is primarily due to the
constant tonal shifts in the rest of the film, how can something be
exaggerated when no normal limits have been established?
‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’ wasn’t
for me. I thought it was badly paced and tonally confused. I got up
three times during the film to check how much longer it would run. I
was sure each time that the relatively swift, in theory, one hour and
forty minutes must be coming to a close. It’s not often you look at
a progress bar and find yourself hoping for ten minutes of credits.
That being said
the family were instantly likable and remained so throughout. I can’t
help but feel that the original Nono-Chan manga may be the best way
to view these characters. Being in comic strip form would pretty much
entirely remove the pacing issues of the film, allowing the audience
to engage with the family at whatever pace they want. Similarly the
dramatic scenes would not leap out from the page as awkwardly as they
do from the screen. I don’t really know why Studio Ghibli chose to
adapt it to be honest; it’s hard to see how it benefitted from
the transition.
‘Tales from Earthsea’ is the black
sheep of the Studio Ghibli family. Currently holding a 41% on Rotten
Tomatoes, ‘Earthsea’ is the worst rated film made by the studio.
Is this rating fair? Or has ‘Tales from Earthsea’ been unfairly
treated? It would be very hard to entirely defend ‘Tales from
Earthsea’ as it has quite a few issues. That being said I don’t
believe the film is entirely without merit either.
The fundamental issue with ‘Tales
from Earthsea’ is summed up in this English title. The ‘Earthsea’
series of stories spanned six books when this film was created.
‘Tales from Earthsea’ is an amalgamation based on stories from
four of these books. The decision to tell several ‘Tales’ in
‘Tales from Earthsea’ creates a whole host of problems with the
film, problems that a single focussed narrative would have fixed.
Who is the lead character in ‘Tales
from Earthsea’? Now the smart money is with Arren, the runaway
prince whom we follow throughout the film. Arren would be the
sensible choice but he doesn’t really push the narrative forward at
all. Sparrowhawk, conversely, is very proactive and seems to drive
the majority of the narrative. Now Arren completes a character
journey but he is not alone in doing that. Therru arguably changes
far more throughout the film and is also far more relatable to the
audience, is she the lead? Each of these characters could and in the
books does, drive a narrative by themselves. Attempting to focus on
three characters simultaneously causes the audience to focus on none
of them.
This wouldn’t be as much of an issue
if the world of ‘Earthsea’ was more accessible. We as an audience
needed to be told what was happening around us, we needed a likable
protagonist to experience the world via and we didn’t get one. An
attempt was made to make Arren this character but the likeable part of
the equation was abandoned.
Within the opening minutes Arren
murders his kind father for seemingly no reason, before going on the
run. For the first hour of the movie we get no explanation of why he
did this or how it made him feel. For all we know he could have
killed his dad because he enjoys killing, we don’t know! How are we
meant to relate to a character that we don’t understand? Now as the
movie goes on we discover that Arren doesn’t understand why he
killed his father. How are we meant to relate to a character that
can’t relate to himself?
The first hour of this film is
incredibly hard to defend at all. Nothing really happens to drive the
story for the first half of ‘Tales from Earthsea’ and I don’t
understand why. We get almost no character development and very
little plot. We just spend an hour being vaguely shown a world by
characters we don’t understand and in the case of Arren, don’t
like. Killing his father aside, Arren is shown to be rude, aggressive
and stupid. Why would we care about what happens to him?
A lot of the issues in this film could
have been fixed if it had used more time to explain the world and the
characters. To waste an hour of you two hour film doing nothing is
utterly confusing. This film has all the issues of a short running
time and none of the advantages of the quite long running time it
actually has. We get long segments of clunky exposition explaining
the basics of the world followed by painfully long scenes where
nothing happens. Key concepts of the film are never properly
explained, such as the use of real names and the nature of the
dragons. The conclusion of the film so heavily relies on these two
ideas that they should probably have been explained more, or at all.
‘Tales from Earthsea’ has a real
issue with scale. The evil wizard Cob just happens to live within
walking distance of Tenar’s farm? Her farm in the middle of nowhere
just happens to be placed within walking distance of the giant Hort
Town? This wouldn’t be as much of an issue if we didn’t see the
characters keep easily moving between these locations. We are given
constant reminders about how big the world is but we are only shown
three important locations that happen to be next to each other. Once
we lose the scale of the world we lose the scale of the characters.
Sparrowhawk’s extensive journey around the world could have taken
him a week for all we know. Arren’s distant kingdom might be an
hour away.
Now some of the criticism for this film
is due to the suggestion that it has stolen or is reusing ideas from
other Studio Ghibli films. The two films it most obviously lifts from
are ‘Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind’ and ‘Laputa: Castle in
the Sky’. Now giving ‘Tales from Earthsea’ the benefit of the
doubt, I suspect that these resemblances may be somewhat explainable
as more than simple theft.
Hayao Miyazaki wanted to adapt the
‘Earthsea’ books for a very long time. When he couldn’t get the
rights to the series, many of the themes and ideas he had developed
fed into ‘Nausicaa’. I suspect to some extent some of the ideas
also fed into ‘Laputa’, what with the two films being developed
back to back.
The real question is, are the ideas
being reused the original ideas intended for Miyazaki’s ‘Earthsea’
film? Did Goro Miyazaki and the rest of Studio Ghibli make a
conscious effort to use these ideas again for that very reason? I
suspect that any original notes of Miyazaki’s they could find were
used as inspiration, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the
case. Now assuming that this is what happened, why would they do
this? Did they do it out of respect or out of some kind of desperate
hope of reflected glory? Hiring Miyazaki’s son to direct would
suggest the latter.
For whatever reason this ‘referencing’
is still a bizarre creative decision. Even if these ideas were
originally intended for another film, they’ve still been used
elsewhere. It’s also a bizarre decision since a lot of effort has
been made by Goro to inject his own personality into the film, why
focus on his dad’s personality so much also?
Another criticism that people tend to
throw at this movie is that the creator of the ‘Earthsea’ books,
Ursula Le Guin, hates it. Now I have very little pity towards Le Guin on
this. She had Hayao Miyazaki attempt to gain the rights to adapt her
books back in his prime. Le Guin turned Miyazaki down without even
watching his work and he went on to do other stuff. She eventually
bothered to watch one of his films twenty years later and changed her
mind, giving him permission. She then discovered that Hayao Miyazaki
wanted to retire and agreed to let his son, Goro Miyazaki, direct it
instead.
Le Guin’s main complaint is that
‘Tales from Earthsea’ wasn’t a brilliant Hayao Miyazaki film…
Maybe she should have thought about that twenty years earlier when
she was turning him down, sight unseen. Maybe, heaven forbid, she
should have considered that Goro Miyazaki might make a different
film, what with him being a different person and all. I appreciate
that she feels her work and her fans were disrespected but she was
the one who agreed to it.
Now I’ve been pretty negative towards
‘Tales from Earthsea’ so far. That’s primarily because it isn’t
that great a movie on the whole. That being said I do like quite a few things
about it.
The first half of the film is
absolutely terrible but the second half is actually pretty decent. At
approximately the halfway point ‘Tales from Earthsea’ remembers
that it has characters and bothers to introduce them to the audience.
Therru is particular is extensively fleshed out and becomes a very
likable character.
The main villain Cob is very effective, both in writing and design. Even Arren’s horrible
personality is salvaged to a certain extent in this second half.
Arren’s battle, both in mind and body against Cob is nicely
handled. In particular I really like the rising fear in Cob. Cob’s
dream of immortality and the realisation of his impending death are
really nicely handled, making him one of the stronger Ghibli
villains.
Visually speaking ‘Tales from
Earthsea’ is one of the most attractive of the Studio Ghibli films.
Where Hayao focussed on light colours and overall composition, Goro
focusses on blacks and browns and fine details. Goro seems to have a
natural understanding of colour and how to use it, creating high
contrast, highly dynamic images in the process.
Surfaces have
incredibly realistic reflections, lights have real warmth. The design
work that moves away from the Ghibli house style is also very strong
in ‘Tales from Earthsea’. The dragons, in particular, are very
distinct and show Goro’s aesthetic sensibilities perfectly.
The sound design
and music are also very strong. The sound design manages what the
script doesn’t and sells the world. The way the wind can be heard
to wrap around the objects is incredible. The scraping echoes and
whispering winds help sell a sense of three-dimensional depth to the
world that few films manage to do. The music is also extremely good
and adds a further sense of a larger world, one with different
cultures and instruments.
So ‘Tales from Earthsea’ has more
than its fair share of issues. That being said I find it very hard to truly dislike it. ‘Tales from Earthsea’ suffers from the creative
decisions of a first time director but it also shows the promise of a
man with a distinct vision for his animations. Goro Miyazaki shows with this film that he has an understanding, albeit undeveloped, of the darkness in
humanity, one that Hayao shied away from. Hopefully Goro will have
the chance to develop his voice further as ‘Tales from Earthsea’
shows glimpses of genius, even if they are almost entirely limited to the
second half of the film.
A dangerous new drug has hit the
streets of Gotham. A man with a mangled ear is handing out this new
drug, Viper, to the unfortunates living in the slums of Gotham. When
inhaled, Viper gives those who take it super strength but kills them
within a few hours. Who is manufacturing Viper and why is it being
given away for free? It’s up to Gordon and Bullock to figure out
these mysteries and stop the ever increasing death toll.
So yeah, I’d give a spoiler warning
but the big twist of this episode is obvious from about thirty
seconds in. A junkie is given a vial of green liquid that immediately
gives him super strength. When the episode eventually reveals that
Viper is an early form of Bane’s Venom it seems somewhat
anti-climactic.
One of the frequent issues with Gotham
is the intended audience, or audiences, it wants to reach. Gotham has
a bizarre split between trying to be a crime procedural, such as the
wire and trying to be a superhero show like Smallville. This episode
in particular really suffers from attempting to reach these two
completely different audiences. As I’ve said previously 'Gotham' is
at its best when it is dealing with morally grey themes, when it is
being subtle. Subtlety and super strength do not play well together.
For example, one scene of this episode
features Maroni threatening Gordon. The Penguin has been beaten by
Maroni in order to gain the truth about his past. Gordon is kidnapped
to corroborate this story. This sequence is tense as Gordon is made
aware that if his story and the Penguin’s do not match, they will
both die. Gordon has no idea what Penguin has said so he is forced to
tell the absolute truth, the truth that may still get him killed if
it differs from the ‘truth’ that the penguin has given Maroni
earlier.
This scene is brilliant. It is a really
strong idea and it is very well executed. What makes this scene so
successful is the grittiness of it, the real world menace. Later on
we get a scene where an old man gives a supervillain speech before
taking Viper and destroying his Zimmer frame…
To say 'Gotham' has a problem with
inconsistent tone would be somewhat of an understatement. I’m not
saying that Batman has to be gritty to be successful. The success of
Batman in a variety of tonally different productions has shown that
the universe is very adaptable. That being said the 1960’s Batman
television show never had a scene where a screaming man was burned
alive.
The abrupt tonal shifts are only one of
the problems in this episode. The script in general seems to barely
hold together. If a stranger handed you a green vial that simply said
“Breath Me” on the side, what would you do? Gotham attempts to
explain that the people who chose to take it are desperate junkies
but this justification doesn’t really work for me. The people
taking it have no idea of what it might be; they don’t even know
that it’s a drug. The bottle could be filled with toilet cleaner
for all they know and yet they immediately use it? I appreciate that
an effort has been made to show the desperate nature of the
downtrodden in Gotham but this still seems pretty unbelievable.
The reasoning behind why the villain is
handing out the drug is also really badly explained. He is trying to
stop a drugs company doing something unethical by killing innocent
people. Suggesting a character is insane does not automatically
justify them doing stupid things. Part of what makes insanity a
threatening concept is the alternate skewed versions of reality it
creates in the subject.
Irrational behaviour is completely
rational to the person doing it. As a writer it is your job to
present the motivation, however strange, of your characters. Or you
can do what they actually did in the episode and just have Jim Gordon
loudly point out that the motivation of the villain doesn’t make
sense and hope that the audience will just accept it. Jim Gordon has
accepted that the world doesn’t make sense so who are you to argue?
This over-reliance on universal chaos
and insanity is becoming a worrying element of modern writing. Many
writers try and inject reality into their work by adding an element
of random spontaneity to it. Very little of what happens in the world
is truly unexplainable however; most things happen due to some level
of logical progression, even if that logical progression is hard to
fathom.
Most writers simply use chaos to fill
plots holes. They take the attitude that the real world isn’t a
well edited narrative so a realistic depiction of the world shouldn’t
feature traditional narrative elements. The primary issue with this is that the
human mind is preconditioned to find narrative in the world around
us. We take events that happen around us and form them into a logical
sequence to allow us to understand them. Good and Bad luck are
entirely attributed to this view of the world, with good and bad
events bound to eventually follow unconnected triggers.
We as an audience expect things to make
sense, for them to be explained. We don’t have to like what
happened or how it happened but we do need to understand why it
happened. This explanation doesn’t have to be direct and in depth;
Karma can be enough of a driving force to create a narrative! All you
have to do to give a villain basic motivation is make them evil,
that’s fine. Once you start suggesting that somebody is insane you
open yourself up to a lot of questions that need to be answered. If
you don’t answer these questions your writing immediately loses any
sense of reality you attempted to add.
So, rant over, what is good about this
episode? Surprisingly even with the above complaints Gotham remains
an enjoyable show. The cast remain fantastic and it’s nice to see
an ensemble show with no obvious weak links performance wise. Sean
Pertwee is becoming one of Gotham’s best characters in the form of
Alfred. It’s nice to see Alfred realise that he has to enter
Bruce’s world in order to watch over him. For all the issues that
Gotham has in terms of tone it manages mood brilliantly. The universe
of Gotham is feeling increasingly dark and unstable as the series
progresses.
Don’t let the
huge negative to positive ratio let you think I didn’t enjoy this
episode. The reason I rant about the flaws in Gotham is because it
has the potential to be a truly great show and keeps making stupid mistakes
that hold it back. Hopefully future episodes will be more consistent
but even ‘bad’ Gotham is still pretty good.
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