A vigilante dubbed the ‘The Balloon
Man’ is attacking the corrupt community members of Gotham. He
attaches weather balloons to them and sends them up into the
atmosphere to die. Can Gordon and Bullock stop him from this wave of
atmospheric terror? Meanwhile a suspiciously penguin-like ‘Paolo’
returns to ‘Gotham’.
The “previously on” recaps at the
start of the episodes seem to be getting longer and longer. I imagine
by the finale it will take up about 90% of the episode. I get that a
reminder isn’t bad but if you’ve forgotten that Mr and Mrs Wayne
are dead then you’re probably watching the wrong show.
‘Gotham’ seems to be becoming more
settled as it goes. The plot of the Balloon Man and who he might be
is well handled. Clues litter the episode to suggest his identity
and this week ‘Gotham’ genuinely feels like a police procedural
drama. It was interesting to see focus given to Bruce Wayne starting
to consider becoming a detective in an episode that focussed on clues
and puzzle solving. It was a subtle thematic touch that worked very
well.
What didn’t work so well was the
characterisation of Barbara Kean (The Future Mrs Kean-Gordon). In the
previous episodes we have been given the suggestion that she had a
dark past. This week she is scene smoking weed and we are told that
she used to be a drug addict. The issue comes in that her sobriety
is being questioned by Renee Montoya, who used to be in a
relationship with Barbara.
This is an issue because Renee seems to
be lumped in with Barbara’s past drug addiction as a mistake of her
past. I appreciate that the makers of ‘Gotham’ are probably
trying to show that Barbara has changed a lot since she was younger.
I don’t think that they are trying to suggest that Barbara grew out
of her issues of drug abuse and being a lesbian, but it does come
across that way.
Hopefully future episodes will clear
this issue up and make the character a bit deeper. This issue is
something the makers of ‘Gotham’ need to address as her
relationship with Gordon could be seen as a sensible man saving a lesbian from a life of girls. I honestly don’t get the feeling that this
was the intention but it certainly needs to be made clear what her
character is all about. She could easily be bi-sexual and it could be just a constant part of her character, with 'Gotham' just throwing in the drug addiction on top as a clumsy attempt at being edgy.
Bruce Wayne is better handled in this
episode. The building blocks which lead him to becoming Batman are
being established and his and Gordon’s illicit friendship seems to
have been put on the back burner.
That being said ‘Gotham’ is rapidly
becoming the Penguin show. I’m cool with that, that’s basically
how the original pitch was sold to the audience. A bit too much is
made of his vision for the future Gotham. This talk of the future is
starting to get a bit repetitious but as we know he is correct, it
isn’t that grating. The scene where Oswald returns to Gotham and is
enchanted by the muggings and prostitution is wonderful. Oswald
Cobblepot is in many ways the mirror image of Bruce Wayne as a child of Gotham, albeit one from the wrong side of the track, and that is how he is being treated.
Jim Gordon’s character seems to be
becoming more likable and understandable as the shows goes on. That
being said it seems that a conscious effort has been made to make the
character of Harvey Bullock less deep, which is a shame. Bullock is
in danger of becoming a comedy character. What made him a good
character in the opening two episodes was that his motives were hard
to completely understand, he had many shades of grey. Adding those
grey shades to Gordon does not require everyone else to become less
subtle and therefore less interesting.
So ‘Gotham’ is showing a few cracks
this week but not enough to make it bad, not by a long shot.
Hopefully some of these weird character issues will be sorted out,
because they are all that is holding this show from reaching ever new
heights! (HAR HARR HARRRRR)
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