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.
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