Detective Gordon
finds himself on the trail of a drug ring which runs through the core
of Gotham City Police Department. Will he be able to bring it down or
will his continued attempts to root out corruption in the police
force yet again fail? Meanwhile the fallout from last week’s
episode finds Penguin in charge of Fish’s club and Fish being
menaced by Falcone’s torturer.
So this episode of 'Gotham' is pretty
unpleasant. 'Gotham’s' tone is somewhat inconsistent at the best of
times, with some episodes being notably more violent than others.
‘Welcome Back, Jim Gordon’ has a lot of brutal, realistic
violence in it. Weirdly 'Gotham' seems to hang primarily at a teenage
drama level of ‘young adult’ content. It occasionally seems to
swing into noticeably more adult territory. Ideally a tonal middle
ground would be best for ‘Gotham’, the more extreme violence
feels out of place when the episodes in question also feature younger
characters such as Bruce Wayne.
So Jim Gordon goes after corrupt
officers in the police force, again. Although well handled the police
drug ring plot feels like a re-tread of earlier episodes. Gordon
won’t let the status quo stand and finds himself under pressure
from his fellow officers. Entire scenes seem to have been lifted from
earlier scripts. This includes Gordon “making a statement” by
locking up a police officer in the novelty cell they keep in the
centre of the GCPD, much to the chagrin of his fellow colleagues. As
I said this police corruption plot feels as if it is being handled
with a bit more care in this episode, I just wish it could handle it
with a couple of new ideas thrown in also.
The Fish Mooney plot is handled very
well. Much of the episode shows her traveling with Butch as her
protector, having lost the rest of her employers. These scenes are
nice but they feel a bit lacking dramatically. I’ve never felt that
Fish and Butch have as good chemistry as ‘Gotham’ seems to think
that they do. The scenes with Oswald and his mother conversely are
very strong, with the pair of them coming across as a genuine mother
and son. Any scene which shows the more childlike side of The Penguin
is a plus in my book, hopefully we will get more family moments as
the show continues. Although I suspect that this strong relationship
is being set-up for motivational character tragedy later.
So ‘Gotham’ seems to be getting
better at balancing out the multiple strands of its story. Although
primarily dealing with the Gordon/Mooney plots, this episode also
manages to throw in other characters without undermining itself. In
this episode we get a continuation of both the Bruce/Selina
relationship and that of Edward Nigma/Kristen Kringle. These
diversions do not feel entirely linked to the episode thematically
and don’t add much to it but they don’t take away from it either.
It would be fair to say that ‘Welcome
Back, Jim Gordon’ is not one of the strongest episodes of ‘Gotham’,
but it is very competent. To call it competent is not a knock against
it however. ‘Gotham’ has been enjoyable before in-spite of
itself, succeeding sporadically against self-imposed problems. A
feeling of professional consistency seems to be finally coming to
‘Gotham’. With the correct support structure in place, ‘Gotham’
should go from strength to strength…. I’ve jinxed the next
episode by saying that haven’t I?
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