By: Brandon Wolfe
All shows need a grace period of varying length when starting in order to find themselves, which is why criticizing ‘Gotham’ is proving a bit challenging. How many of its multitude of flaws are growing pains that can be worked out and how many are intrinsically part of the package? The show, quite candidly, has not been very good thus far, but some of the best shows ever aired have had very rocky starts before achieving greatness. ‘Gotham’s’ issues don’t seem fleeting; they feel like significant design flaws that won’t be corrected anytime soon because they likely are not recognized as flaws by those in charge. Still, in spite of these hunches, the fourth episode of a pilot season is a bit early to throw something with so much potential onto the scrap heap. All we can do sit by and hope that our time in the trenches isn’t for naught.
Arkham Asylum is the ‘Batman’ hallmark that gets the spotlight this week in the aptly titled “Arkham.” The facility presently lays defunct, but the Waynes had planned to refurbish and reopen it as an act of public service before they were killed. Now the site has become valued by rival crime bosses Falcone and Maroni, who each wish to exploit it for their own personal business endeavors. As part of this ensuing tug of war between the two criminal titans, a hitman, working for both sides, starts killing off the bought-and-sold city councilmen with the necessary sway to make the deals happen. Gordon and Bullock investigate and eventually catch wind of the killer’s identity, as well as a plot to kill off the mayor as well (still distractingly played by Richard Kind) as part of the mob war.
Oswald Cobblepot is still scheming up a storm this week. He starts by coming to Gordon’s home to request his assistance in an alliance of sorts, trusting Gordon as the only truly honest cop in Gotham. Oswald insists to Gordon that “there’s a war coming,” which is precisely the sort of shopworn cliché dialogue this show would do well to phase out altogether. Oswald does honor his allegiance to Gordon by tipping him off to the mayor hit, but Oswald’s plans are still entirely self-motivated, as he orchestrates an armed robbery of Maroni’s restaurant hideout (where Oswald still works in the kitchen) and gets in good with the boss when it looks like he risked his life to save at least some of the stolen money. Then he kills off his accomplices with some poison cannoli, which I suppose is a ‘Godfather’ nod even if it doesn’t quite line up.
The other threads in “Arkham” don’t really bear any fruit. Young Bruce Wayne looks over the Arkham development plan and impending vote with vested interest, as all preteen boys would. He sees it as a way for his family’s legacy to improve Gotham to live on. And once again, this entire thread feels utterly disconnected from the rest of the episode. Checking in with Bruce each week when he’s still a good decade away from Batmanning it up is perhaps the most head-shakingly misguided of ‘Gotham’s’ blunders. It’s crowbarring something into a larger context where it doesn’t belong. The show is positioning itself as a dark, gritty cop drama, and even if we do have the foreknowledge that this kid will eventually be Batman, there’s really no role he can play in the series in the meantime other than to pop up and do or say things self-consciously designed to remind us that he will be Batman. Keeping the character integrated in any logical way will be one hoop that I can’t imagine how this show will leap through.
The ladies of ‘Gotham’ don’t fare any better. Barbara is still attempting to get her fiancée to open up to her about the uglier details of his job, something he still is not willing to do, especially where Oswald Cobblepot is concerned. This impasse seems to create a rift between them, but this is boilerplate cop/cop’s wife relationship stuff here, executed, as with everything else on this show, as generically as possible. In other news, Fish Mooney, who is still named that, is auditioning female lounge singers whom, after they finish singing for her, she then forces to fight to the death. No idea what’s going on with that, but Jada Pinkett-Smith is at least a little toned-down from the pitch she’s operated at since the pilot. Which only means she’s down to 11 from 14 on a knob that ends at 10.
‘Gotham’ is still trying too hard to cram as much ‘Batman’ mythology down our throats as quickly as possible, terrified that we’ll lose interest if Gotham City iconography isn’t doled out on a regular basis. The dialogue still lands with a thud and the characters are all completely one-note, especially Ben McKenzie’s square-jawed drip of a Gordon. But, to focus on a positive, the Penguin is the closest thing we have to an interesting and complicated character, in that at least his playing of multiple angles makes him seem more complex than the other characters, who unwaveringly stick to their one assigned trait at all times. Robin Lord Taylor is the only person on this show (other than Pinkett-Smith, who seems to be having a high old time picking the scenery out of her teeth) whose character isn’t a joyless stiff. Also, the show is admirably quite violent, seemingly drafting off of the brutality of the Nolan films to get away with people getting speared in the eyeball or burned alive onscreen. Hey, at least it’s doing something right. Maybe it will eventually do a few more.
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