Caped Crusades Rountable: Gotham Mid-Season

Well, Gotham, the Batman prequel mostly about how terrible it was in Gotham before there was a Batman, just wrapped up the first half of it’s inaugural season, and will be on hiatus till January. The show started off a little shaky, but it seems to be finding its footing a little more going into the back half of its first season.

Amanda Chrisman(Twitter)

Let me start off by saying I hate having to wait til Jan. for more Gotham! The series is really picking up momentum and I can’t say enough good things about the show. I was beyond thrilled when Selina kissed Bruce at the end of ‘Lovecraft’, David Mazouz and Camren Bicondova are absolutely adorable together. I sincerely hope the show goes on long enough to see the two of them grow up into the roles of Batman and Catwoman, although I know that the creators plans for the show would have Bruce donning the cape and cowl in the very last moments of the series finale years from now.

As much as I love the show and most of the various plots therein, I do have a bit of a complaint about Dick Lovecraft himself. In ‘Harvey Dent’, Dent paints a picture of Lovecraft as this evil ruthless man, who is likely the person ultimately responsible for the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne. When Lovecraft meets with Dent he protests his innocence but we get the sense, or at least I got the sense that he really could be the one behind the Wayne murders, or at least have something to do with it. However, in the very next episode he seems a very different person. Yes at first we assume that Lovecraft has sent Copperhead and her associates after Selina, which is what we were meant to think of course, and I’m not complaining about his being innocent, just that his character seems rather off when he is confronted by Gordon in his condo. Suddenly this ruthless man is a whimpering, cowering money bag who is not intimidating in the least.

I ended up being glad that Copperhead killed him simply because I didn’t want this skewed character to mess up the wonderful dynamics of the show or the flow of the stories it tells.
I have very strong positive feelings about Gotham so far and I am very much looking forward to the latter half of the season. I want to see more of Edward Nygma, and a lot more relationship development between Bruce and Alfred, and Bruce and Selina. I also want to see Gordon slowly work on his ties within the police department as he figures out who are the best cops and works to have a team of clean trustworthy cops on his side. I would like to see the show turn Fish Mooney into a high level player in the crime world, and I’d like to see her hang around, as it would be quite appealing to have someone like Fish clash with the Bat when he’s all grown up. I don’t even care right now about when the Joker, or the man who will become Joker will be introduced as right now I’m content to watch the city as it is shaped by the characters the show has already introduced. I think the show should probably hold off on introducing Joker until season two, or at earliest the season finale.

I really don’t like Barbara Kean, and that’s not a complaint about the show or the lovely Erin Richards, I don’t like Gordon’s wife in the comics either. I want Jim and Barbara to hurry up and get past their issues, at least long enough to get married and have Jim and Barbara (yes they named both their children after themselves) and then she can go back to Renee Montoya for all I care about Barbara. I’m much more interested in seeing Jim with Sarah Essen his captain, who he had an affair with in the comics and who eventually became the second Mrs. Gordon some years after Barbara died. As far Barbara and Jim’s relationship, all I want out of it is their daughter Barbara, I don’t even really want them to have Jim Jr. as he is a serial killing psychopath.

I feel the need to make it clear that I’m not hoping for all of this in the first season, but over the course of the whole series, although I do want them to hurry up and have Barbara pregnant, I do want a slow and natural development to Jim’s relationship with Sarah Essen.

Skip Harvey(Twitter)

‘Lovecraft’ is a great example of everything that’s good and bad about Gotham.The House of Cards-like political intrigue being constructed around the gangster drama is the lifeblood of all that is cool about the show. Seeing Gotham City built into the complex and hopelessly corrupt world Christopher Nolan brought us in Batman Begins is everything we wanted out of a Batman prequel, and it’s one of the show’s strengths. Sadly, we just can’t ignore the fundamental flaws that the show is built on.

While this episode does a great job of highlighting characters like Alfred as more than just background, it can’t shake off the fact that the show’s thinking is misguided. Gotham constantly tries to unnecessarily tie characters together, ultimately ruining their motivations. Think about it: Most of Batman’s villains were a product of escalation. Just like in Batman Begins, he wears a mask, so they wear makeup. Many of them exist because Batman does. In Gotham, Bruce is being exposed to all of his rogues before Batman is even an idea. So now Batman is a product of his villains? Plus, he’s going to grow up knowing the identities and backgrounds of all the people he tries to thwart BEFORE they become adversaries? I don’t like it.

This episode tries desperately to bolster the strengths the show has, but unfortunately it also props up the strengths the show runners THINK it has, which are flaws. While better than most, the episode still just ends up feeling like Batman Babies starring Jim Gordon and Alfred, and less like a show that could genuinely be the prequel to Batman. Did they learn nothing from Smallville?

Eric Chrisman(Twitter)

Gotham has been a lot of starts and stops this first season. It started off hot with the Wayne murders and a conspiracy cover up, then devolved into weird criminal of the week plots like Balloon Man. Then it got going again when The Penguin revealed in fact he was not dead seemingly kicking off a war that started and then sputtered. Then at these last couple episodes, it seemed to start up big again with storylines that could go a few episodes into the new year at least with Bruce hiding in the city with Selina while an assassin tracks them down and Gordon & Bullock unlock a bigger mystery behind the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

And now he’s a guard at Arkham? Gordon said it was that or “quit” but being stuck at Arkham severely restricts him and obviously won’t last more than a few episodes. Frankly, it would’ve made a ton more sense for him to quit, become a private eye and investigate the conspiracy in his free time, and they could run that storyline for quite awhile and just have him come back to the police force whenever it really suited the storyline rather than a pointless stay at Arkham. I’m guessing he’ll uncover some big secret there, but that would be more coincidence than him being a good detective, which he is supposed to be. I do think the show is slowly finding its pace and footing, like many shows it’ll just take a bit to really get there. I am excited to see the machinations of Penguin starting to come into play, he’s easily the most compelling character on Gotham and is reason enough alone to tune in.

And there is our thoughts on the first half-season of Gotham. We’ll be sure to do another round table on the season finale and season one as a whole when the show wraps. Gotham returns January 5th with all new episodes on Fox and be sure to keep tuned to Caped Crusades for all the latet on Gotham and all things Batman!

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