Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Gotham S01E04 "Arkham" Review

Here we are again, lads and laddies, once again back at "Gotham", turns out, I was right, Oswald is looking to snitch exclusively to Gordon and Arkham does indeed plays a big role in things. I gotta admit the Arkham thing is interesting but again, this episode fails to deliver on some prime mythology building. And we'll get to that after the break.

Why don't I open with my favorite subject, which is Oswald Cobblepot a.k.a The Penguin and once again, his cunning appears to be his best attribute. After getting in good with Salvatore Maroni, Penguin ups his game a bit more by protecting the money from some robbers. During the robbery, I couldn't help but think that perhaps MAYBE Oswald set this thing up himself and lo and behold, I was right. I can't help but enjoy how much awesome Robin Lord Taylor is putting into his portrayal of Oswald Cobblepot, this timid, well mannered sociopath, that's actually more ruthless than Falcone and Maroni put together. If "Gotham" goes under, Robin Lord Taylor NEEDS to be in more stuff, this guy is going places. Thus far, he's the only enjoyable thing about this series.

Hope you like some canoli's with your poison!

"Gotham" still manages to blow it with The Riddler, which pisses me off because The Riddler is my favorite Batman villain and thus far EVERY live action version of him has been one major fail after the other, at least the animated versions of The Riddler continue to kick major ass. This unfortunately brings me to the bad of this week's episode. Fish Mooney continues to make me roll my eyes, what with her auditioning of singers and constantly asking their sexual preference and asking to seduce her, all the while telling Butch that she's looking for "a weapon". WHAT IN THE BLUE HELL IS THIS WOMAN DOING?! Sometimes plans have a logical progression, we kinda see where it's going, this...ummm no, it just seems like the bisexual Fish Mooney is getting her rocks off turning lounge singers into her own female fight club. Hopefully this goes somewhere, but knowing Fish Mooney thus far, the answer is more than likely NOWHERE.

Okay, what's the first rule of Fight Club, bitches?

In another note, sticking romance where it shouldn't be is also "Gotham's" major issue. The whole break-up scene between Gordon and Barbra was right out of every other lazy writing trope of break-ups, the whole "I can't live like this." and "I don't want there to be anymore secrets between us." ect. ect. Just this once, I'd like to see that trope broken, with Gordon telling Barbra, "Listen, that Oswald guy, he's a snitch, he's not dead, he's working for me.", BUT lazy writing 101 dictates that Barbra would then turn around and tell Renee THUS blowing the whole thing out of the water...wait, why am I getting angry at scenarios? But that's my problem, the predictability of this is just annoying. But on the plus side, HOPEFULLY this is the last we'll see of Barbra.

Now to the meat and potatoes, so this Arkham thing, I gotta say, I'm impressed with how this whole thing was set up, two mob bosses fighting over territory with (who I can only imagine to be) The Tally Man working for both crime families. Having Arkham be a piece of land and the refurbishing of the asylum is pretty awesome and keeps everything in the nice little realm of crime. This, of course, opens the door for Hugo Strange and a whole slew of our favorite rogues, but I digress.

Burning a guy alive though, that's pretty bad ass, not gonna lie.

In conclusion, "Gotham" is gonna have to work MUCH harder than it is to make me a believer, Robin Lord Taylor is putting in his work and Ben McKenzie is working it with the little he has to work with but everyone else is just going through the motions, especially Jada Pinkett Smith, who despite her star power, is just eyeball-rollingly bad! And speaking of bad, I know this is "Gotham" and all, but can we PLEASE stop having scenes with Bruce Wayne...please...it's pointless. We get it, he's gonna be Batman, that's nothing we'll see happening in the series, so just leave him alone. Until next week, take the gun, leave the canoli. 

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