Gotham
Episode Title: “Rogues'
Gallery”
Channel: Fox
Director: Oz
Scott
Writer: Sue Chung
Genre: Crime,
Drama, Thriller
Runtime: 42 min
Rated: TV-14
Original Air Date: January 5,
2014
Gotham
is back from its mid-season break, and with its return I was excited
for the change in venue. It's clear that Arkham is going to play a
large role in the show going forward, from the inmates to the
possible connection to the Waynes' murder. With the place's
importance being so evident I expected this episode to focus on the
asylum and its inhabitants. To be fair, a decent amount of the
action does take place within the walls of Arkham, but there are a
lot of things going on in this episode. All of the peripheral stuff
takes away from what should have been a should have been the star of
the episode, the setting.
In
Arkham, Gordon is having a tough time winning favor with his new
supervisor, and after a pseudo-murder launches an investigation into
the inmates and eventually the staff. Morena Baccarin makes her
appearance as Dr. Leslie Thompkins and shines. It's not made clear
what exactly her place is within the corrupt machine that is Gotham,
but she seems trustworthy. The intent with her character appears to
be for her to assume Bullock's role as Jim's partner for his time in
Arkham. It was pretty clear early on that Nurse Duncan wasn't to be
trusted, even if she didn't materialize as the big bad of the
episode. The reveal concerning her involvement really pushed the
boundaries of my ability to suspend disbelief. The moment the
administrator of the asylum, Dr. Lang, realizes that she's not part
of his staff would have been far more believable if he hadn't had
interactions with her earlier in the episode. The actual big bad,
whose identity wasn't terribly surprising; he's the most sinister
sounding inmate we saw interviewed, is actually pretty interesting
and in keeping with what one might expect from a villain in Gotham.
That aside, he wasn't eliminated at the end of the episode! The
audience will actually get to see a villain more than once before his
defeat. The prospect of that has me excited, I've felt for a while
that the show was misusing its villains by eliminating them by the
end of an episode.
The
rest of the episode was a mish-mash of things that the audience
either didn't need to see in this episode, or at all. Penguin's
scenes especially felt jammed into the episode. I'm sure that the
writers recognize that he's the character that a lot of the audience
has grown to appreciate most, but that doesn't mean that he must be
inserted into episodes without consideration for the way the rest of
the episode is impacted. We also got to see another baby step
forward for Fish's plot against Falcone, but what we saw doesn't
really do much to advance the conspiracy. Butch's loyalty was
proven, and a rival was struck down, but it seemed that those could
have been handled in a way that required far less screen time than
was provided. Selina and Ivy break into Jim's (Barbara's) apartment
while Ivy recovers from an illness of some sort. While there Ivy
answered a call from Barbara and made more trouble in the Jim and
Barbara relationship. At this point I'm not sure how the writers
might redeem Barbara's character. Aside from leaving Jim, running
off with an ex-lover, who later decides Barbara is toxic, and her
drug and alcohol problem, now she can't tell the difference between a
hypothetical lover of Jim's and a pre-teen on the phone.
Bruce
and Alfred were notably absent from “Rogues' Gallery.” As much
as I've been enjoying the way that part of the story has been going
over the past few episodes I'm glad there were no scenes with them
this week. I'm not really sure where they could have been crammed
into what was an already bloated episode and this will give a little
time for things to have evolved on that front without inundating the
viewers with the minutiae. I was also glad to see Bullock pop back
up, he has quickly become one of my favorite parts of the show and I
had hoped that Gordon's reassignment wouldn't deprive us of his
presence.
Conclusion:
There was just too much going on in “Rogues' Gallery” for it to
be a great episode. Most of the stuff that happened in Arkham was
good, but there were so many other things being thrown at the
audience that it detracted from the episode as a whole. Morena
Baccarin's addition to the cast, along with the villain, Jack Gruber,
escaping and poised to make additional appearances, were the
highlights of the episode.
Rating:
6.5/10
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