Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Gotham: Season 1, Episode 13


Gotham
Episode Title: “Welcome Back, Jim Gordon”
Channel: Fox
Director: Wendy Stanzler
Writer: Megan Mostyn-Brown
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Runtime: 42 min
Rated: TV-14
Original Air Date: January 26, 2015

I hate writing reviews like this one. Gotham has consisted of several ups and downs in its short history, and I've tried to give the writers the benefit of the doubt. It takes some time for a show to find its identity, to find the right balance between the larger story arc and the cases in between. Finding the sweet spot as far as how many individual character arcs you can fit into one episode must be difficult, and Gotham is operating with a very high number of concurrent stories to juggle. “Welcome Back, Jim Gordon” is an example of most of the things wrong with the series so far.

Present in the episode are: Gordon's investigation into another member of the GCPD, Fish Mooney's plight at the hands of Don Falcone, Penguin's ascension as a major player in the underworld, Bruce's search for Selina and the knowledge of his parents' murders, and Nygma's ongoing infatuation with Ms. Kringle. It's just too much, there isn't enough time to focus on so many different things. An episode that is only 42 minutes long cannot tell a self contained episodic story and move the serial plot along with so much time devoted to things that don't matter at the moment. The latter two plot points fall into this category.

While I'm glad that Bruce now has a reason to resume his own investigation into the murder of his parents the setup for it should have been withheld until his investigation plays a bigger part in an episode. Combine those scenes with the scenes in which the audience is still getting bludgeoned by how weird and creepy Edward Nygma is and you have a major chunk of time that could have been more effectively used elsewhere. Lets leave Nygma alone for a while, the show already has plenty of villains to go around; there's no purpose in continuing those scenes. A large percentage of the audience must know how he's going to end up, and the ones that don't must see these scenes largely as filler.

A huge missed opportunity in “Welcome Back, Jim Gordon” revolves around the capture of Fish Mooney. I think it's safe to say that we all knew that Fish wasn't going to be thwarted quite so easily, she wasn't going anywhere during so inconsequential an episode as this random midseason dud. As her character is not protected by years and years of comic book stories she represents too ripe a possibility for surprising the audience. As one of the few characters on the show that the writers have complete control over she doesn't have to fit some preconceived role reinforced by decades of previous stories. During the whole of her captivity I expected her to take matters into her own hands, hatch an escape plan, and deal with her torturer in most brutal fashion. Instead she's rescued by Butch, wasting the chance to really see her cut loose. The only positive item of note in her story this week is the revelation that she and Harvey may have a closer relationship than we had suspected.

The presence of Gertrude Kapelput, the Penguin's mother, in nearly all of his scenes made them borderline unwatchable for me. Add to that a very strange “getting drunk” montage straight out of an 80s flick and you've got a sequences that had me begging for a commercial break. For a character that had previously been one of my favorites this was tragic misstep. His scenes with Fish near the end were sullied by a new level of overcooked acting from Jada Pinkett Smith as she decided to up the corny factor in her expressions and delivery

Gordon's storyline involved him investigating something he'd been told to leave alone, rampant corruption throughout the law enforcement community, scenes in which we see that none of the other cops really have his back, and Captain Essen being the one to step up and take his side. Ultimately, after wasting a chance to change the show by leaving Arkham Asylum behind, Jim's role this week was to do almost nothing we hadn't already seen from him. The one bright spot involved his appeal to Cobblepot for help in his investigation. Upon receiving the Penguin's assistance Gordon is shown dealing with the fallout of his agreement. Did he take the only option available to him, and if so does this signify that Gordon has accepted that he's going to need to choose between the various evils in Gotham to achieve that best possible outcome?

Conclusion: “Welcome Back, Jim Gordon” tried to do too much and through its lack of focus managed to do nothing well. Between unnecessary scenes and a blatant rehash of themes previously presented to the audience nothing here felt new or important.

Rating: 5.5/10

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