SummaryBefore he was Commissioner James Gordon (Ben McKenzie), he was a young detective, partnered with the legendary policeman Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue). Their first case together is the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne, where Gordon first meets young Bruce Wayne.
SummaryBefore he was Commissioner James Gordon (Ben McKenzie), he was a young detective, partnered with the legendary policeman Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue). Their first case together is the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne, where Gordon first meets young Bruce Wayne.
The city--neon-washed, Chanderlesque, somewhat anachronistic--is itself also a character, and it turns what could be "Law & Order: Gotham" into something infinitely more layered and watchable.
True, Gotham has more than its share of monologuing villains and expository or portentous lines (Lee to Gordon: “You wanna be a cop so bad you'll break the law?”), but it undercuts those conventions often enough to make them feel like a conscious homage, not just clunky writing.
It’s unclear from the pilot how all these players fit together.... Gotham could rebound from its overly familiar opening episode. Maybe the villains will become more than the sum of their early cameos. And certainly the presence of actors of the caliber of McKenzie and Logue, capably playing odd-couple police partners, offers promise.
The result is a intermittently promising, hugely irritating series that often feels as if it’s directly catering to a DC-fan contingency excited for nothing more than to see characters from the comics be realized on the small screen.
What starts out as a morally gray crime drama devolves into a poorly written, cheesy comic book. If you see a character die in the show, they'll be back five episodes later. If you think the death of the Waynes will have any payoff, you'd be wrong. But the biggest problem with this show is that people put blind morality above practical threats; And these threats are always realized.
If you're looking for a Batman Comic book in TV form, you've found it. But don't let nostalgia trip you on your way out.
Gotham is a place ruled by darkness. The darkness and shadows of its streets is a mirror of the darkness of the hearts and minds of its populace. Rarely people are likable; most of the time they are downright abject. The exception is our protagonist, detective Gordon, our shining beacon of goodness. There cannot be a shadow without some source of light, so to speak. But even Gordon is tainted, because he has to pretend to be with 'the program.' Everyone in the police force, every official, is with the program. Everyone?! EVERYONE!!!
Well, perhaps not young master Wayne. Bruce, you know. Cause he becomes Batman. But Bruce is just a boy now and not woke. Incidentally, Gotham makes some fanboys fume at the mouth. The buttons on Alfred's jacket are not correct, you see.. there are five in the comic, not four. Dammit! I wonder why people get upset with that and not upset with the terrible writing and backstory? Gotham cannot exist. There is an evil pervading everything, like a Lovecraftian monster it taints everything and everyone. Including the viewers. And it tries to go for realism. Kind of.
My fearful observation is that some people by now think the world works like that. With public institutions being evil and, gosh, everyone being evil. And I find myself amused, baffled and annoyed. The laments about political correctness are smeared all over pages. Social Justice Warriors is a thing and a curse(albeit a bit dated by now). But where are these same people when they get a nose-full of obvious libertarian politics shoved down theirs throat?
There are not upset because they are probably swallow willingly.
In Gotham the only good outside of Gordon are the Waynes, even after their deaths. Because those magnanimous industrial philanthropists were going to build that city a haven of affordable houses. Cause that is what rich people do. They take care of their fellow citizens out of the good of their hearts while the incompetent evil state and associates scheme their demise. This trickle down of fountainhead ideas is downright offensive. At the same time Gotham tries to latch on to movies like Serpico, but it isn't Fort Apache, the Bronx. It isn't any of them. It makes caricatures of people and institutions but not to paint as caricatures in all ways, but only as evil ones. Everyone is either becoming or aspiring to become a super villain.
The problem is that this seriously undermines what is left of the tale. Take for instance Gordon's fiancee. She is an almost faceless nameless entity. We know her name and we know she was a lesbian. That is all we know about her and all we need to know. Because that latter thing is what it is all about. That is drama. She has to be a former lesbian because then we suggest ambiguity and this way she can talk to her former lover, who happens to be a police woman who has nothing else to do than investigate Gordon because the show has her to. Oh, these lesbians, they are never any good, aren't they? If they are pretty, they will eventually return to the fold of straightness, if they are ugly they are doomed. Whom am I kidding, lesbians are doomed regardless.
So what is left? A police procedural which is not about good investigative work, but about beating up the right guy to get the right clues. Work that is mostly done by Gordon's scumbag partner, which is amusing in a way because apparently a bit of police brutality works according to Gotham. The evil envelopes even the protagonist as he profits of the evilness of his partner. In many ways Gordon is a zombie, so used to the evil around him that he has become brain dead to it.
But it is just a series, stop moaning and go watch Pokemon or something.
It is, and not a good one. So I am going to watch paint dry instead.
Oh, last note.. That penguin guy is actually sort of amusing. In a very creepy way.