“Gotham” 1.4 – Arkham (7.5 out of 10) – Directed by Danny Cannon; Written by Bruno Heller; Based on characters created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Howard Chaykin, Frank Miller, Greg Rucka, et al; Starring Donal Logue, Ben McKenzie, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sean Pertwee…; Rated TV14” Aired on Fox 10/13/14.
This week’s episode once again took a step in the right direction with “Arkham” but it still is lacking in a couple of areas. The drama surrounding the shows seasonal villains is promising while the weekly villain continues to run dry.
Starting out with Fish Mooney, she is holding tryouts for as she puts it “a weapon.” What kind of weapon you ask? Well a woman who can sing and is willing to do whatever it takes. The girl who claims the mantel is named Liza and we don’t know exactly what it is that she’ll do. I’m assuming something along the lines of spying on or attempting to kill Falcone. Fish was created for the show and so far I’m really enjoying her character. It will be interesting to see what kind of end she meets and where her character goes from here. Each week I look forward to seeing what will happen with Fish and I hope that she discovers Penguin to still be alive very soon.
“The best part of “Arkham” was seeing the asylum itself”
Speaking of Cobblepot, he continues to rise through the ranks and in a very devious way. He gets some robbers to bust into Maroni’s restaurant, kill the manager and then steal Maroni’s money. All except one bag that Cobblepot gives back to the gang boss and as a reward is promoted to the now vacant position of manager. Personally getting the job of the guy who is now dead because he had that job isn’t what I would really call a promotion. Cobblepot is also Gordon’s personal snitch, welcomed or not. The scene where he shows up at Gordon’s apartment is one of my favorite parts of this weeks episode. Penguin won’t be able to keep it a secret that he doesn’t have a bullet in the back of his head much longer if he continues to rise through the ranks and that spells trouble for Gordon.
The best part of “Arkham” was seeing the asylum itself. The shot of the metal gate with the logo across the top made me smile. There were various maps that showed it as a central part of Gotham and even labeled it Arkham City, which was cool to see. It also seems like it will be a major plot for the show which is something the show needs and Bruce bringing up a suspicion that his parents were killed because of the plans they had for Arkham was a nice twist as well.
That’s what went well and continues to drive the story forward. What doesn’t work this week is the same as before. A one shot villain named Gladwell who fails to impress. Hakeem Kae-Kazim who plays Gladwell did a great job potraying the villain. I believed he was dark and twisted enough to be a hitman. The problem wasn’t with the acting but the writing of this character. He wasn’t fleshed out enough to make me care about him. His past and father were mentioned but other than him saying he made the weapon he uses for killing people himself we learned nothing else. His weapon,other than proving he was responsible for both murders,served no purpose. It was a set of metal tubes about 5 inches long, when you screw them together a unique metal spike comes out of the end. The only thing I liked about it was that it reminds me of something The Penguin would put on the end of his umbrella.
We know he was killing people on both Falcone and Maroni’s side of the war and that he was hired to do so but we never find out who did the hiring. I secretly hope it was Cobblepot stirring things up and used the money the thieves took from Maroni as payment. What I fear is that we will never find out and Gladwell was simply the fat on the meat of this episode that no one eats and gets thrown away. It only took one trip to prison and a carton of cigarettes before someone turned him in, which to me means the writers either didn’t give him a past or it wasn’t presented properly. It almost felt like they said here’s what will happen in this episode and somebody else pointed out they didn’t have a villain for Gordon to track down so something was thrown together.
Gordon and Barbara breaking up did nothing for me simply because we didn’t get to see enough of them as a couple to really care. Add in the fact that they will end up having a baby girl who will grow into Batgirl and we know that they will get back together eventually, even if it’s just for a quickie.
Overall the episode was more good than bad but only because of the veteran villains and my nostalgic feelings for Arkham. The other big plus was that the heavy handed foreshadowing of Bruce becoming Batman was absent this week other than one line from Bruce. That is a win for me and I hope it continues, give us more of Gotham and less of the young Bruce. I’m not against showing his journey into Batman but wait a season. What I would like to see this season is a weekly villain who is more of a challenge for Gordon to track down and stop. Victor Zsasz anyone?