“Gotham” 1.9 – Harvey Dent (6.5 out of 10) – Directed by Karen Gaviola; Written by Bruno Heller and Ken Woodruff; Based on characters created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Howard Chaykin, Frank Miller, Greg Rucka; Starring Donal Logue, Ben McKenzie, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sean Pertwee…; Rated TV14” Aired on Fox 11/17/14.
True to form the episode titled “Harvey Dent” focused more on the other characters instead of the one the episode is named after. We actually saw more of Selina Kyle this week than ever before. Which means we should see more of Harvey as the show goes on and get to dive into him as a character but at this point it’s really a coin toss. See what I did there?
This week’s episode fell flat compared to the previous weeks. The villain this week was plain at best. The dialogue between Bruce and Selina felt out of place, even Penguin’s scenes were awkward. Saddest of all though was that Dent’s storyline introduced a villain we’ve never even heard of at this point in the show.
Starting with the bomber villain this week, he is a criminally insane inmate who is broken out of Blackgate Prison only to be kidnapped by Russians working for Fish who wants to use them to hurt Falcone by stealing all his money he has stashed away and then in a double cross blow up the truck they’re driving to not leave any witnesses. The only redeeming part of the case this week is that it fit into the world of Gotham we’ve come to know. Fish wants to hurt Falcone and will do anything she can to do so. That part makes sense; it also explains why the Russians killed three cops to break the bomber out of prison instead of just paying them off. Fish had to distance herself from the crime so it wouldn’t come back and bite her in the end. Having an insane villain also allowed Gordon to take a shot at the Mayor for not having a proper place for the criminally insane to be housed. Which then leads to the Mayor reopening Arkham Asylum. That was the whole reason for having the villain they did this week and it worked in moving things along in the show.
What didn’t really work was Bruce and Selina. Gordon has her give a description to a sketch artist of the man who shot the Wayne’s. Then to keep her safe and to make sure she will still testify in court Gordon has Selina stay with Bruce and Alfred. He justifies this by explaining the witnesses who stick around are the ones who care about the victims. Okay great I’ll accept that however watching Selina and Bruce interact with each other is harder to swallow. Selina has a tough street kid slang, which she has had before but this week she didn’t sound like herself. There’s one line where she says “You think you’re ruthless? Well, ya ain’t.” she says this with an old school New Yorker accent and all. Bruce then looks disappointed which bugs me for the simple reason that last week we watched him beat Tommy Elliot senseless with a watch. Did Bruce forget about that scene or better yet did the writers? Because I have no problem believing Bruce can tap into that dark side he needs to become The Dark Knight after watching that scene.
They had flirting and promises of kisses if Bruce won the food fight and it was great to see the kid part of him come out again because he is after all still a kid but what I want to know is if this is all just foreshadowing for a future Batman/Catwoman relationship or will we actually see Bruce and Selina develop into a kid crush relationship on the show?
Harvey Dent was the real let down though, Nicholas D’Agosto, who plays Harvey did a great job. What was disappointing was that Gordon and Dent meet and come up with a plan to out the Wayne’s killer. Dent says he would bet his career on the fact that Dick Lovecraft was involved. Great who the heck is Dick Lovecraft? This is a villain we’ve never met in the show. He’s a corrupt businessman who Dent has been trying to nab for fraud for years based off what we learn in the episode. We don’t know his connection to Falcone or Maroni. We don’t know where he stands with Wayne Enterprises either; this was a complete out of blue character. Next week’s episode is titled “Lovecraft” which normally would make me think we’ll learn more about him but episodes titled after characters haven’t done that so far so I wont hold my breath.
Dent allows brings up God to a kid who was busted for something. He tells the kid to call the coin toss and if he’s right then to take it as a sign from God that he needs to straighten up his life. I was thrown off because so far God and religion haven’t been mentioned. Not even to Bruce who just lost his parents, there was no “well they’re in a better place now” lines or anything. Nor was it mentioned the rest of the episode so it just felt wrong and out of place in this scene.
We got to see Dent flip his double-sided coin and loose his temper as his duel personality struggles to come out which was fun but still the problem with introducing all of these characters that are in Batman’s rouge gallery is that unless the show moves away from it’s source material and makes them Gordon’s villain’s first the most we will ever get is foreshadowing of the villains they will become and there’s only so much of that you can do before it becomes old news.
I’m okay with Penguin rising through the ranks of the mob before Batman ever shows up on the scene because he does need his henchmen and criminal empire to be the Penguin we know from the comics. The show is also showing that progression in a very entertaining way. If they could do that with characters like Riddler and Two-Face instead of just heavy handed foreshadowing then the characters wouldn’t come off as so one-dimensional.
The big twist at the end of the episode this week was that Barbara left Gordon and went back to Montoya. Basically a female version of Gordon, both are good cops and are above corruption. I don’t think anyone really cares about the relationship between Gordon and Barbara. We know that they will end up together in the end or at least have a daughter so the drama between them doesn’t matter to me.
Overall this week’s episode felt like a filler episode between the ones that really matter. Based off the preview for next week they were setting the stage for an action packed episode. I want the episode that introduces the key characters of Batman’s universe to be better but so far it hasn’t happened.