Spoilers Gotham - Season 2

[JD]

I finally got caught up the last couple weeks and watched last night's this morning. I love that Gotham just is what it is, and doesn't bother pretending it isn't.
I loved how the relationship between Bruce and Silver played out in the end, with both of them manipulating each other.
Alfred was awesome like always.
Galavan's stuff worked out pretty well. Tabitha betraying him at the end was great, and the casual way she kicked Silver out the window after saving her cracked me up. I really hope that isn't the last we've seen of those too.
I was kind of disappointed Ron Rifkin didn't get more to do.
I'm glad that they seem to have firmly planted Selina back on the good guys side. The line about her constantly changing loyalties was funny.
Wow, I was not expecting Gordon to actually kill Galavan, that was a big shock. I can understand if some people might have issues with Gordon going to so dark a place, but I think in a show like this, it's a lot more interesting if we see a character go to these kinds of places before becoming the big perfect hero he is in the end.

Edit: I just remembered something that bugged me. Once again we got a couple actors, Chris Chalk as Lucius Fox and Nichola D'Agosto as Harvel Dent, who were promoted to regular but then barely appeared in any episodes during the season.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

How many times did Galavan sound like Christopher Walken in that fall finally episode. I love that Bruce actually turned it around on Silver and got her to fall in love with him.

 

[Beagleman]

Great finale, somany funny scenes. Gordon waking up in Nygmas apartment: "What the hell?" Well as for what Jim did, it wasn't the right thing to do but it was the right choice to make.
Oh, and Freeze!

 

[Corran Horn]

TV Grim Reaper predicts Gotham is certain to be renewed...

 

[Starscream2112]

TV Grim Reaper predicts Gotham is certain to be renewed...

Cool!

 

[JD]

Nice.

 

[Christopher]

Michael Bowen cast as Matches Malone

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? Matches Malone doesn't even exist! He's an alias Batman uses when he goes undercover!

Between this and what I read about Jim Gordon becoming basically an outright murderer (it was even pointed out that he now has a higher body count than the Riddler), this show no longer seems to have any intention of being a Batman/Commissioner Gordon origin story, unless it's the Earth-3 origin story where they turn out evil. (Didn't Bruce even say his favorite animal is the owl? Is this secretly the origin story of Owlman rather than Batman?)

 

[JD]

Actually, the article on either Newsarama or CBR said he was a real criminal who died, and whose identity was then taken by Batman when he went undercover. They're just expanding his role a lot.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Yeah, "Matches" Malone was revealed to be a real criminal that Batman based his own Malone persona on. Probably inspired by the Shadow's use of the Lamont Cranston identity in the pulps while the real Cranston was overseas for years at a stretch.

 

[Christopher]

^Okay, but having him be someone Bruce at one point suspected of killing his parents (since I assume that'll be another red herring) makes it implausible that he'd then use the name as an alias. That's just too close to home emotionally.

Also, if Batman were impersonating a real criminal, it stands to reason that he'd pick someone close to himself in age and appearance -- not someone who was already an adult when he was 13 years old.

 

[JD]

And we know that Gotham has been a very close representation of the comics.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

^Okay, but having him be someone Bruce at one point suspected of killing his parents (since I assume that'll be another red herring) makes it implausible that he'd then use the name as an alias. That's just too close to home emotionally.

Also, if Batman were impersonating a real criminal, it stands to reason that he'd pick someone close to himself in age and appearance -- not someone who was already an adult when he was 13 years old.

Yeah, Malone is probably a red herring (just to avoid Joe Chill as long as possible) but they'll have Bruce trailing him/learning about him and maybe befriending him to suss out the truth of his involvement in his parents' murders.

I predict Malone will mentor him on how to be a con man & criminal and inadvertently further his crime-fighting education. Maybe Malone will pass off Bruce as his son to other criminals and thereby create the Malone persona for Bruce to use later in life.

But this is Gotham, so probably the age discrepancy won't even be considered an issue for them to address.

 

[Mr Light]

It's funny how all the superhero/action shows are basically doing 11 episode half-seasons now where one story ends and another begins in the second half. I like it. It gives me two season finales to look forward to

I was disappointed we didn't any direct Azrael references or appearances but oh well. Looking forward to Hugo Strange and Mister Freeze!

 

[Christopher]

It's funny how all the superhero/action shows are basically doing 11 episode half-seasons now where one story ends and another begins in the second half.

That's pretty standard for TV series in general these days. Most of USA's and Syfy's dramas do it that way, for instance. Shows have always taken midseason breaks, at least since the '80s, but as they got more serialized, viewers grew frustrated with having to put up with lengthy gaps in the middle of an arc, so writers started breaking their seasons into two arcs with the midseason break in between.

 

[JD]

It's funny how all the superhero/action shows are basically doing 11 episode half-seasons now where one story ends and another begins in the second half. I like it. It gives me two season finales to look forward to

I was disappointed we didn't any direct Azrael references or appearances but oh well. Looking forward to Hugo Strange and Mister Freeze!

I didn't read the story since I hadn't watched Son of Gotham yet, but I did see a headline for an interview with one of the producers that mentioned setting up Azreal, so it sounds like there might be a chance he'll pop up later. Is The Order of St. Duma usually evil? I was under the impression from the bits I'd picked up from the Arkham games and the wikis was that they were basically good guys, who just had questionable methods.

 

[Christopher]

Is The Order of St. Duma usually evil? I was under the impression from the bits I'd picked up from the Arkham games and the wikis was that they were basically good guys, who just had questionable methods.

Well, Jim Gordon is basically a good guy in the comics, but the show seems to have decided to take him in a totally different direction. At this point I think they're just taking character names from the comics and using them to tell largely unrelated stories.

 

[Forbin]

I'm not real happy with our hero executing Galavan. Oddly enough, I'd be okay with him turning his back, walking away and letting Penguin have his way. It may be a fine line, but I've been okay with heroes letting bad guys die before.

The only other bad-guy execution by a hero I can recall was on Miami Vice. Crockett confronted the man who murdered his wife, who then taunted him that cops don't murder people, and since they were in the Bahamas at the time he couldn't even arrest him.We saw Sonny fire, then walk away. We cut to the bad guy dead. But then they tried to backpedal by showing a gun in the bad guy's hand. We were left with the question, did the bad guy draw on a drawn gun? Or did Sonny plant it? There was also the mitigation that Crockett was not in his right mind, and he then descended into a schizophrenic period where he believed he was hi undercover criminal persona.

Here, we just have our good guy betraying all his principles and assassinating someone because he couldn't do his job well enough to get him convicted.

 

[Marc]

The only other bad-guy execution by a hero I can recall was on Miami Vice. Crockett confronted the man who murdered his wife, who then taunted him that cops don't murder people, and since they were in the Bahamas at the time he couldn't even arrest him.We saw Sonny fire, then walk away. We cut to the bad guy dead. But then they tried to backpedal by showing a gun in the bad guy's hand. We were left with the question, did the bad guy draw on a drawn gun? Or did Sonny plant it? There was also the mitigation that Crockett was not in his right mind, and he then descended into a schizophrenic period where he believed he was hi undercover criminal persona.

Here, we just have our good guy betraying all his principles and assassinating someone because he couldn't do his job well enough to get him convicted.

happened on Hawaii5-0 (i.e the new version) when Chin Ho Kelly gave the guy who murdered his wife a pointblank shotgun blast and caused some consternation given it was pretty much cold blooded murder (even if the guy was no great losss to society) and there was no consequences.

Possibly the difference is that Gotham is dirty corrupt city and at the end of the day I'm not sure some-one like Gordon could make any headway without getting his hands dirty.

Remember everyone there has "has their Penguin"

Should Gordon have shot Galavan? No

Should Gordon have let Penguin have his way and beat the guy to death? Think that's a no as well but once Gordon got himself involved there there was no real way out.

 

[Christopher]

Possibly the difference is that Gotham is dirty corrupt city and at the end of the day I'm not sure some-one like Gordon could make any headway without getting his hands dirty.

But that defeats the whole purpose of Jim Gordon as a character. He's supposed to be the one incorruptible cop whose example inspires others to reform the dirty, corrupt system and build it into something better. The extent of his moral compromise is his willingness to work with an extralegal costumed vigilante (who never, ever kills, by the way) in pursuit of justice.

But this Jim Gordon has had the opposite arc. Instead of his decency eating away at Gotham's corruption until the police were purified, in this show we've had Gotham's corruption eating away at Gordon's decency until he's become just as tainted. Instead of Gordon and Batman saving Gotham's soul, this show has depicted Gotham destroying Gordon's soul. He hasn't just "gotten his hands dirty", he's become a premeditated murderer and is in the pocket of organized crime. He's now crossed a moral event horizon that he can never come back from. This is a story about Jim Gordon losing the struggle that he wins in other versions. And that's why I stopped watching.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Possibly the difference is that Gotham is dirty corrupt city and at the end of the day I'm not sure some-one like Gordon could make any headway without getting his hands dirty.

But that defeats the whole purpose of Jim Gordon as a character. He's supposed to be the one incorruptible cop whose example inspires others to reform the dirty, corrupt system and build it into something better. The extent of his moral compromise is his willingness to work with an extralegal costumed vigilante (who never, ever kills, by the way) in pursuit of justice.

But this Jim Gordon has had the opposite arc. Instead of his decency eating away at Gotham's corruption until the police were purified, in this show we've had Gotham's corruption eating away at Gordon's decency until he's become just as tainted. Instead of Gordon and Batman saving Gotham's soul, this show has depicted Gotham destroying Gordon's soul. He hasn't just "gotten his hands dirty", he's become a premeditated murderer and is in the pocket of organized crime. He's now crossed a moral event horizon that he can never come back from. This is a story about Jim Gordon losing the struggle that he wins in other versions. And that's why I stopped watching.

Perhaps he needs a redeemer, say a child of Gotham.