Gotham Gets Better

Gotham City

*****SPOILERS AHEAD***** If you haven’t watched the last couple of episodes of Gotham, stop reading……NOW!

I’ve watched every episode of Gotham this year and I must admit that is has quickly become one of my favorite programs.  Alongside The Flash, Gotham is a rare program that I actually look forward to each week.  The lighthearted humor and overall style of The Flash is, well, flashy, and it fits that character perfectly.  It’s also very refreshing to see a comic book adaptation that isn’t too gritty or realistic (although the introduction of Captain Cold might inject a little grit into The Flash soon enough).  With that said, Gotham plays up its dark setting and grim outlook perfectly, allowing just enough silly psychosis to bleed through in characters like Penguin and Victor Zsasz.

Last week’s episode, which revealed to GCPD that Oswald Cobblepot truly was still alive and kicking and making his way in the criminal underground, ended with a bang, and last night’s episode picked up where that one left off.  The story offered up even more twists and turns than last week’s episode, and key characters, namely Harvey Bullock and the Penguin, showed their true colors.  Bullock came off looking sort of like the hero he was before he was corrupted by GCPD.  The Penguin on the other hand, showed that he had even more twists to his character than was already expected.

It was nice to not have Jada Pinkett-Smith stink up the screen last week, and thankfully we didnt have to suffer through too much Fish Mooney this week either.  Her screen time was brief, and her interaction with Marconi and the Penguin was one of the funniest parts of the program.  I cannot wait to see what the Penguin has in store for her in the future!

The whole cast (yep, even Smith) did very solid jobs for the most part.  The standouts were Robin Lord Taylor as the Penguin, Sean Pertwee as Alfred (who’s getting more and more development as this show goes along), Donal Logue (Bullock) and Anthony Carrigan as Victor Zsasz.  I hope Zsasz gets more screen time in the future, and hopefully he’ll still be around if and when Bruce Wayne finally dons the cape and cowl.

The only problems that I’ve run into with the series so far are the overacting of Smith, the high rate of introductions of some of Batman’s greatest enemies, and the sometimes weak and wonky writing.  The writing is getting better, though, and while many of Batman’s best enemies have been introduced and/or hinted at, only Penguin is getting fleshed out at a decent clip.  Plus, considering the fact that the Penguin is a crime boss in the comic world of Batman, I can see his character being around for a very, very long time.  It’s characters like Zsasz, though, that have me worried.

Jim Gordon will most likely end up putting a bullet or two or three into Zsasz at some point.  I just hope that he goes to Arkham and not to the grave.

Smith doesn’t have much longer on the show in my opinion, as I firmly believe that Penguin will finish her off soon.

The bottom line about the show in my opinion is this:  Gotham gets better with each episode.  It’s finding its legs and starting to move along at an excellent pace.  Let’s hope that the writers don’t ink themselves into a corner where there are too many villains and not enough cops to keep them in check until the Dark Knight Detective arrives.