I actually quite liked that episode, although it started off being cringing again with Selina's "I can see see in the dark". I was a bit surprised that Oswald made it back to Gotham so soon, but am excited to see what he's going to talk to Gordon about. I wonder how people would react if Bruce began to dress up in red and yellow and started to experiment with vigilantism?
Exactly. I loved the balloon murders and want to see more stuff like that. You need some colorful, outlandish comic-book business or it's just another cop show . . . .
Frankly if it weren't for the balloons this entire exercise would have been pretty lame - the balloon murders remind you that none of this stuff is supposed to be subtle or grounded in reality (no pun intended, but take what you like...)
It has me wondering, is Gotham commissioned for a 22-episode first season or is going to have 13 episodes, like Sleepy Hollow? If the former, then the pacing seems weird for Oswald's return. If the latter, then I'm okay with it. Never mind. A Google search turns up the answer -- the first season will be 16 episodes.
Well, this episode didn't particularly offer anything new. Gordon is still a giant snore, with absolutely no inner conflict. For a second I thought we might see him learn a thing or two from Bullock, which would have pierced his insufferable self-righteous perfection, but no, we still got a simplistic black and white hat portrayal down the line. And the last scene with Bruce and the newscaster - on the nose is way too subtle a phrase for that one. Losing interest...
Eventually Gordon fires everyone. Cleans the GCPD. His character is not about compromise. But... He tolerates Batman, which is just another kind of dirty.
I don't understand why audiences today assume a protagonist has to be corrupt to be interesting. Whatever happened to the idea of heroes being role models, people we could admire? Isn't that what "hero" means? Gordon shouldn't "learn" a damn thing from Bullock. This version of Bullock is profoundly more corrupt than the comics' version, to the point that I question whether he's redeemable at all. At this point he's closer to Frank Miller's Det. Flass than he is to Harvey Bullock.
Bullock is an insufferable ass wipe. Gordon is righteous without being sanctimonius. The comic book setting allows for such a heroic type. A distinct advantage.
I take your point but I'm still on the fence with this. Gordon ultimately, meaning years from now, has to be the pillar of virtue. The only way GCPD and the political system can get even half-way clean is if someone like Gordon, completely uncompromising, stands up and cleans it. What we saw the last two episodes where the fake Penguin shooting comes back to haunt him is very important in his personal story. Many good people become corrupt in a corrupt world. What we are seeing is his realization that he cannot budge with his ethics. If he gives in a little, he can't just be a little corrupt. Any line he crosses puts him in the power of people like Falcone and Mooney. I like that we are actually seeing this happen to him. He will get out, but he will realize what a dangerous chance he took. Ideally I would like to see him gradually warm to Bullock. To see that Bullock is dealing with things in the only way he is able. To see that there are reasons why Bullock is the way he is. To occasionally be tempted to accept Bullock's way. To occasionally not totally disapprove. This would show Gordon as close to grey as he can realistically get, while still allowing him to become the man he has to be. I'm not sure yet if I actually see signs that his story will be this deep, or if I am just reading into the story what I want it to be. BTW someone mentioned up thread the Shadow references. I thought the swordfight between Bruce and Alfred was a nod to Zorro.
I noticed a small flat screen 4:3 monitor among all the CRTs in the police office. I wasn't really looking out for anything like that but it grabbed me.
After Superman gets his ass kicked and Gotham is digitally recorded by Brainiac before being destroyed, what's playing in Brainiac's server farms is much like the Matrix.
The first iPhone came out in 2007. All the flipphones tell us is that it is after 1996. (Thank you Wikipedia.)
Not trying to pin a date on it, just pointing out that there was in fact a cell phone used in the episode. Actually can't remember if it was a flip or not.
The producers have stated clearly that they're not trying to pin it down to a specific real-world year. They've said (paraphrasing) they want to convey a general sense of "the past," but something that would seem like "the past" both to a twentysomething viewer and a fiftysomething viewer. It's an alternate world, and trying to match it to dates in our world is futile. After all, Batman is timeless. When Batman's origin story was first told in 1940, the movie that he and his parents were coming home from would've probably had to be a silent movie (since it would've had to be 15-20 years before the present). It's a story that's been set in many different eras, so the show is going for a composite "past" rather than a specific real-world date.
I don't understand people defending sophomoric writing by saying 'but aren't heroes supposed to be pure and good?' Interesting heroes have to struggle to find their purity and goodness because human nature is to be pulled in more than one direction at a time and to have conflicting desires. A "hero" who doesn't have to struggle to find the heroic in himself isn't a believeable character - he's a cardboard cutout. I can't admire a cardboard cutout. Inner conflict does not mean corrupt. Human beings do not feel only one way about things, especially about things as complicated as how you clean up a city that likes being dirty. The fact that we have complicated feelings is what makes us interesting. Gordon appears to have no inner life or complexity at all. He doesn't feel like a real person and therefore he's a boring character. Why am I supposed to care about this guy, other than knowing that one day he will be police commissioner and will work with Batman? Which is something I don't even believe at this point because I don't see that man in this boneheaded, uncompromising dullard who just seems disapprove of the very good idea of talking hookers and street level operators so that you can find out information. I heartily disagree. Bullock understands the city as it is, he knows the people as they are and he works within what is. Since what is, is corruption, he's corrupt. Right now Gordon and Bullock's relationship is a snore because it's being painted as Bullock is a total shit and Gordon is a paragon of virtue. At the same time, what we're seeing is that Bullock actually knows Gotham and Gordon is a greenhorn idiot - a brave one but still an idiot, yet I'm supposed to consider him to be superior to Bullock. I'm sorry, but a police commissioner who embraces an illegal vigilante who beats the living hell out of people without due process is not a "pillar of virtue" - he's someone who has accepted that the world operates in such a way that one has to sometimes do bad in order to do good. And even that is a highly questionable rationalization. But it's also what makes Batman an extremely interesting character and Gotham an extremely interesting place. That's exactly why this simplistic black hat/ white hat approach is bugging me.
So, Gordon can't start out as an inflexible pillar of virtue, who thinks his virtue can change the world - effectively a by-the-book rookie in a new city - whose conflict comes from the things he is forced to do (or pretend to do) in order to work within the city, and keep himself alive and in a position to change things in Gotham further down the line? Coz that's kinda what I'm seeing the beginnings of. Such as how he doesn't want people like Montoya thinking he killed Cobblepot, but he can't prove he didn't without putting himself, and possibly Barbara too, in the shit with Falcone.