Gotham: Into the Woods: A Review

Well, it’s been more than a minute since our last episode of Gotham, so let’s talk really quick about “Into the Woods”.

                                                                  No, not that.  Stop that.

Yes, “Into the Woods”.  So we kick off with Bruce and Kat running away from a thief they stole from, resulting in both teenagers leaping to the next roof top, and Bruce openly mocking the full adult criminal who’s probably about to have a coronary from the whole event.  This is punctuated by Bruce tossing some of the ill-gotten cash off the roof top.  Why did he do that, I have no idea.  Maybe he was just caught up in the moment; maybe he likes it when Selena beats him for throwing away the money they could have died trying to get.  I don’t know.

But that’s not why you’re here.  You’re here because of Jim Gordon, on the run from the law and trying to clear his name.  Through Bullock’s, ahem, contact inside internal affairs (imagine the Harvey Bullock from the animated series “distracting” someone like that!) Gordon obtains a tape recording of the anonymous tip placed to IA about his involvement in the Galavan murder.  Gordon, after running afoul of the law yet again, because “lay low” means make a spectacle of yourself in Jimbo’s mind, he takes it to Ed Nygma to see if he can clean it up and they can identify the man who framed him.

Oh good old Ed cleans it up, and during their conversation leading to the fateful playback, Gordon figures out that Ed was the one who set him up.  Ed gets the upper hand by shocking Gordon and prepares to deal with him by driving him out to the woods and burying him.  Gordon wakes up and takes off, but not before getting shot in the leg.  After a brief chase, Ed loses Gordon, but not before spelling out the entire situation to him; that he’s trying to dodge the rap for killing Kristen Kringle.

Gordon finds his way back to Selena, which is weird because as far as I knew this was a new place for her to stay at so how would he know where to find her?  I suppose he could have asked around, because as man bleeding from an open wound on his leg asking about a teenage girl doesn’t draw any suspicion.

Well, then again, this IS Gotham.

So he passes out on the couch and Bruce calls in Alfred for an assist.  While back at stately Wayne Manor, Alfred does a fair amount of berating both Bruce and Gordon for their questionable judgement calls as of late, but ultimately is willing to help both out.

They convince Selena to tip off the police about Gordon’s activities, making sure Nygma overhears.  Gordon has gone to track down the Penguin to find out where Kristen Kringle is buried.

Let’s talk about Penguin for just a bit.  Grieved over the loss of his father, which is understandable considering until about two episodes ago he didn’t know the man existed and he showed honest to goodness love towards the often abused Oswald.  About to be kicked out, he strikes a deal with his stepmother; he will stay on as the family’s servant and they don’t throw him out into the cold.  They abuse the crap out of him and plot to fake his suicide, but they will let him stay for a little while if only to save cash on actual servants.  While performing his duties in the kitchen he discovers the decanter of liquor that had been tainted (at the cost of one of the household dogs) and plots his revenge.  It’s a very “Cinderella” story; if Cinderella murdered, mutilated, cooked and fed her step siblings to her evil step mother, only to brutally stab her to death after the big reveal.

Like Disney by way of Stephen King!

Nygma treks out into the woods (TITLE!) and starts digging up Kristen to move her body when he’s confronted by Gordon.  Holding the disposed detective at gun point, he gives a full confession only to be swarmed by police, led by Barnes, and is taken into custody, clearing Gordon’s name in one fell swoop.

Gordon is offered his job back, and will return to work after tracking down more information on the Wayne’s murder.  Barnes agrees, but only if he promises to call Leslie Tompkins.  Later Gordon tries to call, but can’t bring himself to talk to her.  His brooding is interrupted by Barbra Keane, who’s fresh out of Arkham.

Meanwhile back at the manor, Alfred tells Bruce that the mysterious computer is fixed, but if he’s going to pursue the secrets of his father, he’s going to have to leave Selena and his life on the streets behind.  Granted it was more akin to an elaborate sleep over, but still the decision is hard but he tells an angry Selena that his place is in the Manor.

There were a lot of strong points to this episode and everyone brought their A-game.  I didn’t necessarily appreciate seeing how Bullock stays off of IA’s radar, but I guess it makes sense.  This is clearly not a show for kids.  It was great to see the Penguin unleashed again, and you can tell this re-born bird of crime is going places.

But what about Gordon?

So not too long ago, last week I believe, I proclaimed that Gordon was bad at his job and this week kinda sorta didn’t convince me otherwise.  He’s a decent detective, but ultimately it came down to him being in the right place in the right time and having an opponent who gave all but a power point presentation for his evil plan.

I’m glad we got a reasonable conclusion to the storyline, at least as reasonable as you can get with Gotham, and it’s important for viewers like myself to not judge it by either the rules of real life police work or by the standards of criminal procedural shows.  It’s not fair to the show at large because it’s so very different, so very grounded as being a comic book that you can’t measure it by the same lengths.

So did we get redemption for some off kilter story telling?  Yes and no; Gordon’s return from the gutter was expected, but putting a character that’s eventually going to be Police Commissioner through that kind of thing really questions his qualifications for that job.  Nygma being locked away in Arkham was nice, Penguin returning from his sniveling form was satisfying because you really hated those three, and I’m interested to see where they go with the “healed” Barbra.  The Bruce, Selena, Alfred dynamic was a little more subtle this time around but Alfred was making a good point, that Bruce needed to focus on one thing or another, but he can’t have both right now.

So while I don’t think Gordon is any better at his job than he was last episode, I think the show redeemed some of itself for me to keep me interested in where this is all going.

Til next time.

Jim Gordon...What were you Thinking?

(Quietly banging head into desk) Okay, okay, okay…so recall how made a blog on March 10^th about how Jim Gordon was bad at his job because his ethical choices have really, really, really sucked.  I almost wish I did v-logs just so you could actually see how agitated I am at what I saw on last week’s Gotham.

Seriously, we’re talking hands shaking I am so mad at this show right now.

So, I love the Penguin subplot, that was very well done and I frankly wish Reubens had been with the show longer, but take what you can get.

Bullock’s big plan to help Gordon clear his name is to have him escape Blackgate under the ruse that he was killed by a fellow inmate, and is aided by Carmine Falcone.

That’s your plan.  That is the absolute best you can come up with?  “Carmine still has the resources to…” do a prison break?  Yes, actually that I believe, but you’d think that it would make more sense for Carmine to come out of the shadows, use a judge he had in a back pocket to overturn the conviction and have Gordon freed that way.  Sure he wouldn’t be a GCPD detective anymore, but he could work to clear his name without having to hide from literally the entire city.

But he faked his death, they won’t be looking for him! I hear you saying it, and here’s the problem with that.  The warden is still alive.  He saw, physically saw Jim Gordon alive and escaping and was knocked out.  Unless that guard proceeded to pummel the warden to death after Gordon fled, there’s a very credible witness to tell the police that Jim Gordon is a fugitive in the wind and decidedly not dead, which makes the whole “free to clear your name” thing a lot more complicated.

So let’s look at the absolute best case scenario.  Jim Gordon clears his name.  He can’t legally be reinstated into the GCPD, or join any other law enforcement agency.  While he may have been sent to prison under false pretenses, he still knowingly and willingly escaped of his own accord and that’s still a crime.  Will they throw him behind bars for it?  Eh maybe not, but he’s still guilty of it.  With that on his record, the closest thing he can do to law enforcement might be as a life guard at the public pool.

The major issue I’m having is that a police procedural show, even one based on a comic book, should have some foundation in actual law enforcement practices.

Justice Leage: We are....Family?

Today I want to take a second or two to talk about a theory I recently saw on Nerdist on YouTube.  Specifically that Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Flash from the DC cinematic universe may actually be Kryptonians, or perhaps descendants of ancient Kryptonians.

The principle of the theory is that it would be easier to explain their amazing abilities by chalking them up to Kryptonian heritage, adding that they would be less affected or completely immune to Kryptonite because they had that weakness bred out over time.  The idea stems from two places.  The first is from Man of Steel where Jor-El, explaining the history of Krypton, talks about ancient Kryptonian colonies, citing why there was a Kryptonian scout ship located on Earth, buried under ice for thousands of years.  Okay, that’s our jumping off point which actually leads into the second place, Wonder Woman’s sword.

Nerdist pointed out in their video that there is some writing on the blade that is decidedly not ancient Greek and theorized that the writing isn’t simply decorative, since the production company spends a lot of time with attention to details.  Here’s what I could find as far as the blade was concerned.

 

They’re right, that’s not simply ancient Greek.  It actually looks like a conglomeration of several writing styles from the ancient world.  So here is it: It’s possible that the ancient Kryptonians who came to Earth in the scout ship over 5000 years ago encountered ancient humans and were considered gods due to their amazing powers.  Wonder Woman is, by accounts in the film, a daughter of Zeus, who could be the leader of the ancient Kryptonians, and probably figures as the chief god of any polytheistic religion.  Her amazing abilities stem from this heritage.  Atlantis, founded by an offshoot of these Kryptonians and Aquaman, again possibly the son of Poseidon, also half Kryptonian.  Barry Allen could be of the blood line of Kryptonians and only had his powers activated by a bolt of lightning due to them lying dormant for generations.

Sounds pretty straight forward, but there are a few hiccups in the theory.  Namely the writing style established for Kryptonians by Man of Steel

 

None of these symbols looks like anything on the sword for Wonder Woman.  Something should cross over but none of these symbols even come close to matching up.  If Kryptonians founded the writing style for Ancient Greece, you’d think at least a few of their symbols would have surfaced, but they are completely different.

The second major problem comes from a story telling aspect.  This theory, while straight forward is also incredibly lazy.  Part of what makes the Justice League such a great story telling platform is that you have a group of characters from a very diverse background.  Everyone brings something very different to the table and if you tie in three of your major characters, characters who historically have very unique back stories and make them all cousins, you start turning the JLA into the superhero equivalent of the mafia.  It just feels out of place and I hope they don’t do it.  I would hate for them to explain the extraordinary away in one hand wave as “They’re all basically Kryptonians.”