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.

Supergirl + Flash...Dawn of Cuteness?

Alright, so it happened.  I hope to God you guys watched it.  If you haven’t, check out CBS Access or CBS online and see if you can grab it real quick (an hour of your life you won’t regret) and come back because we are going into some serious spoiler territory here.

I don’t often do reviews of stand-alone episodes, but this is different.  This is one of my absolute favorite shows, the Flash, teaming up with the gang from Supergirl.  This episode worked on a lot of different levels.  First of all, if you are like me and only have a tenuous relationship with Supergirl (ie. I’ve watched one, count em one episode so far) this episode served as a great jumping off point as during its events it re-established Supergirl’s premise.  In many ways I came into this show like Barry did.  I’m unfamiliar with the scope of the Supergirl Universe so I really get to know these characters roughly the same time Barry does and he serves as a great entrance point for new watchers.  Like Barry, it doesn’t take the audience long to get up to speed as to who everyone is, at least their fundamental roles on the team.

Secondly, this episode came out less than a week after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice broke a few box office records, and before Marvel’s Civil War epic due out later this summer.  That said it actually serves as a big refreshing gulp of wholesome in a sea of hero vs hero media.  Barry and Kara have personalities that naturally click with each other.  Grant and Melissa’s personal and professional history helps in this as well, but ultimately the actors have just this fantastic chemistry with each other and that shines through the whole episode, so much so that I rather wish this had been an hour and a half long episode rather than the standard 48-50 minute running time.  That certainly would have ironed out a few problems.

So what’s the story?  Well roughly around the same time Silver Banshee is coming into her power set and attacking people at CatCo (still sounds like a pet store-terrible name) Kara is knocked unconscious by a sonic blast and hurled out of a window when she is saved by none other than The Flash.  Realizing they both have powers, Barry and Kara get to talking, discovering that Barry has traveled here from Central City, and an entirely different universe.  Barry is looking for what his people call “Earth 2” to have a final face off with a villain named Zoom, but for more of that go see The Flash.  Seriously watch it.

Barry hooks up with Team Supergirl in an effort to find a way back to his universe, but while they are doing that, Silver Banshee springs Livewire from jail.  Both have a hate for Supergirl, and Livewire isn’t too fond of Cat Grant either, so they team up to bring down the cheerleader of steel.  Thinking she only has to contend with Livewire, Supergirl enlists the aid of the Flash (who is more than willing to lend a superfast hand) and they go to face the villain with absolutely no battle plan, despite Barry’s suggestions that they have one ready.  Supergirl is confident that with their combined powers they’ll make short work of the villain and is understandably surprised when Silver Banshee shows up to tip the scales.  Receiving a beat down, Barry suggests a strategic withdraw, and the two regroup to assess the situation.  During this time Kara shares some of her recent personal struggles with Barry who can actually relate to those very specific situations.

Real quick, its important to understand that Supergirl is still in season 1, so the titular character is going through her rookie year while Flash is already well into season 2, so he’s been there and done that, and a testament to Barry’s personality, rather than be jaded by his personal experience, he’s willing to serve as a pseudo mentor to Kara.  He understands exactly what she’s going through, more than anyone else in her world can.  He explains to her that some of the problems she is going to deal with can’t be handled by powers, only time, trial, error, and experience.  He relates to the fact that they are both used to dealing with conflict by falling back on their powers, but that can’t always be the answer.  This exchange, I think was probably the strongest moment in the episode and for both characters.  Barry is finally serving as the mentor figure, when he’s had so many mentors in his time, and he’s learning that when you teach, you learn and when you learn, you also teach.

Kara is receptive to his advice and they soon discover that Livewire and Banshee have kidnapped Kat and taken her to an open park.  There they plan to publically execute her if Supergirl and Flash don’t make an appearance.  During this very brief battle Supergirl puts herself in harm’s way to save a helicopter, while Flash is knocked out on top of a roof (so glad you were here to help buddy).  This turns public opinion, which had waned from Supergirl, back into her favor as the citizens come to her aid and actually defeat the villains for her.

Flash and Supergirl say their goodbyes as they do an impromptu race to get Barry home.  Kara later meets up with James Olsen and finally kisses him, only for him to turn into a brainwashed zombie and wander off with apparently everyone in the city as they are being controlled by Kryptonians.

Let me back up just a bit: James Olsen.  Oh I love what they did with James because he was always the coolest kid in school, and he knew he had Kara’s heart, and never had to work for it, but seemed to keep her at a distance.  When Barry enters the picture and the two instantly click you quickly see James starting to get jealous.  Again, Barry and Kara’s personalities naturally mesh, and they can relate to each other on a lot of levels.  Plus Barry has an impressive skill set to go along with his amazing powers.  He’s super smart and very likable.  Which starts to piss James off, and Mehcad Brooks pulls this off perfectly.

Now let’s look at a few negatives of the episode.  The fights feel very short and anticlimactic, which is why I think this would have been better served as an hour and a half episode.  I say hour and a half, because I think if you pushed this to a two hour episode you would have drawn it out longer than the content would allow.  Giving it an extra thirty minutes however could allow for extended fight scenes and a chance for Supergirl to really earn the city’s trust again.  A lot of that felt very rushed, but it could also indicate that the city wasn’t that mad at her after all.

I’ve heard complaints that it didn’t seem like the Flash had a lot to do here, and he didn’t, but Barry Allen did.  Barry Allen worked with the team to track Livewire, and Barry Allen mentored Kara.  This was really more about characters than it was about spectacle.  Even Winn trying to talk Silver Banshee down, that was more about character development than the actual fight inside CatCo.  Character development is really where Supergirl shines, but it could take a few lessons from the Flash in beefing up its fight scenes a bit.

One of the challenges with any Super(noun) property is that you have to balance the powers with the character and that’s not easy to do on a weekly television budget.  Flash allows a little more room to cheat because you can always have his powers do something without actually needing to show it.  A gust of wind and a sound effect and you’ve planted in your audience that the Flash did something.  Supergirl can actually use this trick too, but I think it doesn’t because that’s a very “Flash” thing.

Kat Grant is still annoying.  I don’t like her, but that’s the character.

So overall, everyone did an amazing job in their roles.  I would love to see Kara show up in Central City, I think that would really shake up some dynamics there.  The fights felt a little neutered, but that’s kind of in keeping with the show.  Hopefully we’ll see more of this kind of cross-company team ups.

Thanks for reading.