Review: ‘Gotham – S1E6’ From The Editor

Sometimes it feels like Gotham’s inaugural season is one long experiment in how vigilantism always goes horribly wrong unless you’re Bruce Wayne. Both the Balloonman and the Spirit of the Goat sincerely believed they were doing Gotham a favor and leading the corrupt city toward better days, so it’s almost a shame that they were really just out of their freaking minds.

(Yes, I know we can make the argument that Bruce Wayne is also out of his freaking mind, but that’s a debate for another time and place, y’know?) Both self-proclaimed heroes were confident that they’d pinpointed the exact cause of Gotham’s woes, and both were convinced that the only way to cure the cancer was to KILL ALL THE THINGS.

We could spend days within a locked room, and scarcely scratch the surface of the many structural problems plaguing FOX’s ‘Gotham,’ from the conceptual inclusion of a young Bruce Wayne, to the bizarre mish-mash of tones vying for attention week after week . And yet, with an extension to 22 episodes, and the addition of yet another character expected to turn series regular in a potential second season, it becomes increasingly apparent that FOX wants to make the most of its sizable investment in a pre-Batman drama, come hell or high-water. The concept has even proven popular enough to potentially spawn a ‘Krypton’ series, so people must really love it, right?

Anyway.

“Spirit of the Goat” in particular was chock full of the sort of character details we’ve been missing in a few key characters so far, like the youthful Harvey’s eagerness to be a do-gooder (and we could tell it was Young Harvey because he wasn’t wearing his angst fedora yet) or Oswald Cobblepot’s sensitive side. At the end of the day, Oswald is really just a bullied kid who wants to exact revenge on the cool kids who tormented him his whole life. OMG his mom though. They’re both so unbalanced. It’s great.

Parental units were front and center for much of the action in “Spirit of the Goat,” from our psycho therapist’s control of her victims’ mourning parents—how convenient, creepy, and cruel—to Mama Cobblepot’s steadfast belief in her son (which would be sweet if it wasn’t so off-putting and over-the-top) to Alfred’s realization that he’s come to see himself not just as Bruce’s guardian, but as a surrogate parent, with all the concern and care that biological parents have for their children. The episode’s focus on all the different shapes and sizes that parental figures can take highlighted the one gaping hole in the family at the center of this all: the Waynes. (R.I.P.)

As per usual, ‘Gotham’ remains a confused mish-mash of ideas, half-baked plots and clumsy foreshadowings, despite the occasional glimmers of a more cogent character piece at work. Last week’s “Viper” at least brought with it some well-balanced plotting to complement its usual array of Bat-references, though “Spirit of the Goat,” for all its attempts to grittily flesh out Detective Bullock, seems far less certain of its objective over the hour.