Less than 5 – Skip it, 6 – OK, 7 – Good, 8 – Great, 9 – Phenomenal, 10 – You owe it to yourself to watch this episode!
Street kids are disappearing in droves, Cobblepot is working his way back into the Gotham good books and Gordon is caught in the middle. With a new focus on quality over quantity, ‘Selina Kyle’ forgoes the plethora of Batman centric villain cameos (though we still get some) in favor of a more dedicated narrative resulting in a much more focused second outing. There is still work to be done but ‘Selina Kyle’ is a step in the right direction.
Homeless children all over Gotham are being abducted by a mysterious couple posing as charity workers and it is up to Gordon and Bullock to get to the bottom of things (with the help of Cat/Selina Kyle). Lili Taylor and Frank Whaley play a deliciously diabolical pairing, mercilessly murdering an injured veteran and drugging unsuspecting children with their enticing sandwiches. I loved how evil and disaffected they were from what they were doing and that we never find out what they were planning on doing with all of those kids. Its characters like these that will keep the hard-core DC fans interested. If you can’t kill off established Batman villains just make new ones!
Lili Taylor and Frank Whaley as the child abductors
The decision to focus on story first was a wise decision. The first episode, while enjoyable, was bogged down by unnecessary character intros and cameos. In the second episode the writers have narrowed things down to a much more manageable number. We still do see Edward Nygma pop up randomly but overall everything supported the story they were telling.
The title of this episode is slightly misleading. Selina Kyle does play an important part at the end of the episode but is largely absent from the majority of the proceedings. Camren Bicandova plays the young cat with a snarky attitude typical of the modern teenager and you can really see her evolving into the full blown Catwoman from Batman lore. In terms of development, there isn’t much. We do however get to see just how nasty she can be (man I feel bad for that guys eyes). With a massive cliffhanger at the end of the episode I look forward to seeing more from Bicandova and the continued growth of the Kyle character.
Ben McKenzie as James Gordon, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock and Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney
In the midst of all the child snatching is our white knight, James Gordon. Nothing much has changed since the first episode; he is the righteous man in a world that couldn’t care less. Gotham and its criminal underground think he is one of their own after faking the death of Oswald in the pilot but Gordon remains steadfast when it comes to doing the right thing. There are hints at his wavering resolve and it will be interesting to see how long, if at all, it takes for him to slip up. McKenzie does a serviceable job with the material but until Gordon gets a little more complexity thrown his way there is little more he could do.
Bullock, on the other hand, sees some changes for the better. In the pilot episode he seemed a bit too flimsy when it came down to which side he was playing, here he fills a more comedic role and couldn’t care less about his police work. Having him stick to a specific allegiance is welcome and Logue is hilarious when it comes to the jokes.
Robin Taylor as Oswald Cobblepot making his return from the Gotham river
Gotham’s second outing also features the return of Fish Mooney and the highlight of the pilot, Oswald Cobblepot. Robin Taylor does tremendous work as the down in the dirt Penguin. Trekking along a lonely highway trying to catch a ride, only to get picked up by a couple of frat boys that ridicule him leading to their grisly murders. Cobblepot is no joke and his rise to prominence will surely be a must watch as the season continues. Mooney, played by Jada Pinkett Smith, does not fare as well in her second showing. Where Smith was cold and calculating in the pilot, here she seems over dramatic and off the cuff. Smith draws out her lines in cartoony superhero fashion that just doesn’t vibe with the rest of the show and her characters initial portrayal. However it was interesting to see that she was not afraid to getting her hands dirty. I can’t wait to see what happens when she finally realizes that good ol’ Penguin is still kicking around the mean streets of Gotham.
Camren Bicandova as Selina Kyle
Finally we have our young Bruce Wayne and the tough as nails Alfred. They don’t appear very much in ‘Selina Kyle’ and when they do it feels kind of shoehorned in, as if their presence is mandatory but the writers or director just don’t know what to do with them yet. The idea of watching Bruce Wayne grow into the Dark Knight alongside a greener Jim Gordon is sound but to arbitrarily throw them in to scenes together at the expense of pacing and story is the wrong way to go about it. Hopefully their relationship is handled with a bit more grace in later episodes, especially considering the great portrayals Mazouz and Pertwee provide.
David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne
Veering away from the Wayne murders and delving into the corruption of the GCPD was a good move. There are plenty of stories to tell that don’t revolve around throwing every Batman rogue in the book at audiences and introducing new characters to give Gordon and the rest of the supporting cast time to shine is a great way to go about telling them. A tighter narrative and less star power did wonders for the second episode and I can only hope the third will continue what was on display. There is still a lot of work to done in terms of character development, specifically on the Gordon front, but the Oswald Uprising and the Falcone/Mooney dispute are more than enough to keep me interested for now.
Overall this episode gets 7/10