This episode was a flurry of activity. Balloonman, a new criminal, killing people using Weather balloons, Selina reveals (again) that she knows the Wayne's killers but doesn't actually reveal anything we don't already know. Gordon and Bullock continue to fight with each other and Allen and Montoya discover that Gordon possibly killed Cobblepot which threatens to expose the truth. We see a bevy of random characters thrown into the soup--from Maroni to Danzer, Smikers, Lt. Cranston, more from Lazlo and a varied bunch of random name drops and characters that begs the question who the hell are these people and how do they fit into the series? Let alone into the DC Universe, if at all?
We get continued references toward Arkham, which we know will be the subject of the next episode and instead of killing off the focused baddie of this episode he (balloonman) actually manages to stay alive.
Let's look at this weeks #TheBreakdown for Gotham's Episode III "The Balloonman" and try and get some perspective on new and existing characters in this episode.
His behavior with Alfred while fencing was perfection. I can see the jumps in emotion from happiness to anger and aggravation, even a little sadness, and then back to happiness. I see this in my children when I pester them. His acting skills to convey these emotions are amazingly in tune for the character.
Bruce however continues to delve into the death of his parents. He's obtained the case file and is trying to find a clue of sorts. To do what? Is a whole other question.
Jim Gordon: This character is still at odds with the GCPD and seemingly throws himself into his work. While the basic idea behind what he did with Penguin appears to be obvious--self-preservation. I'm not entirely sure why he didn't communicate that to Barbara. Instead allowing this to keep a plot based wedge inbetween them. Barbara asked questions that were very specific and not giving her the truth doesn't really aid the story at all. If anything it continues to add tension and minute amounts of doubt that germinate in her mind.
Gordon still struggles to find his place and seemingly wants to do the right thing but it is unclear whether he knows what the right thing is just yet. Especially now that he has two good cops sniffing around his business regarding Oswald's faked death.
The preview for next weeks episode revealed that we'd see more regarding this scenario, especially since Cobblepot arrived at his doorstep. Whether or not Gordon will say the name "Oswald" or "Cobblepot" in front of Barbara revealing to the audience Barbara knows Gordon didn't kill him (Oswald) is a guess. I'd speculate Penguin will introduce himself as Paolo allowing Gordon to continue to keep Barbara in the dark. Further pushing her aspect of the story to continue seeing Montoya further.
Alfred Pennyworth: We see a clearer scenario for Alfred in this episode where he is mentoring Bruce in a life lesson using canes as fencing weapons.
While we've all wondered and stated the purposes for why this character is far harsher in the series, there are episodes in the comics giving precedence to a much tougher parental figure trying to toughen Bruce into a man.
Here we see a clear scene where this occurs and we get a very vivid response from David Mazouz as Bruce.
Harvey Bullock: This character grows on you like a fungus, I'm starting to see undertones of Denzel Washington in Training Day.
He fights crime in a very dirty way and we're seeing him as more of a lazy cop than anything else. His role is still extremely adversarial toward Gordon if not attempting and failing to get him in line with the generally pervasive functions of their precinct that usually go unnoticed or cared for.
We've yet to see if Bullock's behavior is fundamentally set by his captain or by other forces. We've seen his interaction with Fish and Falcone's group but nothing that directly argues Captain Essen is involved. She still plays the role of the angry, yelling captain. A cliche and archetype we've seen on the screen many times before.
Last Action Hero much?
By the way, was that a Shawarma Bullock was eating? I'm guessing that's a poke at Marvel...Shots fired!? That or a very large Pita or Burrito...I stick with the Marvel poke for now.
Selina Kyle: Young Selina's revelation last week that seemed to be intended to shock didn't quite have the impact it intended. All she did in this episode was confirm that the already known to be dead Waynes were killed in the alley and that supposedly she saw the man that did it. However, nothing else was revealed and she ran off while Gordon was sifting around in the sewer.
She was reinforced as a capable thief, by stealing Bullocks pen and by releasing herself from Gordons handcuffs. Otherwise her general reveal last week was somewhat weak without much of a followup in this episode to strengthen the point for the climax in last weeks episode.
I still love this character and I love the young actress, she could easily be Michelle Pffeifer's daughter and there is a general mystique about her role. If there is a revelation this week about this character that is noteworthy--It's the fact she argued with Gordon that she can see in the dark. We've seen this character easily scale buildings and last week seemingly eviscerated a thug [off camera]. I'm going out on a limb to say Gotham is trying to foreshadow Meta-beings. In this case stating Selina may have special abilities. It's a breadcrumb, but a juicy morsel indeed. I'll let you discuss the implications.
Fish Mooney: I (really) at this point can't stand this character on the screen and pray to the gods of serialized television to please kill her off already. The veiled conversations between herself and Falcone
are such bullshit pieces it begs to wonder how stupid anyone would be to believe what is being said. As characters and as audience members. I'm not sure if it's extremely bad writing or just poor acting.
Perhaps I just dislike this character. I would prefer a stronger female in the role (Angela Bassett?). Someone that wasn't overacting every line.
Still, she is important as an expository character that aides in revealing much of the happenings in the criminal underworld of Gotham. I'm just tird of seeing the same scene from here with similar subtle undertones in speech pattern poorly attempting to recreate 'hidden scorn'.
Oswald Cobblepot: The body count continues to rise as Oswald makes his way back to Gotham. In truth I'm
not so sure where he went in the first place to simply come back one episode later. I still think his personality and psychotic behavior is more in tune with a Joker-esque
character and continues to appear so with every episode.
His return to Gotham felt more like a plot device to usurp organized crime while gaining position to takeover. The preview of next weeks episode "Arkham", which had also been mentioned in the episode by Fish, will present an interesting set of twists for setting the stage for Penguin and his next move. Along with the next steps being taken by Falcone and Maroni, and what I suspect is another revelation about how the Wayne family was involved. Possibly even why they were killed.
Sal Maroni: Enter Sal Maroni and a seemingly new set of purposes for the various criminal bosses in the series seems to become evident. He was a very imposing fellow on the screen yet attended his charges with a great deal of respect. While we can glean Penguins intentions to rise in the ranks and takeover the cities various organized crime families. His dealings with people come from how they generally treat him. Most of which recoil or dismiss him as nothing. Those people have come up dead. Maroni treated him kindly and with respect. Of course it was veiled with mob mentality language yet with promising results. There may be a minor relationship brewing in his opening to climb to the top with Maroni present.
Carmine Falcone: First episode his character was imposing, second episode his character follows through in the same imposing stature and veiled commentary. Third episode the thrill is gone and I expected this character to not have been so one dimensional. Their is subterfuge, hidden agendas, inuendo and a variety of other ways for a character to hide his true intentions in a manner that is not so obvious to the person being spoken to. Especially when the message is that you're going to kill them if they betray you. Three episodes in, this character, which I liked and thought had a lot of potential, is starting to simply be a one trick pony.
Davis Lamond, The Balloonman: A very polarizing character following through with Gordon's near prophetic statements about injustice and how it leads to vigilantism. A simple and almost rudimentary character. Using fundamentally basic methods of attack that were as effective as they were brutal.
We first see him as an innocuous character, early in the episode, dropping off Selina Kyle to Jim Gordon at the GCPD precinct. He's seemingly part of the Social Services department.
The character is revealed at the end of the episode to be the Balloonman and is embroiled in taking justice for the people. His whole function in this episode is to bring about a focus for the characters to understand what Gotham needs. A Hero? A vigilante? The Law? All of these questions come into play from a generally minor character that crystallizes the general essence of many of the future heroes in this city. It's interesting and odd at the same time. While normally I'd wonder how the depth of the character made me feel, especially for one so completely random to use in this series, it worked out extremely well. He was a normal guy that wanted justice and sought it out in an extreme manner. However, One wonders who could have been his last target?
He only had four balloons. His point seemingly was stated to be that all of Gotham was corrupt. So hence what's the point of punishing four? There is a deeper meaning in this character and I think that is where the strength of this series will lay. In understated and simple villains out of the DC universe that can deliver such immediately gratifying evil deeds but may not be so black and white when you get down to the meat of their story.
Carl Smikers & his Girlfriend: Were random thieves in this episode. Smikers' girlfriend was a tall brawny woman who protected him and tried to kill Bullock by smashing him with a television set.
Smikers stole the weather balloons and subsequently sold them off to Lamond. Smikers and his girlfriend were somewhat pawns in this episode. They felt like the traditional aspects from a Law & Order episode. The first set of criminals snatched up for the crime in the prologue that ended up aiding in revealing the real criminals.
I originally thought that the girlfriend may be another character altogether due to her freakishly large size and her ferocity of strength. For now, I'm content in setting them aside as random characters thrown in for the purposes of the episode.
Ronald Danzer: Was a wealthy Ponzi scheme perpetrator that caused a lot of people to suffer and specifically in this episode, two were stated to have killed themselves. This character was killed off early in the same manner two others were killed, including a priest who was stated to be a child molester, the "diddling priest".
Mooney's Thug: If there was anyone so far I've seen that could possibly fit the bill of an early Killer Croc, prior to his becoming 'Croc', it's this character. This is his second outing on the series. He appeared on the pilot and again here where he is asked to "Get rid of" Lazlo. Even though various debates exist that the character who wanted his pills in the first episode might have been a hidden Waylon Jones. I'm not completely certain. I would have guessed that character maybe a veiled entry for Solomon Grundy; that too is still a stretch of the imagination. I expect to see more of this particular 'thug' and patiently wait to see when his credits gain a name.
Lazlo: This is an interesting character because there are two references to DC characters named Lazlo. One of which is a telepath, named Lazlo Trask (Sagittarius) and the other Lazlo Valentin, who is also known as Professor Pyg and dons a pig mask. A mask not entirely dissimilar from the one used in last nights episode by The Balloonman.
I'm not sure that mask had anything to do with Lazlo, unless it was simply a random clue thrown in elsewhere in the episode to confuse or confound. Personally I think it may have been coincidence. But Considering details in general, I took account it was there and emphasized.
If I were to infer that Lazlo could be this particular character I'd have to look at how Penguin is passing himself as a half Italian to work in a mob restaurant. He's doing it to gain access. It's quite possible when considering this duality that Lazlo may also not be what he appears to be. I don't want to read too much into it--he's possibly been killed off by Fish's Thug. We'll have to wait and see.
Random name blurted out on the news -- Harold B... : Of course we're starting to venture into crazy town with all of my peccadillos' about hidden items in this series but there is purpose for everything on a script. The name uttered was Harold and the last name had a "Bla..." sound before it was cutoff. So all we know is Harold B.. There are a few Harold's in the DC Comic Universe. Harold Allnut, who used to build Batman's equipment; Harold Morton, out of Action Comics. The most famous of the Harold's is of course Harold Jordan, commonly known as Hal Jordan. From what we can infer in the episode this Harold is a landlord and judging from the old ladies statement some sort of a crook? I'm curious about this one. It's a more deliberate name drop with an unknown intention.
The only thing I can bet on is that every second on a script is precious, adding hidden items, characters and references is not easy and everything has is usually meaningful. If it is declared, showcased, mentioned in passing or hiding in plain sight--there's a purpose for it. for now I'll keep looking into this one and see if it matches up with anything else in past episodes and future outings alike.
Lt. Bill Cranston: A corrupt cop that almost immediately didn't get along with Gordon and used an award to [off camera] brutally beat a suspect. The suspects screams could be heard as Gordon walked away. Cranston used a large statue, that looked like an Oscar award that he lovingly named O'Brian. While this is a 'stretch' I'm wondering if this was a veiled reference to once criminal turned hero Patrick O'Brian (Eel O'Brian), otherwise known as Plastic Man.
Cranston also died at the hands of the Balloonman, a completely avoidable death as he was carrying a gun, yet didn't seem to think about using it to pop the weather balloon. Something we saw Gordon do for Bullock at the end of the episode.
This character continues to cement the fact this series is going to continue throwing random dirty cops in our direction to fill in the void between episodes or meta-story points of the major characters.
I can't help but wonder if some of this is relatively a weak plot. I feel entertained, yet I wasn't satisfied with the general outcome. So is it simply necessary to kill off all the dirty cops? Point them out? Toss them in with other villains? I'm not sure, but I think that some of these state-of-plot situations need to be stronger than what we've seen so far.
Barbara & Montoya: These two continue to heat up the screen, while the general intention is to put a wedge between Barbara and Gordon, this version of Barbara is being tossed in with Batwoman source material as I've written about in the previous episode breakdowns. I'm still trying to figure out how this show benefits from the otherwise racy love tryst between the two even if it's so much a 'love' tryst as it is a shady moment between these two characters. I'm also curious if Gordon is even aware that the relationship existed and is still weighing on Barbara now. While I doubt this interpretation means there will be a Batwoman appearance. It's a saucy one to be sure.
Arkham
We've been seeing a variety of material point toward Arkham. Characters like Capt. Essen to this episodes introduction of Sal Maroni have talked about Arkham. There is even a small piece in the newspaper Bruce is reading about Arkham, regarding a vote. With next weeks episode specifically titled Arkham I think we're going to see a large portion of this seasons meta-story culminate. I'm hoping for a crystallization of the direction of the show.
Aside from Arkham there are a lot of clues pointing toward civil unrest. This episode focused on the qualities the citizenry are in need of from the cops, the mayor and other politicians in power. The Transit Strike statement is another straw on a mountain of straws pointing toward a martial law situation coming down the road.
Whatever it is, I'm eager to see what the rest of this season decides to give us.
This episode had a flurry of questions raised for me. From the rampant quest of finding randomly hidden items, to determining the identity of the myriad characters thrown into the episode--to keeping up with the actual story. This was a solid episode but its purpose felt like a large exhibition to the point of the series. Isn't that point a prequel to Batman? Don't we already know this? This episode highlights the fact that Gotham will eventually need a hero. Seemingly an obvious set of points. From Gordons crusade to hunt down criminals and fairly treat everyone (including said criminals) lest vigilantes be born from the chaos, to Bruce having a breakthrough moment viewing the news where the reporter states "who will protect Gotham now that the Balloonman is gone?" Gotham has literally assigned the gravitas of epiphany into a character it once erased from their continuity. So Balloonman was a spark for Bruce in the universe according to the Gotham series.
While the episode flowed well with everything that was happening, some of the premise here is wildly awkward and I'm still struggling to allow myself to simply let the series become what it is intended to be in my eyes and mind.
A few of the characters need to be reeled in to add to the central pillar of the story telling and I'm hoping for better episodic climaxes with proper reveals that aren't rehashes of the same information we already know, from a mainstream point of view. Especially when those rehashes end up not paying off in the following episode and truly end up delivering a very basic answer to a weak cliffhanger.
Otherwise I think the show is starting to settle into the direction it wants to go and next Weeks "Arkham" episode should deliver a large dose of awesome meta-story.
Gotham continues to slowly develop itself into a crime drama with varied characters who all themselves contain secrets, however thinly veiled. The pace is still one that is lackadaisical. I offer no solution other than to merely point out the issue as an observer.
If anything is to be said, the reveals and climaxes don't seem to be that appropriately stimulating. Mostly they're restating the obvious. At least the obvious to the audience.
I hope the series continues to rise in popularity and that the focus of its charges becomes that much more apparent. It did drop again in viewers but is still holding over 6 million with a minor drop in ratings to 2.5 down from 2.8 from last week.
What did you think? Comment, share, tweet, pin, dig it and join the conversation. As always hit that big red thumb, it's attached to a joy buzzer in some of our communities pants. You'll be doing them a service.
by @EmanuelFCamacho
Up next on #TheBreakdown, The Flash Series Premiere "City of Heroes" followed by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. EP3 "Making Friends and Influencing People"