I’m sure that his father’s death and the realization of who kicked his bucket will do wonders to push him back into honest bad guy dom.
Why is it “stunt casting”?
It’s stunt casting in the manner of, e.g., casting the actors that formerly played Superman and Supergirl in the current Supergirl show or the actor that formerly played the Flash in the current The Flash – Paul Reubens previously played Penguin’s dad in Batman Returns. That Paul Reubens and Robin Lord Taylor actually physically resemble one another makes it transcend stunt casting. That their acting styles also resemble one another moves it into the realm of genius casting.
Ah, that makes sense. I wasn’t aware of that bit.
My, the current Penguin sub-plot certainly is…Gothic.
With the initial “Jim Gordon in prison” montage, I thought Hollywood was actually going to give us a more realistic portrayal of prison life–not that I would really know, but so I am given to understand, including by some other posters on this board–soul-crushing monotony and boredom rather than 24/7 prison rape and “shankings”. Of course it was not to be–especially not on this show!
Part of this post is somewhat spoilerish, but I suppose that anyone who’s looking at this thread has already watched the latest episode, so no real need to hide anything…
While watching this last episode, I had something of an epiphany regarding the evil characters in this show. The season is subtitled “Wrath of the Villains” or some such thing, and the last episode made me realize that there’s a distinction in who is a “villain” and who is just a criminal. Don Falcone helping Gordon in his plight–along with some previous acts–seems on the surface to distinguish Falcone as a character who is willing to be on the side of right, at least to some extent some of the time, despite his criminality (assuming you buy the notion that the now thoroughly compromised Gordon still represents the side of “right”). Whereas Nygma (in his current state), and Penguin (previously, and presumably again in the not too distant future), and Zsasz and Fries and Strange have this other dimension to them that makes them evil above the rank of a mere criminal.
Maybe this is something obvious that I just never gave much thought to before. (I’m not a comic book reader, so how this concept informs the stories in the books is totally unknown to me.) But I feel like there’s something interesting there, that there’s a core idea to this story about this distinction between a criminal and a “villain.” Like, Gotham produces these exceptional criminals, ones who rise to the level of “villain” and thus it makes sense that ultimately you would need an agent of justice who is far beyond a mere cop to fight them. Perhaps? I’m curious about what others think about this idea, how that distinction informs their view of the show, maybe the whole Batman story in general.
It’s called “Rise of the Villains”. Your hypothesis has some merit, but I think needs to take into account Selina Kyle. We all know she’s going to become Catwoman, who is generally classified into the “villain” category. But her current behavior, especially with helping out Bruce, would put her into your mere “criminal” category. There’s also Selina’s cohort [Poison] Ivy, who hasn’t yet done anything yet to class them as a villain, unless you count growing magic mushrooms.
I’m not sure you need to account for Selina Kyle. From what I know of the character, in most iterations, she’s always been somewhat ambiguous. Besides, her and Ivy are, in Gotham, kids; they can hardly be considered fully formed people at this point in their lives (despite the gusto with which some jurisdictions like to prosecute kids as adults).
I just think that, given what we’ve seen of all these characters, there does seem to be this line that distinguishes someone as a villain vs. just a criminal. The Falcone example is interesting to me, because at first glance–going back to the original episodes of the series–he was on the face of it the biggest criminal (arguably, villain) in the city. And he’s not exactly a saint; remember what he did to his little girlfriend when he found her out. Yet, having seen what has come after him, he really comes across as somewhat run-of-the-mill in his evilness–not as flamboyantly, almost unnaturally evil in the way that, say, Jerome the proto-Joker was. Gotham (the city) is almost like a machine for generating monsters, and given that Falcone used to be the main heavy in town, and look at what’s running around there now, the implication is that it’s getting worse. I guess that’s one of the driving characteristics of the plot: as the city decays, Batman becomes necessary, as a monster of a sort himself, to counteract the degeneracy.
Again, maybe all obvious, but interesting to ponder. I guess that’s why I like the show; it lends itself to this kind of philosophical speculation. Not like you’re going to get that from Blue Bloods. I’m surprised more people aren’t into it (at least judging by posts on this thread and board.
The biggest problem I’ve got with the show is that they “broke” the character of Jim Gordon. I’m absolutely fine with him being morally grey…it’s not traditional, but I enjoyed it. Then he execution-style murders the mayor. There’s no redemption possible for that. I didn’t want much…they could have made the mayor make a sudden move and Jim overreacted, and I’d have been fine with that. But cold blooded gangland execution? He’s a bad guy and deserves to be in jail.
At this point, I don’t really have anyone to root for.
Maybe the show is supposed to be a metaphor for the electoral process. We’re always asked to choose the least worse choice; in Gotham, that seems to be Gordon.
I think you’re right though; I don’t see how Gordon can be redeemed in any meaningful manner, even though Galavan clearly was a monster.
Not entirely. Bullock and whatshisname–the big, bald police commissioner who was The Thing in that '90s FF movie* are both more plausible candidates.
*Which is still a better Fantastic Four movie than any of the others.
As I said over in the DC vs Marvel movie thread, the latest episode of Gotham was some of the most wonderfully twisted television I’ve ever seen. When Oswald discovered the poisoned liquor, I thought I knew how his revenge on the family would play out: He’d poison the roast and serve it to everyone at dinner. What he actually did was Shakespeare-level storytelling. [Or maybe South Park.] I actually LOL’d in glee when I watched it.
Indeed–a very tasty bit of work there.
I got a bit hung up on the fact that, though Gordon has cleared his name, at least as far as the murdered cop goes…didn’t he still commit a crime by breaking out of prison? I don’t know that he’s really all square there (though I suppose he’s good enough for TV storytelling).
I’m also a little tired of the constant cycle of falling out and making up between Bruce and Selina. Make up your minds already.
But I’m quibbling; I still enjoy this show very much, more than I ever thought I would.
Well, that was certainly a setback for poor Oswald’s program of treatment, now wasn’t it?
He’s going to grow up to be Batman, and she’s going to grow up to be Catwoman. So the love-hate cycle (or enemies with benefits, maybe) is going to be a thing for years to come.
Thoughts on the finale?
Hugo Strange is out of the picture, but now we have all his monsters.
Is the secret council part of comic lore? Is the owl lady?
Brian
It’s one of the few new pieces of lore to come out of the bat books and stick since the mid-80s. It’s called the Court of Owls and it’s a secret group of bad guy Gotham movers and shakers. I really like the addition. Frankly, it may be the only addition to the entire DC universe to come out of the new 52 that should stick after it’s rebooted tomorrow. * if you care it’s one of the first Batman story arcs following new 52 – maybe between issues eight and 12? That range anyway.
*Yeah, I know, they say it’s not a reboot, but we all know it is
A rather weak ending to an otherwise great season. It seems the point of the episode was just to kill off Dr Strange and set loose his monsters, in preparation for next season. I’m not really about the return of Fish Mooney and hope that Oswald doesn’t revert to his old ways.
So was that Bane we saw coming off the bus at the end? Could anyone spot any other particular villains in that scene? Was that woman who thanked the bag lady someone we’re supposed to recognize?
That appeared to be a long-haired clone of Bruce Wayne.
Overall a satisfactory and entertaining season. I’ll be back for the next, if there is one.
I’m actually still impressed with how they answered this question, about redeeming Gordon after he cold-bloodedly murders Galivan–you’re not a murderer if the guy you murdered shows up alive and something-not-quite-well. I guess they had that in mind all along, but it was a deft touch to pull Gordon back from the brink.
I’m not sure Strange is really “out of the picture”; last we saw he was in police custody, but not dead. Even the latter is not necessarily an obstacle in this show; certainly the former doesn’t disqualify one from being involved in shenanigans.
One weakness of the finale was that they seemed to lose track of Freeze and Firefly. They were battling each other one minute before Strange (stupidly) got in the way, then they just sort of disappeared while Gordon and Fox went down to disable the bomb. You’d think they would have been more of a problem for the guys even after they accidentally made their boss into an Icy-Hot pak.
I’m still digging this show though. I’ll be back for next season; I hope FOX is willing to stick with it.