Duck Fox

The first three episodes of Gotham billed themselves as light hearted, campy fun above all the murder and mayhem that colors the city as one of the worst in DC’s fictional Universe. This fourth outing of James Gordon’s police procedural, titled “Arkham,” swings the other way.

The main plot begins after mysterious man confronting an elected official. He’s a constituent who just wants to be heard out, according to him. It comes as no surprise when he has the official’s bodyguard kill himself via an odd retractable blade. This is our weekly big bad, named Gladwell, and the most interesting thing about him turns out to be his weapon. Both the investigation to catch him and his generic motivation prevent him from standing out aside from the tool, which he constructed himself. Shortly after this official’s death, Gladwell strikes again and soon Gordon and Bullock are attached to the case. They figure this hitman is sending a message for the notorious gangster Salvatore Maroni, who is pushing on Gotham’s legislators to allow the construction of a waste disposal site in the defunct Arkham district of the city. But Maroni isn’t the only one with a plan for Arkham: Carmine Falcone wants to deploy low income housing complexes and milk Gotham’s lower class for all their worth.

The politics surrounding the investigation are of interest to everyone, including young Bruce Wayne. Who slides back into feeling forced into the proceedings, but at least this episode he’s espousing exposition that would seem really forced coming from the mouth of an adult who should know the score. By the episode’s end, when Falcone and Maroni appear to make a behind the doors deal to each get a piece of Arkham, Bruce is simply disappointed, while your average adult denizen of Gotham is likely disdained or even disgusted. Bruce’s purer emotional reaciton is what will eventually lead him to become a righteous and moral superhero instead of some dimestore vigilante like last episode’s Balloonman. You’re only disappointed if you expect more from your city.

Expecting more is a running theme with the Gordons as well. Last week’s cliffhanger is resolved when Cobblepot introduces himself as a “Peter Humboldt” before getting Gordon alone and, between being choked to death, offers to become an informant. No one looks for the guy who’s already dead. The tension between Gordon and his wife is only increased by this, however, as it turns out Barbara wasn’t totally cool with hearing about how Gordon killed Oswald Cobblepot. Barbara tries to force a confession from Gordon, even coming clean about her affair with Montoya, but Gordon refuses to relent. Whether he genuinely believes he could get her killed by sharing what’s going on with her, or he’s simply no longer capable of trusting her remians to be seen, but I’d lean on the latter.

In Fish Mooney’s part of the underworld we have a weird plotline where she’s recruiting new craziness. That’s honestly the best way I can describe it. Mooney starts by looking for a singer but ends pitting two desperate hoodrat women against each other in a fight to the death. The girl who takes the position is named Liza, and aside from her ability to effortlessly flirt with Mooney (“Pretend I’m a guy”) we know very little about her. But she’s hungery for success in Gotham, even if that means throwing her hat in with the criminal elements, so I have little doubt she’ll do great (terrible?) things in future episodes.

So once more, Oswald Cobblepots machinations were the best part of Gotham. This week he’s up to no good again, but instead of casually killing everyone who insults him, he displays some of that Penguin deviousness we’ve longed for. I mentioned above that he worms his way into being Gordon’s confidential informant, but he also does a number on Maroni’s restaurant by staging a robbery. He hires a couple of mooks to rob the place, then hides with a bit of the cash. Maroni’s men discover what happened and Maroni promotes him for his loyalty. Cobblepot then poisons a few canolis and feeds them to the team of armed robbers. All in a days work for a duplicitous devil like Oswald Cobblepot. The greatest thing about Oswald’s closing scene was the way the camera followed him picking up the money, and pushed in until we got a close up of his devious face. This shot’s aesthetic essentially establishes that we’re now finally seeing Cobblepot’s rise to power. 

In terms of aesthetics, there are few things that Gotham get wrong. It’s had the dark, gritty feel that suits Cobblepot in particular, since its beginning. The constantly overcast sky and subdued lighting make it almost possible to smell the corruption. There’s a great establishing shot of Arkham about ¾ of the way through the episode that goes a long way towards proving my point. The series is just beautiful.

Unfortunately, it still lags behind in the dialogue. There are fewer forced one-liners that fail to zing this episode, but there’s still plenty of cheese courtesy of Harvey Bullock. The weekly antagonist’s master hitman also has a couple of rather bland, uninspired speeches. The actors are all talented enough to make you feel the characters with the stilted dialogue, but it’s kind of sad that this is the thing holding us back in a series based on Batman. Which birthed such gems as “I’m the Goddamn Batman!” and “Yes father, I shall become a bat!”…. On second thought, Gotham might be in good company.

Changing the entire tone of the show only four weeks into its airing requires a finer touch than Gotham is capable of, and while the show manages to continue upping the ante in the serialized story of Gotham’s sprawling criminal underworld, Gordon and Bullock’s weekly antagonist feels incredibly tacked on and fails to leave an impression. “Arkham” is certainly not an episode you want to miss if you’re invested in the storytelling, but it’s not going to change your mind about the show if you think it’s too uneven to follow.