When the circus comes to town, the main attraction is murder.
What They Say:
The Blind Fortune Teller – The circus comes under attack while Gordon and Dr. Thompkins are in attendance; Falcone wants Butch Gilzean to help PEnguin with the night club; Bruce meets with the Wayne Enterprises board.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the way Gotham continues to change the balance of power, at least in the smaller ways throughout it, it’s been fun to watch this largely in the realm of the mob side of it all. Now that Fish is off in her own place and is building a position of power there that will likely give her some muscle to make her way back, we get to see how the dynamic changed in Gotham itself with Maroni making a deal to go easy on Penguin so he gets what he wants, but also knows that Penguin is going to get his eventually. I’m definitely enjoying that aspect of the series as they all play it with the right kind of scenery chewing, unlike the whole Thompkins and Gordon flash in the pan romance that got really center stage the last time around. The romantic angle of the series is one of its several weak points and that just reinforced it there. Which is unfortunate, because you can do a lot of good stuff with struggling relationships, such as what Barbara and Jim were moving into, and the infidelity side of it all.
The cold open here takes us back to Bruce, who has been a bit underserved as of late, something that hasn’t been a problem. While he’s continuing to take things very seriously, we see that there’s only so much a young teenager can do and it’s good to see that the limits of the body are in full effect. The limits of the mind are what we see from Penguin though, where his mother is singing in the club and he loves it, not really realizing that she’s killing the vibe in a huge way. More interesting in the overall place setting of events for the episode is seeing Fish at the prison she’s at where she’s established real order at this point and has really taken control of it. Amusingly, we also see Barbara finally returning home after being away for so long only to find that Ivy and Selina have moved into her place, which she takes in stride when Selina reveals that Gordon dropped off his keys awhile ago.
So what new dynamic to bring in? The circus has come to Gotham and we see Gordon and Thompkins there having a pretty pleasant date as they watch the Flying Graysons performing there. But the performance doesn’t go as planned as after the trapeze aspect ends, the clown car comes out and a number of them start coming out and turning the whole ring into a brawl. Of course, Gordon has to get involved and that strains the date, but it takes us into the comically simple questioning that goes on after everything settles down. What we do learn is that there’s a bit of family feud going on within the circus as the Lloyds, who handle the clown side, have a longstanding issue with the Graysons. There’s little revealed about the why of it all, but it’s the kind of semi-incestuous aspect of things that you get in a traveling group like this where it’s got some various links and oddities about it all.
With events seemingly revolving around a snake handler woman named Lila, that has Gordon and Thompkins going to find her, only to discover she’s not there and only her teenage son Jerome is. Gordon gets a bit creative in trying to find Lila by using the snake in a rather hard to believe way, but it gets us our body, our murder and some real involvement for the GCPD here. Because of the nature of how circuses work, or any close knit kind of working family like this, it’s no surprise that they were trying to keep it quiet and knew about it since if it’s someone from within, they’ll find out and deal with it. If it’s someone from outside the circus, not much would be done anyway and it would cause a lot of divisions. Which, of course, is what happens as we get people being brought down to the precinct to be talked to in order to see if a motive can be found.
Things take a comical twist as the time at the station continues, including the captain being surprised about what Gordon did with the snake, but we also get the arrival of Cicero, the blind fortune teller of the circus who has a message for them from Lila. It’s a proper vague kind of message that he passes on about what may be involved with Lila’s death that you know will be played up as it goes on. Of course, what we get is Gordon being cynical about it all while Thompkins is open to belief on it, which provides the first schism in their relationship and she really takes his cynicism very personally. That becomes one of the main focuses of the episode as it goes on because it works through the hypocrisy Gordon has about wanting a strong woman with opinions and ideas but still trying to protect her and not taking her seriously. It has some cute moments as it goes on, but it’s the kind of early relationship drama that just feels kind of cheap to work through considering both of their resumes overall in the world.
As the show works through the whole killer aspect with a few minor twists and turns along the way, including figuring out who Jerome’s father is and the kinds of lies that were involved in his upbringing, it again just reminds how empty the resolution aspects of this series continues to be cause they’re not the main focal point of the show. It’s about the weaving stories and the procedural aspects, which could be good, are just bland. It does have a little more character here as Jerome provides a personality twist from weak and simpering to intense and cruel with the way he’s glad she’s dead and everything else about it. They play up the potential Joker aspect here pretty well with the personality, the laugh and the almost split aspect of how he handles himself, but it does of course feel like just another ruse. Which is certainly find as I expect there to be quite a few of those over time.
Fish’s storyline this time around doesn’t have a lot of forward progress, but we do see how she cements her position of power within all of it in order to gain more control. It shows the ruthless side easily enough and that works well, but it’s still a storyline in search of having some real meaning here amid everything else. It’s not bad and it fits in showing us just how down and dirty she can be in addition to the refined cruelty we saw in Gotham, but it’s just uninteresting. What is interesting, but relegated to a tiny bit of material here, is Bruce getting ready to meet with the board of Wayne Enterprises, which Alfred is against. This is just the last couple of minutes of the episode and it has the kind of classic image that makes you grin with the boy amid the adults, but it has him playing it quite serious while everyone else isn’t ready for what he’s really bringing to the table. That has a lot of potential for fun and I hope it gets some decent exploration.
In Summary:
What Gotham proves this time around is that Fish out of Gotham is decidedly uninteresting, corporate material with a fourteen year old boy is more exciting and dangerous than it should be and Gordon and Thompkins get to knock boots. Oh, and that Barbara takes fashion and dating advice from runaways seriously as she tries to get Gordon back. There are things I did like throughout the episode, but the Graysons and the circus felt woefully underserved here considering the overall importance and the variety of things you can do as well as the whole Joker potential ruse being played since it’s something that can move forward with or just drop entirely depending on the shifting winds of the creative team. That’s not bad, but it keeps you from investing in it. One of the weaker episodes of the series for me so far.
Grade: B-
