Things are going bad for the kids of Gotham city.
What They Say:
Selina Kyle – Gordon and Bullock investigate a child trafficking ring; Penguin shows up in the countryside and begins making his way back to the city.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The pilot episode for Gotham was a pretty crowded place as it tried to get in as many things as possible, which is not a surprise as a pilot episode wants to do just that to cement itself for a network to show it’s on the right path. That episode largely worked for me, changes and all, to provide for a Gotham that is its own beast while playing with familiar characters that are more interconnected than the comics fans may care for. The end result was a very fast episode with a lot of things going on that didn’t get room to breathe at times. But it also set the stage for a lot of different things and it accomplished the impossible in making me like Jada Pinkett Smith as she chewed up scenery as mob boss Fish Mooney. I did not expect that. Having gone into the show with an open mind and some enthusiasm, I came out of the first episode looking forward to more and seeing what twists and turns are ahead.
With a lot of characters to work with, there’s plenty of areas for each episode to go. The curious piece is just how much we’ll see of Bruce in it, since they’ve upped his role beyond what they thought it would be originally. Seeing, in small doses, the changes he’s going through is certainly fun to watch. That will be a slow growth to be sure and we’ll see others getting more exposure overall I think. Such is the case early on here with SElina as she’s down in the slums with a lot of others of similar ages. But the situation goes south fast when a group comes to take a lot of them for their own mysterious ends. That leaves a few dead bodies around, which is what draws in Gordon, but he takes it even more personal in a way as one of the adults that was killed is ex-military. Bullock’s pretty flippant about it and we see a little more of how the city works with Gordon making accusations and an unfriendly nature growing between him and others on the force.
While Bullock has a hard time believing anyone would want these orphan kids for anything, Ed provides a little key information about what was in one of the kids system that reveals a tie back to the old Arkham Asylum, which has been closed for fifteen years. That provides an avenue to explore for what’s going on since it’s obviously not a city sanctioned outreach program, but they also have to deal with Mooney first since the incident happened on her turf. And they don’t know if she’s still mad at them for what happened recently. Mooney has a lot going on in her club on any given day, but there’s also a little more than usual here as Falcone has come to talk to her about what he learned from Cobblepot. Falcone really had a good bit in the pilot about how the city needs its light and dark to hold things together and now there’s a power vacuum, one that has Maroni and his group eying things. So it makes sense to try and cement things with Mooney a bit in order to stave off issues from that front.
Mooney is also intent on dealing with Falcone in the future, but she now knows exactly what she needs in order to do it. So she’s ready to play in some more friendly ways for the moment, such as when Gordon and Bullock come for information on the trafficking going on in her turf. She’s got a little bit of info to provide, though it doesn’t give them a lot to work with. But it’s something again that speaks of the larger world, which is good to see that it’ll touch beyond Gotham from time to time. With the nod towards the person behind it being called the Dollmaker, it’s an a bit surprising to have a name like that come up this early in the game. Events come together quickly, with a bit of basic detective work going on, which is about to go south badly. Sometimes you have to have an old fashioned gunfight in order to get progress made with what’s going on.
The child trafficking arc takes an odd turn as when the kids get rescued by Gordon, the Mayor uses it as an opportunity to round up all the kids on the street. The cute ones go into foster care while the rest are being sent upstate to a correctional facility. That’s not exactly a good approach in general, but it takes an even darker turn when Selina is stuck on the bus and realizes that it’s being operated by the people that were abducting kids to begin with. That puts a real crimp in what the mayor is trying to do as it’s a real PR disaster. This gives us a chance to see how resourceful Selina is, but we also see that she really is a kid and can do only so much. But a little craftiness can go a long way in staying alive. And she does pretty well at it overall, though she’s outmanned and facing down a better equipped group of people that are pretty callous. Things go down well enough that it is all solved pretty well, but it also gives us the first real encounter between Selina and Gordon, which goes about as well as you’d expect.
For Penguin, who we last saw climbing out of the lake, he’s making his way out of Gotham along the highway and ends up catching a ride with a couple of college frat boy punk types. The experience he went through with Mooney and then Gordon has him looking to come back stronger and smarter than when he left, which gives him the motivation he needs to take it to the next step. We also see just how unhinged he is as when one of them jokes about how he walks like a penguin, he essentially guts one of them in a surprisingly violent moment. The episode also deals with another area about Oswald as we see the MCU officers talking with Oswald’s mother, to try and find out what they can about him and who may have wanted to hurt him. She’s rather amusing with how she dotes on her son in the way she does and how she can’t imagine anything going against him other than a woman who wanted to get closer to him. It’s a good bit of delusion on her part that makes it clear where her mind is.
When the show delves back into the Bruce material towards the end, we get some really fun material there as Alfred is hoping that Gordon can try and talk some sense into him. But that’s because Alfred can’t as he made a promise to Bruce’s parents that should they die, he’s to let Bruce find his own course. There’s a real worry on Alfred’s part, and from Gordon as well as he listens to Bruce, but we also see how Bruce is focusing himself on truly finding his own path by testing himself. There’s some nice moments between the trio here as it unfolds and as we get a little more of the altruistic side of Bruce in how he wants to do right by people.
In Summary:
While the child trafficking aspect of the episode goes a little long and not quite as intense as it could be, it allows the other plots to move forward and to expose us to the characters more to understand them. Selina comes across well, we see how Gordon is doing his best to play within the rules of the city and there’s some rather fun time with Bruce that helps to show the path he’s on and why. Well, beyond the initial event of course. I really enjoyed the time with Mooney as she’s making her plans and biding her time, which runs to what Oswald is doing himself as he’s putting his ducks in a row to get his revenge and make his mark on the city. I’m definitely enjoying the show and what it’s doing, and I expect it’ll really find its legs over the next few episodes.
Grade: B+
