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sunlitroom · 7 years ago

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Gotham - s4e02 - The Fear Reaper

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham.

Victor crashes a wedding. Crime is legal now. Oswald keeps you safe, not GCPD. Fried Babs. Selina wants more. Poor, poor Jonathan. Sleazy warden and the gang who all need to die. Oswald climbs Jim like a big blond tree with a constant nagging fear that it’s a fraud and gives him a hug. Bruce is arrested. Jonathan Crane isn’t here anymore – Scarecrow is.

As always, long post will be long - reaaally long. There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot may appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)). There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism. Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

GCPD turn up at the hideous gang's hideout. Jim tells everyone to stay cool. We see a makeshift lab. Harvey comments that,

This place smells like death

And then banters a bit about getting something to eat later. Jim isn’t in a season 1 mood, though, and tersely notes that they’ve made more toxin, as Harvey notices Jonathans old Arkham uniform. Glancing round into a mirror, Jim notices the reflection of a suspicious-looking scarecrow outside.

They both run out, and find the one of the gang guys tied up. Do they even all have names? Who cares. Fuckface #3, that’ll do. He’s terrified and tells them:

He's coming.

Who?

The scarecrow!

GCPD, where Bruce has been arrested. He’s claiming that this is all a ghastly misunderstanding. Alfred arrives, and assures Bruce that Wayne Enterprise’s most talented and expensive lawyer is on the case. If you’re going to illegally meddle in police business, it really helps to be enormously wealthy and privileged. Bruce hurriedly explains to Alfred that he fell through the skylight, when an unimpressed Jim arrives.

Bruce hastily concocts the excuse that he was up there looking for Selina. Chivalrous, Bruce. Jim releases him without bail, but promises they’ll talk more about this.

Meantime, the gang member still flipping out in the other cell.

At Arkham, where they’ve presumably been forewarned about the danger that might be heading their way. They’re roughly ushering the patients to bed and strapping them down. Fuck everything about this place.

In his office, the oleaginous warden is burning his papers. God only knows what he’s been up to. When his back is turned, Jonathan enters, dragging his scythe along the nasty table we say last time. He tells the Warden it’s too late for all that, and that his dirty deeds have stained him. Yeuch.

He talks about his treatment there for three years, upon which the warden realises who he is. Also - because, you know, he’s dressed like a giant scarecrow.

Jonathan

(Like his paternal tone last episode, his use of Jonathan’s first name here bothers me too.)

He was thrown in a cell and ignored, except for occasional ice baths (why, exactly?) and ECT.

The Warden says if he leaves now then he won’t tell anyone he’s been here. The phone rings and he makes to answer, but Jonathan slams his scythe down.

Pay attention!

Jonathan talks about he cured himself. He made himself one with his fear. The Warden, meantime, is eyeing the gun in his drawer. He tries to beg again – but Jonathan responds badly to the use of his name.

Jonathan Crane is no more. Call me by my true name!

He sprays the Warden with serum, and he begins to hallucinate.

GCPD – where Alfred and Bruce are just leaving

Rough night, Bruce?

It’s Lucius. They wheel out the Selina excuse again. Lucius is not fooled, and points out the concrete and stone residue on Bruce’s clothes. Somewhere across town, in his icy cocoon, Ed just breathed a fluttery little smitten sigh.

They come up with the terrible excuse that he’s been rock-climbing. This is the kind of rubbish lying that made Smallville’s Lex very, very cross. Lucius looks very unimpressed by this lie, but lets them leave.

Back at Arkham. Jonathan is telling the Warden that his father was a genius, who wanted to end fear for his sake, because he loved him so much.

(An aside. Oh Jonathan – possibly the rightful president of Gotham’s ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad’ club. Your dad was a terrible, terrible person. He knowingly and repeatedly caused you fear and pain, and made you think that you should be grateful for it, and guilty for not appreciating it. His experimental design also sucked – with sample group that was both unrepresentative and too small. And I’m not even going to tell you what he did when he was the Phantom of the opera that one time….)

Anyway – it turns out the Warden’s greatest fear is clowns. We see him grab the gun from his desk and run down the corridor – shooting all the clowns he sees, who actually turn out to be his orderlies.

Meantime, Jonathan has gone to the ward, where the patients are strapped down. He calls them brothers and sisters, and tells them his father would have cured them. He was, however, murdered by GCPD. They will be his army now

(An aside – this is not a very organised army)

And those men will know fear.

GCPD

James Gordon!

Jim looks up to see Oswald walking in with a pack of reporters behind him. Harvey tells him to play nice, but Jim doesn’t want to.

Oswald approaches – and being Jim and Oswald – they decide to stand toe to toe. Oswald comments that he sees they’ve caught one, but he’s also figured out Jonathan is the likely culprit, and wants to know if Jim’s caught him. Jim tells him his whereabouts are unknown.

Oswald laughs – he’s just about taut with tension in this whole scene, I don’t think he gets the ‘no emotions’ thing – and comments that he is unsurprised by GCPD’s failure. He and Jim stare off, and Harvey thinks this is a good time to mention the newspaper headline that called him a chicken – presumably as retaliation for that last comment. Because infuriating Oswald always works so well.

Just about bubbling over with fury now, Oswald calls GCPD

Outdated, ineffectual, corrupt

Jim retaliates that the innocent suffer when criminal have a license to commit crime. Oswald tells him the scheme is working. He doesn’t want to destroy GCPD – he wants to save it, and – through that – Gotham.

Jim maintains that he will arrest those committing crimes. Oswald turns on him. He asks him how well his ‘boy scout morality’ has worked in the past, and asks if he wants a list of the victims of Jim’s ‘antiquated righteousness’.

Jim is taken aback by this. It’s pretty much nail on the head in terms of his self-image. And there’s also the fact (more at the end on this) that while he and Oswald routinely squabble – there are rules to their engagement. There’s an intake of breath when he mentions this – he didn’t quite expect this jab from this person.

Oswald offers a deal. If he can find Jonathan and lock him up in 24 hours, then fair enough. If not – he admits he failed and let the city down. Could this be anymore personal, Os?

Jim just stands there, so Oswald – to grab his arm – leans forward in this odd hugging/embrace move. His face is turned towards us as he does it, and there’s the oddest expression there. First off – the expression change as soon as his face is turned away from the press reminds us that he is almost constantly playing to an audience these days, whether that’s the journalists or his enemies. Secondly, yes - he’s mad as all hell, but there’s a whole tumult of emotion going on, and you see it for a split second when he leans close.

He leans back, gripping Jim’s arm, and shakes hands.

Good for you, Jim, game on.

Jim’s actually fairly calm throughout that whole thing. He goes from a big no to the crime licenses, to his response to the boy scout thing, and then a look of slight bafflement at Oswald’s temper.

(An aside – I know I may as well consign this to the ‘this will never be answered’ bin – but I do wonder whether Jim even expressed any remorse about Fish to Oswald? He was clearly regretful at the time – but I suspect he’s since buried it with all the other things he doesn’t want to think about).

Selina is walking alone at night. Tabitha is able to sneak up behind her, cross that she has apparently not learned much from their lessons. Turned out they both received an embossed business card which said ‘opportunity awaits’, and decided to go at night-time to an isolated building to check out the fabulous opportunity mentioned on the mysterious business card. Gotham rogues need stranger danger lessons. At this point, I don’t trust them not to get into a stranger’s car if offered sweets or puppies.

It’s from Babs it seems. She now has a lovely velvet couch. Selina and Tabitha express disbelief at her not-deadness, but Babs reminds them no-one really dies in Gotham. Tabitha would still like to slit her throat. Barbara gives her a look that is…not as easy to read as usual. I’d say that there’s an element of threat-assessment going on there. She’s trying to read her.

They walk nearer each other. Tabitha puts a knife to her throat. Barbara starts speaking. It seems sincere, but it’s also so calm that it seems planned, or trained.

Not a day goes by where I don’t think about what I did. I wish I could take it back.

Tabitha says she’d like to go back too, and finish the job. Barbara calmly continues

I was jealous. I was stupid. I am sorry

She then puts her own hand over Tabitha’s, which is holding the knife. In an echo of Oswald and Jim’s confrontation way back in season one, she says:

Kill me if you don't believe me

Like Jim, Tabitha can’t go through with that – and shoves her aside instead.

They talk briefly about what this place is. Essentially – Barbara sees a business opportunity. The Oswald-licensed crooks will need weapons (well – yes – but they seem to already have those?) – and she’s going to supply them. In doing so – they’ll learn about the crimes they plan to commit – and this is a sure-fire way to get on top again.

(An aside – uh, what? What we’ve seen is a lot of fairly low-level crime. And how would this enable them to get on top, exactly? Oswald would figure out pretty fast who would be likely to be screwing him over – even if there is a way to somehow do this. And if crooks start to draw a connection between getting guns from Babs and Tabs and your plans getting fucked over, surely they’d just go elsewhere.)

Barbara says that she won’t proceed without them both. And again – yes, she might well have lingering fondness for them both – but she also knows Tabitha is likely to bear a grudge, and Selina is really still a child. What is indispensable here, exactly?

Tabitha refuses. Barbara took something from her that she will never be able to get back, and she should feel lucky she doesn’t just raze the place to the ground. She leaves, and a still preternaturally calm Babs asks Selina to talk to her on her behalf.

Wayne Manor, where Bruce and Alfred are arguing about his lack of preparedness. Long story short, Bruce only feels truly alive when he’s falling through skylights, and Alfred is worried he’ll got shot. Bruce leaves, and Alfred angrily makes a sandwich. This incessant snack making is why he and Victor could work.

At GCPD, they’ve learned Arkham is more chaos than usual. The patients are rioting. Jim decides to head out there, and call for support – but no-one moves. They’ve chosen to back Oswald. Jim says – and just bear in mind that this is a man with two murders committed in sound mind under his belt – that none of them are fit to wear the badge.

One cop points out the badge doesn’t get you a very good time in Gotham, and they don’t make a difference. He calls on Harvey to go with him. Harvey reminds him that one day it would be now or never, and this is never. He’s Captain, and if he back Jim, he loses all the other cops – and they will need them. If they lose their help – Oswald will get to choose the next captain, and God knows who that would be – so Jim’s on his own.

Jim leaves.

Arkham – where every scary asylum trope is being hit even more so than usual. The Warden is wearing bad clown makeup and claiming that he’s not scared anymore, because he is a clown now.

Meantime Jonathan watches Jim on a monitor – and we get a quick flashback of his original episode for anyone who didn’t watch s1.

Ah - it's you

He rallies his troops over the tannoy, saying that Jim will pay for what he has done, and know fear. He closes the gates and Jim is trapped with the patients ready to attach. However, he fires warning shots and they run. Jonathan realises he’ll have to do the job himself.

Oswald, Ivy and Victor at Babs. Victor is distracted by all the guns, but Oswald is more busy listing all the different types of payment Barbara will have to make to him for him to be willing to allow this. Barbara says she’s waiting for partners to come on board. Ivy pipes up – and asks if it’s Selina and Tabitha. Oswald grins

Good luck with that – they’re slippery characters

He also comments that Tabitha might just be pissed at Barbara killing Butch.

Ivy cuts in again

I could talk to them.....

Oswald snaps at her –

I distinctly remembered saying that you could come if you kept your mouth shut

(So – aside from the fact that Ivy and Oswald are tossing the conflict ball back and forth because the writers seemingly got bored of this team-up within two minutes – you can, I suppose, understand some of his irritation. Yes - he’s snappish and dismissive, deliberately so – to explain away Ivy’s eventual defection – but he doesn’t smack down her first, relatively useful observation. What he does smack down is her offer to negotiate between his enemies: the visit is clearly meant to scope Barbara out and intimidate. The remark is stupid. He could be nicer and more respectful. He could be more restrained and not let an enemy see internal dissent. But this idea that they want to convey – Oswald is needlessly mean to Ivy - doesn’t hold water.)

Barbara smiles while Ivy sulks. Oswald promises Babs that one hint of trouble, and Victor will step in and end her with her own merchandise. As he’s leaving, he remarks that this didn’t all come cheap, and says he’ll find out who paid for her new fancy place. Victor takes a gun as he leaves.

In the Warden's office, Jim searches for Jonathan. Jonathan knocks him to the floor.

Do you believe in fate? I didn't before today.

He does now, though He can’t believe that of all the cops – Jim shows up. He unmasks. Jim blinks.

Jonathan. What happened to you?

(An aside - This is what he asked Ed, too. Jim seems to have difficulty in understanding how people are pushed past snapping point – which doesn’t really make sense, given boozy bounty-hunter Jim. Maybe it’s obviously ‘unwell’ behaviour as the outcome of strain that he can’t understand? He certainly seems incredibly unsympathetic to Barbara. Also – Jim – you’ve seen Arkham before. What kind of treatment did you think he was going to get?)

Jonathan accuses Jim of killing his father. Jim counters that his father was insane and wanted to harm him – but Jonathan, presumably due to a complete dearth of anyone else in the world giving even the slightest damn about him, has made a plaster saint of his father – and won’t be convinced.

He tells Jim,

We can live imprisoned by fears, or we can embrace them

And sprays him with the serum. I feel compelled to keep adding ‘with the serum’ when he sprays someone – otherwise it makes him sound like a misbehaving cat.

He wonders what Jim will see. His victims, perhaps?

(The serum apparently gives you unattractive yellow crust round your mouth, which – as we’re about to discover how easily it’s neutralised – is probably its worst feature.)

A dosed Jim hears screaming and wanders into a room where Lee lies in a bath full of blood, having slit her wrists. He tried to help – but she doesn’t want it.

Don't touch me, let me go. You’ve caused me so much pain. I’ve suffered you long enough. We could have been a family, had a child. You destroy everything you touch.

We see – before she sinks beneath the surface, that she has her black virus nailpolish on

Jonathan tells Jim to join her to show how much he loves her.

(Just an aside – how come Jonathan can see other people’s hallucinations?)

He tells Jim not to let her die hating him, but to prove his love – it’s what Lee would want.

Jim mutters this to himself for a bit, and is apparently able to reason his way out of the virus by remembering Lee loves him

(An aside – hang on, this sucks. Everyone else is a weeping wreck, but Jim can just power through it? First off – his hallucination is totally different. A demonic Lee, hounding him from room to room with blood streaming from her wrists would follow the pattern of the other hallucinations. But Jim get this relatively calm scene – giving him space to reflect? It also raises again the messiness at the end of last season – where Lee’s explicitly stated motivation was a fascination with the dark side, which explained her attraction to Jim. That lazily morphed into Babs’s ‘Jim and I are meant to beeeee’ in the finale. Has Jim swept all that under the carpet too?)

Having snapped out of it, he looks for Jonathan, who is as pissed as the audience.

How did you do it?! How did you defeat it?!

Inconsistent writing to further the plot, Jonathan.

Jim says he overcame his fear. Jonathan calls him a liar.

You can't just stop being afraid! You can only become your demon like I did

Jim tells him that he has a choice, in the self-assured tones of someone who never did time in Arkham.

He tells Jonathan that whatever his father was, he didn't want this for him. He needs help. Jonathan says – the first time he wobbles in his adoration of his father – that his father thought he was weak: scared little Jonathan.

Jim nods.

Ok - I can help you. Let me help you

Jonathan rallies - though

But I’m not weak anymore! I’ll never go back to being that boy!

He runs, and Jim pursues.

Bruce on another roof top. He hears laughter, and follows some shady men into a warehouse, and right into a trap. The men want to know why he’s following them, and assure him they have a license. They ask if he’s some boy scout or do-gooder. Little do they know he’s just a rich boy with an exciting new hobby.

Pulling his mask off they comment that he’s just a kid. They remind him again of the license, and that it’s within their rights to do anything they want to him. Anything. Yeuch.

Bruce headbutts one of them. A scramble ensues. Bruce manages to escape, but is followed (easily, because he confusingly decides to stroll away from the scene, instead of legging it. Even the crook comments:

You think you're so slick

He is saved from actual consequences yet again – this time by Alfred with a crowbar.

Tabitha and Selina’s apartment – where Selina is trying to convince Tabitha to overlook that whole tired murder and betrayal thing and just team up with Barbara.

(An aside – just want to point out, at the outset of a scene and storyline that are both a complete mess, that this is not in keeping at all with what we know of Selina. She’s hugely driven by loyalty, and caring for her friends. Yet she’s persuading Tabitha to overlook the inconsequential matter of betrayal and the murder of her lover? Nope)

Tabitha asks why she wants this so much. Good question. Apparently Selina is

Sick and tired of not being taken seriously by all those selfish guys out there who treat me like I'm stupid.

She can’t do much alone, but as a team, they can – give those creeps a run for their money

(An aside - this is just bilge. Does she mean Bruce? Seemed fine accepting his apology last episode – and this isn’t exactly an accurate summary of their relationship anyway. Aside from that – who does she mean? The one person who did Selina more wrong than anyone else is her mother – showing up again to swindle her. This is lazy, lazy bullshit to try and sell us on the idea of a girl gang.)

Ivy materialises in their apartment, seemingly making it past all their super sophisticated ninja skills, even though she’s about 6-foot-tall with bright red hair.

I want in

Tabitha tells her to get out and calls her a ‘penguin stooge’. Ivy retorts that she hates ‘that freak’. Tabitha tells her she’s a liar, and that she was quick to guzzle down his koolaid

(And again, Tabitha, a short, to-the-point – fuck you. Where does she find this self-righteousness? Just a reminder – got her jollies listening to a scared old woman crying and begging, and then stabbed said old woman in the back, and his demonstrated no remorse. Cherry on the cake – when a clearly child-like and damaged Oswald showed up after Arkham, she wanted to murder him, and only settled on humiliation when she wasn’t granted permission. The only reason she’s still alive is because Oswald decided not to take retribution for Butch’s sake. Tabitha’s dreadful.)

Ivy then mystifiyingly remarks that there’s

Nothing I wouldn't do to get back at men who treated me like garbage

(An aside – again wtf is this asshattery? Ivy’s abusive father aside (she uses the plural) – what we’ve seen so far is Ivy use her perfume to control men, and kill more than a couple. Why are she and Selina suddenly victims?)

Selina says she believes her, but Tabitha tells her to get out again. Ivy retorts that Tabitha is rude. Tabitha says she’s going to get her ass kicked. Selina – again out of character – says nothing. Ivy leaves.

To cap off a scene that only escalated in stupidity, Tabitha then apparently has a total change of heart and tells Selina to arrange a meeting with Babs (also seemingly discounting any risk to Selina in a lone meeting with Barbara.). She’ll talk business, but wants something in return.

Jim is still searching for Jonathan, who is rallying the patients against him.

The demon who haunts and tortures you is here! Destroy him! free yourself from his tyranny!

(An aside – but why aren’t they all distracted in their respective hallucination?! This is all so dumb.)

Jim is fighting off mental patients while Jonathan screams

Kill him!

Almost overcome – he pulls an extinguisher from the wall, and sprays with them with water. Water apparently completely neutralises the serum. Are you fucking kidding me?

Jonathan escapes. One huge guy keeps fighting, but Jim smacks him in the face with the canister, and leaves.

At Wayne Manor, Bruce and Alfred are arguing again. Bruce could have been killed, and refuses to accept the realities of what he’s doing. Maybe because you showed up with a fancy lawyer to ensure his release, Alfred?

There’s a knock at the door. Bruce opens it. A handsome man enters.

Bad time?

It’s the always collected and elegant Lucius. Wayne Enterprises has a prototype of some super-fancy armour, and he wants Bruce to have it for when he goes ‘rock-climbing’. He tells Bruce he just doesn’t want to see him hurt again. Bruce says he feels safer already.

Back at Babs’s House of Guns – where she thanks Selina and Tabitha for returning. Not so fast, though. Tabitha wants her to lose a hand as proof of sincerity.

Both Butch and I lost a hand due to Penguin's machiavellian wargames

(An aside - Um - no? Butch lost a hand as indirect result of Theo and Tabitha's actions in kidnapping Gertrud, Tabitha lost hers because Ed drank stupid juice and thought she and Butch were responsible for Isabella’s death. So – is Tabitha’s explanation the one the show has decided on, then – as a way of explaining Tabitha’s antipathy? If so – that sucks, and relies on the audience apparently having no actual memory).

She has a meat cleaver. Selina shakes her head – but does little else. Barbara puts her hand out, calm. Tabitha brings the cleaver down onto the table. Barbara has passed the test, for now. A dubious looking Selina follows her out, Tabitha saying she’ll start Monday.

Back at GCPD – where Oswald has arrived to see if Jim has managed to arrest Jonathan.

We had a deal, Detective Gordon.

Jim’s not into all this exhibitionism, though – preferring shady deals to be done in dark bars and alleys.

You made a demand in front of your cronies in an attempt to undermine me and the department. No deal.

Oswald is furious. He talks again about GCPD no longer keeping citizens safe, and asks the officers how many of them are sick of risking their lives – or seeing this actual building become a warzone?

He looks right at Jim and says that we must police ourselves. Looking round again, Oswald says he will triple wages if they work for him

The future is now. Follow me.

Jim calls after him that he’s only paying them to look the other way. It…. sort of weirdly fizzled, that scene.

Harvey approaches. Jim tells him not to talk to him – but Harvey says this is a war, not a battle and they need the cops onside. He wants to buy him a drink.

Ivy is in a weird shop, talking to the shopkeeper, whom she’s apparently repeatedly drugged and robbed another one of those terrible men who made her feel stupid.

She’s apparently done with the extremely useful and powerful perfume that made people do her bidding and that Oswald presumably doesn’t remotely value or use at all. She wants ancient mystical potions now to make her badass. She uses the perfume again to get her way, underlining the stupidity of this whole plot point. The shopkeeper pleads with her – telling her that it will mess with her blood and DNA, and is too dangerous is bad to her again and makes her feel stupid.

She takes potions from the safe and starts knocking them back – her face shifting weirdly.

(An aside – this is just…. beyond a mess. The first problem goes way back. Young Ivy was reserved, cynical, suspicious. She didn’t get easily hurt because she had learned not to trust people. She was tight-lipped (making her new tendency to babble stupid and contrived – just a means to create conflict) She was also incredibly careful and intelligent – manufacturing drugs from plants and staying safe is no mean feat. Her current flailing, therefore, is just irritating and out of character. Secondly, Ivy has the means at her disposal to control people and extract a huge amount of cash from them. We saw that she seemed to be doing this for a while. When did she suddenly become useless? And if Oswald was irritating her so much – why not just leave? Or confront him? Or try to resolve it? And that’s not even mentioning that Oswald’s total antipathy for someone who saved his life and offered family is massively not in keeping with anything we know of him, and basically just ooc-ness so they can do whatever the hell they want to do with Ivy now.

In short. No.)

Jim and Harvey are drinking. Harvey says he can understand the cops’ disillusionment. And besides, they’d need an army to tackle Oswald. Harvey then makes the most irrational jump ever and says he misses Falcone – who was a vicious bastard, but had honour. A code. Tell that to Liza, Harve. Falcone ruled with an iron fist, says Harvey.

He then notices the lightbulb above Jim’s head and tried to reverse, but too late. He reminds Jim he killed his son, but the writing is paying no heed to logic this week – and Jim is off to see Falcone who, apparently, has ‘an army’.

Bruce on the rooftops – trying out his new suit and rhapsodizing about it to Alfred via a walkie talkie. Unfortunately, after commenting that it’s incredibly light, he utters the phrase:

Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all

Which only makes me think of

And now the whole scene is lost for me. Stupid sexy Flanders. Alfred tells him to put his proto-Batman mask on, but it still can’t save it.

We finish with him standing on a ledge, looking smug, gazing out over the city. I hope that suit is also ‘sudden-gust-of-wind-proof’

General Observations

Mostly commented above as they happened – but what? There’s so much ooc-ness and hasty plot patching here. So much.

Jim and Oswald.

Ah. Everything here is just so personal. Although it seems that he’s attributed Jim’s actions at the end of last season entirely to the virus (that sharp head turn when Tetch mentioned Jim was infected indicates this) – Oswald is still smarting that Jim didn’t protect him. His repeated assertion that GCPD has failed in protecting its citizens is loaded with personal baggage. It seems – at core – that he still trusts Jim, since he made a beeline for him when dosed with the fear virus: but he’s also still angry, and it’s informing at least some of his actions.

Meantime, we know that Jim – at heart – worries not only that he’s a fraud, but that he is ultimately destructive to anyone he touches. The look he gives Oswald after he comments on the lives he’s ‘wrecked’ has a fair amount of shock in it – like Oswald managed to read his deepest, most personal thoughts.

I would also argue – though I might be wearing shipper glasses – that it’s reminiscent of the look he gives Oswald waaaay back in s2, when he goes to question him about the dead mayoral candidate, and Oswald lashes out to protect Gertrud: there’s some honest surprised hurt there. They might snipe back and forth, but their game has certain unspoken rules. Jim expected Oswald to confide in him – reliant on the fact that they have – however you might describe it – an actual relationship. When Oswald not only refused to confide in Jim, but also lashed out – Jim looks properly startled, a slap in the face from an unexpected person. Likewise here. This isn’t the tit-for-tat at the Iceberg Lounge. This was intensely personal, and Jim didn’t expect Oswald to use it in an argument.

In fact, neither of them are really reasoning much right now. It’s interesting that all of their interactions thus far have been in front of an audience, because they’re both primarily concerned with self-image and saving face.

Jim’s experiences in Gotham have involved frustration at the power of the criminal world, as well as his own deliberate collusion. He’s flouted authority, broken rules, and broken laws. He is planning to go off and make a deal with a mafia don.

But the idea that people should know about this kind of thing is intolerable. He’s going on about how the reputation of the police force must be upheld with two murders under his belt. There’s always been a sense of strain about Jim in terms of how he wants to be seen vs. what he actually believes and does. Oswald’s scheme doesn’t allow for that division, and Jim can’t stand it.

Oswald is obsessed with control, power, and respect. It’s always been a driver for him, apparently from a childhood of severe bullying, and his latest experiences – public humiliation, mental torture and virtual destruction – has only reinforced his thinking that complete control and absolute power are the only ways to be respected and to stay safe.

As such, his whole scheme is all tangled up in that. He tends to think emotionally anyway – but this whole idea is creaking under all his psychological baggage. The press are constantly present because he’s desperately trying to be seen as powerful and successful again after being brought so low.

Jim, Harvey and the Falcone idea

I’m honestly mystified by Jim’s willingness to go along with Harvey’s reasoning. Refusing to dance to Falcone’s tune is pretty much Jim’s big defining moment in the first episode. He’s hugely instrumental in the corruption Jim hates. Jim has since found out that Falcone was hand in glove with the Court of Owls, and that he was involved in his father’s death.

But �� Falcone’s suddenly palatable? And what about the practical consideration that, you know – Jim shot his son?

It really doesn’t make a blind bit of sense, and it’s hard to figure out how to understand Jim’s actions (without making recourse to wtf, writers?). Does Falcone still somehow hold some mystique for Jim due to his relationship with his father? Are Jim’s psychological issues around his father’s memory so deep-rooted and overwhelming that he really can’t see clearly, and so Falcone – by dint of association alone – is still an acceptable authority figure?

He definitely doesn’t see Oswald as an authority figure – they’re really more peers, as their current squabbling would indicate.

Because, ultimately, what Falcone offers isn’t really much different from what Oswald is doing. It’s just that Oswald is blatant about it. When Jim arrived, he found a police force riddled with corruption, and the establishment puppeteered by Falcone – who also ran the underworld. This is really roughly the same set-up that Oswald is currently running.

So we’re to understand that Jim’s actually fine with that as long as it’s all at least superficially ‘wrong’? As long as everyone is willing to pay lip service to the notion of a police force that upholds the law and protects citizens, then what actually goes on is OK?

Selina, Tabitha, Ivy and Barbara

Try harder. There’s way too much contrivance going on here. I’m not going to care about it ‘just because’.

The Scarecrow

I thought Jonathan was great – swithering between vulnerability and threat. He’s not too far gone to be reached yet – and I’m keen to see where they go next with him.

Thoughts?

#gotham commentary #gotham s4e02 #the fear reaper

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