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chwrpg · 4 years

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I burn! I pine! I perish! -- Cohen James

A NOTE FROM ADMIN B: Please welcome to the stage, Ash and New Calvin! (Sometimes I can still hear old Calvin’s voice....) I think it’ll be fun to see a new take on a character that has been a staple in Rosewood since day one, and we all know you can DELIVER so I can’t wait to see my new son on the dash!!!

OOC NAME/ALIAS, PREFERRED PRONOUNS, AGE & TIMEZONE:

Ash Thee Butch Queen, she/her, nice try, satan, EST

DESIRED CHARACTER:

Cohen James

HOW ACTIVE WILL YOU BE?

Hella to Kinda

SECONDARY CHOICE:

Omg, no

DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER:

Cohen is a guy who is always thinking on both a big picture level and about the small things, and he knows that about himself so to offset that, he often does the impulsive thing - not because it comes naturally to him, but because he doesn’t ever want to overthink something so much that he’s paralyzed. He’s a free spirit and passionate to boot, so being stuck in any sense of the word didn’t appeal to him in the slightest. For the most part Cohen likes to think the best of people, giving them a lot of grace; some people only gave you once chance to make a good impression, but Cohen was often known to give second and thirds because he’s more likely to think of a glass half full than half empty. He’s grateful for his lot in life, well aware that he and his family had more money than any of them could spend in a lifetime, but he refuses to bury his head in the sand just because he was born wealthy in regards to the world around him. His heart is big and he shows it any way he knows how, and sometimes that means giving money to a person or cause without a second thought, but he also gives his time to do his part to leave the world a little better than he found it. Because of his impulse, he doesn’t always make the best decisions the first time around, but he’ll always try to right his own wrongs. In other words, his moral compass has known to get out of whack every now and then, but he wasn’t to proud to course correct.

SAMPLE WRITING:

The first time Cohen ran into Birdie, he literally ran into her. It was his first night in town and his cousin Cal along with Calvin’s best friend went to a bar called the Coyote Ugly in celebration of not only Cohen arriving, but also part of an apparently week long send off for his cousin who was shipping out for another 4 year bid in the USMC. He’d been in Rosewood in less than a day, and the bar that night was the first thing to really impress him despite both his cousin and friend going on and on about how much Cohen was going to love it here eventually. He didn’t know how much he believed that he’d find himself in Illinois of all places, but he was at least making himself be open to it

He was seven or 8 shots deep, jumping around on the dance floor with a group of people from some frat that despite the guys yelling it a lot, Cohen couldn’t remember when he declared loudly that he was getting the next round for everyone.

Spilling a girl’s drink wasn’t the most original meet cute, but Cohen figured it was okay since Birdie didn’t find it that cute anyway. Or rather, at all. His first glimpse of the aforementioned angel was that of an angel of fury, “Shit I’m sorry.” He told her after colliding with her, the girl leaving the bar just as he was approaching it. “Let me buy—” He looked up to see Birdie in her full annoyed glory and it was like he’d gotten hit by a 18-wheeler despite him being the one who did the colliding. ‘You should be!…’ she tore into him, really let him have it, but she at least let him get her another drink for not only her but the three friends she’d apparently come with, “Listen I’m new in town and I was wondering what you would think about you maybe showing me around? I’m Cohen.” Birdie snorted, and Cohen couldn’t decide if the face she was making while she looked him over was one of her being impressed by his nerve or off put. Either way liquid courage was a hell of a thing, and Cohen stood there with what he thought was a charming lopsided smile, but in all likelihood didn’t land the way he thought it did. 'I think I’d rather consume the drinks you spilled off off the ground. Watch where you’re going, Cohen.’ She breezed by him, and sure, getting rejected stung, but for some reason that he couldn’t and didn’t care to decipher, he wasn’t deterred – he just had a feeling that he’d see her again and when he did, he’d win her over for sure.

___

The next time he saw her, he was at the campus book store. He had a list of books he was needing for his classes, and had acquired all but one. It seemed luck was on his side though because the book store had exactly one copy left and it was all his. He decided to stick around for a bit, settling in to an empty table near the service desk while he scrolled through his instagram feed and he figured out how he wanted to spend the rest of his day. What had to be no more than 15 minutes later, a familiar, exasperated voice of an angel came from the very same service desk he’d been at. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but in his defense, if he hadn’t then how would he have known that the universe was giving him a second chance at a first impression? Because as luck would have it, the book she needed was the book he’d bought.

He went back and forth with himself on if he should approach her, but his legs made their mind up before his brain could when he saw her about to leave. “Hey, wait up.” He said, practically sprinting to catch up to her and cut her off before she left, 'Are you stalking me or something? I carry pepper spray and I’m not in the mood’. “What? No, wow, straight to stalking, huh? No I go here.” He pointed to his new badge, on a Red and yellow 'The Flash’ lanyard around his neck. “I was picking up books but I think it’s a good thing I am here because ta-da.” He told her, presenting her the French book in question, “I bought the last copy a little while ago.”

'Of course, because life isn’t already unfair enough’ She muttered,

“Come on, you gotta think good thoughts, here. Today is both our lucky days. You get this book and I get to see you again. Take it.” He told her and she looked at him suspiciously.

'You want me to take it? What’s the catch?’ Birdie asked, eyes narrowed in his direction. She was highly suspicious of him, obviously, but he knew he could turn it around, he just needed a chance, and the fact that they’d run into each other wasn’t exactly one in a million, (the town was only so big, let alone the student population), but them being there on the same day in the same time frame was enough to think that he was given a second chance to make a good first impression for a reason. After all, Cohen had met plenty of girls, but none of them had had the instant effect on him that Birdie had - it was like Cupid shot him with an arrow or something. “No catch.”

'No catch?’ She parroted suspiciously,

“Okay well one catch. You give me another shot at meeting you.”

She scoffed,

“Look I probably came off as a tool like Peter Quill levels of douche bag that night, but I was really drunk, my cousin and his friend wanted to show me the town. And I know that maybe when I’m drunk and think I’m being charming I’m really being obnoxious, but believe or not, I don’t actually suck. My mom thinks I’m the coolest.” He gave Birdie a hopeful smile, but she didn’t answer. It did, however look like she was contemplating, so he took that and ran with it, almost literally, making a b-line for the outside. And as soon as he was out of the door he came back in and walked up to Birdie, running his fingers through his hair to get it out of his face, “Hey, I’m Cohen and I don’t know if you believe in fate or not, but I just have this crazy feeling that this book should belong with you and not me…” He once again held it out to her and reluctantly, she took it. Even more reluctantly, Cohen got a smile out of her after the 10th guarantee that there were no strings attached.

He could have ended the interaction there, but he tempted fate, asking Birdie out to dinner. She said no, but the way she’d said 'nice try, though’ wasn’t exactly discouraging.

___

He’d seen Birdie around a few times after that, but Cohen figured that there was a thin line between being charmingly persistent, and a creeper straight out of r/letsnotmeet, so he hadn’t approached her on any of those occasions. Besides, between school, being shown the ropes at HearstCorp, and still carving out time to do his own thing, Cohen had plenty of things to keep him occupied. And so what if he got a glimpse of the most beautiful brown eyes he’d ever seen every now and then that made his stomach morph into a pit of hungry moths? Plenty of people had pretty eyes, and a pretty frame that Cohen was convinced would fit perfectly with his own, pssh - he had a crush but he wasn’t Joe Goldberg.

So the next time he’d spoken to Birdie, it was because she approached him, not the other way around.

He hadn’t come to Rosewood with much in the way of clothing, figuring he could just pick up whatever he needed, and what he needed that day was not only a tux, but several business suits.

Cohen didn’t think it was needed, but there was a gala that his grandfather was putting on essentially announcing Cohen’s intent to one day take his grandfather’s place at the head of the company. It sounded like a whole lot of pomp and circumstance, but the excitement in which his grandparents spoke about it, made it impossible for him to shoot the notion down, (the way they talked about galas gave Cohen the inkling that they were like their Coachella) hence why he found himself at one of the upscale tailor’s on Rosewood’s main street.

'Cody’? It wasn’t his name, so while he’d heard it somewhere in the back of his mind, Cohen paid it no mind and continued on with his mirror selfies, waiting for the tailor to get back with his measurements and proposed alterations.

'Cody!’ The voice registered that time, and Cohen whipped his head around to see Birdie, “It’s…Cohen, you didn’t remember my name?”

'Cohen, right. Sorry’. Well that sucked, but she at least genuinely looked as if she’d regretted the faux pas. 'You clean up nice’.

He could feel a blush creeping up his neck as he watched her eyes roam over him; it more than made up for Cody, 'Is that Tom Ford?’

“Uhhh… yeah totally. Maybe, I don’t know. I liked the way the jacket looked. It gives me Bruce Wayne vibes, right? You really think it looks good? I have to go to this gala thing and I didn’t have anything to wear so my grandpa told me this was the place I wanted to be. Everybody’s real nice so I’m not mad at it. What are you doing here though?” He asked innocently, and it wasn’t lost on him that she didn’t answer his question, but he didn’t call her out - it was a little weird, but she was curious about him so he wasn’t going to mess that up…on purpose

'Gala, what gala? I’m pretty much up on every social function and there’s no gala on the calendar for at least the next three months.’

“I think invitations are going out today. It’s kind of for me technically. My grandpa’s just kind of stoked on me working with him on like some family business vibes so it’s gonna be a whole bunch of people who are really happy for me or maybe hate me who I have no idea who they are”. He chuckled, sending a sparkling, soft smile in Birdie’s direction.

He couldn’t exactly get a beat on what she thinking in her head; was he talking too much? Did he seem braggy? He didn’t want to seem braggy. Braggy was the worst.. Luckily, the tailor came back, and after a quick conversation, Cohen told the guy that he’d take the tux as well as the suits he’d picked out earlier. He pulled his wallet out and handed over a black card, polite to the tailor, but wanting to get back to his conversation with Birdie, “So anyw—”

'what kind of business does your family do?’ Birdie asked, and Cohen answered, “Publishing and media pretty much. It’s not all that interesting. Hey, so crazy idea and I swear it’s not me asking you on a date, but since you know so much about galas, maybe you’d want to come? No pressure if you don’t, it’s just I won’t know like 95% of the people there and you’d probably be helping me not chop my arm off just so I wouldn’t have to shake anymore hands.” He moved his arm up and down, and damn if he didn’t feel like a goddamn superhero for making Birdie laugh.

Things were going so well, so of course they had to be interrupted; this time by Birdie’s phone ringing. She took a look at her phone, muttered 'shit’, then focused her attention back to Cohen, her braids whipping around from the motion in a way that for sure wasn’t going to be a thing he thought about all the way home.

'Mmm, maybe. I’ll think about it. I’ve got to go though. See you later, Cohen.’

“Later days!” He called back when she was already just about out of the door, “Later days? What was that?” He berated himself only for his own phone to ping with a notification, and when he pulled it out of his pocket he saw 'From Instagram: Birdie Stratford started following you’

He spun in place, then gave his reflection a wink and the gun, powered by nothing less than pure elation, “Whooo I’m in the game, baybeee! Bruce Wayne who?”

ANYTHING ELSE?

Bro, why is this shit so long? Good luck reading through this BS. You should have never called me a fatass kelly price. 1985 or whatever.

#accepted #submission

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ks-caster · 4 years

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The 100 Season 7 Episode 4 - Post-Liveblog Recap

Okay, so I liveblogged an episode for the first time - and it turned out to be a nice way to stay focused through the commercial breaks. Might continue to do that for the rest of the season.

But TBH I started doing it just so I could bitch about the CLEAR AND BLATANT LACK OF A SCENE WHERE SANCTUM!KRU REALIZE THAT BELLAMY AND ANOMOLY!KRU ARE MISSING. That was an important scene that the whole fandom, more or less, has been waiting for the entire time for various reasons.

How do the characters react? Who figures out that something’s wrong first? Does Clarke sense Bellamy’s absence because they have a bond? Does Emori go looking for her space sister to comfort her other space sister only to find her missing?

(Actually, she does. That’s my headcanon and I’m sticking to it. Might fic later. Accounts for Emori’s complete absence while her bestie Raven is falling apart.)

Edit: here's the fic!

Anyway, back to the episode - whoever was in charge of editing really really dropped the ball. Missing realization scene, poorly ordered Raven and Clarke scenes. The music during the Dev-and-Hope montage was a nice touch but just too loud enough that I really had trouble telling what they were saying - and the pacing would have felt better with just one show of teenage!Hope before we got 20-year-old her. The cut from Orlando agreeing to train Anomaly!Kru to 5 years later was WAY too abrupt for me to get a feel for the character and relationship development that they were trying to shoehorn in in order to create conflict at the end. I got where they were going with everything, but in a I’m-reading-a-newbie-writer’s-fanfic-because-I-love-the-story-concept-and-want-to-support-them kind of way and not in a I’m-watching-a-show-made-by-experienced-professionals-and-paying-for-the-privilege-in-ad-revenue kind of way. Disappointing.

Jumping around here for a bit: I gotta say I’m loving the makeovers this season! Hair and makeup did a great job on bringing back the old Raven without losing the maturity they gave her, giving Murphy and Emori their Gucci Royalty Vibes without losing the feel of their individual styles, and making Hope look like she can’t find quite the balance between feral forest girl and innocent shut-in who can’t bear to take a life (which is accurate to her character, of course).

And Echo! So I really, really didn’t like her makeovers in seasons 5 and especially 6, because it felt like they were trying too hard to make her look pretty in a 21st Century kind of way. She looked softer, more vulnerable, which really contradicted her character traits - but I thought that might’ve been on purpose, to show a change in her (that she did indeed allow herself to become softer and more vulnerable for her family). And her post-time-skip (not that one. Or that one. The other one. There’s a lot of those. Bah.) look feels like a return to herself; she’s beautiful but in a no-nonsense, don’t-forget-I-can-cut-your-throat kind of way. (Is this because I just really love the butch look on woman and am myself a butch woman? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.)

Side note: Where the hell did they get clippers on Penance? Those haircuts were entirely too even to have been done with scissors. I’ll buy that Gabriel and Orlando shaved their heads and their perfect round cuts were growout, but Hope and Echo? Electric clippers. Like I said I like the looks, but guys, there’s no way.

I liked that I got a better feel for Hope’s character this episode - she’s trying so hard to be like her mom and Aunty O and all the heroes they told her about when she was a child, but the truth is she’s been in one real battle, she froze, and her best and only friend died. And since her only role models were these incredibly strong people who didn’t give up, back down, hesitate, that wouldn’t be an easy thing for her to get over. (Given that Diyoza was pregnant with her for two entire seasons, I’d really like to have more time developing Hope’s character - or even the same amount of screen time but go easier on the timeskips, lol. She keeps having growth/maturity/life experience spurts so it’s hard to keep up with the development that we’re shown.

So, 5 (7? Wasn’t she 22? There’s still 2 years we missed right?) years after watching her friend die, and 5 (7?) years of blaming herself for freezing, she’s put into the same position, and she stabs some lady in the neck. Kid didn’t steal her coping mechanisms! All joking aside thought, the kid basically relived her trauma in real life - honestly her reaction was 100% valid.

I’m sure I’m supposed to be upset by Echo’s choice to kill the remaining gold-head people. But I think the only reason that’s supposed to bother me is that she promised (ish - she was real explicitly clear that she’d do what was necessary to rescue Bellamy and them were the breaks) Orlando that she wouldn’t. I think I’m supposed to care about the fractured relationship between AnomalyKru and Orlando.

I don’t. I don’t know if it’s the super-fast timeskip (it was weird enough to see the changed dynamics in SpaceKru when I deeply knew all of the characters AND we got time to see the changes play out) or the fact that I didn’t really get to know Orlando in a way that made me super sympathetic to him (I’ll get to that in a minute) or if it’s just that he was smart enough to know he was being played from the start (see Navy SEAL mom didn’t teach you how to swim and Echo again being 100% clear that killing people might still happen) and walked right in anyway. Either way, his betrayal wasn’t enough of a motivator for me as an audience member to be bothered about how things ended between him and AnomalyKru. I kind of shrugged and moved on.

More on Orlando... So The 100 has had several plotlines that center around people doing dangerous, terrible and downright ridiculous things because of their religions; see the kidnapping and conclave of freaking children killing each other to become commander, Gaia’s whole character arc + starting a new religion around Octavia/WonKru betraying that religion to go back to their old one centering on Madi, WHO IS GODDAMN TWELVE, all of Sanctum and season 6, the Sanctum conflict here in season 7, and now this goddamn Bardo Disciple shite.

Now I’m not dishing on real life religion or religious people - I happen to have one of those myself - but the plot of some-people-take-their-religion-way-too-far-drink-the-koolaid-and-hurt-people-around-them has been done and done and done on this show. And now here we have Orlando, who was a high-ranking member of his religion, drank the koolaid, cast out, still a true believer and therefore dangerous because his perspective is fundamentally skewed. I don’t know anything about this religion but that it’s militarized (they can arrest people) and think that sentencing people to 10 years of madness-inducing Geneva Convention violations and then bringing them back to their families two days later is okay. I don’t really want to know anything else, because I’m worried that the show is going to work hard on making this religion scarier than the Sanctum one (needing to one-up themselves with the big bad, of course) which just keeps making the commander religion look humane in comparison.

Which it wasn’t. But I digress.

So Orlando was kinda’ cool, but getting in too deep with a fundamentalist who was complicit in his own abuse by said religion (and so who knows what he thought was okay to do to other people) and then it ended badly.

Cue shocked Pikachu.

Moving on. Clarke. Baby. After the harrowing experience of the radiation destroying the radio so you couldn’t say goodbye to your mom when you were supposed to go to space, then missing your time window and getting left behind on Earth, and the radio broke them too so you couldn’t even be sure your friends would leave in time until they blasted off, and then calling Bellamy every day when you knew he couldn’t hear you, and ALL OF THE FREAKING LAST SEASON WHERE YOU WERE POSSESSED AND WOULD HAVE GIVEN ANYTHING TO LET YOUR FRIENDS AND DAUGHTER KNOW BOTH THAT THAT WASN’T YOU AND THEN LATER THAT YOU WERE ALIVE and THEN your MOTHER getting possessed and you had to check to see if it was really her and it WASN’T. Clarke.

After all that terrifying inability to communicate.

You leave Gaia behind to warn everyone of the danger. INSTEAD OF CALLING THEM ON A PIECE OF HANDY TECHNOLOGY OR TAKING A QUICK TRIP BACK YOURSELF. TO TELL YOUR DAUGHTER WHERE YOU WERE GOING. YOU DON’T THINK THAT MAYBE MAKING EXTRA SURE THAT EVERYTHING GETS COMMUNICATED CLEARLY AND IMMEDIATELY MIGHT BE A PRIORITY.

And then Gaia gets kidnapped. Honestly, cool! Not ‘cause I’m rooting for Gaia to be hurt (I don’t care all that much about her tbh) but I LOVE Indra and I want her to have more screen time and development this season - and or the chance to cut people up with her sword - and kidnapping her daughter seems like a great way to facilitate that.

*Looks at list* Oh, right, Jordan. I forgot you were here. Honestly I can’t figure out what the fuck is going on with you, and since I’ve had a whole season of not connecting with you because the story was too busy focusing on external plot... I don’t see that changing any time soon buddy. Sorry.

Oh and that FrEaKiNg PrOmO!

My garbage boy! My chaos gremlin! My excellent-at-impersonating-a-deity-even-if-it-goes-against-his-programming! What are they doing?!

I’m torn between NO DON’T HURT HIM and YES HURT HIM BECAUSE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND BRAVERY BWAHAHAHA. At least I know there’ll be Murphy and hopefully Memori content in the next episode. That’s the good shit. It’s the only thing left about this show that still feels “pure,” not that I didn’t know what sort of darkness I was signing up for when I started but just because he and Emori are sort of the last light in the darkness, and it’s nice to get a break periodically.

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sunlitroom · 5 years

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Thoughts on ‘The Beginning’

So - as with The Trial of Jim Gordon, I'm going to regard this episode as an extra, and do some meta as opposed to a full recap. My rationale is pretty much the same: this is an optional easter egg, and one that can easily be regarded as outside canon if desired.

Also - I found the deeper message, like that in The Trial of Jim Gordon, was so unpalatable it strained the show’s broader ideas and themes. So I’ve decided it’s not part of canon, for me.

Thoughts after the cut. Same disclaimer as with The Trial of Jim Gordon. I love the show. I tweeted like a maniac as episodes were airing, and got booted from Twitter. I want another network to pick it up.

However, my idea of meta is the old fandom one, which is critical analysis. If that’s not your thing, fine - but that’s what I’ll be doing here.

So, first things first.

I understand the rationale behind the time-jump, to an extent. The two extra episodes were just that - extra. One was spent on The Trial of Jim Gordon, which I have already been salty about in another post. This one was a sort of nod to the fans - offering Batman as a sort of reward. I’ve always been more interested in the story Gotham actually set out to tell, though, the story before Batman. The story of the city and its inhabitants. As such, I was always going to be less taken with an episode which was fundamentally mostly interested in giving us Batman.

But there were a couple of other issues that confused me. Gotham has always presented its own vision of the city, the characters. It’s shown it can be creative with canon, as well as adding its own ideas. Not only, for example, is their take on Oswald unique, but Fish Mooney – so pivotal in his development – only exists within Gotham’s universe. We got the Executioner and Cyrus Gold – yes, but we also got Nathaniel Barnes and Butch Gilzean, who had character and stories and lives all of their own.

I like that it thumbed its nose at Jim’s moustache. But go all the way with it. Yes, we know Batman’s coming. But if you want to continue to focus on Jim, and his wrestling with the notion of heroism – then just do that. Have the courage of your convictions. You can draw inspiration from the 60s series if you want, but you’re not shackled to it: Oswald doesn’t have to don a top hat and become 60s Penguin if you don’t want him to. The city doesn’t have to morph aesthetically into something we saw in the movies. You’ve told your own story. See it through.

That aside - the details.

The flash-forward was also a difficult ask because the story has been unnaturally cut short. Characters who were still wrestling with huge issues didn’t really get to address them in a truncated season and - as such - it’s sort of hard to accept where we find them now.

For example

We’ve seen Jim deal with several demons over the years. He has major issues with authority. His relationship with his father looms large. He wants to be a hero, but gets on better with the villains. He compartmentalises like crazy. He’s emotionally dishonest with others and himself. He enjoys playing dangerous games. He can’t resist a pissing match.

Am I to honestly believe that Jim has been entirely clean and pure in the interim? Why? Because the city was saved after near destruction? That’s happened before – he didn’t change. If anything, he’s more likely to have reverted to old habits once the crisis was over. Is he reformed because he’s a father now? Didn’t stop him killing Theo Galavan while Lee was pregnant.

Jim’s development was still very much in progress. As such, he feels unsatisfying here and - given what we know about him - you can’t help but feel he’s probably been up to his old tricks, but we’re just getting to see the sanitised surface of his life.

Lee likewise generally suffered quite a bit from the truncated season, and is good example of how the flash-forward doesn’t serve characters well.

In season 4, we saw her explore a darker side to her personality that the show has strongly and consistently hinted at since way back in season one, explicitly – when she says that Jerome’s confession of matricide thrilled her, and implicitly, when we wondered why the hell she was working in Arkham. We also saw her enjoy power in season 4. We saw her deeply committed to improving the lot of the residents in the Narrows, even if her way of going about it was short-sighted. We saw her shoot Sofia Falcone point-blank in the head in cold blood. We saw her, although many hated it, form an intense romantic relationship with Ed, where she seemed to find a fulfilment and recognition that she never found with Jim or Mario.

However, in season 5, the show clearly needed her to quickly step into the role of Mrs Jim and stepmother to Barbara. This meant becoming the angel at the hearth again, so it essentially erased those experiences, all that new characterisation.

As such, like Jim, she feels flat here – like we’re only getting to see a facade. She’s back in her old post of intermittently saying supportive things to Jim, and apparently quietly looking forward to him quitting his job. When she's bizarrely given the task of defusing the bomb, as Lucius the tech specialist stands by the side - it really only underlined that stripping her of all that history and characterisation meant that she doesn't really have a real role of her own in the wider workings of the city.

Now to the heart of my problem with this episode.

We’re told, without any explanation, that Oswald was sent to Blackgate shortly after reunification, and Ed to Arkham.

Now, to be honest, I find this fairly implausible. In all the rebuilding efforts, I doubt the authorities would have the will or energy to go back and rake over who committed what crime when the city had been abandoned by the government. And even if they did, both their actions – willingly manning the barricades (Oswald sustaining an injury when doing so), would have likely gone some way to mitigating everything else.

You could argue that it's for some nameless crime they committed later - but the show could easily have indicated that by throwing in a line about some heist or scheme they tried to pull off that ended up with them being put away.

Mayor James - ‘Oswald Cobblepot is getting released tomorrow’

Harvey - ‘Should have got 20 years for that stunt he pulled after reunification - not 10. So should Nygma.’

It didn't take the trouble to do that - so I'm left assuming they were sent away on the basis of crimes committed during the split.

However, this poses us with some problems both in terms of the plot, and more deeply in terms of narrative repercussions. Because if we are going to start to get persnickety about charging people with crimes they’ve committed, and then having them face actual consequences – well, we saw Barbara shoot loads of randoms in season 5. Going back not too far, Lee shot Sofia Falcone in the head. Going back further still, Jim murdered Ogden Barker and Theo Galavan, and was indirectly responsible for several deaths by inviting Sofia Falcone to town.

So – then – if we’ve decided that actually charging people and sending them to prison is now the done thing, why are we so selective with who’s punished? Gotham is a show with a million shades of grey. It gives its villains humanising back stories and motivations – but it ultimately still wants to punish a select few like it’s a black and white universe. You can’t do that when your good guys are equally tainted. Not unless you want to give off an unfortunate stench of hypocrisy, anyway.

Oswald flat-out asks Jim on the pier. I could have escaped this city. I chose to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and defend it. Why was I punished?

It’s telling that Jim never actually furnishes Oswald with any good answer to his question on the pier. Because - over the years - the show itself has never quite figured out how to answer this one. He can’t answer. What could he possibly say?

Why then, do some get away scot-free, while others are punished? Why, as Ed observes, do some get to make choices - while others never get the chance?

Jim and Lee are ‘heroes’ (arguably wandering into designated hero territory, at points). They're never going to face consequences for anything. Jim going on a self-pitying drinking binge doesn’t count - not compared to a ten-year stint in Blackgate or Arkham. Lee never expressed any remorse for Sofia.

As for Barbara, well Barbara is brought back into the heroic fold, too.

First and foremost, she’s offered moral redemption by bearing Jim’s child. Becoming a mother meant all previous sins were forgiven.

When we meet her here, we see now that she’s wealthy and powerful – playing a serious role in the city. It’s empowering in a way – but it’s also a means of re-affirming the established order and putting her back in her box. Remember that Barbara is from one of Gotham's elite families - and she's finally behaving like someone from an elite and wealthy family would do. To make her position clear - she’s explicitly placed in the same category as Bruce here in terms of her wealth and control of the city. I’m assuming that pregnancy also made magically clean whatever money she used to buy up the city when it was on its knees. She didn’t seem to have access to her parents’ cash before now - so she must have used her ill-gotten gains.

(I would argue that strategically buying up parts of the city post-reunification is screamingly Oswald, but like other chunks of his characterisation and storyline, it got sent Barbara’s way in season 5 in a bid to flesh out her character)

Last up, she’s not demanding a romantic relationship with Jim anymore, but they’re now forever safely tied in that context due to their daughter - there’s no mention of Tabitha, or casual mention of a new partner. Troublesome, restless Barbara, poor little rich girl – demanding of Jim’s time and attention, namelessly unhappy, and with a murky ‘past’ is now ‘fixed’ and neutralised.

Thinking about those brought into the fold necessarily asks you to think about those who were excluded.

Oswald might have roots in an elite family, like Barbara, but - crucially - he’s also one part poor immigrant (as well as all his many other markers of 'otherness'). He can’t escape this - we got his jangling east European music as soon as we saw him in this episode, and we were reminded of Gertrud when he said he would lay flowers on her grave as his first act after his release.

Ed’s background is unknown, but we can safely hazard a guess that there’s no moneyed upper-class upbringing there. He was also willing to step up when it counted, and was even used by those in power for their own ends during the break – but none of that counts for anything, apparently, and he finds himself in Arkham. You could argue that Ed is unwell, and needs to be in a hospital – but Arkham is not shown as a hospital in any meaningful sense in the show. It’s an oubliette, where you send those you just can’t be bothered dealing with. It doesn’t look any better here than we’ve seen it before. Why hasn’t anyone tried to improve it? Again, they don’t have to succeed - if you’re determined to stick to canon, but why not suggest that Jim or Lee or Lucius has at least tried to have conditions improved or an official review launched into treatment of inmates? It would go a long way to nodding to the long and complex histories these characters have. However things ended – Lee and Ed had a pretty intense relationship. They cared about each other. She can sleep at nights knowing he’s in Arkham?

Jeremiah might have been clever enough to win himself a scholarship and a way out of the circus – but it’s not enough to enable him to escape his past – either explicitly, when he was hunted down by his resentful brother, or implicitly – when he winds up in a similar situation to the other outsiders. Yes, Jeremiah might have been manipulating the situation – but he was still sent to Arkham and left vulnerable to casual abuse. Whether it’s intended or not, Jeremiah’s accusation of abandonment can be read more deeply. Bruce left town - but, just like Oswald and Ed, the city in general abandoned him.

Selina’s an example who, I would argue, reinforces that this moral order of the universe. She's always been depicted more ambiguously - capable of villainous acts, but tied to the heroes through her bond with Bruce. This is reflected in what we learn about her here. Like Jeremiah, she's been punished by Bruce's abandonment, but her grey heroic status means that she doesn't lose her freedom, despite living a life of crime.

So what picture are we painted of the city?

Aubrey James is back in charge - corrupt as Oswald ever was as mayor, but less competent. The city’s remains were picked clean by Barbara - it’s now seemingly largely owned and controlled by two scions of the city’s elite. The commissioner’s got more than one murder to his name. His wife has one attempted murder to hers - giving her the benefit of the doubt and assuming that Sofia’s still in her coma. Arkham’s still a hellhole.

What does all that say? Like I said before, you can argue that this was the inevitable endpoint – but you’ve changed the story already, so that doesn’t wash.

What you’re left with is the outsiders comprehensively punished. You can sacrifice your chance at escape and an easy life in favour of standing shoulder to shoulder to defend the city, you can be unwell, you can be a victim – doesn’t count. No matter what you do – you’ll always be an outsider anyway. You can’t win for losing. Some are chosen, some aren’t. And if you’re not, tough luck.

So in this universe, why the hell not don a showy suit and your best hat and commit yourself to villainy? Go for it, I say.

(Yes - I’m aware this is more analysis than it warranted, and it really just wanted to say ‘look Oswald has a monocle and Batman’s here now!’ - but I felt the need for venting meta)

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