Gotham S01 E01 – Subtlety is Overrated

Nicole Sweeney Gotham, Season 1, TV , , , , , , , , , , ,

Previously: We asked you guys to tell us what show to watch this fall and you decided it would be hilarious to watch us bumble through another show with elaborate origins we know next to nothing about. Let’s get to it.
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Pilot

Sweeney: Necessary disclaimer: we know nothing about Batman. I’ve maybe seen all of the Batman movies made in my lifetime, occasionally watched the 90’s cartoon as a kid, and love Batman The Ride. I also just remembered that I suppressed memories of thinking Chris O’Donnell was dreamy when I was in the 4th grade, thanks entirely to Batman Forever. That is my entire Batman CV. My comic book IQ is pretty low, in general, and Batman is definitely not on the list of superheroes whose stories I could feign competency in. To the best of my knowledge, this is also true of Lorraine (L: Yep.) and Alex, who agreed to join us for her first series recapping gig with the internet equivalent of a shrug and nervous laughter (A: Thanks again for the invite! And I think I’ve only seen two Batman movies ever).

In other words, Batman diehards: it’s probably best to keep those expectations in check.

We start off with a wide city-at-night shot of Gotham that cuts closer and winds us to a girl jumping on top of a medium sizes building to get a better view and dramatically freefall down. She’s got a hoodie and steam punk goggles and she walks through the city, bumping into someone carrying groceries on purpose so that she can steal milk from them. She also steals cash from somebody else, before fleeing. She takes her money and milk to an alleyway where she feeds A CAT. She steals from the rich and gives to the cats. While wearing a hood(ie)! Robin Hood?

Lorraine: AND YOU WERE NERVOUS. You are already so good at identifying characters. A+

Sweeney: She scurries up high when she hears people coming. She watches a well-to-do family walking down a sketchy alley late at night, as well-to-do families are so well known to do. They’re stopped by a mugger who points a gun at the father, demanding his wallet. He asks for the woman’s pearl necklace next and the couple oblige both requests. He shoots them anyway and doesn’t bother to grab anything else off of them, which just seems stupid. He points the gun at their son, who just watched both of his parents get murdered, but his masked mugger is clearly a comic book fan and knows what a great superhero origin story this will be, so he leaves the boy to his meltdown over his parents.

Alex: The sound of the kid screaming in the alleyway is pretty harrowing. I watched the episode last night and I can still hear it in my head.

Sweeney: Agreed. Definitely one of the standout moments of the episode. This isn’t really Bruce Wayne’s story, so they had to handle his stuff fairly quickly, but I think they did those parts quite well.

Police Department. This place is a fucking madhouse, so that we get the idea that Gotham has a whole! lot! of! crime!

Lor: I get that it’s a busy PD, but it didn’t stop me from laughing at the fact that this station looks more like the floor of a stock exchange.

Sweeney: I wonder if teenage girls can wander freely about the building? A guy is shouting about needing his pills and eventually fires a gun in the air, which makes RYAN ATWOOD appear and shout at everyone to calm the fuck down. The gun going off was meaningless, but silence orders from Ryan Atwood are to be taken very seriously. A bunch of cops have their guns trained on the shooter as Ryan Atwood tries to reason with him. The guy is calmed, but only briefly and approximately 60 seconds into his screen time, Ryan Atwood gets to do what he does best and punch the shooter in the face with his own gun.

Lor: If Logan Echoll’s is the Throat Punch Todd of Veronica Mars, Benjamin McKenzie is the TPT of… everywhere he goes.

Alex: I watched this episode about ten minutes after watching the OC Season One finale, so it was all kinds of hilarious when Ryan showed up here. I knew he would, obviously, but it was still brilliant.

Sweeney: Donal Logue as a surly middle aged man with perpetual 5 o’clock shadow looks on, disappointed. He pulls Ryan Atwood aside to tell him that it’s a much better policy to just shoot people. Is this standard Gotham PD procedure? If so, it seems there are police stations all across the country that might just be using Batman comic books as their training manuals. (L: A+) The desk sergeant calls out to Donal, whose name is Harvey Bullock. Harvey Bullock, having not been assuaged by Ryan Atwood’s insistence that maybe cops shouldn’t just shoot everybody they find suspicious, is now further angered by having to continue to work while at work – he’s sent out with Ryan Atwood to a crime scene.

Batman Begins Alleyway. Ryan Atwood broods over the corpses of the wealthy couple. Cops on the scene note that little Batman saw the whole thing, but couldn’t be bothered to dedicate more than 4 seconds to talking through his PTSD. Ryan Atwood knows all about troubled youth, though, so he’s on the case. While that’s happening, Harvey Bullock tries to weasel his way out of this case, because he knows that those are the corpses of the two wealthiest people in Gotham – Thomas and Martha Wayne. (In my headcanon Harvey Bullock’s response was much more mocking, in the line of Anjelica Houston to Drew Barrymore in Ever After when she didn’t recognize the prince. “You poor, little farm girl/cop!“)

Unfortunately, Harvey Bullock can’t get off the case, because Ryan Atwood is already talking to Little Batman, who introduces himself as Bruce Wayne. He sobs, so Ryan Atwood goes for story time: his dad was murdered by a drunk driver when he was Little Batman’s age. Not to discount the loss of his father, a car accident is nowhere near the level of violence that Little Batman just witnessed, so no, I don’t think you do know how he feels Ryan Atwood. Ryan Atwood continues his questionable speech by telling Little Batman that the most important thing for him to do right now is BE STRONG.  K, cool.

Lor: Ryan Atwood lays it on pretty thick too about how THERE WILL BE LIGHT, THERE WILL BE LIGHT IN THE DARK. Ryan Atwood, are you foreshadowing the bat signal?

Alex: I did not pick up on that at all. Nice one, Lor! Between the three of us I think we’ve totally got this whole Batman thing covered.

Sweeney: An older, distinguished man comes rushing across the police tape, and the cops don’t say or do anything more than, “Who’s that?” because police work is ON POINT here. Little Batman runs to this man who exchanges introductions with Ryan Atwood. Alfred Pennyworth, meet James Gordon. (That is the only time I will call him James Gordon in this recap. Maybe next time.) Ryan Atwood vows to get the guy who did this and Alfred’s response is basically, “What are you, new?”

Alex: I haven’t yet decided what I think about Alfred’s accent. Making him a Cockney (rather than having him talk like every other TV butler ever) seems like a strange choice, but maybe it’s also an awesome. one I’ll get back to you on that.

Sweeney: My opinions on most of their choices and, in fact, most of this episode is still “I’ll get back to you on that” for me.

OMINOUS LIGHTNING CLOUDS! GOTHAM!

After the credits, Harvey and Ryan Atwood go to a diner and the light from outside is so bright that I assumed this was the next day until Ryan Atwood asks about being there when they move the bodies. Ryan Atwood is also a poor little farm girl who has never heard of the prince/the Waynes. As he registers the name “The Wayne Foundation,” they are interrupted by the arrival of two other cops from Major Crimes Unit – the people Harvey Bullock wanted to take over the case. They ask for it and Ryan Atwood starts to throw a temper tantrum, but Harvey shuts him up. Harvey considers giving it up to them, but the Major Crimes cops talk down to him and he holds onto the case he didn’t want out of spite. After they leave he calls them “do-gooders” which is kind of what cops should be, right? (L: Yep.)

Back at the police station, their boss lady tells them that they need to wrap this case up ASAP, not so that justice can be found and their son can find peace, but because it’s high profile and nobody likes being embarrassed. Harvey sends Ryan Atwood out of the room to try to convince boss lady to let him ditch Ryan Atwood, because that’s just too much sulk for one partnership. Alas, in between The OC and Gotham, Ryan Atwood went off and became a war hero. This is a beautiful new detail for this crossover magic headcanon. Also Ryan Atwood’s daddy was “a big shot DA back in the old days.” YES, SANDY COHEN WAS INDEED. (L: AMAZING.) Outside boss lady’s office, War Hero Ryan Atwood knew what Harvey was up to but just kind of laughs at him for not succeeding in ditching his newbie partner. Ryan Atwood refuses to use his pull to request a transfer, because he’s not a slovenly lackadaisical cynic like Harvey.

Lor: Wait, does that make Ryan Atwood a good guy? I’ll reserve my judgement, but I’m thinking he might be a Good Guy.

Sweeney: NOT SURE YET, LOR. WE’LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE.

Then we get a bunch of quick shots of them roughing up and interrogating suspects while the light in the interrogation room swings back and forth for no discernible reason. (L: Magical indoor wind!)

Alex: This montage made me laugh a lot. Partly because of the ridiculous nu-metal soundtrack, but also because the quick cycling through all the suspects, with no dialogue, made me imagine that they were basically going through all the criminals in town and asking ‘Did you shoot the Waynes? No? Damn. Next!’.

Sweeney: 1430. That about sums it up.

In the only slightly improved lighting of a lab, a thin, awkward man is shown the bullet. Ed Nygma asks a lot of QUESTIONS and RIDDLES. Guys, my knowledge is based primarily on Warner Brothers branded theme park rides and still this character reveal was evident in less than 10 seconds. Good casting, but shitty writing. Anyway, aside from ham-fistedly  introducing The Riddler, this scene also informed us that the bullet and the gun which shot it are not known by the database, which means it was probably a fancy ass gun.

Ryan Atwood speculates that this was a professional contract killer merely pretending to be a street robber (a theory backed up by the truly terrible job he did of accumulating valuables from this very wealthy couple) but Harvey dismisses this theory because of reasons and the fact that regardless of what Ryan Atwood says, they’re going to see his shady friend Fish Mooney because that area is her turf.

They arrive at a swanky looking bar and someone leaves to go get Fish. She’s behind the building with a team of men, beating a man senseless because he owes her money. Tweets about her stupid accent were my favorite part of #gothamsnark. She snaps at her umbrella-holder, a pasty man who eagerly takes the opportunity to do some of the beating himself when Fish goes inside.

Inside, she greats Harvey warmly and Ryan Atwood is short with her, asking about the screaming they heard. Fish tells him point blank that one of her employees stole from her and is currently being beaten. Harvey tells Ryan Atwood not to worry about it, because subtly clearly isn’t this show’s jam and we need all! the! evidence! that Harvey’s a dirty cop. They send Ryan Atwood out to check on the beating so that they can have shady conversation.

Outside, Oswald the pale umbrella holder is having a little too much fun with the beating and the others tell him to, “Take it easy, PENGUIN.” I was almost impressed, guys! He looked the part! I was guessing it even on my little old lonesome! But I think we did get about 2 minutes past his initial appearance before naming him like that, which is an achievement except for the part where he wasn’t on screen for most of those 2 minutes. (A: I hadn’t quite got it yet, and was making a note to look it up, when they just went ahead and told us). Anyway, Penguin doesn’t like to be called that. (Now.) Ryan Atwood asks how everybody is doing there, and they’re all really pleased to meet the new cop, because all! cops! are! dirty! but Penguin heeds Ryan Atwood’s request and drops the baseball bat. They all insist that this was just good fun. Ryan Atwood gives up on this scene and goes back inside to catch the tail end of Harvey’s shady conversation with Fish.

If his father was a DA in Gotham, why is he new to Gotham? I don’t follow. (A: His dad died when he was little, so I’m guessing he left Gotham after that and he’s now living in the city as an adult for the first time?)

COMMERCIAL BREAK. You know, I think this is the first time I’ve recapped a show where the breaks were real breaks and not our standard Not Breaks. I’m not a fan.

Ryan Atwood is in a wanky apartment wearing a suit. Ryan Atwood doesn’t like suits, but he looks very good in them. Out walks a hot blonde who agrees with this sentiment. She’s his girlfriend, Barbara, and after getting all dolled up for something fancy, Ryan Atwood begs out of it. Marissa Cooper isn’t generally one for spine-having, but kudos to her for no standing for this nonsense. I’m aware that this woman is preternaturally beautiful, but that is still the product of a tremendous amount of effort. WASTED. Still, she does get to take her heels off, which is always a good feeling. Anyway, Ryan Atwood laments the shitty, useless day he had at work, but Barbara’s got his Mario Peppere gift for pep talks. Her advice is that he put his swimming skills to use. Having exhausted their conversational skills, sexytimes commence.

After they fall asleep, Ryan Atwood is awoken (A: in a wifebeater!) by a phone call from Harvey, who is in a bar, drinking but has supposedly acquired a lead. Ryan Atwood meets him at the designated stoop. Harvey’s lead is that a guy  named Mario Pepper tried to sell a necklace that matched the description of Martha Wayne’s to one of Fish Mooney’s guys. They go upstairs and knock on the apartment door. A little girl with wild hair answers the door. Her name is IVY. She’s not sure if they want to talk to her dad because he’s mean, but her dad comes to the door anyway.

Inside, he insists that he was at home with his family last Saturday. His wife, shaky and afraid, agrees. No pearl necklace sounds familiar to their Mario Pepper. They ask to search the apartment without a warrant because Mario Pepper is a felon on parole and can get searched for reasons like, “because we feel like it.” Mario Pepper shoves the table at Ryan Atwood and flees out the window and up the fire escape. Ryan Atwood chases him up to the roof and Mario Pepper opens fire. Chase ensues, with them going up and down buildings and through businesses and causing a big damn ruckus, though how their speeds are so evenly matched is…questionable at best. Eventually, Mario Pepper hides behind a wall in an alley way so that he can attack Ryan Atwood. Just as Ryan Atwood is about to get stabbed, Harvey appears from where ever the fuck he’s been to shoot/kill Mario Pepper.

Later, more cops arrive on the scene to search the apartment. During their search they find the necklace. They return to the station with fanfare and they make headline news. We know this because we see Penguin reading this newspaper headline before getting into the back of a cop car. The two cops from Major Crimes are in it and he tells them that he saw Fish Mooney with Martha Wayne’s necklace, discussing how to get it inside Pepper’s home. He also knows that the cops are in on it. Major Crimes duo correctly guesses that Penguin is only sharing this information because he wants to push Fish out, but that’s beside the point.

Wayne Funeral. Little Batman is, understandably, bereft. Cat Hood(ie) is lurking there, too. She’s really good at lurking. She watches as Little Batman shakes Ryan Atwood’s hand for keeping his promise.

Barbara’s Apartment. The female half of Major Crimes (Renee) drops by to tell Barbara that GCPD framed and killed Mario Pepper. Renee wants Barbara to know that Ryan Atwood is not a good guy (LIES!) and Barbara deserves better. It’s implied that this sentence ends with, “Like me,” an implication solidified by continued allusions to their past together. Barabara knows that Ryan Atwood is super honest, though.

That night, Barbara asks Ryan Atwood outright if he framed Pepper, which Ryan Atwood vehemently denies. Barbara accepts this, and hesitates to tell him where she heard this.

The next day, Ryan Atwood calls out Renee Montoya, asking her what her evidence is that Pepper was framed. She won’t tell him that (duh) but threatens to take him down. Ryan Atwood says he’ll find out himself if it happened and they both need to stay out of his way.

Later, he goes to the Pepper house, though to a cold reception. The wife reluctantly lets him in. She assumes Pepper had the necklace because they planted it. Little Poison Ivy is standing around by a plant for no reason other than that somebody feared they may have been teetering on the edge of subtlety.

Lor: Ivy isn’t even her real name. They used Ed Nygma and Oswald, but for some reason they decided to call this little girl Ivy, maybe because they had lots of plants in the prop room already. (If you want to read about the executive producer pretending they named the character Ivy for reasons other than these stunning visuals, click here. Mild spoilers.)

Sweeney: Reading that just sort of adds to my frustration with the lack of subtlety, but whatever. It’s the pilot. Lots of introductions to be made.

She echoes her mother’s “Bastards!” so that we can hastily round out her little origin story. Why bother writing when somebody else has already done it! Anyway, Mrs. Pepper continues to insist that her husband was innocent. Ryan Atwood asks to see Pepper’s shoes and is disappointed by the sight of them. (A: Because there’s no way someone would ever dispose of the shoes that they were wearing when they murdered someone. There’s probably a PLL joke to be made somewhere in here) (S: There’s always a PLL joke to be made.)

Back at the station, Ryan Atwood takes his framing theory directly to the person that sheer logic dictates would have been incredibly likely to be involved the framing. Ryan Atwood’s complete lack of healthy suspicion makes him one of the dumbest fucking cops I’ve ever seen and I watch Pretty Little Liars, so. Ryan Atwood tells Harvey that he figures Fish’s higher up crime lords, The Falcones, had the Waynes killed. Harvey is as dismissive as the guilty person he is and accuses Renee Montoya of making shit up. Ryan Atwood is convinced of the frame-up job because Little Batman knew the killer had shiny shoes and Mario Pepper didn’t have shiny shoes. Compelling evidence. Regardless, Harvey reminds Ryan Atwood that they killed Mario Pepper and at this point it’s easier to just declare it case closed and move on because justice is hard.

Fish Mooney’s Bar. Ryan Atwood storms in, telling Penguin to tell Mooney he’s there, but then storming right past him. He’s trying to make an entrance, I guess, but that’s just silly.

He goes to Fish and asks what he talked to Harvey about, because he’s afraid Harvey might lie. Fish’s men step forward as she wonders why he expects her to tell the truth. Somehow that is additional confirmation for Ryan Atwood. It’s annoying because we all know he’s right about the frame job, but all of his “evidence” is impossibly stupid. Fish is a criminal behaving like a criminal, that doesn’t necessarily prove her involvement in anything else. Whatever. The important thing is that Ryan Atwood gets to do a lot more face punching, which is his favorite.

At the station, Barbara arrives to ask where Ryan Atwood is since he left for a walk the previous night and never returned. Harvey covers for Ryan Atwood and then sets off to find him.

Things are not looking good for our Chino transplant as he’s now being dragged into a big ass butcher’s shop. It’s one of the most well-lit sets we’ve seen so far, but it’s eerier for it. If Ryan Atwood majors in face-punching, he minors in losing fights, so this isn’t especially surprising. He gets his face stomped in. WELCOME TO GOTHAM, BITCH. (I had to. If the show wouldn’t do it, I had to!)

After a REAL BREAK, Ryan is strung up by his feet, among the meat. Harvey arrives to try to rescue him. He asks to speak to Fish.

Fish is at her club, watching a comedian audition. SOMEONE TELLING JOKES? But he’s not wearing a “Hi My Name Is The Joker” name tag, so the jury’s still out on this one.

Lor: That article I linked above also discusses a bit about how they are going to “tease” us some with The Joker. The producer says, “In the pilot, you see there’s a comedian there. People immediately leap… And that’s really letting the audience do our work for us. Because I haven’t said anything about that guy and people go there!” DON’T YOU PIN THIS ON US, SIR. YOU PUT IVY BY A PLANT, SO YES. WE’RE GOING TO ASSUME THE GUY TELLING JOKES MIGHT BE THE JOKER.

Alex: It worries me that the producer thinks they’re being terribly subtle or clever here. You threw in a scene with a comedian doing stand-up, which wasn’t really connected to anything else and seemed pretty random in the context of the episode, and then you basically just said you did it so that people would assume he was The Joker. So when people do, indeed, wonder if he might be The Joker, being all ‘ooooh people are drawing all these conclusions and we never said anything!’ makes you seem like kind of a dick. That said, I’m glad that at least one of the villains’ identities might be a little more mysterious, because that could make for a more interesting backstory. I hope so, anyway.

Sweeney: I hate that shit so hard. It’s a cheap “Made you look!” ploy.

Fish laughs at his joke as she gets a phone call and Penguin refills her wine. Harvey explains that this whole mess isn’t Ryan Atwood’s fault – that Major Crimes is already headed her way, and it had to have been one of her people that talked. She denies that possibility but glances back at Penguin pointedly. Harvey says that if she kills his partner, he’ll have no choice but to come after her. She asks to speak to Butcher again, and she shouts that the son of a bitch who threatened her needs to be hung up alongside his partner.

Harvey promises Ryan Atwood that they’re going home and then he gets knocked out. Back at Fish’s place, she tells her comedian to stand by a little longer because she needs Penguin to rub her feet. As he does, she figures it’s about time that the Falcones go and she rises up in their place. She says that Penguin is like a son to her…which is why she doesn’t understand why he’d betray her after everything she’s done. She knows Penguin snitched because he’s the only one who saw her with the pearls. It’s kind of badass that she got one last foot rub out of him. Priorities in order. Penguin insists that he’s loyal, offering to open a vein for her. It’s gross. She hands him a knife, which he’s about to use on her when her back is turned, but she beats his ass down with a chair. The shattered chair would have made for an excellent Buffy Break.

Lor: And surely, Gotham has a vampire or two.

Sweeney: Back with The Butcher, Harvey and Ryan Atwood are hanging upside down, awaiting their demise, which is to be carried out by elaborate means so as to by time for their showy rescue. A bunch of men storm in, guns blazing. They are led by John Falcone , who tells Fish’s main guy that she’s being too impetuous because if she wants to kill cops, she needs his approval. “There are rules.”

Later, John sits with Ryan Atwood and explains that he saved him solely because he knew Ryan Atwood’s father very well. Ryan Atwood is dubious of the notion that Sandy Cohen would be friends with a crime boss. Ryan Atwood runs through the things he now knows: Falcone owns the cops and probably also the mayor. Falcone probably isn’t behind the murder of the Waynes, though, because it’d be too risky to let Ryan Atwood live if he were. Falcone has no idea who killed the Waynes – Pepper was sacrificed in order to have the culprit found swiftly in order to keep the people of Gotham feeling safe. Falcone wants Ryan Atwood to keep his hot head in check. LOL. Ignoring this advice is the basis for all of his plots ever.

Out at the dock, Harvey says he didn’t tell Ryan Atwood the truth because he wasn’t ready. They stop so that Harvey can reveal the contents of his trunk: Penguin. It’s important for Ryan Atwood to be the one to walk Penguin down to the end of the pier and put a bullet in his head so that everybody knows he’s “with the program.” If he doesn’t, Harvey’s supposed to take them both out. Harvey adds that even if they don’t do it, somebody will come for them soon enough – possibly Barbara too. Harvey adds an emphatic, “THIS IS WAR! WE’RE AT WAR WITH SCUMBAGS LIKE HIM!” because this episode was feeling a little short an excessive, dramatic statements.

Ryan Atwood does as he’s told and marches Penguin to the edge of the pier, with Penguin begging for mercy. He promises that there’s a war coming because Falcone is losing his grip and there will be power vacuum filled by chaos. Penguin promises he’s clever and can be helpful. When they reach the end, Ryan Atwood tells him to shut up, and whispers, “Don’t ever come back to Gotham,” before lifting the gun just to the side of Penguin’s ear and firing into the distance and letting his body fall into the water.

Ryan Atwood returns to the apartment of his very worried and now very relieved girlfriend.

Later, he heads out to the Wayne estate. Little Batman is standing on the roof, precariously close to the edge. Alfred sees this and lays down the law and tells him to back the fuck up. Little Batman obliges.

Alex: Given that Alfred’s English, I’m sure he says ‘arse’ rather than ‘ass’, but whatevs.

Sweeney: Inside, Little Batman says that he was up there learning to conquer fear, thanks to that amazing advice Ryan Atwood gave him. In additional look-at-your-life-look-at-your-choices decisions, Ryan Atwood decided his best course of action is to tell this young boy – clearly in a questionable mental state – that his parents’ killer is still on the loose and the cops are crooked and killed an innocent man. Also he has no idea who really did the killing. Little Batman is glad he’s still alive so he can see him again. (And murder his face off himself.) Ryan Atwood is asking for Little Batman to remain silent about this conversation that shouldn’t have happened so that he can find the real killer and clean up the police department.

Cat Hood(ie) was again lurking on the edges of this pointless scene.

Lor: Pointless? Don’t you see that we now know Ryan Atwood is a Good Guy because he has the approval of Little Batman? I know it’s really subtle, but definitely we needed this confirmation.

Sweeney: On the other side of the lake/bay/I-don’t-know-bodies-of-water, Penguin emerges from the water and immediately kills a fisherman and shovels food in his face. Like a fucking psychopath. (A: The way the music dramatically kicked in as he took a bite from the sandwich was… weird. Is sandwich-eating somehow significant to his backstory?) (S: I have vague traumatic memories of Danny DeVito nastily shoveling food in his face during his turn as The Penguin. I think it was raw fish, but my very uneducated guess is that it was a callback to that. Or that gross eating is somehow a fact of the comic book character. I don’t know.)

GOTHAM OUT.

Oof. I’m not yet sure what to make of this. This is us, so we’re going to ride this out regardless and I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that it improves, but I’m decidedly #meh at this point. The character introductions were maddeningly cheap. If you’re going to play around in somebody else’s sandbox like this, then build your own shit. The premise of the show is that they’re doing that with James Gordon, but all these weird little cameos from other characters, introduced in the most shallow way possible is insulting to the viewer. Let the shy little girl see her father get framed and develop this mistrust of the police. That’s an origin story. What they did instead was drown that in, “LOOK! HERE’S A CHARACTER YOU KNOW. LOOK AT ALL THE MEANING THAT COMES ACROSS WHEN WE SAY “IVY” AND HAVE HER STAND BY PLANTS!” It feels like it’s trading far too heavily on what’s already been done and makes me a little wary of what’s coming.

Lor: AGREED. I’m a little less unsure and more solidly #MEH about this pilot. Granted, it is a pilot (titled “Pilot.” We should’ve known it would’ve been mediocre.) so there is a certain amount of legwork that is expected here. It wasn’t only that the introductions were completely artless, though, but that there were SO DAMN MANY OF THEM. Did Gordon really need to make contact with Catwoman, Penguin, Riddler, Poison Ivy, two mob boss and ike 72 crooked cops just in the pilot? More importantly WHY? I just don’t know what this pilot was trying to establish, other than Ryan Atwood is a Good Guy. That isn’t enough to carry an episode, and certainly  not enough to carry a season, so here’s to hoping this gets better.

Alex: I suppose it’s difficult with a pilot because they need to include enough to be able to say ‘Look at all these awesome characters! You should totally watch this show!’ but there was really no need for them to go SO overboard with the character introductions, SO many times. Basically, what you both just said. Now that they’ve got that out of the way, though, I’m definitely interested to see where they go from here.

Sweeney: I’m wrapping up The OC finale post in tandem with this one, so I’m going to basically make the same complaint twice in about a week, but I think a lot of that shit was total filler and that, in and of itself, is a byproduct of the fact that few television stories actually require 22 episodes. More on this rant on Monday, but for now, the clunkiness of this pilot makes me wonder how this show might have been different if it had been, say, an FX show, with 13 or 15 or whatever episodes to play with.

All of that being said, there were a few good moments and I enjoyed most of the casting. E. Ngyma was probably my favorite. What’s more, I do think it’ll be a fun show to recap. I guess we’ll find out.

 

And now, some of your amazing snarky tweets on the #gothamsnark hashtag:

 

Thank you to everyone for tweeting along! Be sure to join us next week for #gothamsnark (even if you’re watching a day or so behind – we’ll keep checking for tweets until the post goes live!)

Next time: More people call Penguin “Penguin” and get their faces murdered off for it on Gotham S01 E02 – Selina Kyle.

Nicole Sweeney (all posts)

Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.





Marines (all posts)

I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.





Alex (all posts)

I'm a thirty-year-old postgrad living in Scotland. When I'm not writing (which, between my degree and Snark Squad, is almost never) I watch entirely too much TV, and live in constant fear of the day that I run out of things to watch.





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