As Hit girl once said, “Game on Cocksuckers”, and exactly that how we left Gotham last week: Jim Gordon and Theo Galavan staring each other down with all masks and falsehoods removed. The time for shadow games has passed, leaving these two figures in a poker game thunderdome for the heart of Gotham. Theo may have taken his joker out of the deck, but he’s still holding all the cards as Jim will find out this week when the queen of hearts gets played.
Tonight’s the Night – As Theo makes his play on Bruce for control of Wayne Enterprises, he sends Barbara to keep Jim occupied and pour a bucket load of awkwardness over his and Lee’s relationship. Meanwhile, Edward Nigma indulges in some respectful mid-woods body disposal only to encounter someone most unexpected.
Right from the wonderfully theatrical opening dream sequence, this episode lets us know it will be a lot of fun and Barbara, in her mad glory, will be the centre of that; she doesn’t disappoint. Throughout the episode, you can’t take your eyes off her as she plays and teases Jim into her “big day” finale. The way she claws at Jim with her still genuine feelings and does everything,she can to drive a stake between him and Lee. Despite the grandeur of the end destination, it’s the police car transit scene between Jim and Barbara that provides the best results. Firstly, despite their best attempts at denial Jim, Bullock and everyone else know their heading into such an obvious trap that Barbara might as well be twiddling a black moustache and laughing maniacally, yet still they press on creating a building sense of tension. Then, there are the great camera shots from Jim’s perspective of Barbara’s face in the rear view mirror. They really help keep us inside Jim’s mindset of knowing how wrong this all is, but feeling they have no choice but to go along with it. Even on a personal level, as Barbara’s mere presence has a damaging effect on his relationship with Lee (and doesn’t Barbara know it, “Hey Lee, you don’t mind if I borrow him for a while do ya?”) but he continues in the hope of getting information against Theo.
Most importantly, the episode does deliver the payoff from this build-up as Jim’s attempts to play along and out crazy Barbara only to be left dazed and confused. The resulting heavily one-sided lover’s triangle showdown is immensely fun as it plays out. For all the spotlight on Barbara, Monica Baccarin too has a great episode as Lee with her defiance in the face of Barbara’s sharp edged arguments. Her smaller appearances in recent weeks have been disappointing so it’s great to see her playing a bigger role again.
The Bruce Wayne story of the episode has plenty of interest to it. The only down note is the role of Silver St. Cloud in it as despite last week’s pledge of significance, she’s barely even a pawn in Theo’s end game for Bruce. Most likely, she still has plenty of unknown moves to play but right now, her actions feel an anti-climax. However, the episode does much better with the Theo/Bruce interplay. This was a precarious situation because as Theo attempts to pull a fast one on his younger opponent, there’s a very real danger of making Bruce Wayne look overly stupid. However, this is sufficiently dodged. From the moment the offer is on the table, Bruce understands that at least something isn’t right even without his fully developed business mind. In fact, in talking with Alfred, he even openly acknowledges as it extortion but Jim Barnes’ script focuses on Bruce thinking with his heart rather than his head over Theo’s cherry on the deal; the identity and evidence over his parents killer. This has been Bruce’s driving motive since the show started, so it’s easy understand the effect such a chance would have on him. In fact, the episode’s best moment comes from Bruce justifying accepting the offer to Alfred, not for knowing who the killers were but simply so he can finally put their deaths behind him, “Alfred, am I wrong if I just want it to be over”. It’s an outstanding moment of weakness from Bruce’s character that David Mazous handles brilliantly as it makes us invest in idea of Bruce accepting the offer. Even with we know they’ll likely be a change of mind the episode does a great job suspending our disbelief. The end result also plays out fantastically and losing that change to know seems to trigger a new stage of trauma in Bruce’s tragedy.
Despite only a minor feature, the Nigma storyline is a great bit of fun. Firstly, it’s a cool bit of production with his vintage outfit and car to the elegant secluded picnic that would be infinitely romantic... if one of them wasn’t dead and cut up in a steamer trunk. It’s a good affirmation of last episode’s shock character change as he now shows zero hesitation over violence and mutilation. It also packs plenty of laughs from Ed’s almost light hearted carry on in the face random interruptions, “For a seclude forest this place still has a lot of foot traffic”. Then of course, there is the surprise and reveal of just who raided his picnic which now has the potential to be one hell of a fun plot arc with these two paired together.
For everything that goes down, the good guys way this week there’s just enough fallout to make you wonder if that really was the plan all along. Did certain faces always know they’d fail but did so to strike a crucial chink in their opponents armour? This is where Gotham really works wonders by twisting our expectations into self doubt all while being entertaining as hell. A certain late dangling scene even felt a nice tribute to days of Keaton and Nicholson in the bell tower. Tonight’s the Night brought the thrills and creepiness while still being smart and meaningful. With episodes like these, Gotham is fast shedding its reputation as the bridesmaid of DC adapted shows.