Fox’s “Batman-without-Batman” soap opera is the most amazingly weird show on television. For every episode this season, Deadshirt’s own Sarah Register, Kayleigh Hearn and Max Robinson discuss the good, the bad…the beginning? of little Bruce Wayne, skinny Oswald Cobblepot, and Jim Gordon sans ‘stache as they try to find their way in the misery-soaked, work-a-day world of…GOTHAM.
Max: WE’RE BACK, BABY! It’s been almost three months since the craziest show on the planet Earth went on its winter hiatus, but Gotham has returned, and it brought a ton of frozen people getting destroyed in really gross ways. It’s…The Wrath of The VillainsTM!
JIM GORDON WHAT’S UP BUDDY DO YOU NEED TO TALK
Max: PREVIOUSLY, ON GOTHAM: Jim Gordon shot a Christian ninja cult leader in the head in cold blood. NOW, ON GOTHAM: Jim Gordon says he was in the bathroom when all that went down. THIS IS A DARK FUCKING PERIOD OKAY?
Sarah: He’s fine. Harvey is there to kiss him right on the lips and make it all better.
Kayleigh: Jim doesn’t deserve Harvey’s lips, but neither do we, for we are all unworthy sinners.
Max: I know he isn’t super popular but I do like Nicholas D’Agostino’s simpering teacher’s pet version of Harvey Dent. Dude always latches to the biggest authority figure he can find and now he’s hanging with TV’s The Commish (Michael Chiklis).
MR. FREEZE HUH LETS TALK ABOUT THAT GUY
Max: This version of Victor Fries is pretty great because he’s already an amoral psychopath who experiments on innocent people until they Senator Kelly onto his laboratory floor. Nathan Darrow has this weirdly blank face that makes him perfect for Fries, he feels like the Gotham equiv of an evil yuppie murderer that’d show up on a Law & Order episode. I hope he finds the cure for Nora’s wildberry blast Gushers cough disease.
Sarah: Gotham’s Mr. Freeze is a perfect blend of canon and its own signature wackiness. How great was the scene where he calmly asks a bunch of elderly sick people to help him load some frozen bodies into his van? And I have to say I’m impressed that they were able to tie Freeze’s emergence in Gotham all the way to Arkham’s seedy underbelly and Hugo Strange. I canNOT wait for Fish’s impending thaw.
Kayleigh: Nathan Darrow is playing the first live-action Mr. Freeze since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s disastrous turn in Batman & Robin, and unsurprisingly the character is a sharp departure, powered more by rage and desperation than “Ice to see you” puns and polar bear slippers. But I’m more intrigued by the presence of Nora Fries (or as I’ve nicknamed her, Terminally Ill Carey Mulligan). Gotham is the first Batman story I’ve seen that treats Nora as a character rather than a prop trapped in a giant snowglobe. Interestingly, Nora is made fully aware of her husband’s crimes but accepts that he committed them out of his love for her. Which actually makes their relationship one of the Least Fucked Up on Gotham so far.
Max: I wish I was a fly on the wall in the writer’s room when they realized they could get away with like non-stop gross deaths if they used Mr. Freeze for a couple of episodes. Gotham’s violence is so fascinatingly cartoonish, I love it.
DRILLHAND! DRILLHAND! DRILLHAND!
Max: BUTCH HAS A DRILL FOR A HAND. THAT’S WHERE THIS SHOW’S AT RIGHT NOW. HOW DOES IT WORK? WHO CARES?! I FUCKING LOVE IT.
Sarah: I want there to be a scene where he opens a drawer with all these new murder attachments
Kayleigh: Character development in Gotham is a mook like Butch now ruling the city with a drill bit fist.
Sarah: I love that Butch somehow fell into being the boss of Gotham and he’s not into it at all. He takes no joy in his drill hand work.
Max: Butch doesn’t even know why he’s still here anymore, and it’s great. Selina watching Butch get a weird crime lapdance from Tabitha—LITERAL CEILING CAT—was masterful.
YO WAS BRUCE WAYNE EVEN IN THIS EPISODE?
Max: I’m seriously blanking on this. Did I miss something?
Sarah: I was one hundred percent okay with this.
Kayleigh: I like baby Bruce, but I’m glad the show isn’t forcing itself to check on that one room in Wayne Manor he hangs out in every episode.
Max: Oh wait, wasn’t he at the Oscars?
Sarah: He was the one who stood on his chair when BB-8 came out on stage.
VICTOR FRIES: THE LATEST VICTIM OF WHITE PRIVILEGE?
Max: Fries trying to turn himself in but none of the cops believe him was the exact kind of weird broad comedy this show does really well.
Kayleigh: The tabloids naming him Mr. Freeze was a funny reminder of what a terrible codename that is. “Uh, he’s a guy who freezes things so we’ll call him…Mr. Freeze?” At least Captain Cold is alliterative, but alas, he’s on a different network.
Max: There isn’t much Harvey Bullock in this episode but him being really insistent on the pronunciation of “Fries” was a solid gag.
HUGO STRANGE TELLS THE BARBER “FUCK UP MY WHOLE LIFE PLZ” WHENEVER HE GETS A HAIRCUT
Max: B.D. Wong is clearly having a *blast* on this show. We’re in a golden age of B.D. Wong playing cartoonishly evil mad scientists. Shoutout to the props department for giving Strange a phrenology model in his office.
Sarah: Wong’s Hugo Strange is restrained and terrifying. I’m a little worried about Penguin.
Kayleigh: Hugo Strange’s Gendo Ikari cosplay is amazingly not the creepiest thing about him! Is our Penguin plucked?
Max: I guess we’ll find out next week…on GOTHAM.
Gotham airs Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern on FOX.
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