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: Gotham’s conclusion to their Mr. Freeze two parter is brutal in the way that a Mr. Freeze story pretty much should be. Gotham‘s looking at the man in the mirror. They’re asking him to change his ways.
MR. FREEZE HAS NO CHILL
Max: The episode basically opens with Gordon and the GCPD walking through an extremely spooky haunted house but instead of rubber zombies it’s dudes with icicles sticking out of their goddamn bodies. Also, Freeze’s ice-grenades are straight up just live action versions of a power up you get in the Arkham City video game.
Sarah: This episode had some major Terminator 2 feels, so I loved it. Frozen people in frozen rooms, Harvey and his gang getting locked in between barred gates in an asylum, Lee doing strict pull ups on an overturned bed…
Max: “HELLO DOCTOR STRANGE…HOW’S THE KNEE?” – swole Barbara later this season, hopefully.
Kayleigh: I kept waiting for the money shot where one of the frozen cops would explode into a million icy shards like the T-1000, but the show never went there. Now THAT’s cold.
Max: I think “wife” is said like 500 times in this episode. Freeze even dabbles with Weird Twitter:
PENGUIN STARS IN A GRITTY NEW A CLOCKWORK ORANGE REBOOT
Kayleigh: Tim Burton Fantasy Camp is brutal.
Max: We didn’t really talk about Penguin’s whole trapped in Arkham deal last week, but man this is the kind of weirdly pointless shit that Gotham excels at. I’m assuming we’ll get an actual reason for why Hugo Strange is torturing Cobblepot but man it’s just fun to watch him get off on all this.
Sarah: Speaking of getting off on this stuff, Strange and Ms. Peabody are totally boning, right?
Max: I don’t know, I think this version of Hugo Strange can only climax if there’s a remotely locked door involved.
Sarah: Harvey: “Strange, can you open this door now?” Strange: “Not yet..not yet…almost…”
DAMN IS LEE THE CHAMPION OF THIS FUCKED UP DAY OR WHAT
Sarah: Lee was basically the hero of this episode but still took a moment to squeeze Barbara’s face and call her a bitch and I loved it.
Max: Kayleigh made a crack about this on Twitter but I love that Arkham Asylum apparently has a special room for waifish blondes. Lee is the moral center of Gotham, so naturally she gets a scene where she trash talks a comatose woman.
Kayleigh: Lee had to deal with a lot of weird shit this episode. If Lee is the moral center of the show, I’m glad she’s allowed to have multi-dimensional characterization like being sympathetic towards Nora Fries but also pissed off at Jim for his patronizing bullshit. HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!
WOW I DID NOT EXPECT THIS EPISODE TO END WITH TWO SUICIDES, HOLY SHIT
Sarah: Nora is an incredibly noble character and I’m bummed that she’s gone. I’m curious now what kind of villain Mr. Freeze will become. All of his traditional motivations died with his wife.
Kayleigh: Nora choosing to end her life—to have her husband end her life—after Victor’s “where there’s life, there’s hope” speech was devastating. The actors did a great job of selling the tragedy underneath Mr. Freeze’s ray guns and weird football pads. Though perhaps the greatest tragedy was when he turned into one of the white-haired aliens from This Island Earth.
Max: Gotham removing “alive but in a tube” Nora from the Mr. Freeze equation is a really interesting departure from the usual canon. And this version of Fries was a pretty bad guy even before he sprays Gatorade Frost on himself! Nora Fries rarely gets to be a fully realized character in Bat-media, and Kristen Hager did a nice job making her more than just a box on an origin checklist. As much as people complain about how this show departs from “canon,” Gotham occasionally gives us something like this that’s a real improvement.
BRUCE IS BACK FROM HIS SWISS CHALET AND HE WANTS TO KILL A GUY. WITH A GUN.
Max: Baby Bruce is back and he spent the winter break listening to Emo (emotional) music and reading The Anarchist Cookbook. Gotham operates on the storytelling logic of “Alfred refuses to let Bruce become a murderer, offers to kill the man who killed Bruce’s parents when they find him.”
Sarah: Bruce was especially sociopathic and Spocky in his session with Lee. Sidenote: I feel like they totally missed out on an “Alfred blatantly hits on Lee making everyone feel awkward for him” scene.
Kayleigh: Bruce sensing Selina by the wind through the open window was a nice, Batman-ish touch. It’s interesting to see a young Bruce who’s still developing his moral compass—not only does he want to kill Malone, he specifically wants a gun to shoot him. Bruce hasn’t decided that guns are the weapon of the enemy yet, so I’m curious to see what he learns on his quest for revenge. Hell, I just want more episodes of Bruce and Selina, Vigilante Bobbsey Twins.
OH, AND HUGO STRANGE HAS A BUNCH OF TUBES FULL OF DEAD PEOPLE, THIS IS COOL AND NORMAL
Max: I think it’s good tbh. We all know that fish-monster hand was Fish Mooney’s, Strange and Woke Victor Fries are going to give us an army of cool monsters made up of all our favorite dead characters.
Sarah: Jerome was in there too, right? It’s simultaneously the perfect Joker set-up and something I don’t want them to do at all.
Max: “Mutant Zombie Supervillain Army” is Season 2.5’s “Christian Ninja Army.”
Kayleigh: Folks, Theo Galavan is Gotham’s first Zombie Mayor and I think we need to respect that. Still, I hope the show doesn’t use his inevitable resurrection as a “get out of shooting a man execution-style free” card for Jim Gordon and absolve him from facing any consequences.
Max: Maybe Zombie Galavan will shoot Gordon in the head but he comes back as a good zombie. Gotham just becomes Game of Thrones. Game of Tubes. Magic zombies all the way down.
Gotham airs Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern on FOX.
Deadshirt staff writer. Conceived by the unholy union of Zeus (in the guise of a corn dog) and ED-209. Has written for City Paper, Courthouse News. Twitter famous.
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