Gotham: The Trial of Jim Gordon

Oswald: "He [Gordon] will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth!"
Barbara: "Let him."

You know, when it comes to reviewing 'filler', you can't help but wonder if it's worth it to be passionate enough about the content of the filler in question, seeing that it won't exact a heavy toll anyway on the rest of the story.

Gotham's second and final filler episode – 'The Trial of Jim Gordon' – feels very much like a blend between 'Red Queen' from Gotham's third season, and the lagging, humdrum Garlic Jr. filler-arc of Dragon Ball Z, in that it's pretty much just a slideshow of hallucinations plaguing Gordon alongside a slew of guest appearances by characters we thought were one-and-done this season.

This week, Gordon rounds up various criminal outfits in the hopes of coercing them into a ceasefire so that the U.S. Government can reconsider giving Gotham City the assistance it needs. I guess somebody sensed I was about to cross off 'Gordon's routine and rousing speech' on my Gotham Season 5 bingo card, and fired a single round into Gordon's abdomen, resulting in Gordon coming under the care of Lee Thompkins for a duration of this episode. In an unconscious state due to blood loss, Gordon experiences hallucinations where he is put on trial for his various crimes against Gotham City, but the real crime here was missing out on an opportunity to bring back Michael Chiklis as The Executioner, which I personally felt would have fit right into the atmosphere of the skewed court room. Easily the highlight of Gordon's visions comes in the form of a formal gathering of past and present villains overrunning the GCPD, including Pyg, the Court of Owls, Scarecrow, and even complete with Oswald and Nygma commencing a piano/duet musical number, which feels like it was pulled right off a comic splash page.

The other subplot in this week's episode bought back Ivy Pepper who hypnotizes Bruce Wayne, Lucius Fox, and Victor Zsasz to assist her in some kind of ploy that involves turning the city into a playground for plants as opposed to people. I've never been Poison Ivy's biggest fan in general, I've just always found the character pretty mundane, and her whole dominatrix-seductress thing she's had going on with Bruce Wayne, a boy at least ten years younger than her, these last two seasons is at the very least uncomfortable. I'm always in a tizzy though if it means more of Zsasz, who does turn out to be Gordon's shooter as maiming Gordon was part of Ivy's plot too. I wasn't expecting either to see Zsasz actually maintain something of a genuine crush on Ivy, but as always, Carrigan sells it.

And Bruce needn't feel by the end of this episode as if he's the one to blame for Ivy's crusade. Oh sure, Gotham City's had its fair share of rogues whose motivations concern Bruce specifically – Galavan, Ra's Al Ghul, the Valeska Brothers – but just remember Bruce, that if it's any consolation, Gordon's got your track record easily surpassed when you realize he had a hand in the origins of Riddler, Mad Hatter (and thus, indirectly, Executioner and Mario Falcone), Sofia Falcone, Professor Pyg, Barbara, and even Ivy to an extent since he was the one that shot her father.

Really the only other aspect I can think to comment on is Alfred's brief pep talk to Lee about what it was like for him to take on the role of being a paternal figure to Bruce, which I felt was a genuine and glorious account of Alfred's headstrong development over the last five years on this show.

I don't mean for my reviews to feel as if they're continuously shortening over time, but truly this week's filler left me with so little to take away. I could go on about how this season continues to treat the dynamics between Gordon, Lee, and Barbara, but I do so hate sounding like a broken record when talking about my indifference to these three characters, so I won't.

Aaron Studer loves spending his time reading, writing and defending the existence of cryptids because they can’t do it themselves.

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