Gotham: The Beginning

Penguin: "I did not spend ten years in Blackgate to give my city to a man dressed like a bat!"

Me, watching the Gotham series finale and being confused that Gordon still doesn't have the iconic stache? It's more likely than you think.

Gotham: They Did What?

Gordon: "For Gotham!"

When FOX kicks the support beams out from under you and says that the narrative you had planned to normally span across a twenty-two episode season now has to be condensed down to ten episodes, I guess it makes sense that your last few episodes are going to feel more like a paint-by-numbers project as you struggle to quickly wrap up character arcs so that those characters in question can resemble their comic counterparts.

Gotham: I Am Bane

Eduardo: "Eduardo is dead, Jim. There is only Bane!"

How fitting that the title of this week's episode is 'I Am Bane' – because this episode also turned out to be the bane of my week.

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: Nothing's Shocking

Oswald: "Penn, I think you need some rest... and a psychiatrist!"

What a conflicting and contrasting episode this turned out to be. All I could really muster afterwards was "I think I liked it?" Forgive me though, for I realize how that doesn't sound very promising.

Gotham: Ace Chemicals

Bruce: "Jeremiah, this ends tonight!"
Jeremiah: "No Bruce. Now it begins!"

At the end of the day, I realize Gotham wasn't just trying to tell the story of The Joker's origin (for the sixth time now I believe) in Season 5 – they were also showing a very devoted competition between Selina and Jeremiah to become Bruce's one true love interest.

Gotham: 13 Stitches

Bullock: "Nygma, you're a son-of-a-bitch!"
Nygma: "...not now Bullock!"

Oh how Gotham loves its hiatuses. Even in the midst of its final and condensed year, Gotham wouldn't dare pass up the opportunity to go on break for two weeks, with the same gusto that FedEx delivery men seem to have when knocking my lawn gnomes over. Still, after the wobbly ending 'Pena Dura' left us with, one thing I wasn't expecting out of the follow-up '13 Stitches' was for it to be an enjoyable and very witty installment. If I could, I'd leave the review at that too - it's just some darn fine entertainment.

Gotham: Pena Dura

Eduardo: "You left the army for this city?"
Jim: "It grows on you."

How right Jim is here. And while 'Pena Dura' is actually a pretty outstanding follow-up to last week's episode, it also bears a disheartening feature often found in Michael Crichton novels; it builds up some thrilling concepts for the first two-thirds, but the actual executions of said concepts in the last third are quite lackluster.

Gotham: Ruin

Zsasz: "I did not make that building go boom Jim!"

After two sufficient episodes, and one jerry-built episode, 'Ruin' delivers easily the best chapter so far of Season 5's no man's land arc, jam-packing all of Gotham's best qualities on the front lines.

Gotham: Penguin, Our Hero

Selina: "So this is the Dark Zone? They should call it the dull zone."

Gotham lately has put me in a very troubled position as a writer; 'Trespassers' last week left me with the sourest of aftertastes, and yet as eager as I was for the oncoming episodes to redeem the season's quality, I also knew that any misstep 'Penguin, Our Hero' took could shatter this eagerness like a cut-rate drinking glass.

Gotham: Trespassers

Barbara: "Here he comes, Gotham. Your judge. Your jailer. Your most hated son. Have at him!"

I'm so relieved, for a moment there, I thought Gotham was really going to try and convince me that Barbara sincerely blamed Gordon for the death of Tabitha, while choosing to ignore the fact that Penguin was the one that stabbed Tabitha, and that Barbara had just as clear a shot as Gordon did to execute Penguin in that moment as well. Almost had me there Gotham, you little trickster, you!

Gotham: Year Zero

Bullock: "I swear to God, I am never paying taxes again!"

After a lengthy hiatus, Gotham finally returns to the air and must now battle the dilemma of distinguishing the chaotic 'no man's land' from what everyday life in Gotham City is like.

Gotham: No Man's Land

Bruce: "I remember the night we met. You told me the world may seem dark..."
Gordon: "But there is light."

I absolutely relish this idea that Oswald has to scream bloody-murder, quite like Daniel Stern stepping on a booby trap in the form of a single nail, everytime he enters a gunfight. No particular benefit to the act - he just does it for some reason.

Gotham: Under the Knife

Bruce: "Selina, you look very nice!"
Selina: "The shoes hurt."

Blimey, Barbara handles break-ups about as well as a high school sophomore who envisions himself in Three Days Grace music videos because his two-week old relationship came to a screeching halt.

Gotham: Beasts of Prey

Bullock: "Fly too close to the sun, you're gonna get burned."

After much deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that Jim Gordon must be Proto-Batman all along – after all, how else do you explain Ben McKenzie going the extra mile to channel a Christian Bale-Batman dialect during a heated and hostile confrontation with Commissioner Loeb?

Gotham: Everyone Has a Cobblepot

Oswald: “Five minutes with the files and a favor from Jim Gordon? Done!”

I never would have thought that Gotham would attempt to deliver an equally-as-superb sequel to ‘Welcome Back, Jim Gordon’. And if I’m being honest, ‘Everyone Has a Cobblepot’ isn’t quite equally as superb, but holy moly, does it come close!

Gotham: Red Hood

Gus: “Mark my words, the people in this town, they’re gonna get me.”

There's some bad news and great news both with this week's episode: bad news is 'Red Hood' doesn't quite give a lot of content to mull over for a review. The great news though is that everything I can over-scrutinize (like I always do) in 'Red Hood' is actually some darn, fine entertainment! "Hooray for being spared Aaron's maddened drivel about Gotham's misogyny and enduring identity crisis!", I'm sure the readers are all chanting in unison.

Gotham: The Blind Fortune Teller

Lee: “There are plenty of things in this world that can’t be explained by rational science.”

Oh hey Barbara! I didn’t notice you there! I thought maybe you got lost, or the showrunners may have dropped you down a black hole, never to be seen again.

Gotham: The Scarecrow

Doctor: “Imagine the thing you fear most in the world. Imagine that it's all you see. Every waking hour.”

In the second part to last week’s ‘The Fearsome Dr. Crane,’ Gordon and Bullock continue their pursuit of Dr. Gerald Crane. In my review for ‘part one’ of this arc, you may have noticed I spent more time analyzing the characters themselves rather than the actual story going on, simply because I waited until the resolution of this arc to analyze it all as a whole.

Gotham: The Fearsome Dr. Crane

Ed Nygma: “I wanted to return this pencil. I took it from your office some time ago. I kept meaning to return it. Used to be longer.”

I’m beginning to notice a trend in Gotham’s first season in terms of the weekly stories: sometimes, it brings to the screen the memorable and grounded police drama rooted in the pages of Batman: Year One, and sometimes it chooses to go a more ludicrous route with its stories (The Balloonman certainly comes to mind) as a sort of ‘prelude’ for the wacky rogues Gotham City will eventually employ. ‘The Fearsome Dr. Crane’ chooses to go the route of the latter.