“Dark days are coming.”
Those words, spoken by an expendable lackey, hangs over Gotham’s season two premiere like an ominous cloud; they ring true for many of Gotham’s characters and the events which will unfold.
Gordon, after being fired by Commissioner Loeb, is still determined to clean up the corruption in the police department and makes a deal with Penguin/Cobblepot, now Gotham City’s crime kingpin. Gordon asked favors of Penguin in season one without any real consequences. This deal with the devil actually delivered, for Gordon has now killed for Penguin, which should come back to haunt him.
Certainly Gordon struggled with this decision to approach Penguin; he wants to end the corruption without becoming part of it, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that one needs to get their hands dirty if one is going to clean up Gotham. Gordon’s inspiration, however, comes from an unlikely source in Bruce Wayne.
Perhaps unlikely is too strong a word, for we have seen Bruce deal with the aftermath of his parent’s murders and how that event has shaped his world view. “To do good,” he tells Gordon, “you first must do something ugly.” Not only does this spur Gordon into action, but it offers a glimpse of Batman to peek out at us and reveal Bruce’s adjusted moral compass already taking shape.
The big question that comes to mind is what happens next? It would be far too easy to have Gordon right the ship and stay the moral course. If dark days are indeed coming, then things will get worse before they get better. How much worse for Gordon? He can be the surrogate “Caped Crusader” and do what needs to be done to save the city, but those choices would need consequences, whether they be moral, emotional, psychological, or legal. Moving away from the rules and restrictions of the Batman canon can only make the series better, deeper, richer. The idea that Batman will arrive dragged the show down in season one, threatens to do so now and even cripple the series. The rise of the villains needs an equal and opposite reaction. Let Gordon be that reaction and play with the question of how far is too far when the motivation is just.
This season also appears to be more serialized, as the “rise of the villains” elements are introduced. Barbara, cool and calculating rather than unhinged, arrived at Arkham and meets Jerome, who may or may not be the Joker. The writers have certainly set up a Jerome as Joker with Barbara as Harley Quinn feel here, though it’s Barbara who is aloof and Jerome the needy one. While this is an interesting dynamic, it also feels too obvious a hard sell. However, if the show decided to go there in this season or the next, it wouldn’t be a deal breaker at all.
Obvious was in good supply, like Penguin’s seemingly offhand comment of Selina’s presence in his lair, “it’s like having a car around, but without all the dead mice.” Everyone knows Selina will be Catwoman and it wasn’t necessary to sell it hard. Perhaps this was the writers being too clever?
There was a nice addition with wealthy “philanthropist” Theo Galavan and his enforcer Tabitha and the plan to assemble a team of super-villains up to no good. The circumstances of the plan’s execution felt a little contrived, but nothing worth switching the channel over. TV has a history of almost every show at one time or another being contrived.
Bruce and Alfred discover a secret room at the end of the staircase from the previous episode. Kudos go to Alfred for implying that Bruce may not want to learn what a billionaire keeps in his secret (sex) dungeon. The room is a dust office containing a note from Thomas Wayne with words that ring deep. “You can’t have both happiness and the truth,” Thomas writes. “You have to choose. Choose happiness, unless you find a calling – a true calling.” Bruce hangs on this as the episode ends, and further plants the seeds for Batman’s emergence.
