Harvey ain’t wrong on this one; Mad City: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies presents us with a Gotham out of control, thanks to a grinning lad named Jerome. But let’s face it, in the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “you’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy” in Gotham City where Death, Violence, Murder is the mantra and anything resembling Eat, Pray, Love is on the outer fringes of the remotest of remotes. That said, these melodramatic and hyperbolic actions as depicted in Gotham are really catalysts for the emotions they produce; the reactions caused by the death, violence and murder are the real point. While Gotham may use the aforementioned triumvirate as liberally as you and I spread peanut butter on bread (extra crunchy, of course), it highlights the fact that this is a world where valuing human life, not killing nor torturing makes one an outlier. This brings us to Bruce Wayne.
Bruce seems to be the only character on the show that is affected by the violence that envelopes the city. Gordon does as well, but his motivation comes more from being The Saviour of Gotham rather than from compassion and empathy, which is where we find Bruce. Whether this is because he is a teenager or he lost his parents is unclear, but the winter finale was fantastic and the majority of that fantastic-ness was entirely due to the setting up Bruce’s character in relation to every other person in a cruel, violent, unjust Gotham; he cares.
Gentle Art really made giant strides in setting the stage for Bruce to one day become Batman. Bruce channels the pain and suffering he has experienced in his short life and channelled it into something positive. It’s rather clear he is emotionally and psychologically scarred from those experiences and I can’t foresee any true happiness down the line for him, and we know that already going into this. But because of the world in Gotham, there really aren’t many favourable options for Bruce; it seems that choosing to be a caped crime-fighter is the best possible scenario for him.
In order for Bruce to care we need really strong antagonists, and this is where Gotham shines brightest – with its villains. Bruce takes out Jerome not because of his parents or of the torture he endured, but because of the innocents Jerome has killed. Indeed Bruce seems to take the deaths of Jerome’s victims personally; for a moment, we see Batman in his eyes in the hall of mirrors, a showdown scene worthy of the end of Enter the Dragon. All that was needed was Bruce to walk around shirtless with bloody claw marks on his chest. In small consolation we have industrial staples in his arm, and I’m okay with that.
Bruce does have a moment of clarity, though, when he sees himself above a laughing Jerome about to plunge a large shard of mirror into his nemesis and stops short of killing him, establishing a hard line in the sand he is not prepared to cross. He vows to Alfred he won’t kill going forward and we are left with the agreement between the two that rules need to be established, and while Bruce may dance a razor’s edge, his feet will land on the right side of justice. Going against Pete Townsend, the Kids Aren’t All Right in Gotham, but they offer a ray of hope in saving the city.
It also doesn’t hurt that it is Jerome who provides the necessary inspiration for Bruce’s moment of clarity; they are relative peers in that Jerome is not that much older than Bruce (David Mazouz is 15, while Cameron Monaghan is 23) and demonstrated they are two sides of the same coin, much like Batman and Joker will be in the future. I’m not saying for sure if Jerome is the Joker, the show is certainly giving us the hard sell. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter; like Bruce, he is a young man whom Gotham has failed, and how they deal with the hand they’ve been given should provide more compelling television as the series progresses.
And it’s the villains that make Gotham so entertaining and watchable. The producers should be applauded for their casting choices, and the actors rewarded for their performances, especially when they are allowed to chew more scenery than William Shatner (still Canada’s greatest thespian – sorry Donald Sutherland and Christopher Plummer). Jerome’s revamped circus is a manifestation of his charismatic villainy; whack-a-mole with real people popping up through the holes, target shooting with hostages holding balloons in their mouths, it’s a surrealistic nightmare that could only have come from Jerome, and a direct nod to the circus in The Killing Joke, which cold further the Jerome is the Joker argument. While Monaghan is awesome as Jerome, he was balanced out nicely by David Mazouz, who really shone in this episode. I know I have been critical of him in the past, in Gentle Art he paints a more determined Bruce, and though he should sound annoying when he opines on vengeance and justice, he really sells it.
The other major story other than the Bruce/Jerome showdown is the Penguin/Nygma showdown, which has been a solid storyline throughout the season. Television works best when themes can permeate through all the characters and stories, and while Bruce makes the subversive choice to forgo murder in a city so used to violence it makes Caracas, Venezuela look like the Care Bears haven, the Kingdom of Caring, Penguin chooses to love in an underworld that views it as a weakness.
The gang is all here, from Penguin to Nygma, Bat-Crazy Babs, Tabs, and Butch, and everyone is given room to stretch and behave as badly as they can to see Nygma’s revenge through to its conclusion, a set up and test to prove Penguin couldn’t sacrifice his happiness for Nygma’s. All the villains shine and get their over the top moments; Penguin argues with a hapless security guard to free him from the acid trap, Babs line about being underestimated is “the price of great beauty,” Tabs delightfully dresses Penguin with a bullwhip necktie, and Butch does his best Homer Simpson “Doh!” moment when he realizes, after knocking out Penguin, he has to carry him back to the Siren club. Nygma ends up shooting Penguin and pushing him into Gotham River, as though there isn’t another place to kill and dispose of someone and that’s my only criticism as we’ve saw it in Season One.
A few moments of Lee, who provides some pivotal information to help Gordon, but not much else in the love-hate department; as mentioned before, that dynamic works best when it’s relegated to lower-tier status like Cowdenbeath in the third division of the Scottish Football Association. No Selina, but she had a lot of screen time in the past two episodes, and I suspect we will see her in the next episode.
I’ve endured another week of less sarcastic Harvey, which makes three in a row and a thus full star deduction. But all the villains stepped up to the plate and made things very entertaining, so add a half star.
Tune in next time – same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.
