Gotham TV Show

[Guy1]

I liked how the gladiator like games were held in a office area.

The next Purge Movie right there.

[AndrewCrossett]

I thought the fight club stuff was 50 shades of stupid, as expected, but the rest was OK.

We get the first hint of Jim Gordon as a leader, and also the first reminder that Bruce is going to be a vigilante, not a cop.

Loved all the Penguin stuff, as usual. And the Ed Nygma stuff was better than usual. A guy that unstable yet that competent... ouch.

[chachi]

so that was supposed to be Tommy Elliot? I fell asleep during this episode.

[AndrewCrossett]

I think it's a mistake to have half the guest characters on the show be easter egg supervillains.

So they're gonna give us Batman's entire rogues' gallery plus a 20-ounce soda and a bag of chips, but they're not going to give us Batman? Good luck with that. All that will prove is that Batman wasn't needed, because Jim Gordon and the GCPD dealt with all those goons for 10 years without his help.

The more I see, the more I think they've decided to just go ahead and make this a Batman show.

[Conch22]

I thought the fight club stuff was 50 shades of stupid, as expected, but the rest was OK.

We get the first hint of Jim Gordon as a leader, and also the first reminder that Bruce is going to be a vigilante, not a cop.

Loved all the Penguin stuff, as usual. And the Ed Nygma stuff was better than usual. A guy that unstable yet that competent... ouch.

I would love it if somewhere down the line when Bruce is an adult for him to apply to the police force and be turned down (failing the psych evaluation).

[Midvillian1322]

Anyone else find it weird That some characters are being thrown in for the hell of it villains specifically. But characters like mr freeze who is clearly older then Bruce and who translate well haven't been seen or tease yet. Scientist victor fries and his wife coulda appeared multiple times. Develop how close him and his wife are. They could fit within the show without being shoe horned. Would also be a great Easter egg for comic fans knowing the lengths he will one day go to cure his wife. Certain characters are older then Bruce and would fit better without changes origins completely

[Jim Kelly]

I think describing this as a FiGHT CLUB scenario is misleading. I've seen FIGHT CLUB and the situation on GOTHAM was very different. And I've read comic books and watched TV shows that had this kind of plot decades before FIGHT CLUB appeared in the theatres.

I don't think Bruce Wayne is really necessary to this series. I get that he's the hook that got the network to go ahead with it and that he's what attracted viewers to begin with. But GOTHAM would be good without Bruce or the mystery around his parents' murder.

Yes at some point ten or fiteen years from now, Bruce is going to become the Batman. At that time the city will be in an even worse state and Gordon will need someone who can work outside the GCPD to continue the war on crime that Gordon has begun. But so what? None of what happens on GOTHAM negates what is going to happen with Batman in a distant future.

[AndrewCrossett]

The "fight club" trope isn't necessarily re-enacting the plot of the book/movie Fight Club. It's a plot where people or creatures fight each other in a secret, no-holds-barred setting, voluntarily or otherwise, for the enjoyment of a paying/betting audience. The hero is either investigating either the club itself or some person/plot adjacent to it, and inevitably gets sucked into the fight action.

I don't think it would be much of an exaggeration to say I've seen it done a dozen times on TV shows.

[Jim Kelly]

I remember loads of DC comics from the '60s, where the heroes or villains were made to fight for the entertainment of an audience. In fact, the GOTHAM episode--with the rich people watching on closed circuit TV--made me think of those comics.

Virtually every episode of GOTHAM has been a mash-up of elements from comic books, movies and TV shows. That seems to be the formula. It's supposed to make you think of other things. I guess that's its post-modernist irony at work.

[Red_11]

Holy crap, an episode that was actually good. This show is so schizophrenic.

[Guest_1001]

It was Richard Sionis, not Roman. And I don't see how the hiring process was anything like Fight Club. They were forced to fight, for one thing. The times we saw it, it was to the death. In an office.

I think this was the first episode where I was more interested in the Bruce/Alfred storyline than the GCPD or Penguin storylines. Maybe the Viper episode but I don't remember the Penguin storyline from that.

[PretenderNX01]

I think it's a mistake to have half the guest characters on the show be easter egg supervillains.

Well it's canon that Bruce knew Tommy as a kid.

[AndrewCrossett]

Well it's canon that Bruce knew Tommy as a kid.

Yes, and if he was anything like the comics version he could be a very interesting character... becoming Bruce's unlikely friend and helping teach him to think strategically. But this Tommy is just a garden-variety schoolyard bully who gets beaten down by a kid half his size and certainly doesn't seem to have anything to teach Bruce.

And he's not going to be Hush, because this is not going to be a Batman show.

I think Alfred is going to turn out to be the Nolanverse Ra's al Ghul.*


* Not really, but would be cool.

[maczero]

Come on... is there a single genre TV show in the world that hasn't done a Fight Club episode? What a lazy, hackneyed cliche.

Well the office setting and the combatants fighting for a high paying white collar job is a bit different. Honestly, Gotham needs to do more stuff like this to set itself apart from run of the mill cop shows.

s
Geez! Alfred teaching Bruce self-defense is one thing. But chauffering him to the bully's house and giving him brass knuckles to set it off!! Geez, this is like those soccer moms who drive their kids to a street fight..

A lot of my friends' had dads that shared Alfred's views. Basically you don't lose a fight and if you do, you damn well better get some serious payback. It's a disturbing notion to put into a kid's head but I did get a chuckle seeing it on tv.

So they're gonna give us Batman's entire rogues' gallery plus a 20-ounce soda and a bag of chips, but they're not going to give us Batman? Good luck with that. All that will prove is that Batman wasn't needed, because Jim Gordon and the GCPD dealt with all those goons for 10 years without his help.

I'd like to think that Jim will have some successes but ultimately Gotham will get worse. What's going to make things worse is the rise of the criminally insane and the birth of super villains.

[Kensei]

Well I got to this episode later than usual because I watch it on a public library computer and the place was closed for Veterans' Day. I'd just been saying I hoped Tommy Elliott would show up, and what do you know, he did. I hope he wasn't a one-off, because even though this isn't a Batman show, it is a pre-Batman show and Tommy IS GOING to be Hush. So I hope he is a recurring character and that he and Bruce become friends now, like Pete Ross and Clark Kent did. And maybe he's such a creepy kid asking Bruce about his parents' blood and guts because he's secretly but none too subtly planning to kill his own parents one day.

Black Mask is a mantle that's been worn by more than one person, isn't he? So maybe this guy who's a good 30 years older than Bruce won't be the Black Mask that Batman one day faces. (Not that we'll see that happen. Or Hush for that matter.)

And Barbara's leaving AGAIN? That device is already getting a little tiresome.
Pretty good episode though. Can't wait to see Bruce in fight training.