Tag Archive | harvey bullock

Gotham S1:E3 – The Balloonman (Three Nights in Gotham)

Oct9

When we last left intrepid white-knight Detective James Gordon, he was sitting on a bench next to young Selena Kyle at GCPD headquarters. Right before cutting to black, she says, “I know who really killed the Waynes.”

After a sequence where Oswald returns to Gotham (which amounted to a supercut of every conceivable street crime happening at once within the same city block and a sequence where a lowlife financeer gets vigilant-ed the hell out of by the titular Balloonman (wearing a pig mask, so there went the Professor Pyg idea) hand-cuffing him to a weather balloon and leaving him to the mercy of the four winds while a large crowd of reports simply watch him drift away into the air, we finally catch up with our favorite Dicks, Gordon and Bullock, on the scene of another case entirely.

In what dimension should our first encounter with Jim Gordon in this episode NOT be extracting the exact information Selena Kyle teased at the end of last episode? How is he not doing everything but beating the identity of the real Wayne killers out of her right on that spot? Either this is truly shoddy detective work or this show really thinks we’re dumb enough to believe that the best (morally) detective on the force would say, “Ok, well, you have a lead on this closed case in which I know I killed an innocent man. Stop back whenever and I’ll take that info. Thanks, street urchin. Go ahead back to the streets where people just snatched you away and I’ll see you later.”

Nope. Jim and Bullock are now hot on the tail of “The Balloonman”, the afforementioned vigilante. Bullock continues to prove that his character was written as the laziest most BS detective on the force by saying that the financeer “got what he deserved”, case closed. Of course, Bullock is pissed that his partner is dragging him into another investigation because he has to be the absolute counterpoint to Gordon. Let the crime-of-the-week begin!

We get a quick glimpse of Fish Mooney as she speaks with Detectives Montoya and Allen from Major Crimes about the Oswald Cobblepot “murder”. Continuing with her best Eartha Kitt in the most vomitous fashion, Fish coughs up Jim Gordon as the shooter with Falcone (mispronounced) giving the order. Predictably, the two Dicks from the MCU confront Gordon about it but not before we get back to a bit of Selena Kyle.

Selena leads Jim to the alleyway after Jim called her back into the office (rather than, y’know, getting that over with immediately like a good detective) and does nothing more than set herself at the scene by referencing the stolen wallet she ditched in the sewer back in episode one. Jim handcuffs her to a fire escape before going into the sewer which turns out to be predictably laughable as she picks the cuffs and promptly ditches him while he’s ankle-deep in human filth.

We also get introduced to another mega-corrupt cop who winds up being red-shirted as the Balloonman’s next victim. See, Jim found out that there were four weather balloons stolen from a supplier (through some easy dicking around) which means there are two more victims yet to come.

They track down the guy who originally stole and sold the balloons and it’s not until this point that two police detectives – people who are paid to figure things out, mind you – need to have a skeezy stoner guy tell them exactly how balloons work and make them realize what goes up must come down. Frozen. And fast. We then get treated to the corrupt cop plummeting dead onto an innocent woman walking her dog. The coroner’s office promptly shows up with giant shovels to scrape them off the street because apparently victims of horrible accidents are routinely considered comic relief in Gotham City.

Key evidence is found on the body of the cop which has Jim Gordon’s name on it (GASP!). We find out that it’s the child services request Gordon made to have Selena brought to him. Apparently, orphaned children are as easy to order up as Chinese food. The bad cop JUST SO HAPPENED to swipe the orphan receipt from the Balloonman’s jacket just before he was sent to hypoxyia heaven.

Long story short, the next turns out to be a Cardinal who molested children (topical as well as borderline controversial, So Brash! So Bold! So Fox!). They use the orphan order slip and figure it’s (WOW!) the guy from child services! They track him to his place, have a bunch of overly long-winded pointed gun discussions, Bullock winds up cuffing him to his last balloon. Jim jumps to save him, tells Bullock to shoot the balloon. Bullock hesitates, thinking to his lazy self that if the Balloonman is killed, it will save him the work part of police work. He eventually shoots the balloon and Gordon and the Balloonman fall onto the roof of a conveniently parked van so as not to hit the ground from at least two stories up.

That’s the main plot, let’s get to the sub-plots.

Oswald comes back to town (as referenced) and is recognized by a Falcone thug. He pretends to be Dimitri from Odessa but the thug knows better. The thug drags him into a garage where he tells Oswald that he’ll be turned in to Fish Mooney for a bounty because Fish believes Oswald to be dead. Oswald begs for his freedom and, when nothing comes of it, he murders the thug with a pocket knife, steals a benji from the guy, and buys a tuna sandwich at the food truck across the street while the corpse bleeds out all over the garage floor.

Oswald then gets a job washing dishes in an Italian restaurant (not associated with his former, oft mispronounced, crime family) after first being denied and then straight up murdering the guy he wants to replace (after hours, of course). A smile comes over his face when Sal Maroni walks into the place and makes nice with the owner. Maroni being the main competition for the unpronounceable Falcone family.

Eventually, Oswald, now posing as Paolo (Italian on his mother’s side rather than crazy on his mother’s side) overhears a conversation between Maroni and the restaurant owner that involves a lot of names, including (as they directly point out) Falcone and Arkham. He gives “Paolo” a couple hunskys for claiming he heard nothing. They have a rather jovial exchange (including a VERY stereotypical Catholic Italian mobster moment) and it seems like Oswald is well on his way to starting into a new crime family. I’m sure he’ll quickly rise through the ranks, giving the inside dish to Maroni on Fish Mooney’s operation.

Speaking of Fish, there are a few extra-creamy limburger moments where she purrs at her lover, Laslow, the one who last week got the crap kicked out of him by Falcone’s goons as Fish’s “punishment”. She tells her head muscly guy that Laslow has lost his spine. She orders a retaliation against Falcone’s current lover (Natalia, for the record) and also tells muscly guy to “take care of poor Laslow as well”. Look, I know she’s supposed to be cold, but seriously? Straight-up killing her lover because he’s nervous after getting the shit beat out of him by serious gangsters is a bit too over-the-line-crazy which is, apparently, how they would rather characterize Fish Mooney. They’d rather use the “bitches be crazy” stereotype than the “cold, calculating, cunning businesswoman” type which, in my opinion, devalues the character. I guess shows like this that tout strong female leads only like them when they’re sex kittens or crazy. Or tiny teenage pickpockets. More on that in a minute.

Falcone and Fish have an exchange later in the show where Falcone stops by Fish’s club for seemingly no good reason other than to tell her that Natalia was mugged and he’s going to kill anyone responsible once he finds them. Blah blah foreshadowing blah. The exchanges between these two are supposed to look like a well-organized chess game and instead it looks like two rednecks playing checkers on a pickle barrel. Thankfully, there wasn’t much Fish Mooney in this episode which actually lent to this episode being marginally better overall.

Also in this episode, we get a little more about Barbara. Though not the worst character on the show by far, Barb seems to be the most sexualized. Every time we see her, she’s dressed in a sexy manner. In this episode, we see her in one of Jim’s dress shirts and nothing else, just as she gets out of the shower, and in sexy evening apparel. Yes, we get it. Jim’s fiancée is hot. Yes, their penthouse apartment (with awesome and incredibly uncommon clock tower window) is opulent, so she must also be well-to-do and have a decent job even though we haven’t yet had a hint of what that might be aside from her saying that “she has a meeting” later that day.

We find out, after Detective Montoya breaks in to expand on their sexy side plot, that said meeting may have been AA. After hinting at their shared past back in episode one, Renee comes back to warn Barb about the strong rumor that Jim shot Oswald on Falcone’s orders. This is the scene where Barb has just got out of the shower and is wearing a short hooded robe because she can’t wear normal clothing that doesn’t show the max amount of leg while on screen. Barb pulls out a joint (lolwut?) and sits down to smoke it in front of her police detective ex-girlfriend (yeah, they openly admitted it finally). Renee shows some concern and wonders if Barb is back on drugs because blah blah Renee’s been clean for a year since Barb left blah blah romantic tension blah blah Barb less-than-threes Jim blah blah. Renee, in typical romantic fashion, questions the safety and health of her ex-lover and goes in for the unwanted kiss at which point Barb asks her to leave. Yay, pan-sexual love triangle! At least Detective Montoya has the good sense to put some freaking pants on. Then again, they’re not selling her as the bombshell hot chick, they’re selling her as the discarded lesbian, so pants it is!

Lastly, we get to see young Master Bruce. First, practicing fencing with Alfred using a pair of wooden canes, dancing around the same study we’ve seen in every episode of this show so far. Stately Wayne Manor has been reduced to a single room, probably due to the show’s budget constraints. From the looks of things, tiny grieving Bruce is becoming tiny Howard Hughes and not leaving this damn room for anything. Also, he’s the heir to the freaking Wayne fortune. Can’t he afford legit fencing gear rather than likely antique wooden walking sticks? Couldn’t they clear out one of their likely vast dining rooms or even a ballroom and practice there? Nope. Wayne Manor only exists in this tiny study.

During the ruckus, Alfred uncovers the fact that Bruce has been looking at the police file of his parents’ murder. When asked by Alfred how he got the file, Bruce simply says: “It wasn’t hard.”

Time-out. You mean to tell me that Bruce Wayne, without adult supervision or guidance, left Wayne Manor on his own and talked to some likely seedy characters in order to gain access to a restricted, confidential police file. And that it “wasn’t hard”. Look, I know he’s supposed to be Batman someday, but he sure as hell isn’t anywhere close yet. Practically everything he does would go through Alfred (as his legal guardian). Don’t tell me Alfred leaves him be with like a thousand bucks in bribe money for him to sneak off to the police station and get one of any hundreds of corrupt cops to give him the file on the most prestigious homicide case to ever befall Gotham City. And, don’t tell me for a minute that even a corrupt cop would question giving that file to a child, let alone a famous child and recognizable face like Bruce Wayne. I shake my head in pain at you, writers. I shake my head.

Anyway, the rest of Bruce’s portion of the episode involve him not eating (claiming lack of hunger) and reading headlines/watching newscasts involving the Balloonman. Bruce seems inspired by the antics (big shock) but tells Alfred that the Balloonman was wrong because he killed, and killing made him just another bad guy. So yeah, Batman-ing it up already. They are going to rush this kid into a costume.

No real complaints this week about misused characters or dropped names. The only thing that disappoints me is that they used a pig mask for the Balloonman in his first scene and squished it without context into the sizzle reel, making every Bat-fan worth their salt think that Professor Pyg was on the horizon. Shame on you for abusing nerds like that, Fox.

There have been rumors floating that Gotham may already be facing the axe. I am not surprised. As much as I would love this shit and cheese show to continue, if only because it gives me fodder for blog entries, the earlier this disgrace to the Bat-franchise can be laid low, the better. Though this episode was a slight improvement over last week’s, I will continue to rail against it based on principal. As always, we’ll see what kind of slop they throw in front of us hogs next week and evaluate it then.

Bidula’s Last Word – Gotham S1:E3 – 4/10

Keep fighting the good fight.

—end transmission—

One Night in Gotham (Bidula’s Last Word Review)

Sep25

A few months ago when I heard about Gotham, I was both intrigued and sort of nauseous.

Though I’m not a Superman fan, I remember having the same sort of reaction when Smallville first aired. I remember watching that pilot (and maybe the second or third episode) and giving up. I realize that it blossomed into a culty fan favorite but something about another reboot of a famous origin story, concentrating only on the origin years, didn’t appeal to me.

A big part of this was probably because it was a Superman show, I won’t lie.

So, now they come to give Batman the same sort of treatment with Gotham. I know, it’s not supposed to be about Batman per-se but, as of the pilot anyway, it’s more about the origin of Batman’s amazing cast of supporting characters as well as his rogues gallery. Face it, he’s got some of the best in all of comics to the point where they spin-off into their own books and even their own TV shows (hands up if you remember Birds of Prey).

The story opens with the Wayne murders. (note – No, I’m not posting spoiler alert. If you’ve got a heartbeat, you know that Thomas and Martha Wayne were shot in a mugging that left Bruce Wayne a screaming orphan in the street.) This is lead into after a sequence in which we see a young Selina Kyle, somehow already a parkour-expert pickpocket, steal a half-gallon of milk from a poor old lady and pulling a businessman’s wallet but nearly getting caught. Of course, she winds up with a prime viewing angle on the infamous superhero-creating double homicide.

After the Waynes are shot, we see what, in my opinion, might be the only actor worse than George Clooney (or Val Kilmer) to play Bruce Wayne – a child with enough smarts in his head to know what just happened – try in vain to rouse his parents who he apparently thinks are sleeping… with inch-wide bleeding holes in the center of their chest. Once it’s through his thick skull what happened, he drops to his knees and lets out the worst sort of pre-pubescent scream imaginable – like a fake temper tantrum scream – before we cut to the main titles.

We get quickly introduced to Jim Gordon in an expository sequence involving a crazy man wanting his pills and taking another cop hostage INSIDE THE POLICE STATION (just in case you thought pre-Batman Gotham was some kind of crime-free utopia). We’re left to know that Jim is a rookie detective in homicide and is partnered with an older and more seasoned Harvey Bullock who is immediately forced on the audience as a cynical man who has a borderline hatred for his job (or at least the action surrounding it). I can’t complain too much about Bullock, they seem to be doing him right and the actor playing him was the funny bearded ginger who got his arm cut off twice by Blade. He is troped as the “walk the line and sometimes step over it” character, though. A bit too much at times.

Gordon and Bullock, naturally, get put on the Wayne murder investigation. They show up in crime alley, blah blah blah, Jim endears himself to Bruce somewhat, enter Alfred (who seems to be going the “Beware the Batman” route with a much rougher London-street accent and attitude), rain rain rain, sad sad sad, Selina Kyle is still watching from the shadows for whatever reason, moving on.

Through the investigation we get introduced to a myriad of Mafiosi including Fish Mooney, the woman who “runs the theater district” for the Falcone mob. The murders took place on her turf and we’re shown that Bullock has a very close personal relationship with her. She’s played by Jada Pinkett Smith who seems to be doing a pretty good job of it though she channels a bit of Eartha Kitt style cheese with a fancy for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

Fish’s right-hand (more like slave), one Oswald Cobblepot, is introduced. A pale fellow with piercing blue eyes and a rather beaky nose (to no one’s surprise). Seriously, before you even knew the guy’s name, he’s standing there with an umbrella practically screaming “I’M THE PENGUIN! WATCH ME BECAUSE I’M GOING TO EVOLVE HEAVILY OVER THE COURSE OF T HIS SHOW!!!”

Oh, and it should be known here that there is much reference to the Falcone crime family, prounounced fal-KOHN, when in every other spoken Batman story, it is pronounced fal-KOHN-e. This bothered me to the point where every time a character said “fal-KOHN” I was correcting them out loud by shouting “fal-KOHN-e!” at the screen. Even when Carmine Falcone introduced himself as Carmine fal-KOHN. Drives me nuts. Anyway…

Eventually, we get introduced to Barbara Kean, Jim’s fiancée, and her ridiculously lavish yet appropriately gothy apartment in which they will eventually (sez her) co-habitate once they get married. They never let on what she does for a living in this version, but there’s no way she’s not in the upper-set with an apartment (and clothing, and fashion sense) like that. Probably another good plot in to the “Jim runs into Bruce” stuff.

Bullock being a dirty cop runs him into a lead on the Wayne killer which brings them to the house of one Mario Pepper whose daughter, Ivy, answers the door when Jim and Harvey arrive. I have to take a bit of an aside here because in the promo workup for Gotham they were promoting this little Ivy Pepper as Poison Ivy which absolutely kills me more than anything else so far. They’re leaving every name intact and they couldn’t have made the pre-pubescent Poison Ivy have her real name? Pamela Isley is Poison Ivy, promo art be damned. If they wind up really turning this little ginger nut into Poison Ivy without at least first changing her name to what it properly should be… well… it won’t matter, I guess, but at least get the damn name right.

The pair of dicks (meaning detectives, come on you pervs) wind up shooting Mario Pepper down at the end of a chase. They find Martha Wayne’s string of pearls among his loot stash, and it’s case closed. That is, until Oswald informs two competing detectives from the Major Crimes Unit (including Renee Montoya, one of my favorite characters from the DCU) that Pepper was framed by Fish Mooney to cover up for the real killer of the Waynes, likely a hired hitter.

This, interestingly, leads Montoya to the door of Barbara Kean. Montoya hints at a past with Barbara (likely a romantic relationship considering Montoya’s orientation in the comic books) and tells her that her husband-to-be must be on the take because he participated in the frame-up of Mario Pepper. This meeting had no real purpose other than to give Barb a reason to doubt Jim’s super-honest-good-guyness (as contrasted by Bullock’s overly-dickish and, to use the show’s term, lackadaisical attitude) and hint at a rather interesting history between her and Renee. I actually kinda like this twist. Barb Kean-Gordon wasn’t ever really expanded on in the DCU and this might be her chance to get a bit of semi-important story time other than being Batgirl’s mom/namesake (depending on which continuity you’re talking about). Ten bucks says we’ll see Batgirl born before this series is over.

Jim finds out about the frame-up after Barb predictably questions his honesty and goes to Fish Mooney without saying a word to anyone at which point she also predictably bashes him over the head and has him taken to “Butch” who, as it turns out, is a butcher who will likely mutilate Jim’s carcass in a number of unrecoverable ways.

Bullock finds out that Jim is missing and immediately calls to question Fish. Fish lets it slip that Jim has gone to Butch, Bullock tries to talk Fish down from killing him, makes the typical cop threats to his long-time friend, and she makes the decision to string Bullock up along with Jim because her good friend – an inside source in the POLICE DEPARTMENT – made an idle threat against her that he would never back up due to his mostly cowardly character flaws. The writers really just wanted Fish to look intimidating and they really made her look crazy.

Oh, AND, Bullock inadvertently tipped off Fish to Oswald’s betrayal so, of course, she uses a chair leg to brutally bash Oswald’s lower extremities until he can’t walk properly anymore (he sorta limp-waddles now… big surprise).

The pair of dicks (pervs…) wind up getting saved by direct intervention from Deus Ex Carmine Falcone (it’s fal-KOHN-e, dammit…) who happens to arrive at the butcher shop just as Butch himself (a mask-wearing, cleaver-wielding, super-minion in training) is about to do the deed. Falcone then reveals in a private discussion that he knew Jim’s father well. “The best DA this city ever had,” said Falcone. He wants Jim to realize the balance of power in the city blah blah blah, the mob controls Gotham and Jim needs to get with the program instead of being a mega-Boy Scout.

To prove this, Falcone sends Bullock and Jim home with a little Penguin in their trunk and gives Bullock instructions to have Jim off Bird-Boy by shooting him at the end of a pier and dropping him into Gotham harbor. After the requisite mafia-style threats to Jim’s fiancée, Jim takes Oswald to the end of the pier and, predictably, does not shoot him (because you can’t kill the Penguin before he’s the Penguin) but makes it look like he does, pushing Oswald into the water after whispering, “Never come back to Gotham” in his best Batman voice.

Jim goes to Wayne Manor (where Bruce is seen balancing on the rooftop in some extremely un-subtle foreshadowing) to tell Bruce that the case really isn’t closed. They have a moment where the worst actor to play Bruce Wayne ever agrees that Jim Gordon should go out there and keep fighting crime, blah blah, Jim’s faith in the system is renewed. As he leaves, Selina Kyle (the ever silent teenaged thief) watches, perched atop the gates of Wayne Manor, probably casing the joint.

Oh, and Penguin pops out of the water and murders an innocent fisherman for his sandwich.

End of episode.

I can’t say I’m sure what to make of this from the first episode. It included a few good references, a few bad references (Ivy Pepper?! I’m still mad about that…), some very predictable circumstances, and enough little bits of cheese to remind you that DC still doesn’t know how to properly transmute things to screen. Gotham was supposed to be this gritty new show, a la Chris Nolan, but winds up looking like a run-of-the-mill crime drama with a very familiar over-plot. If you removed the Batman element from it, it would probably be replaced mid-season.

I’ll keep watching it if only because I’m a huge Batman fan and I want to nitpick the details.

Oh, bonus round, they also introduced Ed Nygma as a slightly-too-crazy police analyst (a tactic used in the Arkham video games) as well as an overly nervous stand-up comic being auditioned by Fish Mooney in this week’s Joker possibility. The producers of the show mentioned that every episode will have at least one suspect who could wind up being the Clown Prince of Crime, presumably in season two if this show makes it that far.

Bidula’s Last Word – 5/10. I will continue watching for novelty and novelty alone, (very) cautiously optimistic that this show will improve with time.

Keep fighting the good fight.

—end transmission—