TV Review No. 16 Gotham: Tonight's the Night (S2, Ep8)

Strong Points:
Great acting all round
Unpredictable
Bruce and Alfred scene
Wedding scene
Wedding dream (although no mention of The Ogre)
Miss Kringle's remembrance
A certain pairing could be forming...


Weak Points:
Galavan's not normally known for loose ends
Strike Force members are now being used as cannon-fodder
I liked Nygma's dual personality more
How do people survive some of these things?

Spoilers ahead:
In-depth Review:

Here comes the bride. Here comes the oh %{*#*{ is that Penguin!? This is basically the premise of the episode, an episode that is neither great nor awful. Barbara is the main character this week, and while last season that might have heralded a string of groans from the audience, her character has improved tenfold, since then, to the point where she is one of the stand out characters now.

Galavan's plan is coming together and the next step is to take over Wayne Enterprises but to do this Gordon needs to be distracted. Enter a deranged Barbara, a church and a truck. After giving herself up to the police (I swear there needs to be more protection around the perimeter of that building. Criminals can just walk in) and some unorthodox interrogation tactics by Gordon, he agrees to follow her in return for some information. In the esteemed words of Admiral Ackbar: 'it's a trap!' 

It was of course, a trap, a point that they all pointed out on numerous occasions. We didn't, however, know what the trap was, and a truck that appeared in the background almost like a green screen was not what I had imagined. It worked though with Gordon getting captured and Harvey ‘appearing’ dead. Although how Barbara managed to just get out when a truck crashed into them and Harvey was the one knocked out when he was the one furthest away I’ll never know.

Anyway, the dream sequence earlier on (a really creepy scene) ended up coming mostly true with Barbara tying up a vicar, witnesses, Gordon and Lee. Again, I don’t really understand the idea behind Barbara wanting to marry Gordon and kill him going hand in hand. Taking the whole, ‘I’ll die for you’ thing a bit too seriously right? A confession later (and a tense moment where it looked like one of the trio was going to die) and everything blew up into a firefight, which ended with Barbara falling again to her 'apparent' end, only to reappear with the excuse of 'the bushes broke her fall'. Sure. I did like Harvey's involvement with this episode though from disobeying the commissioner (an act he got fired for) to replaying the conversation in the police car to look for clues. It shows that there is actually some attachment between the characters, and at the rate the writers are going through them, I thought this was lost.  

'The plan for this episode: Galavan extorts Bruce's business from him by the promise of money and access to his parents' killer. Because Galavan obviously knows who that person is. What follows is a battle between Bruce's morals and a great conversation between Alfred and Bruce where Bruce finally betray's his mental age for his actual one and breaksdown for thinking that everything would be better if this was all over. Bruce ends up making the decision to keep his company, on his own as well, finally showing some of the Batman's spirit in the process.

We're in the woods now and Nygma's odd send off to Miss Kringle. He literally has a picnic with a dead body and proceeds to kill anyone who finds him. I'm not really sure why he didn't just corrode Miss Kringle's body like he did with her ex (The Riddler might have some sentiment I guess) and personally I liked his split personality better but overall it was an all right continuation of Nygma's storyline. And him finding Penguin at the end was a nice twist and could set up a potential pairing...

Finally, we have Galavan's arrest which was weird because this is a guy who would shoot anyone, and yet didn't tie up the loose end that was the mayor. And if leaving Barbara to die was really his plan, then why did he get his sister (the only person he seems to care about, even in the slightest of senses) to help her? So many questions.

Conclusion: overall, it was a good episode with nice acting from everyone. Can we also spare a thought for the Strike Force members which now seem to be just cannon fodder as they don't even have names anymore...

Rating: 70%

Thanks for reading, Satamer.