It was as inevitable as it gets; sooner or later, Gotham was going to visit Arkham Asylum. But the visit in question ties it much more closely to the show’s broader arc of a mob war unfolding, with Oswald scheming on the sidelines.
Our not-quite-supervillain this episode is Gladwell, essentially the assassin from No Country For Old Men played by a voice gamers will recognize, going around picking off councilmen to influence a vote on the Arkham District. Essentially, Falcone wants to turn it into “low-cost housing,” while Maroni wants to turn it into a dump, but the goals are less interesting that the machinations surrounding them, and Gladwell’s calm, collected manner of doing horrible things to horrible people.
Meanwhile, Oswald continues his upward climb, and what’s most fascinating about this episode is how he’s playing the entire cast to his own ends. The restaurant where he’s a lowly dishwasher is robbed, and Oswald manages to save some of the money… although, of course, there’s far far more to the story. Robin Lord Taylor’s take on the vicious coward continues to be one of the best things about the series, and he’s having a ridiculous amount of fun playing various parts of the city against each other.
Fish Mooney spends the episode recruiting a catspaw under the guise of hiring a chanteuse, which ends in subverting the typical catfight. You’re expecting hair-pulling and scratching, but no, one candidate just straight up beats the ever-loving hell out of the other. The plan appears to be to get someone close to Falcone, which we’re sure will not go horribly wrong at all.
The nice touch this episode is that it actually makes sense to have Alfred and Bruce around; the Wayne family was developing the Arkham district, so they’ve got information and a personal stake in what happens. You actually feel bad for Bruce when the mayor chickens out and lets both Falcone and Maroni in on the action. The show’s struggled to integrate the Batman parts, so it’s nice to see they’ve solved that problem, although we still want to see Alfred on the streets of Gotham, beating the crap out of people.
That said, there are a few problems. Barbara is still a useless character and her plotline this episode is terrible. Why, precisely, can’t Gordon just quickly sketch out what happened to his fiancee? Oh, right, without the whole whining at each other over secrets thing, there’s no reason to have her around. Similarly, now we have to wonder why Gordon doesn’t just file a grievance or something against Montoya and get her off his back. “Um, can you get my fiancee’s ex to stop bothering me over a case where there’s no evidence?” Seems like a slam dunk to us!
It’s a solid episode, however, and it looks like it’s only getting more complex from here. Bring on the gang wars!