Gotham, after the solid pilot, took a surprising and welcome turn last week to the darkest of dark comedy. And although this episode was slightly heavier on the cop drama, it’s pretty clearly going for bleak laughs as much as a Batman story.
This episode centers around the Balloonman, a vigilante who cuffs the corrupt to weather balloons and sends them flying off into the stratosphere. The concept is somewhat ridiculous, and truthfully the show doesn’t pull it off as well as it could; the second victim of the Balloonman overacts all the way to the stratosphere. But that doesn’t stop them from having a little fun, namely dropping an corpse from a great height on a little old lady.
While Gordon’s hunting that down, Oswald is back in Gotham; his reaction to stepping off the bus and taking in the local color is priceless. Really this is Robin Lord Taylor’s episode; he works out a new way into Gotham’s mob and, in the process, makes it abundantly clear he’s going to leave a pile of bodies in his wake. Along the way, he learns that Falcone’s downfall is tied to Arkham Asylum, giving us a larger arc to the season.
Donal Logue is in rare form this episode as well, especially the scene where he finally meets his physical match. We won’t ruin that here, but it’s a joke the show spends almost the whole episode to that point building up to, and it’s a hilarious subversion of the usual cop-show fight and chase.
On the bad side of things, there’s about three minutes too much of Montoya whining at Barbara, a plotline this season has dedicated maybe four minutes to in three episodes and which is already in the running for most annoying plotline of 2014. Barbara’s a total blank as a character, and Montoya is a needy, whiny creep. “How can I show my ex, who’s engaged to a dude, how much she should be boning me? I’ll break into her apartment while she’s taking a shower!”
Also completely irrelevant to the episode is Alfred teaching Bruce to fence, as adorable as it is, and telling him that killing people when you’re a vigilante is bad. It’s fun, but it dulls the show’s momentum somewhat to cut away to something unrelated. Still, the show’s already found its sense of humor, and it’s nailed down both its episodic rhythm and the larger arc. We weren’t expecting Gotham to go this way, but it’s a welcome surprise, right out of the gate.