Gotham would honestly be a better series if it shaved off some of its characters, or at least trimmed away at the fat and balanced its characters a bit better. Jim Gordon takes a back seat this time around, but at least his storyline ties into the larger series arcs – as he’s arrested by the MCU detectives for Cobblepot’s murder and saved by the future Penguin at episode’s end – which can’t be said for the way Bruce, Selina, Alfred, and Cobblepot’s mother are tossed into the mix.
Their inclusions this week feel highly forced and more contractually obligated than relevant to the actual story at hand. We do get a tender and genuine moment between Bruce and Alfred, when the young Wayne refuses to leave the city while the child-snatching killer is on the loose because, “There’s no one to take me from.” However, Selina’s little Wayne Manor break in was unnecessary, and Cobblepot’s little sponge bath from his mother was creepier than the serial killer’s “I am the Spirit of the Goat!” chant. All of these scenes could have been cut and would have had zero impact on the narrative whatsoever. That’s a problem.
Fish Mooney, Sal Maroni and Carmine Falcone are completely left out of the episode this week, and while I missed them, I’m glad they weren’t somehow shoehorned in as well.
Now that Oswald’s secret is out and the MCU investigation into his “murder” is unnecessary, I hope detectives Montoya and Allen are given more to do. They were great characters in the Gotham Central comic that this series is partially based on, and Gotham could surely benefit from better interpretations of them.
All in all, “Spirit of the Goat” was still not a great episode, but did have moments of promise that give me hope for the rest of the season. I think that as the series goes on, it will continue to find its footing and improve, but in order to do that some serious character work is needed and the tonal issues will have to be ironed out for good. Until that happens, Gotham will remain at the bottom of the DC TV totem pole for now, and serve as more of a guilty pleasure than a must-watch foray into one of the corners of the DC Comics universe.
Additional Thoughts
- Am I missing something here? Who the hell is Kristen Kringle? Googling did nothing but bring up a Comic Vine page for Santa Claus. Don’t tell me Gotham is already setting up a Christmas episode!
- I can’t be the only one who saw that penny come out of the victim’s skull and thought of the giant penny hanging in the Batcave, right?
- I’m surprised that Bruce wasn’t kidnapped by the Goat. I guess that Dr. Marks is still alive somewhere, so maybe we’ll see another Spirit of the Goat killer at some point down the line.
- I thought that Gotham would mainly stick to using villains from the comics as the week-to-week bad guys, but the Goat marks yet another original creation. While these new characters aren’t as good as the ones from the pages of DC Comics, I applaud the writers for not using the books as the only option for inspiration.
- With this episode airing around Halloween, I’m surprised no nods were given to the beloved Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale comic The Long Halloween or even Haunted Knight. This would have been the perfect entry point for someone like Scarecrow, or even the Mad Hatter.
