#remember earlier in the season when he shoved ben and they treated it like abuse? and then he actually hit ben and they excused it?

[monstermoviedean]

i can't string together a post about dean hitting ben but suffice to say i'm really fucking angry about it and dean would never do that. that's not him.

[ncfan-1]

Gotham 04X16, ‘One of My Three Soups’

So, this is Ben McKenzie's second episode as a director. He didn't write this episode as well, so I don't anticipate it being as good as the episode he did write, but I'm interested to see what kind of visual style he has. This is Gotham.

And the dashboard is doing that thing where it doesn’t know what apostrophes are. What the hell.

- Okay, I am going to make three predictions for this episode. Here they are.

1) Jim Gordon is not going to express any meaningful remorse. By that, I mean he isn’t going to express any sort of remorse that I believe could actually lead somewhere.

2) Having been recast, Jonathan Crane will have a completely different personality and set of motivations, and there will be no continuity between Tahan!Jonathan and Thompson!Jonathan’s characters.

3) Selina will join Jerome because ‘Long Halloween’ reasons.

4) There will be horrible depictions of ableism in Arkham Asylum.

Now, I am going into this hoping that all of these predictions will be proven wrong. To be fair, #1 is low-hanging fruit and I’m not likely to be proven wrong there, but I always hope this show will be better than it has been, even though I know that’s unlikely.

- We open with one of the guards in Arkham reading a wrestling magazine.

- And I think we’ve found out what the protocol for going to deal with Jervis is. Listen to loud music so he can’t hypnotize you, and keep the man in solitary so he has less access to victims. And… I’m right. I know Jervis is a horrible person, but the effects of solitary confinement on inmates, especially when they aren’t allowed human contact, are well-documented.

- So it turns out Jervis and Jonathan are buddies. I know he’s been recast, but I’ll remind you that Jonathan is a teenage boy, no matter who’s playing him. Jervis… is the last person I want to be alone with a child.

- Seems Jerome and Jonathan don’t particularly get along.

- And, as with List!Ivy, in Thompson!Jonathan’s characterization it appears that the writers seem to believe that creepiness is a suitable substitute for character. It’s not. He sounds like a caricature of himself, but Thompson does seem like he’s trying his damnedest.

I will note one more thing. Since Jonathan is, at the oldest, eighteen years old, and he never finished high school, I don’t think he’s a good candidate to be making lock-melting acid in his cell’s toilet. Also, why do they let him wear that burlap sack over his head? The first time he rolls onto his stomach while he sleeps he’s in danger of suffocating. Though, it could be the staff is hoping for that to happen. They treated him like absolute shit, it sounds like, but if none of them acknowledge their own culpability in what Jonathan’s become, it’s likely none of them like him too much after the first time he raised hell in there.

- And apparently this is Jim’s first night out of the hospital.

- Oh, Jervis, I’ve missed you. You’re a horrible person and I’ve missed you. Benedict Samuel is a gift from God.

- We seem to have some interpersonal tension between Jim and Bullock.

- The two of them pull up to where Jervis is waiting. We have a hypnotized couple in wedding garb… standing beneath a wrecking ball. I know most of my readers have seen the promo. You know where this is going.

- Seriously, why doesn’t Jervis have a massive scar on his neck?

- And the mind of Jervis Tetch is as miserable and disturbing a place as ever, his memory as self-serving as ever.

- I don’t remember Jervis rhyming this much in Season 3.

- And when Jervis lifts his hold over the thugs, they start crowing like roosters.

- Bruce and Selina head to the GCPD so they can read Jerome’s file.

- Barbara, sweetheart, alcohol isn’t going to do anything for your migraine.

- Poor Barbara. She’s in a horrible position right now.

- “It hurts too much.” Barbara…

- Of course, Tabitha… I think she means well this time (I think). But Tabitha is not one of my favorites at the best of times, and she’s not endearing herself to me right now.

- Flashback time!

- I hate that this makes me ship Ra’s/Barbara a little more. But even if it’s only to manipulate her, he sounds like he’s the only person who’s ever bothered to really listen to her.

- Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is just manipulation. But I like ships with messed-up dynamics sometimes.

- So we’ve got Jerome, Jervis, Jonathan, Ivy, and the League of Shadows set to all be raising hell in Gotham at once. This show is about to get a bit narratively crowded.

- And we have rows upon rows of hypnotized people standing on rooftops, waiting to jump at the stroke of midnight. No, Jim, a net is not going to work. What you need is a lot of nets. And soon.

- Jerome’s uncle lives in Gotham. What? I suppose that’s where the twin might come into things. And apparently Bruce feels responsible for what Jerome does.

- As ever, I like Bruce and Selina’s interactions. It’s one of the emotional touchstones of the show, so it’s good that their dynamic is so… good.

- Jerome is, as ever, a bit boring. Here’s another character where the writers think creepiness is a suitable substitute for character.

- His uncle’s vile.

- A ton of extras snuck into the Sirens’ club.

- Harvey’s found the radio station Jervis was broadcasting from. And Jervis had a special signal for him.

- So, we’ve seen Jervis and Jerome. Where’s Jonathan, anyways? He doesn’t exactly come across as an equal partner in this little coalition the three of them have formed. I wonder if Jervis isn’t keeping him close at hand.

- Jim’s at the radio station.

- And we come back to Jerome, Jerome’s vile uncle, the strong man, and the “soup.” The literally boiling soup. Bruce walks in and is suitably horrified.

- Jerome came to his uncle for a reason. I wonder what it is he wants to know.

- And apparently no woman has ever led the League of Shadows. The sexist man who wanted to depose her promptly gets stabbed. And it turns out the rest of them want the top spot, too.

- Jervis needs to learn to lock doors so people can’t put guns to his head.

- Jim basically tells Jervis that he’ll torture him ‘till he does what he wants. And then he follows through. Our hero, everybody.

- What is it with this show and hand trauma?! It really is somebody’s fetish, isn’t it!

- Jim, why didn’t you get the nets? You could have avoided this, you asshole.

- Selina intervenes at the diner. She tries to kill Jerome, only for Bruce to stop her. What Selina wants, basically, is for Bruce to actually live his life and not be burdened with guilt.

- Barbara steps up as a brand-new evil overlord. This… is a good look for her. I hope you have a good story arc, Barbara!

- And Jim has a moment where he eats humble pie. Not sure he learned anything for the long-term, but he looks appropriately tired.

- So Jim and Harvey are calling it a day. Jim doesn’t think he belongs here; he thinks he belongs in jail. Harvey agrees, but he tries to give him some feel-good thing about saving the people on the ledge. It rings hollow.

- Jim… actually apologizes to Harvey for judging him. I’m shocked. In a good way, but I’m still shocked.

- Bruce calls up Jim to tell him he’s going to the school Jerome was looking for.

- We end with Jervis in a fucking muzzle (I have no words—it is equal parts amusing and appalling), when Jerome and Jonathan come to rescue him. Jervis looks genuinely happy to see them. I’m almost touched. They all seem to be genuinely fond of each other—well, Jerome and Jonathan don’t, but apparently they cooperated long enough to rescue Jervis without getting into a brawl, so that’s something.

Okay, so predictions.

1) Jim Gordon is not going to express any meaningful remorse. By that, I mean he isn’t going to express any sort of remorse that I believe could actually lead somewhere.

Not sure with this one. Yes, he did express some guilt, but I’m not sure that it’s going to go anywhere. Every time Jim says something about feeling guilty, Harvey says something to him trying to convince him not to follow through on his guilt and come clean about… everything, really.

2) Having been recast, Jonathan Crane will have a completely different personality and set of motivations, and there will be no continuity between Tahan!Jonathan and Thompson!Jonathan’s characters.

Looks like this one was true. I’ll save the rant about internal consistency for another episode, because honestly, it was hard to get a good read on him. Jonathan felt a lot less like a character this episode than he did a plot device. He was basically in it just to produce a lock-melting acid that it seems frankly implausible he would have known how to produce or had the materials to produce it with, given his education stopped at ninth grade, and that’s it. Much like Tahan!Jonathan, it felt like he only existed when the show needed him to exist, and when it didn’t, he got shoved back in the box of non-existence and everyone forgot he existed. Watsonianly, it adds to that sense I got, that Jonathan is not an equal partner with Jerome and Jervis. I’ll be interested to see if that actually goes somewhere.

As an aside, the idea that Jervis and Jonathan have interacted enough to know each other and be friendly is just… It makes my skin crawl, okay. Because I love Jervis, but he really does give off “I have candy in my van” vibes, and aside from Jim Gordon, every adult we’ve ever seen Jonathan Crane interact with has abused and exploited him in some way. And it’s not like Jervis isn’t an abuser. I’m looking to see where their apparent relationship goes, with much less eagerness.

And my personal suspicion about the “personality face lift” for Jonathan Crane here is that Tahan was perhaps just a bit too good at making him vulnerable and sympathetic for the higher-up’s liking. Like I said earlier, Thompson is clearly trying his damnedest—I rarely come across an actor in this show who seems to be sleepwalking through the part—but “sympathetic” and “vulnerable” is clearly not what the writing’s going for here. “Cartoonish, two-dimensional supervillain” is more like what the writing’s going for here. (Prove me wrong, Gotham. Prove me wrong, please.)

3) Selina will join Jerome because ‘Long Halloween’ reasons.

Didn’t happen. THANK GOD. This was the one I was the most afraid about. I suppose there’s still time for it to happen, but it makes even less sense now than before.

4) There will be horrible depictions of ableism in Arkham Asylum.

Happened. Ugh. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. Oh, wait, I am mad.

Well, at least the dynamic between the villain triple-act was interesting.