Tuesday, November 24, 2015

My Review of Gotham's 2x10: "The Son Of Gotham"


Written by John Stephens
Directed by Rob Bailey

Gordon: "Son of Gotham?"
Theo: "Goodbye James. I couldn't have done it without you."

Well, this episode had some moments of utter predictability, some nice twists and a confrontation that I wished that had lasted a tiny bit longer. Needless to say, I rather enjoyed this one, purely as it worked well for setting up next week's mid season finale too.

Let's get the predictable stuff out of the way first, shall we? Theo Galavan became a free man and all because of former Mayor James continued to show his utter uselessness and cowardice by claiming that Oswald kidnapped him instead. Oh well, prison was fun while it lasted for Theo and he wasted no time in lording it over Gordon by having him kidnapped and beaten up while most revealing his plans for Bruce at the same time. At least Oswald came in time to stop Gordon from becoming a dead man.

Keeping with the predictable element of the episode, the last scene where Theo managed to get Bruce I guess we all saw coming. On the plus side by next week, this plot should be handily resolved and Bruce will have other problems to deal with in the second half of the season. Also, at least he got a chance to show off being clever in this episode.

I liked that Bruce and Selina teamed up with Tom the knife (Tommy Flanagan marginally better here than he was in Revenge earlier this year) in order to trick Silver. At first it took me a little while to realise that it wasn't a cliche kidnap scenario or that Silver herself wasn't trying to trick Bruce either. It was a clever ploy, exposed Silver for the amateur manipulator that she is and it also brought Bruce and Selina a little closer together as well. Overall, it was the strongest plot of the episode.

Another potentially great one was the confrontation between Alfred and Tabitha. Finally after ten episodes, Tabitha went up against someone she couldn't easily kill and while she certainly left Alfred for dead in a garbage truck, he definitely gave as good as he got. I just hope someone gets to him in time because both Gordon and Bruce are otherwise occupied.

Also in "The Son Of Gotham"

I am loving The Odd Couple style rapport with Nygma and Oswald, even if they didn't have many scenes this week.

Selina (to Bruce): "The best liars always tell the truth."

Leslie is starting to show some suspicion for Kringle's death. At least Oswald kind of destroyed her glasses.

Leslie (re Kringle/Tom): "But he was abusive."
Nygma: "Love."

Tom (to Bruce): "Pleasure doing business. Sorry about the slaps."

Barnes got a funny comment by describing a massage parlour as a 'rub and thub'. Other than that, he didn't do much of consequence in this episode.

Tabitha (to Alfred): "For the record, I was telling the truth. I have no idea where Bruce Wayne is but I'll tell him you were asking."

Barbara was the only regular not in this episode. I bet she'll play a role in the second half of the season's main plot though. Dent popped up briefly in this one.

Theo (to Gordon): "Here you're the prisoner and I'm free."

Chronology: Not long from where A Bitter Pill To Swallow left off.

A bit better than the previous two weeks, The Son of Gotham was mainly set up for the mid season finale next week. Hopefully by next week we should have a satisfying resolution to this whole Galavan/Saint Dumas Brotherhood arc.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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