Review: Gotham 1.14 – The Fearsome Dr. Crane

I've been watching Gotham since it started (if it's got something to do with comics I'll watch it). That being said it is usually the last thing in my list to get watched. I don't hate it (I know a lot of people do). Branding it on Gotham city and then taking time to show Bruce Wayne, and the rest of his villains pre-vigilante, weakens the show. For me personally it works best when they don't show everyone’s story-lines and try to focus on the crime of the week. I think they could have lost all the Bruce Wayne scenes and the show wouldn't feel much different. Except you'd have to lose Catwoman (or at least think of another reason to have involved) which would be a shame as her scenes are usually entertaining. Oh wait, they almost phased her out of the show by having her deny that she saw the murder (goodbye only reason to be around). Also you could lose Poison Ivy, really what has her appearance added to the show.

This weeks episode did a little step in that direction, with less Bruce and Selina. There was more focus on the crime of the week. Penguin and Maroni's situation came to a head, as Fish rats Penguin out. The thing that made this episode for me though is Bullock getting more screen time (Donal Logue is one of my favorite character actors and I will watch pretty much anything he's in).

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The crime of the week shows the foreshadowing of yet another Batman villain, the Scarecrow. Only the Dr. Crane that is doing the kidnapping and murdering is Gerard Crane, Jonathon Crane's (the Scarecrow that fights with Batman) daddy. He finds his victims in a fear/phobia support group. Which gives us a great scene of a man being scared by a teacup piglet then captured. He is later saved by Gordon and Bullock who shoot Crane's henchman who was scaring the man by wearing a pig mask and surrounding him with pigs (okay three pigs isn't really surrounding).

Gordon makes the biggest mistake in the episode by screwing up a date with Morena Baccarin, sorry I mean Dr. Thompkins. Silly detective, very silly. At least he gets to smooch her a couple of time this episode (lucky Ben McKenzie).

The best thing in this episode though is Penguin and Maroni. It's always good seeing Penguin trying to squirm and lie his way through conversations. Also nice to see Maroni being kind of smart (even if it took a tip from Fish first). It would have been nice to see Penguin actually open the gun check to see the bullets, that would have made the scene pay off a little better (I hope you saw that coming a mile away).

I wasn't blown away by this episode but I did enjoy it.


Score: 3/5


Gotham airs Monday's on Fox