Gotham Review – “What the Little Bird Told Him” S1E12

Pros:

Dr. Leslie Thompkins is hot… and hotter than Barbara Keane: Morena Baccarin is a beautiful woman. Why is this a plus? Because pretty much everything else about this episode sucked. Also, she can act better than the rest of the cast. And now that she and Jim Gordon have hooked up, it looks like she is here to stay… for a while at least.

Bringing back characters from the past: Other than the mob families, bad guys of the week usually stick to their week. It was nice to see Victor Zsasz and The Electrocutioner make a return. Not to mention, Zsasz is scary as hell.

Edward Nygma is needs to move: Poor Nygma. He likes the girl. He knows it. And even though she dresses kind of nerdy, she is so not into him. I feel bad for the guy… I do. If I didn’t know his fate as The Riddler, I would say he should move to Central City with The Flash. He would fare better in a group of nerds like himself.

Gotham - What the Little Bird Told Him
Poor little nerd. He just wants love!

Despite the rest of the mob, Carmine Falcone is a BAMF: And I don’t mean that in a great way. I mean, he choked his mommy doppelgänger Liza to death. Without any qualms. That is so bad-ass, but in the most terrifying way possible.

Cons:

The Barbara Keane story line is BORING: And in fact she is boring. I have made fun of #Gaytham mercilessly because I thought it was a way for FOX to be “cutting edge.” Now I realize that without Barbara having a female lover on the side, she is utterly yawn-worthy. Why should I care that she is now staying with her parents? They clearly don’t care about her. Who would believe that she is “happy” with Jim if she needs to stay with her mommy and daddy for a few days? And talk about some pretentious white people. Even their house was too white. In the words of Jimmy Fallon, “Ew.”

The Electrocutioner was pointless: Yeah, it’s cool he came back, but his ONLY worth was to electrocute The Penguin (which he did unintentionally) which lead to The Penguin having a moment of amnesia and admitting to Maroni he was working for Falcone. All of this seems highly unlikely and very, very silly.

The Electrocutioner’s Demise: Did the baddie of the week just get taken down by Jim Gordon and a glass of water? Yes. And while I have seen that work in other shows (Buffy did it), they weren’t asinine. This was so anti-climactic; the whole thing was a giant let down, especially after The Electrocutioner was taking people down in an awesome Magneto style.

Gotham - What the Little Bird Told Him
Always saving the day… and it’s so predictable.

 

Jim Gordon, Civilian vs. Jim Gordon, Detective: Ok. Let’s get this straight. ANYONE in Gotham can walk in on a police meeting discussing sensitive evidence regarding a high-profile case. Including Jim Gordon, who is technically a civilian. Then, he extorts the Commissioner, with no repercussions. Then he BARELY solves the case (and by barely, I mean not at all) and gets LUCKY by having The Electrocutioner showing up at the station. He also got lucky that someone had a glass of water on their desk. Then at the end, he gets his job back. Easy as pie… or just throwing a cup of water. Can you tell I’m bitter about the water?

The entire god damn plot: The whole “he’s working for you, but also for you” and “she’s working for you, but also for you” and “I’m going to take over!” thing hit the fan this week, and it was God awful. Fish Mooney with her finger twitch and thinking that she could just arrange for Falcone to move was proof that she is a dim wit. And Falcone second guessing that he should go was dumb. And Maroni carrying Oswald into the police station was dumb. And… it was all dumb.

Gotham - What the Little Bird Told Him
You work for who? Is anyone even keeping track anymore?!

 

Also: The music! It’s soooo bad. Get rid of the music and I can take you more seriously Gotham.

Easter Eggs:

Commissioner Loeb: The man who comes in to take on the Arkham Asylum case is Commissioner Loeb. He was created by Frank Miller in 1987 for the Batman: Year One arc starting in issue #404. He is the Commissioner of Gotham when Batman begins his war on crime. Eventually, he falls to Carmine Falcone’s corruption and sees Jim Gordon as a threat. In Gotham, he is played by Peter Scolari, who has been a character actor in just about everything ever.

“What the Little Bird Told Him”: The title of the episode is a not-so-subtle reference to Oswald Cobblepot’s nickname, The Penguin, and his way of being a snitch. Which is a thing the show likes to say a lot.

Penguin gets a club!: At the end of the episode, Oswald is rewarded for being a snitch by getting Fish’s nightclub. Maybe now people will actually show up… I digress. In the comics, Oswald is known for his business dealings, particularly by using a nightclub as a legitimate business to cover his illegal dealings.

Predictions:

Jim, Leslie, and Barbara love triangle: Ugh, but true. Considering Barbara Keane is supposedly Barbara Gordon’s mom, the three may end up in some sort of an affair. Fan boys can only hope this will end in a ménage.

Bruce and Alfred: Where the heck are they?! I predict that Alfred is really in the MI-6 and is training Bruce to be an agent. Just kidding. But really, where are they?

Fish Mooney or Jada Pinkett Smith: The preview for next week shows Mooney getting tortured. But who will enjoy it more? My bet is on Smith.

 

Hush Comics gives “What the Little Bird Told Him” a D for a bad plot line, under using characters, and silly, silly antics.

 

All pictures belong to FOX and The CW.  They are credited to Jessica Miglio and Jeff Neumann.

 

Published by

Adrian Puryear

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon, and Breaking Bad are the best things to ever happen to me. I'm only a Three on MeowMeowBeenz. I really want to be a Four.

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