GOTHAM SEASON 4:1 – “The Pax Penguina”

DCTV is back y’all, with a whole new season of Gotham on the airwaves. And you know why they say that a new season of Gotham is like a box of chocolates? It’s because you never know what you’re going to get. And this season Gotham seems to be fully embracing it’s comic book heritage. This is the season when the ridiculous becomes real, and not only does the show jump the shark, Penguin fries it up, eats it, and uses the oil on his new up-swept hair-do.

This season on Gotham, Penguin is completely running the show. And there’s no one even attempting to stop him. In fact, he’s issuing licenses to criminals so they can do their dastardly deeds without being stopped or harassed by those pesky police. And the GCPD and the Gotham population are all onboard because crime is down.   But how is it down? If someone buys a crime license to rob my store, can I then turn around and buy a license to rob someone else? I mean, how else am I getting my money back? I can only assume that insurance companies aren’t paying out on these kinds of claims because then they’d be the ones getting robbed. So in Gotham, if you get a license from Penguin, all you need is a handgun or a finger in your pocket to rob a bank or stick up the local liquor store with no fear of arrest or reprisal. The only crime off the table, for now, is murder.

And speaking of The Penguin, who’s flying high for a flightless bird, he’s taken over Barbra’s club. He must have given himself a license for that. And he’s renamed it the Iceberg Lounge, because now it’s got a giant block of ice as a centerpiece, with Ed Nygma frozen inside. And everybody’s pretty okay with that.   Except for Bruce Wayne, who asks if Ed is dead. And he does it with a straight face. Bravo Bruce! Because even Harvey knows that people don’t seem to stay dead in Gotham.   So Edward Nygma will undoubtedly thaw out and return as the Riddler. But maybe he’ll be a bit more chill (See what I did there.) And Barbara Keene, who got electrocuted, and Butch, who got shot in the head, will resurface sometime this season too. It’s actually already been confirmed that Butch has a Frankenstein-like makeover, and will return to Gotham as Solomon Grundy.

Speaking of the ridiculous; why is 16-year-old Bruce Wayne invited to the launch of a 21+ nightclub? And how, after about a two-week training session with a Ra’s Al Ghul wannabe, is lanky little Bruce Batman? Yeah, he’s pretty much Batman now. He can fight armed bad guys, he wears a hooded black costume, and he can even do the patented sneak-in and sneak-out Ninja move that it took Christian Bale seven years to master. I know the ratings are low producers, but trying to convince us that wimpy Bruce Wayne is now a bad-ass reek of desperation. Leave the heroics to brawler Jim Gordon, who’s at least trying to be a good guy this season. And as for his partner Harvey, who’s now Police Commissioner, he’s pretty much knuckled under. So what happens to Gotham now?  STAY TUNED!!!

LAST WORDS: We also see Selina Kyle learning to kick ass from Tabitha. So even she needs to be trained, even though Selina started out as a bad ass. And while the original Scarecrow is dead, and stays dead. His skittish son gets so scared his mind snaps, and now he thinks he’s The Scarecrow. So in a way, that character comes back to life as well.

But the big question is this: Is the show, though ridiculously jumping all kinds of sharks, still fun? And I say YES! If you can turn off the logic portion of your brain, you’ll enjoy the comic book antics. Except for the Bruce Wayne debacle. But he gets arrested at the end of the episode, so we’ll have to see what happens with Bruce moving forward.  Maybe he gets scared straight and goes back to school.  Batman is supposed to be smart, not a High School drop out.  I’m just saying…..