Gotham really heats up this week as Azrael is unleashed onto the City causing everyone within his purview to scramble to try to avoid or try to end his rampage. There is Professor Strange covering his tracks, Tabitha planning her departure, and Gordon trying to take down Azrael before he can do any more harm. It’s a race to beat the clock in this week’s action packed hour.
“Prisoners” gives Gordon’s arc the U turn it needed to get back on track to get him to redemption and reactivates him with motivation and an active path to his goal after a fairly harrowing episode at Blackgate prison.
Although “Strike Force” is a step towards the light, with brighter hope for Gotham, there appears to still be dark territory ahead, for Gordon especially.
It’s the dawn of a new era in Gotham City which is clearly all about the villains. The season two premiere does a great job at setting this up, with a deeper look at some of the inmates that have entered Arkham Asylum.
In the Pilot episode the Penguin warns Gordon that there will be a war coming to Gotham City, a war that would possibly result in a change of power amongst the crime bosses. As it turns out Penguin was not merely playing Cassandra predicting doom for Gotham but planned for the war to happen all along. Ever since the Wayne Murders the Falcone crime empire began crumbling due to having lost one of its pillars leaving Falcone weak in his reign which prompted all of the crime underbosses to sniff around and try to tear him down. Although the Wayne Murderer remains a mystery the finale resolves Falcone time in power, relinquishing him to possibly make way for the dawn of a new class of villain to overtake Gotham, one that will be full of colorfully criminal characters and Machiavellian madmen (and madwomen); the Gotham City by which the comic book mythos are based. Now that Falcone has fallen, is the new Gotham City finally rising?
The season enters its final quarter with an episode that escalates the drama of the ongoing plots alongside a standalone case that interestingly adapts a Batman villain to the small screen. Gordon and the GCPD are not so much downplayed in this episode as they are given equal attention as the four other separate plots that are playing out. The episode does a great job juggling the separate narratives without them needing to cross paths until the very end.
Batman is one of the most iconic comic book superheroes of all time and has been amongst the pop culture zeitgeist for, at most, three quarters of a century, being adapted into all kinds of media from novels to video games and of course, to film and television. Strangely enough, as popular as the hero has been throughout the decades, the character has had very little time on the live action small screen. Even now, in this newest retelling of his origin story, Batman himself is not expected to make a full costumed appearance. Instead we are introduced to all the tangential characters that surround the Batman mythology and formulate Batman’s allies and foes.
Nikita, Season 3, Episode 3: “True Believer” Written by Carlos Coto Directed by Danny Cannon Airs Fridays at 9pm (ET) on the CW The driving focus of Nikita in the first two seasons of the show was to demolish Division, not just for vengeance, but because of what it had become, first under Percy, then …