“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.
In this week’s Gotham, Gordon returns to the Gotham City Police Department to regain his Detective rank but in order to do that he has to prove himself to Commission Loeb by bringing in the Arkham Asylum inmate that escaped in “Rogues’ Gallery” under his watch. This episode shows Gordon revitalized and more focused with the understanding that he needs to be at the GCPD and nowhere else; it’s where he wants to be and where he can do the most good. We have seen Gordon be all gun ho before as in “Penguins Umbrella” but this time he’s taking charge and asserting himself, where before he was acting reckless with unrealistic goals.
This debut season of Gotham has had its ups and downs as the series struggled to find the right balance between theatrical performances and gritty realism, the best stability having been struck in episode six, “The Spirit of the Goat,” a character centric episode. The series finds that balance again with this week’s episode, “Penguin’s Umbrella,” a central serialized episode that brings all of the underlying built up tensions of the past few episodes to the surface. The storm of change has started brewing in Gotham City; causing significant destruction all around with only those who have found themselves under the protection of the Penguin’s umbrella able to survive it.