gothamslimpestwrist

[gothamslimpestwrist]

s1e3 the balloonman

killcount: 

davis lamond: ronald danzer, bill cranston, dog walking lady (on accident), cardinal quinn

oswald cobblepot: mob mook who tried to sell him back to fish, dish washer @ bamonte’s

butch gilzean (offscreen, on orders from fish mooney): “natalia” (falcone’s girl), “lazlo” (fish’s lover)

episode total: 8 total count: 20

the dark knight rises: lots. this is the first vigilante villain in the show, and the response to him going after corruption foreshadows a city willing to accept the protection of a batman. the cops are bad; we see cranston, who beats suspects w/ his “partner o’brien” (a trophy). harvey goes out of his way to emphasize that cranston’s not that bad, which is probably true for cop standards. he beats a suspect in custody and a drug dealer he’s got a deal with. and that’s not nearly the worst of the shit this city has seen. oswald returns and sees a kid picking pockets, a cop taking “protection” money, a mugger running off with a purse, and some hookers soliciting, pretty much in the same 30 seconds. 

the city is sick. it needs someone. 

on bruce’s end, though, he’s like...legit not doing so well. he’s starving himself now, and he’s obsessed w/ the pictures he got of his parents’ dead bodies. he says he’s looking for clues (to which alfred snarks, “oh, so you’re a detective now?” ...yeah, the World’s Greatest Detective), but if you think about the sword fighting scene, alfred is trying to turn the “training” into something productive and channel bruce’s feelings, but bruce repeatedly states that he doesn’t want to do this, while alfred continues to hit him anyway. alfred is trying, you know? but he’s not yet a substitute for a real parent, much less a psychiatrist. he’s the one who pushes bruce toward actually training and fighting and repressing his emotions, rather than going to a therapist and being treated and learning to move on. i would argue that one of the things the first season does rather well is illustrate alfred in that role--bruce has, perhaps, the potential to become batman from the start, but alfred is the one who pushes him down that path by closing down the other ones.

gotham, in its infinite subtleties, does two more things with the balloonman: set up bruce’s “no kill” rule (although the gentle art of making enemies does this again and better) by having him comment that, because the balloonman killed people, he was no better than the criminals. (to be fair, this is more acceptable coming from a sheltered, traumatized 14 year old who just saw his parents murdered than it is from jim, a literal murderer, who espouses the same logic), and establish the need for batman with the question by reporter: “now that the balloonman is gone, who will defend the people of gotham?” 

who, indeed.

(sidenote: this has been a set piece since episode 1, but i did want to discuss the oath of the horatii in the wayne manor living room. i took art history once in high school and it made me insufferable for the rest of my life.

so, like, the painting depicts 3 brothers pledging to defend this city state with their lives--very subtle. but also, as backstory, of the 3 brothers, only 1 survives to actually do that. i would argue that this is sort of a showcase to the origins of batman. three potential defenders: thomas wayne, jim gordon, and bruce. thomas wayne, obviously, is dead. jim isn’t, but we all know that eventually there will be a moral failure that ends with his ideology also failing to protect the city. meanwhile, bruce will “survive” to become the dark knight....

oh, and the lady in the corner crying over there is the sister of these brothers, who was to be engaged to one of the men who they’re going out to kill. no matter who wins, she’s going to lose someone she loves, and i think that’s also about bruce’s path for the show... he can save the city or he can’t, but no one is coming out of this happily.)

continuity: oswald makes it back to gotham. now shit gets serious <3

he weasels his way into the dishwasher position at bamonte’s, maroni’s favorite restaurant. we meet maroni, falcone’s strongest competitor, who we heard of last time. oswald’s just a dishwasher for now... but he’s got plans. moving on up. meanwhile, both maroni and falcone make vague references to arkham, without yet revealing why it’s important. it’s just this Thing, and it’s gonna change the city. jim is confronted by montoya, worries about the way that she and allen are investigating the death of oswald. harvey says, “end of the day, nobody cares about cobblepot.” oh, if only he knew what the one piece of the puzzle could do... if only he saw things like oswald, in fact, who affirms, “gotham needs me! i am its future!” he’s... partially right. but not just you, sugarpot. really, mostly, bruce.

fish’s lover lazlo returns for the dead; fish has him killed for “bringing down the mood” after the beating he got in 1x2. so there’s confirmation; those tears weren’t for him, they were for what the action from falcone against her signified. fish turns montoya and allen onto jim gordon for cobblepot’s murder (in an act that comes full circle--penguin having started this cycle of revenge by turning montoya and allen onto fish and the gcpd at large for the murder of mario pepper), while mostly trying to push them against falcone, just a little. 

on a less plot-y note, lamond was a juvenile services worker whose last straw was the mayor using the childsnatchers from last episode to lock up gotham’s youth. so, 1x2 directly caused 1x3, and dollmaker caused 1x2. the wheels turn...

oh! and jim places selina at the scene of the wayne murder. so that plot moves.

sliding scale of barbara kean’s sanity: the stress of living with jim gordon is starting to get to her. she tries to lift him up, but once he’s gone, she gets high. montoya visits, and they rehash some old history before montoya tells her that jim killed oswald cobblepot. so that’s out... she also kisses barbara, and cracks are forming in her stable facade. how much longer can she last?

jim gordon trauma count: he falls like 20 feet onto a car. he should be a lot more fucked up than he is; lamond makes almost the same fall and breaks his neck. i think he at least got some cracked ribs, or something. 

characterization: interesting one for jim. we explore a bit of the way he thinks; he’s troubled by the fact that people only cared about what the balloonman was doing (in such a way that they were moved to stop him) when he killed a cop & not when he killed a corrupt politician, bc he thinks Murder Is Wrong. at the same time, the first guy really wouldn’t have seen the inside of a jail cell. so what does that mean for jim’s ideology? he clings to The Law bc that’s what he thinks separates good and bad--but that’s a copout (cop out, haha). that’s the moral complexities of a child, james. if he clings to the law, then he has someone else deciding what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s moral and just. but what if the laws are bad, or can’t protect people, even when upheld exactly to the letter? what then? jim got so used to following orders that he forgot how to make his own moral code--or he’s too scared to. But, we see hints of him doing it anyway. he’s troubled when barbara tries to praise him for his heroism, but maybe just bc he broke the law & got away with it. “everyone matters, or no one does” is a good start, jim. just examine who the laws are really made to help. 

for oswald: he gives his name as paolo to maroni when he’s trying to gain his confidence. i made a meta post about this on my other blog (which i plan to link in my next post), but the short version is that, for me, the name recalled paolo malatesta (a historical figure, but most notable for being one of the sinners in dante’s inferno), who was once said to be “a romantic sort, a man not really interested in the world around him.” ...this being oswald’s cover name when he wants maroni to think that he’s not paying any attention to what goes on around him at all. there’s also the more tenuous link of him giving his name as “dmitri,” which is derived from the greek goddess demeter, to the fish mook who recognizes him; demeter being the goddess of fertility, health, law, gotham’s future...

gobblepot: “hello, james. old friend.” oswald comes back to gotham and the immediate first thing he does after ensuring his sneaky little scheme is visiting jim--before gertrud, no less. and at jim’s girlfriend’s apartment. hm!!!

#gotham #meta #text post #jim gordon #season one #the balloonman

[gothamslimpestwrist]

s1e2 selina kyle

killcount:

“doug” the childsnatcher: “soldier” (homeless guy)

oswald cobblepot: douchebag college bro from the car, probably the other douchebag college bro as well.

jim gordon: quillan’s janitor

“patti” the childsnatcher: cat scratch fever dude w/ no eyes

episode total: 5 total count: 12

the dark knight rises: shit is clearly fucked in gotham. crime families are ruling the city, yes, but honestly that’s the least of it; look at the police force. we see that bo, the first responder, is late to the scene of the crime because he takes protection money from a local restaurant & gave them first priority (in other words, he’s a crooked bitch demanding a racket, AND it gets in the way of him actually doing his job). the cops are pretty much, explicitly, just an extension of the mob at this point. 

interestingly, we also see the start of an exploration of the wayne’s corruption; falcone refers to “the wayne empire,” mirroring the way they talk about the crime families And Also setting the waynes up as, like, a picture of the wealthy elite taken to a whole ‘nother level. gotham is the last modern vestige of the city state--and that is the wayne empire. who takes the crown now that the emperor and empress are dead? 

in OTHER news, the waynes really fucked bruce over. the murder itself was the lynching pin, causing him to jump over the fucking edge, so to speak, but he is Just A Little Boy! he is so troubled! he’s self harming and alfred yells at him and HITS HIM for being stupid, he’s listening to loud music and drawing fucked up shit, he’s both burned himself and is apparently cutting, and alfred, seeing all of this, refuses to get the boy who saw his parents shot a therapist, because the waynes told him to essentially let bruce raise himself. “the children are thoroughbreds,” basically. 

quoth barbara (thinking about essen shushing the child snatcher case in fear of bad press): “i can’t believe the system is so corrupt.” quoth jim (thinking about how he was yelled at for not beating a perp, thinking about the cop/mob connection that demanded he kill a man to prove his loyalty, thinking...): “you have no idea.” 

oh! and jim tells bruce the kids need more than money to keep them safe.

sliding scale of barbara kean’s sanity: she seems to be doing alright, but she’s troubled by jim’s troubles. also, this episode sets up some shit that will lead to irreparable damage later on; jim, even when he’s telling her things, isn’t telling her everything. she knows it. she hates it. he specifically hasn’t told her about oswald, which gives her reason to believe he’s a murderer pretty soon. plus, what she does w/ the information he does give her about his work (go straight to the press) gives him immediate reason to start trusting her less... and so they spiral.

sliding scale of ed nygma’s sanity: he’s a little bit more of a lurker this episode. creeps outside the captain’s office until someone notices him, lingers inside until everyone in the room makes it obvious he’s not welcome. he’s trying his best, but he’s not... very... “well liked,” shall we say.

continuity: montoya and allen are looking into the murder of oswald cobblepot. he was their snitch, after all. so that’s problems... many things are subtly set up in this episode: falcone and fish discuss maroni and his anticipated power play (adding another piece to the political chessboard of this season), the atp drug the child snatchers use is established to have been developed for arkham asylum, which is also established to have been closed for the past 15 years AND to have recently been in the works for a reopening, specifically by thomas and martha wayne. and that’s all just offhanded discussion. also related to the atp, when ed is listing the only three places that still stock it, it’s quillan pharma, drakatech (?)... and welzyn, which isn’t relevant at all to THIS episode (quillan’s the one dealing with the childsnatchers) but WILL become relevant to everyone in a few episodes, when welzyn manufactures viper. oh, and naturally the identity of the man the childsnatchers are working for: the dollmaker. hm!! on a lighter note, harvey’s ex-white knight tendencies that we explore in spirit of the goat are foreshadowed here; essen accuses him of leaking the child snatchers story to the press, w/ the reasoning that he’d done it before. after jim & barbara established that it was the right thing to do....

parallels: jim & selina meet in this episode. they are... The Same™. (look, i’ll come back to it later, but even tho my parallel in the pilot was btwn selina and oswald, and even tho they’re the two that are the villain counterparts to our heroes, jim and SELINA are the matched set.) also, this is the episode where fish expresses the wish that penguin wasn’t dead (because she wants him to suffer), but also she tells jim & harvey that she knew it was a mistake to order them killed as soon as she did it. so that means something? 

neither here nor there, but gertrud tells montoya & allen how elegant and well dressed oswald is, and bruce comments on the orphans’ scruffy appearances and buys them new clothes... we love a dandy, i guess.

characterization: we meet some irrelevant street kids that selina knew; zeb, smoke, and mackey (corey in the house). i’m basically using the characterization tab as fanfic reference so i might as well record that.

lazlo, fish’s lover, is relevant, in that falcone beats him to get to her. it definitely does affect her, though she says she only keeps him around for exercise. maybe more b/c of falcone’s threat and the fear of what it implies, though. 

and gertrud! ozzie’s mom. everyone connected to oswald, even outside (maybe even especially outside) of his mob connections, is a little twisted. she’s no different; she’s clearly a bit out of her head, she mistrusts the police (which i guess we’re supposed to think is suss, though really...Fair and Just), she’s got that almost creepy codependency with oswald while not really knowing what’s going on there. (other examples: elijah, oswald’s gothic horror father, martin, oswald’s lowkey homicidal son, edward, oswald’s fascist dog, jim, oswald’s corrupt boyfriend...) she also seems to think oswald has run off with some painted lady (actually, she says painted slut), which might be indicative of her experiences w/ van dahl and some unstable jealousy more than it is of oswald, who’s... you know. 

in other news, jim is all over the map here. he stops harvey beating mackey (and later, quillan, after they’ve already gotten info out of him) and protests that they should leak the story to the press, but he also seems content to keep his mouth shut until barbara takes doing good upon herself. he adapts to the mob shit pretty quick, but expresses disgust w/ the corruption in the system. he gets off on the wrong foot w/ mayor james because he disagrees with locking up the kids w/o a trial, but he doesn’t... step in... either. we see this willingness to compromise and bend the knee that means he’ll never be the hero gotham deserves. 

also, not to be a jim apologist on main or anything (ha, ha), but he’s just so... brainwashed. all this, & he still tells alfred that being a cop, which has thus far caused him nothing but pain & misery, is the “best job in the world.” because he thinks he’s helping people. (and he likes getting to feel like a hero... so where do the misguided good intentions stop and the selfish motives begin?) he also kills a man for the first time on screen this episode because for all its examinations of dirty cops... gotham is still, at the end of the day, Copaganda. in an actual moment of me drinking I Love Jim Gordon juice, jim is the one who advocates for bruce going to therapy, and tries to convince him to go personally, even when jim himself is too emotionally stunted for it to help him. 

also, backstory: harvey pegs his love life, saying, “high school sweetheart, then a bunch of hoes (read: eduardo dorrance) overseas only made you sad... and then there’s barbara.” he also calls jim a monkey riding a race horse; jim’s face is really good @ that. i misinterpreted the line about high school sweethearts back in the day to mean that barb was jim’s highschool sweetheart. this is on account of auditory processing disorder and also general dumbassery. anyway, the point is that jim is a boring, predictable bitch! whom i love.

...in terms of characterization from the episode that i don’t agree with, i can’t really see oswald writing all the shit that they had on his conspiracy board, lmfao. “crybaby brucie,” “gordon=STOOGE,” & so forth. i pretend i do not see it.

#gotham #text post #meta #jim gordon #season one #selina kyle

[gothamslimpestwrist]

s1e1 pilot

killcount:

patrick “matches” malone: thomas wayne, martha wayne

harvey bullock: mario pepper

mooks (directed by carmine falcone): “frankie” the executioner, “sergio” the cameraman, one (?) unnamed fish mooney grunt

oswald cobblepot: fisherman

episode total: 7 total count: 7

the dark knight rises: this is the episode that sets up everything. introduces us to the corruption in the city and how everyone, including the politicians, are dirty, as well as a good number of bruce’s rogues (namely selina, oswald, ed, & ivy). also sets off his whole quest for justice, vengeance, etc. alfred tells bruce not to cry while he’s being lead away from the scene of his parents murder. he decides to conquer fear. he feels responsible for his parents’ death. he is JUST A BABY BOY!!!

sliding scale of barbara kean’s sanity: her introduction. we’re given hints to her troubled past, and she is noticeably upset by the accusation against jim, his concerning absence as he gets into The Shit™, and the way he comes home roughed up. still, at this point, she’s just a concerned fiance w/ an ex-girlfriend. basically okay. baseline barb.

sliding scale of ed nygma’s sanity: also introduced. likes riddles (seriously, the lack of subtlety this show has...), troubled when bullock dismisses him, but it can’t be anything new. just a harmless little guy for the time being! almost makes me forget how much i fucking despise him! 

he also looks Shocked when jim answers his riddle correctly, which is neither here nor there, but it might say smthn about him... what, finding a match? being taken seriously? for the first time.

continuity: can it be continuity if it’s literally the first episode? well, given that all of this is being written by someone who’s seen the entire show multiple times over, it’s the start of a thread of the continuity that i’m going to touch on later, so, whatever. it’s continuity in hindsight. oswald sells mooney out for the necklace, which immediately comes back to bite him. crispus allen does comment that he’s doing this to push her out, a power grab of sorts, but given how clumsy and ill fated that attempt was, all we and the gcpd have been shown of oswald at this point is that he’s kind of a rube. if only they knew....

parallels: ok i only noticed this later, but!!! jim & oswald have SO MANY parallels with all the het couples on this show baby batcat, specifically, and they start at the very beginning. both selina & bruce and jim & oswald have their first encounters (even if bruce isn’t aware of it at the time) in an alley. selina spends the episode keeping tabs on bruce (showing up outside wayne manor and the funeral), while oswald spends the episode doing the same for jim (he’s the one who greets jim at fish’s club when he comes back, we see him reading a newspaper article about jim’s heroics before snitching to montoya and allen). makes you think...!

gobblepot: ohhhhohohohohoho. this is the episode that started it all, baby. jim & oswald meet when oswald, a sadistic umbrella boy for a mobster, is getting a little too aggressive beating some punk in a back alley & jim, a boyscout rookie cop, goes to check it out. diametrically opposed. they briefly meet again when jim comes to threaten mooney, but then, naturally, the Pier Scene™. jim gordon does not shoot oswald cobblepot. and therein lies the source of everyone’s problems from here on out... and the bedrock on which the most interesting relationship in the show is forged. metatexually, renee calls barbara an “old friend” when she’s confronted by jim, setting the phrase up to be somewhat of a sexual dogwhistle (this is admittedly very zig-zagged over the course of the show. still, this is the FIRST usage, and that has to mean SOMETHING). 

jim gordon trauma count: he gets his hand sliced by mario pepper (the first instance of hand trauma on this show preceding many, many to come), and his forehead busted by fish and her guys.

oswald cobblepot trauma count: fish mooney destroys his right leg with a baseball bat, defining his characteristic limp for the rest of the show.

#gotham #meta #text post #honestly? i'm not the same person i was when i started this post #because i couldn't remember which of oswald's legs. was fucked up lmfao? and i tried to just hop over to the gotham wiki to check #didn't find the information there. however #i DID go down this insane rabbit hole where his page mentions multiple times that he has his consciousness transferred into #another body???????? #an event which most certainly does NOT HAPPEN???????? literally i've been reeling about it for like an hour #anyway. it's the right leg. #season one #pilot

[gothamslimpestwrist]

introduction

so basically: a gotham rewatch? Gotham Meta Posting? in my 2020???? it’s more likely than you might think.

i might change things up as i get used to blogging like this (i’ve never done episodic summaries/commentaries quite like what i’m planning here before), but right now, my plan for each episode is to break it down into a number of categories, listed below, and at the end of each season, to compile a general summary of those categories, exploring the way that they evolved through the season and, in the later seasons, over the course of the show. most of my general gotham-posting and non-episode-specific meta will be posted as usual to my main blog, @trophywifejimgordon.

the categories, then:

kill count: self explanatory. a general running tally of the bloody, bloody sequence of events beginning with the wayne murders and not letting up for a single second afterward.

the dark knight rises: an examination of the corruption in gotham city, villain shenanigans, and bruce’s character arc--basically, looking at all the factors that eventually contribute to bruce wayne deciding to put on a cowl and call himself a bat, and the factors contributing to a city that would embrace that.

continuity: a close eye on the thread of fate tying all of these characters together, and the way that actions have repercussions well into the future. i’m particularly focused on this in s1, honestly, when things were a bit more episodic and so the building plotlines were actually smthn you had to catch and not just, you know, the facts of life.

sliding scale of barbara kean’s sanity*: this is basically just a subcategory of continuity but singling out barbara’s messy character arc and the moments that made the season one finale inevitable. 

sliding scale of ed nygma’s sanity*: ditto to all of the above; what warning signs did everyone at the gcpd fail to catch? 

characterization: character details that don’t fall into other categories but still seem relevant or interesting enough to discuss. will most likely descend into me gushing about my faves every episode, and/or me pointing out stupid things like “jim doesn’t like pickles.” you know, the essentials.

parallels: gotham LOVES parallels and so do i. it’s about the way that lines, themes, and situations are mirrored between individual characters, important dynamics, and entire plotlines, and every implication, intentional or not, that i can drag out of it. 

jim gordon trauma count: along with other characters, but i mainly care about jim. a running tally of all the injuries he sustains that apparently have no lasting impact on his health--seriously, HOW many times has this man been shot!?

various “shipping” entries: gonna keep it real with y’all, this is mostly just about gobblepot. as all of the show gotham is. pretty much me singling out the moments i dig and the evolution of key relationships; i’ll tell you up front that, while i’ll obviously point out plot-important relationships that i don’t give a shit about (jimlee, nygm*b), i really, really like gobblepot, babitha, nygmakins, batcat, & batjokes, and my bias is going to be pretty extreme and not even slightly apologetic. 

all of that is what we’re starting with, anyway. as i get the hang of this, i might add or change categories (i’ve already got a pretty good idea of a category i’ll add either around halfway through the first season or at the start of season 2), but these are the basics, the bread and butter--and if you have any interest in seeing how they play out, please don’t hesitate to stick around! 

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*the sliding scales are mostly season 1 specific and will likely be retired after they have their respective breaks; however, given that the show likes to waffle on exactly how crazy they are, i can definitely see these categories making reappearances periodically in the future when things slide back the other way. 

#gotham #text post #introduction #meta