Piece of the Puzzle: Gotham S1 E2 - Selina Kyle

In which I review the latest episode of Gotham.

Since the Wayne's murder last week, Gotham has become a much more interesting place.  After beating a confession out of the Penguin, mob boss Carmine Falcone realizes that he can no longer trust Fish Mooney.  While Bruce resorts to self-harm in the wake of his parents' death, a desperate Alfred turns to Jim Gordon to reason with the boy.  All the while, homeless children like Selena Kyle are being abducted off of the streets and sold to a mysterious over-seas buyer known only as the Dollmaker.

From the start, Selena Kyle feels like what we can expect from the rest of Gotham's first season.  While the overly-rushed Pilot was basically stumbling over itself just to make sure that it checked off everything that was important to the series, this week's episode took its time to choose which narrative alleyways it wanted to wander down.  Ivy and the maybe-Joker were both absent, Nygma was rushed on for a brief cameo and Penguin's story was mostly just to remind people that he'll be back in Gotham before too long.  This was Cat's episode.

It makes sense that they would turn Batman's anti-heroine love-interest into child, given Bruce's age in the series.  In doing so, they also opened themselves up to wide range of increasingly interesting narrative possibilities, especially in how they relate to the adult Jim Gordan.  Her interactions with Gordan play out exactly like how a strong-willed, independent girl who thinks that she's more adult than she really is would speak to an grown-up that she begrudgingly respects.  Gordan is forced to navigate between treating her like a thirteen-year-old orphan that he's obligated to send to child services and the intelligent, manipulative witness to the Waynes' murder.  And, given that she's kept tabs him and the surviving Wayne, I can't wait to see how the future interactions between her, Alfred and Bruce will play out.

While Michael Caine will always be the definitive cinematic Alfred in my eyes, Sean Pertwee gives a refreshingly different portrayal of the Waynes' loyal butler.  Rather than stodgy and reserved, he's gruff and hard-edged: reprimanding rather than compassionate.  He obviously was not hired as a child's caretaker, but for his ability to efficiently run a household; it honestly wouldn't surprise me to find out that he had a military background.  He is as grievously over-his-head in raising Bruce as Bruce is in dealing with his parents' murder, and has absolutely no idea how to reach the boy when Bruce starts "testing" himself by burning and cutting himself.

If the episode raises any concerns, it's its insistant focus on the young Batman-to-be.  This isn't a Batman show.  This isn't a sixteen episode remake of Batman Begins where Bruce will emerge as a fully formed Batman in the season finale.  It's about Gotham - a corrupt, mob-run city that breeds crime and insanity - and has more in common with police procedurals than superheroics.  While I appreciate the direction that they're taking Bruce and Alfred in, they should not be as much of a focus of the show as they have proven to be so far.

It's great to see that after a sloppy start, the series has rapidly started to find its footing.  If the show continues to develop its characters and storylines as methodically as it has in this episode, it could easily top Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as my favorite comic-inspired TV show.  With plenty of room for imrpovement in the coming weeks, I give the episode a solid 7.5.

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