Piece of the Puzzle: Gotham S1 E3 - The Balloonman

In which I review the latest episode of Gotham.

After last week's child trafficking case, 'Cat' has been helping Gordan with his investigation of the Wayne murders.  His sleuthing is interrupted, though, when a vigilante that the press name the Balloonman begins executing Gotham's corrupt elite by handcuffing them to weather balloons and releasing them into the atmosphere.  Convinced that justice only exists with law and order, Gordan sets out to stop the Balloonman before he can kill another public official.

The Balloonman strikes again.

The Balloonman is further proof that Gotham has finally found its footing as a series.  Bullock and Gordan have finally eased into their begrudging good cop / bad cop partnership: a union that works precisely because Bullock can get the information that Gordan can't and Gordan can keep Bullock from crossing that crucial line between upholding the law and taking it into his own hands.  I don't think that Cat's short lived turn as Gordan's star witness has quite come to an end yet, and her escape frees her to go look in on Bruce and Alfred (a character dynamic that, as I mentioned last week, has innumerable interesting possibilities to explore).  Barbara Kean's rocky relationship with Renee Montoya is finally revealed - a serious lesbian entanglement that dissolved over drugs.

While the overarching story seems to be progressing nicely after three episodes, it's starting to become apparent just how inept the show's writers are at handling their female characters.  Between Barbara, Renee, Fish and Cat, only the latter is doing any real legwork.  Barbara exists only as a counterpoint to Gordan: as a domestic end-game.  For all of her huffing and puffing, Renee has functionally done nothing over the first three episodes; she threatens, investigates and even manages to sneak in a few cloak-and-dagger conversations with Barbara, but she doesn't actually do anything substantial.  Having Renee and Barbara as ex-lesbian, ex-junky lovers only gives the semblance of character development, when it seems more likely that it's a way for Fox to sex-up the show while giving ultimately minor characters something to do when the men go out to commit and solve crimes.

Fish Mooney is easily the worst-written of the lot.  She is petty, conniving and shockingly ineffective as a leader: always shut in her club, never getting directly involved in her own criminal works.  When her pride is wounded by Falcone - who beat up "her latest boy toy" to keep her in line - she pettily orders an underling to mug his girlfriend and fires her broken-spirited lover for "bringing down the mood."  Falcone foiled her attempt to kill Gordan and Bullock, Gordan foiled her attempt to kill the Penguin and seemingly everybody has seen through her blundering job of killing off the Waynes - all in just three episodes.  She has essentially become the pre-Gotham Penguin: so boring and inept a villain that it makes us wish they'd just used somebody else in her place.

Despite the stupidly named vigilante that was the episode's focus and the continually disappointing use of the show's female characters, The Balloonman delivers an ultimately decent, if easily forgotten, case for Gordan and Bullock to solve.  Its direct connection to Selina Kyle prevents the series as a whole from feeling overly episodic.  While it's great that the best part of the show - Robin Lord Taylor's Penguin -is back in focus, I would have much preferred to watch him scheme his way ahead on the streets for a few more episodes.  Overall, I would give the episode a 6.5.

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