No Bite | Gotham: Viper Review

<p>Corruption trickles down from the top in Gotham&comma; and if we can believe what &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Viper” tells us&comma; it’s from the very top&period; What goes up must come down&comma; and in Gotham City&comma; there’s always a guarantee that the rich and famous have a hand in the homeless’s cookie jar&period; This week kept a rather safe beat between these two worlds while throwing in another tired &&num;8220&semi;villain of the week&&num;8221&semi; into the mix&comma; but we did get to see the dirt under their nails&comma; even if was washed away too soon&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;10&sol;05064717&sol;Gotham-Viper-BagoGames&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignright wp-image-68116 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;10&sol;05064717&sol;Gotham-Viper-BagoGames&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Gotham Viper BagoGames" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"151" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If <em>Gotham<&sol;em>’s told us anything&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s that it&&num;8217&semi;s pretty bad to be homeless in Gotham – albeit including stupidly good hygiene&period; This time&comma; it’s drugs flooding the streets rather than kidnappers&comma; and one of them&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Viper&comma;” just happens to land in the hands of an unsuspecting sad sack that also just happens to get cartoonish&comma; Hulk-like super-strength&period; The lucky bum in question&comma; Simon Potolsky&comma; conjures up images of a Saturday-morning cartoon lugging an ATM machine on his back and viciously downing a milk carton &lpar;What is it with the show and milk&quest;&excl;&rpar;&period; While it may or may not have produced a guilty chuckle &lpar;or two&rpar; from this writer&comma; it did give us tongue-in-cheek references to Bane’s infamous venom serum&comma; but at an outrageously embarrassing cost&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The case of the week afterwards played out quite dryly&comma; Jim Gordon stumbling across big visual clues – a photo this time around of our villain with his mentor – but it did all lead to an old man tossing Harvey Bullock through a door&comma; so there’s that&period; Though it all ended with a villainous speech waxing poetic alá super villain-style in predictable manner&comma; small steps like it showed promise in graduating the show to a smarter realization of the comic book world we’re slowly getting from Gotham&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The cases that Gordon and Bullock keep taking on&comma; which by all accounts is looking more and more like a laundry list of disgruntled Gotham citizenry&comma; still feel like a different show compared to the rest of the series&period; Gordon getting pulled out of his episodic case to have a sit down with Maroni makes that feel more evident than ever&period; It’s casual conversation between regulars that spur some exciting development&period; By this point&comma; the show’s scatterbrained writing would benefit from a thematic focus&comma; maybe concentrating on even just one character who’s not Gordon for an entire episode&period; The ensemble often suffers from feeling like leftovers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;10&sol;05065626&sol;Gotham-Viper-Alfred-Bruce-BagoGames&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignleft wp-image-67867 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;10&sol;05065626&sol;Gotham-Viper-Alfred-Bruce-BagoGames&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Gotham Viper Alfred Bruce BagoGames" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"159" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Gotham<&sol;em>’s not liable to let us forget the crime that brought us here either&comma; and it seems like we’re finally digging up some real intrigue with the Wayne family’s secrets&period; Bruce might just be more capable with boxes of files and bulletin boards than Gordon at this point&comma; and the work is keeping him as occupied as well as relevant&period; He may be far too young to be sincerely interested in revenge &lpar;yet&rpar; but he&&num;8217&semi;s got an active interest in cleaning up his father&&num;8217&semi;s company and all its sins&period; Arkham Asylum&&num;8217&semi;s <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;first-bloodgotham-arkham-review&sol;">place in the family business<&sol;a> breathes volumes into the show&&num;8217&semi;s conspiracy angle and the series would do right eyeing it&period; Even Alfred coming around and helping was sweet to see&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Whereas it may have seemed like the Waynes were targeted by the mob&comma; a better suspect – and a more interesting one – would be Wayne Enterprises itself&period; Cobblepot&sol;Penguin’s complicated relationship with Maroni is certainly more black-and-white than it needs to be and his outright confession around the dinner table seemed like a clumsy overplay&period; Which&comma; yes&comma; got him in big trouble&period; The result’s the real rub of it all&comma; placing Gordon more directly under mob influence than ever&period; If it’s Penguin’s welcoming arms that offer Gordon’s only aid&comma; than it’s about time these two become quite the interesting odd couple&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;10&sol;05065634&sol;Gotham-Episode-Viper-BagoGames&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignright wp-image-67866 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;10&sol;05065634&sol;Gotham-Episode-Viper-BagoGames&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Gotham Episode Viper BagoGames" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"207" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Meanwhile&comma; Fish and her new boy-toy Nikolai are sharing quite the bed of lies together in some of the most steamy foreplay you can get on prime time&period; It’s been unclear since the pilot how Fish would take down Don Falcone&comma; but her &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;weapon&comma;” Liza&comma; taking on a parental guise took an actually creepy&sol;weird turn&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s fun to think Gotham’s mob fell to a single lady feeding pigeons and humming lullabies&comma; and a ridiculously risky one at that that makes little tactical sense from someone we&&num;8217&semi;re told is so calculating&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It’s episodes like &&num;8220&semi;<em>Viper<&sol;em>&&num;8221&semi; that make you wonder what kind of animal<em> Gotham<&sol;em> is&period; Suggesting the heart of the Batman family itself as the culprit of the series was a good step&comma; in spite of everything to distract from it&comma; druggie bums included&period; The gang feud continues to provide an engaging backdrop to the Wayne murder case while Gordon and Bullock’s antics are starting to reach the end of their rope&period; <em>Gotham<&sol;em>’s still figuring itself out&comma; this week felt more like a dog chasing cars than a patient garden snake&comma; more bark than bite&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&lbrack;divider&rsqb;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Gotham<&sol;em> airs Monday nights on FOX 8&sol;7 central&period; Catch all the latest episodes online at <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;fox&period;com&sol;gotham&sol;">Gotham on FOX<&sol;a> and all of the latest episode reviews right here at <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com">BagoGames<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;