<p>&#8220;You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer,&#8221; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said. As a poet, playwright, novelist, and philosopher, I doubt even Goeth could understand a show like <em>Gotham. </em>Its insufferable triumphs of the weird kind week after week are what, somehow, are bringing me back.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s hard to know just how we got to where we are – at least since doe-eyed serial killers started bringing the sexy back in kidnapping. I know, I know. Ask a silly question and <em>Gotham</em> will give you, well, whatever we got this week. I&#8217;m beginning to think that <em>The Anvil or the Hammer</em> confirms my deepest fears: the crazier<em> Gotham</em> gets, the more I can&#8217;t look away.</p>
<p><strong>Spoilers Follow</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://bagogames.com/skin-deep-gotham-under-the-knife-review/">A week prior</a>, I had an admittedly perverse curiosity of just how the Ogre and Barbara&#8217;s relationship would play out. What would you know? It really didn&#8217;t. Funny for a gal who didn&#8217;t shy away from a Batcave worth of whips and chains just hours ago. As it turns out, Barbara loves bondage masks but doesn&#8217;t like big vault doors so much, so naturally, her arc shifts gears from kinky playtime to kidnapping.</p>
<p><a href="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05003109/Gotham-S1-The-Anvil-or-the-Hammer-Barbara-and-Ogre-BagoGames.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-81849 size-medium" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05003109/Gotham-S1-The-Anvil-or-the-Hammer-Barbara-and-Ogre-BagoGames.jpg" alt="Gotham S1 'The Anvil or the Hammer' Barbara and Ogre BagoGames" width="300" height="174" /></a></p>
<p>So instead of having Barbara become a weeping, traumatized victim last week, they dragged it out so that it happened here immediately. Granted, they certainly upped the ante as far as &#8220;horrible things happening to Barbara&#8221; went. It should follow, as much as is possible for Barbara&#8217;s arc, that she inadvertently play tagalong too following the Ogre&#8217;s demands to pick a target for him in exchange for her freedom. No, don&#8217;t bother asking him to kill Cobblepot for you and no, don&#8217;t bother with the dozen gangsters of the city. No, why not kill your parents? After roughly a minute of seeing the two snootily brush her off, the elder Keens are knifed to death as their daughter looks on. We barely knew you, folks.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll never guess how this show&#8217;s got away with having what are still arguably its two lead antagonists, Don Falcone and Don Maroni, survive three or four assassination attempts this late into the season. I will admit that the Penguin&#8217;s a clever little bugger, though. Having Penguin stage his own mock-hit so that his two rivals would go to war (again) is something more diabolical than I&#8217;ve given the character credit for lately, but &#8220;again&#8221; is a word I could use a lot for <em>The Anvil or the Hammer</em>. Jim owing Penguin another favor, friends not buying the obvious betrayal of a friend, or Bruce learning about *gasp* another Wayne family secret is so ten episodes ago. In its freshman year, <em>Gotham</em> already seems to be nostalgic for its pilot.</p>
<p><a href="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05003045/Gotham-S1-The-Anvil-or-the-Hammer-Bullock-Party-BagoGames.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-81854 size-medium" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05003045/Gotham-S1-The-Anvil-or-the-Hammer-Bullock-Party-BagoGames.jpg" alt="Gotham S1 'The Anvil or the Hammer' Bullock Party BagoGames" width="300" height="174" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s Jim (and Harvey) to the rescue on cue as you&#8217;d expect with one of the more engaging fist fights Ben McKenzie&#8217;s enjoyed this season. But I guess Jim&#8217;s responsibility to Barbara only extends to saving her life, not sticking around to see if, you know, she&#8217;d gone completely insane because of what had happened. I guess Barbara should be flattered that she should still be considered enough of a &#8220;loved one&#8221; of Jim&#8217;s to fit the Ogre&#8217;s MO of killing cop kin – or maybe exes too? Oh, and I suppose I might as well contribute my obligatory &#8220;Barbara&#8217;s Harley Quinn!&#8221; theory to the show&#8217;s growing lineup of Joker stand-ins.</p>
<p>Anything having to do with Ed Nygma&#8217;s side of the story usually comes off overly-goofy and cartoonish, even murder. Despite its corny caricatures, it&#8217;s almost a relief that the show finally initiated Ed&#8217;s journey to the dark side. But then this week worked to undo all of that by giving us a bunch of truly terrible sequences involving Ed lugging two giant suitcases filled with body parts&#8230;to the precinct! No other police officer seemed to care that Dougherty had gone missing, meanwhile. Nor will they think anything&#8217;s wrong with a guy quitting his job as a police officer to go somewhere and only leaving a note for his girlfriend, apparently. And that <em>Dear John</em> bit where it spelled out &#8220;Nygma&#8221; is just so hilariously Gotham.</p>
<p><a href="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05003057/Gotham-S1-The-Anvil-or-the-Hammer-Bruce-Safe-BagoGames.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-81851 size-medium" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05003057/Gotham-S1-The-Anvil-or-the-Hammer-Bruce-Safe-BagoGames.jpg" alt="Gotham S1 'The Anvil or the Hammer' Bruce Safe BagoGames" width="300" height="200" /></a>It&#8217;s episodes like these that remind me just how far<em> Gotham</em> is from <a href="https://bagogames.com/trial-by-fire-daredevil-episodes-4-6/">an &#8220;adult&#8221; show</a>. It&#8217;s got more than enough nudity and swearing, but it&#8217;s so juvenile, as evidenced by our mandatory &#8220;Gotham Kids&#8221; bit that saw Bruce attempt to break into a super secret vault, get caught, and offered a shut-up cookie, like a good little Batman.</p>
<p>And another major case was cracked by a visual clue with Jim and Harvey got the Ogre&#8217;s first victim to remember a neon building sign for them. And not without a tour of Gotham&#8217;s very kinkiest TV-PG BDSM den hosted by&#8230;Oprah Winfrey?! Sound effects CD noises of a pig, a chainsaw, and a whip were supposed to represent the disturbing stage show? Ugh. It&#8217;s so appropriately <em>Gotham</em> that the &#8220;Foxglove&#8221; club debuted on the same episode that Chris Chalk&#8217;s Lucius Fox made his series debut. That&#8217;s just<em> Gotham</em> being <em>Gotham</em> for you.</p>
<p>After such a lackluster season, it&#8217;s almost deserve that Gotham kick off its shoes and put on its crazy for a change as it heads into the increasingly probability of an absurdly absurd season finale. A laundry list of familiar beast couldn&#8217;t stifle the nutty antics for too long, but time&#8217;s probably not on the show&#8217;s side to come up with much to hope for in a second season.</p>
<p> ;</p>
<p><em>Gotham</em> airs Monday nights on FOX at 8/9 Central. Catch all the latest episodes at <a href="http://www.fox.com/gotham/gotham/full-episodes">FOX.com</a> and all the latest reviews here at <a href="https://bagogames.com/yoshis-wooly-world-is-getting-amiibos-made-out-of-yarn/">BagoGames</a>.</p>

BagoGames > Articles > Geek Culture > TV Shows > Fatal Attractions – Gotham: ‘The Anvil or the Hammer’ Review
Fatal Attractions – Gotham: ‘The Anvil or the Hammer’ Review
-
By Tim Gruver
- Categories: Geek Culture, TV Shows
- Tags: BatmanDC ComicsFOXTV Episode Review
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