After decidedly less of its eponymous heroine than “Selina Kyle“ would imply last week, Gotham returned with “The Balloonman” with more spooks than grit. A rather broad-stroked mess more liable to wink at its far-flung future than look it dead in the eye, Gotham’s third round made for a preciously raucous time in its infancy while seemingly stunting its own growth. We know winged vigilantes flying over Gotham City will be all the rage in roughly a decade, but as it turns out, Gotham will be the last to know, what with all the weather balloons blocking their view.
In Gotham, there are two people: the cops and the mobsters. Then there’s apparently this guy: a masked vigilante tying people, “bad” people, to weather balloons to die at 30,000 feet. In what can only be described as conceptually terrifying and outrageously cartoonish mustache-twirling, our very own “balloon man” sets out to destroy the mob alone as Jim Gordon and partner Harvey Bullock keep up their fruitless investigation of the infamous Wayne murders. And everywhere in between we have David Zayas debuting on the mob scene as Sal Maroni, Jim’s wife wandering around her apartment, and the Oswald Cobblepot getting his grimy hands even dirtier.
Gotham‘s cops won’t clean up the mess as far as the city’s Harvey Bullocks are unconcerned. Donal Logue continues to sell Harvey Bullock as his sleazy self, sweet-talking hookers, beating snitches, and eating free street cart food, is virtually everything we loathe from the GCPD’s scummiest. Even a simple murder can’t be bothered with when it’s a crooked businessman in the fray, but a cheese danish can. As Bullock stands in for and more of the majority, it’s not hard to wonder why Gotham has a police force at all the minute they shrug a shoulder at beating homeless children.
At least Gordon has the decency to tell us, and his evidently ditzy fiancé Barbara, about just how bad things are. But this isn’t even bad so much as terrible. It’s just detectives Montoya and Allen that lazily allude to the few cops who keep their noses clean. “Everyone has to matter or nobody matters,” Gordon tells us, because “Otherwise people lose faith. That’s when you get vigilantes.” It looks like Gotham lost that faith a long time ago, and there’s hardly any suspense in it.
The real war brewing is as it always has between two mobs, Falcone’s and Maroni’s, but it’s excitement’s seemed to cool for now as far as Jada Pinkett Smith’s Fish Moony is concerned. A bit more collected this week, there’s not much more to her routine than ordering the death of Falcone’s main squeeze amidst her smoke filled rooms, though you can’t help but wonder how long her devilish smile will hide the real action behind the scenes. And apparently Fish’s decorating is living up to her name all of a sudden.
Falcone preaches balance, but it’s difficult seeing any yet. It’d probably be in Falcone, Fish, and Maroni’s best interests if the police gave somewhat of a crap about their jobs, right? Because right now the worst criminal element in Gotham are the cops in what’s the cartoon land of crooks that Cobblepot steps off the bus from. Beyond words, Gotham’s “bad areas” don’t seem uniquely so, nor are its “good areas” any more than Wiley Coyotte making off with sacks of cash from an Acme bank. Carmen Bicondova’s Catwoman may remain the only smart crook left, stealing everything but the show in what precious glimpses the show purloins from us.
To Gotham, what crime it has is an even worse contrast between saturday morning cartoons and the grim stock imagery we see from every dark alley. It’s hard to think how many times Cobblepot’s knifing no-names will numb us to it as much as he is, either for squashing snitches or dressing for a job interview. There are roughly, err, a million alley people living in Gotham, and Cobblepot’s bent on killing at least half of them. For vigilantes, there’s more motive behind the stardom (or moral right) to change things for arguably better. The fact that we’re already witnessing a Gotham so bloodthirsty for justice that they idolize a guy who outright murders people in the air, though, paints a nasty picture of the normal citizenry too.
A string of comedy beats hit their irreverent, if not infrequent stride, like Harvey getting tossed around an apartment by a woman he probably figured he could easily overpower and then one of the Balloon Man’s victims crashing down to the ground–splattering an old woman in the process. Also, there seemed to be a few Easter Eggs hidden about–like a mask echoing Professor Pyg and a guy named Lamont killing a guy named Cranston, DC Comics’ “Shadow,” who the killer also seemed to dress up like when he “ballooned” Cranston. And Barbara’s apartment is looking strangely like a clock tower all of a sudden, maybe for the baby bump her fiancé seems to be implying?
So, as per the show, our Balloon Man was the first guy, pre-Batman, to take the law into his own hands and dish out “justice.” And because the series can’t let anything sit and resonate on its own, we had to hear the killer say the line “There will be more like me, Detective.” Then an actual news reporter saying, on TV, “Now that the Balloonman is gone who will defend the people of Gotham?,” which young Bruce, naturally, took heed of alongside Sean Pertwee’s rather rude Alfred. Not that the Balloon killer was actually defending Gothamites, but rather murdering wrongdoers after the fact. Perhaps the show’s promised Harvey Dent’s what’s needed to present some semblance of law and order…and someone other than Gordon who realizes how sick the city really is.
“The Balloonman” is just about as two-sided as Two-Face’s future coin. It might very well prove why villains may be the beating heart of the show just as much as heroes are providing little pulse. All Gordon can do right now is nag and then try to solve cases no one wants solved. And even if we’re teased a show we’ll never get, it’s fascinating to think about how a man dressed as a bat will seem like no big deal to a city full of balloon men. This city’s reserving a seat in the mad house sooner rather than later.
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Gotham airs Monday nights at 8/7c on Fox. Catch all the latest episodes on FOX.com, FOX Now, or FOX on Demand and Hulu.