It would seem like only halfway into its first season that Gotham’s intent on making a tradition out of naming episodes after characters barely featured in them. In the manner of Selina Kyle, Harvey Dent deals a decent hand of cards, none of them interesting enough to warrant the title and all of them lending more interesting side stories. Whether we get to know who Harvey is in “Bane” or “Killer Croc” may be the burden of future seasons, but it represents the prequel problems the series has yet to conquer.
This week, Gotham seemed very much at home in Harvey Dent’s world: offices and living rooms. Our boyish assistant district attorney is played by none other than Nicholas D’Agosto’s slick demeanor, more wistfully naivé here than Tommy Lee Jones’ cackling old man or Aaron Eckart’s mature white knight. He’s bent on changing Gotham rather than it changing him like so many Dents before him. Only then do we get sidelined by another random lead in the Wayne murder case – Dick Lovecraft. Where these villains come from I can’t tell you – except for maybe writer’s block – but in the place of a preferably personal look into our future Two-Face, we watched Dent chase what couldn’t be a break this early in a case more or less relevant.
We got to see Dent flip his coin and lose his temper – all from the comics, of course – but little more than superficial cues to a dark side we’ll never see anytime soon. It’s a shame D’Agosto’s given the hardest entrance to nail without the kind of triumphant entrance like Robin Lord Taylor’s Penguin. Will we get to see Penguin’s criminal empire before Batman? Riddler? Two-Face? And will the Bruce and Harvey’s friendship in the comics become one between him and Gordon? For now, it’s all foreshadowing a lost cause if Dent’s destined to just be a placeholder for a season or more. And what of his remark about how his coin flip was a sign from God? It’s another shame, then, that Gotham seems as disinterested in answering them as it does asking them.
It’s all the more ironic that Selina Kyle should truly shine in Harvey Dent more than in, well, the episode Selina Kyle. Her testimony finally bore fruit to the GCPD, and thank Gotham that her reward was as momentous of a meeting as one with Bruce Wayne. Some cute boy-meets-girl moments made for a variety of desperately needed humanity to Bruce’s frequently odd presence in the series. It was good to see how Bruce deals with “real” people, but what we can’t be sure of was Selina’s point about Bruce’s endurance tests being worthless out on the “streets.” Didn’t beating a bully’s face in last week using his father’s watch certainly earned Bruce a ruthless card? What it doesn’t explain why he spars with Alfred in slacks and a dress shirt, or hold his breath in the pool wearing shoes and a sweater, but Harvey Dent seemed to want us to forget that for a moment.
What problems amounted in the episode’s scripting up to this point were doubly compounded in its dialogue. It’s uncertain what period Gotham’s tried to portray, but its tough street “slang” couldn’t help but sound like cheesy instructional films on manners; lines like, “You’re dreamin’, kid,” and “You think you’re ruthless? We’ll, ya ain’t,” in particular. Selina certainly didn’t talk like it was 1964 before. The real question now is: Will the Bruce and Selina’s spats, food fight, and promises of kisses, lead to anything rewarding on the show itself? Or is it, again, just setting us up for a future Batman and Catwoman show we won’t ever see?
At least the episode owed a helping hand to expanding the show’s bigger picture, if not just a bit. While Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock’s case of the week only entailed a boring bomber plot line, its consequence – shipping out the crazies from Blackgate to Arkham Asylum on mayoral orders – was a nice bit of comic canon to see. On some level, it’s nonetheless puzzling how well Gordon’s getting to know Bruce and Alfred throughout the series, especially when it comes to the show making excuses for him to. Dropping off a murder witness with them as opposed to dirty cops is one thing, but why would even think to trust them either? By this point, it’d make more sense for Bruce to outright fund a rogue Gordon’s crime-fighting endeavors or just keep the character out all-together.
The Penguin’s “investigation” may have sent the show on yet another odd turn. His creeping on Liza (accompanied by Danny Elfman-esque strings, no less) almost seemed to label the Penguin as the hapless, comedic character he’s certainly not, Robin Lord Taylor’s perfected waddle aside. Moreover, where did his exaggerated sniff of Fish Mooney come from?
What we can suppose was Harvey Dent’s big ending threw a much stranger curveball. That Barbara and Montoya have a decidedly intimate past – this much we know, nor does the show treat it as taboo, and rightly so. How does the show expect us to react, though, about the two’s implicit romance when neither of then are developed enough to care? And does Gordon even have a place of his own, or does he just get to stay in Barbara’s loft while she comes and goes? Frankly, I think it’s about time for her stay or go at this rate. Permanently, either way.
It seems like too long ago that the show was on some sort of upswing these past few weeks, so it’s another mystery what happened this episode. While Harvey Dent may have played a decent hand, it most certainly folded more times than it won. The dialogue – from Dent’s to Selina’s to Jim’s phoned in plea to Barbra – took the cake along apart from our episode’s directionless teasing. What smiles we got from Kid Batman and Kid Catwoman paid off splendidly, but it’s going to take a forklift to raise our cop plot out of the gutter. I’m not sure I believe in Harvey Dent quite yet, but I can be sure I’m dying to believe in Gotham.
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Gotham airs Monday nights on Fox at 8/7 Central. Catch all the latest episodes on Fox.com and the latest reviews right here at BagoGames.