<p>Love can make you do some crazy things – especially if you&#8217;re on<em> Gotham</em>. The show&#8217;s become an odd gold mine of <a href="https://bagogames.com/hidden-monsters-gotham-everyone-cobblepot-review/">evil weirdos you love to hate</a> and for better or worse, <em>Gotham</em>&#8216;s always been at its best when it&#8217;s been at its kookiest. That&#8217;s the only justification I can give for how unusually entertaining <em>Under the Knife </em>was this week for all the wrong reasons; or maybe all the right ones by <em>Gotham</em>&#8216;s logic. Two wrongs don&#8217;t make a right, but they sure are a turn-on for that cop&#8217;s wife on your arm if you&#8217;re a deranged serial killer. I&#8217;m just calling them as Barbara Gordon sees it, folks.</p>
<p><strong>Spoilers Follow</strong></p>
<p>It&#8217;s hard to think of Barbara&#8217;s season-long stint as a disheveled drunk rooming with two homeless kids as character-building. It&#8217;s been equally tiring watching her become a thorn in the side of her own story-arc, whatever it&#8217;s been about. That she should be swapping saliva with the Ogre is, sadly, as logical as Barbara&#8217;s limbo-low standards allow and serves as something of an outlet for her exuberantly dramatic dialogue. If exploiting Barb&#8217;s bizarre state of mind means taking her somewhere more interesting than playing dress-up with a fourteen-year-old, by all means<em> Gotham</em>, go right ahead. I mean, if she insists on dressing and talking like Cruella De Vil.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s a lot of things I&#8217;ve expected from the Ogre storyline and him kidnapping Leslie was certainly one of them, as far as Gotham&#8217;s damsels in distress go. Nevertheless, I&#8217;ll give Gotham its due credit for the first bit of reverse-psychology it&#8217;s employed and not go for the 100 percent obvious choice, i.e. killing the character living on the villain&#8217;s own street. Bringing Barbara into the equation as the Ogre&#8217;s victim-turned-partner was a rather neat avenue if women being either victims or psychos is the ultimatum that Gotham insists on making. In the <a href="https://bagogames.com/goose-chase-gotham-red-hood-review/">goose chase of Joker stand-ins</a> the show&#8217;s led us on, I&#8217;m more certain than ever that Barbara might very well be our Harley Quinn. She&#8217;s blond, she&#8217;s needy, and I&#8217;m beginning to think she&#8217;s just nuts enough to show up in red-and-black tights by season two.</p>
<p><a href="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05004446/Gotham-S1-Under-the-Knife-BagoGames.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-81333 size-medium" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05004446/Gotham-S1-Under-the-Knife-BagoGames.jpg" alt="Gotham S1 'Under the Knife' BagoGames" width="300" height="174" /></a></p>
<p>As far as the episode concerned itself with the guys, there&#8217;s a lot less here to say than I&#8217;d have liked. <em>Gotham </em>may be a lot of things, but a procedural crime-drama it isn&#8217;t. While<em> Under the Knife</em> finally told us just why the Ogre&#8217;s placid stares are exactly that placid, there&#8217;s not much more than Milo Ventimiglia&#8217;s Jason Lennon than some lonely <em>Dexter</em> wannabe. It&#8217;s all the more convenient that Ed Nygma&#8217;s dark side finally surfaced courtesy of another of the GCPD&#8217;s most jerky. Yes, it seems that <em>Gotham</em>&#8216;s women can never just date the nice guy, including Kristy Kringle. Seeing the bruised arm of his office crush and her creepy, badge-wearing boyfriend, of course, inspires Ed to shove something sharp up her abuser&#8217;s privates in only the most stupidly dramatic cues you can imagine. Riddle(r) Man is born!</p>
<p>It&#8217;s all the stranger that it&#8217;s this brand of crazy that <em>Gotham</em> should shift tones in. Jim and Harvey keep calling the Ogre a &#8220;serial killer,&#8221; yet we&#8217;ve hardly heard a mention of the Ogre&#8217;s victims, much less of their means of disposal. Meanwhile, Gotham decides to dump a fully-furnished sex dungeon on us even as one of those &#8220;they kiss and then then we fade out&#8221; primetime network series. We may not know if Barbara will wind up becoming the Ogre&#8217;s one, true, mad lover or just a kinky phase of his, but either way, it&#8217;s an interesting dynamic for a 8/7 Central show on a Monday night.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s on those notes that <em>Under the Knife</em> decides it&#8217;s also going to be about its kids – two kids just coming off of <a href="https://bagogames.com/derp-gotham-beasts-of-prey-review/">covering up a murder</a>. I&#8217;ll admit that Bruce and Selina&#8217;s scenes together always bring a goofy grin to my face for all the silly feels that David Masouz and Cameron Bicondova lend to the characters and seeing their crashing Wayne Enterprises&#8217; ball also become their first &#8220;date&#8221; was rather amusing. Like I&#8217;ve argued before, their presence always feels like a different show, a better show even for what it is, but it still feels like it has yet to converge with the adults&#8217; storyline in any meaningful way. Oh, and no one saw Selina pickpocket the same guy twice on a dance floor?</p>
<p><a href="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05004433/Gotham-S1-Under-the-Knife-Cobblepot-BagoGames.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-81339 size-medium" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/05004433/Gotham-S1-Under-the-Knife-Cobblepot-BagoGames.jpg" alt="Gotham S1 'Under the Knife' Cobblepot BagoGames" width="300" height="174" /></a></p>
<p>And remember when<em> Gotham</em> used to be about the Penguin too? It feels like high time that <em>Under the Knife</em> finally bring us right back to the feud between Don Maroni and Penguin – you know, the one that Penguin&#8217;s been lopping off fingers prepping for. It&#8217;s seemed like the Penguin could&#8217;ve knocked out Maroni episodes ago given the firepower he&#8217;s so good at hiring and there&#8217;s always Falcone as a threat for him to worry about, if not a returning Fish on a microlevel. Alternately, a heated dinner discussion was all it took for Maroni to throw a potential wedge between Penguin and his own mom (curse you, Maroni!) as she learned (or relearned) the truth about her blatantly bloodthirsty son&#8217;s killer hobbies. I adore Carol Kane&#8217;s kooky Mama Cobblepot, but it&#8217;s getting old watching Penguin take out his angst stabbing people.</p>
<p>A very weird and admirably atypical Gotham entry, <em>Under the Knife</em> gives Gotham the facelift it needed, if not the one it actually deserved – or maybe it’s exactly what it&#8217;s deserves. In the march to the show’s penultimate episode, I’m still not sure what show Gotham’s trying to be. If it’s fated to be a variety show of assumed serial killers, junior proms, and murderous lab geeks, then I guess I’ll call myself satisfied if PG sex dungeons are part of the Gotham’s shockingly looney-toon equation.</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 hear at <a href="https://bagogames.com">BagoGames</a>.</p>

BagoGames > Articles > Geek Culture > TV Shows > Skin Deep – Gotham: ‘Under the Knife’ Review
Skin Deep – Gotham: ‘Under the Knife’ Review
-
By Tim Gruver
- Categories: Geek Culture, TV Shows
- Tags: BatmanDC ComicsFOXTV Episode Review
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