Welcome To The Madhouse | Gotham: Rogues’ Gallery Review

<p>For the past thirty years&comma; Arkham Asylum’s been home to the best&comma; the brightest&comma; and the sickest Batman’s rogues gallery has had to offer&period; If the asylum <em>Gotham<&sol;em> depicts can be believed&comma; then Arkham was a rather boring place in its early days&period; The Joker&comma; The Riddler&comma; Scarecrow&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;poker-face-gotham-harvey-dent-review&sol;">Two-Face<&sol;a> – these are the kinds of faces you expect from a comic book madhouse&comma; but you won’t any of them in <em>Gotham<&sol;em>&period; I’ll admit that starting off the series with new blood wasn’t half-bad&period; It’s just a shame that no one from<em> Rogues Gallery<&sol;em>&comma; not even a knife-wielding Shakespearian&comma; seems willing to claim a place in my fading memory of the affair&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>After the series’ midseason sabbatical&comma; <em>Rogues Gallery<&sol;em> sees the debut of Morena Baccarin’s Dr&period; Leslie Thompkins and Arkham Asylum &lpar;or its hallways&rpar; as Jim Gordon gets acquainted with <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;love-rocks-gotham-lovecraft-review&sol;">his new job<&sol;a> with Arkham’s security detail&period; Like what always happens in these plot lines&comma; Gordon’s knee-deep in another dangerous case of his own when some cell keys go missing and&comma; you guessed it&comma; everyone’s a suspect – if not for very long&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;01&sol;Gotham-S1-Rogues-Gallery-Patient-BagoGames&period;png"><img class&equals;"alignleft wp-image-70893 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;01&sol;Gotham-S1-Rogues-Gallery-Patient-BagoGames-300x174&period;png" alt&equals;"Gotham S1 Rogues Gallery Patient BagoGames" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"174" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What happens from there proves entirely conventional in its dull game of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Who done it&quest;” from its lineup of cartoonish mustache-twirlers down to a scripted good cop&sol;bad cop interrogation&comma; except there’s no good cops here&period; In the thirty minutes <em>Rogues Gallery<&sol;em> takes to reveal its culprit&comma; I guessed it right in ten&comma; and if you’re ever in doubt&comma; simply ask yourself who’s never been on the show before and isn’t a DC comics character&period; It’s that choreographed of a twist&comma; and for the episode&comma; and it’s hard not to think of it as almost literal as it concerns a pretentious rendition of Shakespeare’s <em>The Tempest<&sol;em>&period; Then again&comma; maybe that’s why Gordon’s detective work was so short-lived&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It doesn’t help that the episode’s rush to catch the bad guy&sol;gal stifles the incredible lore it has to explore here&period; I wanted to know more about this Arkham Asylum&period; The staff&period; The patients&period; Its history&period; From what we’re shown&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s a nurse somewhere and six male guards total and yep&comma; that’s about it&period; The chilling prospect of seeing Gotham City’s finest trapped behind its walls without a Batman hotline is brilliant on paper&comma; but a saner Arkham’s no Arkham at all&period; Here&comma; we have nothing more here than a few moderately dirty hallways and a few dimly lit&comma; um&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;infirmaries&quest;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;01&sol;05044231&sol;Gotham-S1-Rogues-Gallery-Gordon-Thompkins-BagoGames&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignright wp-image-71113 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;01&sol;05044231&sol;Gotham-S1-Rogues-Gallery-Gordon-Thompkins-BagoGames&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Gotham S1 'Rogues Gallery' Gordon Thompkins BagoGames" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"174" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>To the show’s credit&comma; the change in scenery arguably does something to freshen up its ensemble cast&period; Baccarin is a charming addition as Thompkins and Christopher Heyerdahl&&num;8217&semi;s Jack Gruber is an amusing distraction from the episode’s otherwise jumbled run-around&comma; as is <em>The Wire<&sol;em>’s Isiah Whitlock Jr&period; whose guest starring role as Gordon&&num;8217&semi;s hapless&comma; unnerved boss&comma; Doctor Lang&period; It’s curious where Thompkins stands on corruption&comma; on Arkham’s in particular&comma; but it’s even more so why she and Gordon have eyes for each other – or at least&comma; as much as a couple can inside the looney bin&period; I suppose Arkham’s staffers have to have wandering thoughts sometimes&comma; especially when they’re treating clown princes of crime in the future&period; Given all the above&comma; it all feels like Arkham isn’t much more of a pitstop as opposed to the grand series mainstay it screams to be&period; And like <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;masked-terrors-gotham-mask-review&sol;">Todd Stashwick&&num;8217&semi;s Mask<&sol;a>&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m hoping our getaway Arkham patient will turn up again with such a neat talent like mind control as a future plot device&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;12&sol;05051625&sol;Gotham-S1-Rogues-Gallery-GordonBullock-BagoGames&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignleft wp-image-70457 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;12&sol;05051625&sol;Gotham-S1-Rogues-Gallery-GordonBullock-BagoGames-300x174&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Gotham S1 Rogues Gallery Gordon&colon;Bullock BagoGames" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"174" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Nevertheless&comma; <em>Rogues Gallery<&sol;em> does a fair job at intertwining the place around the rest of<em> Gotham<&sol;em>’s goings-on&comma; even at the cost of compromising the claustrophobic appeal of Arkham’s horror atmosphere&period; Neither Harvey Bullock nor the precinct are gone&comma; and thank god for the former&period; I’m fond of Bullock&comma; and while he’s always been funny&comma; here he’s essential&comma; proving again that his sort of biting humor’s more valuable to the show than Gordon’s brooding figure&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>That <em>Gotham<&sol;em>’s chosen to forgo the subtlety of its more recent source material in favor of dark camp and ham-fisted foreshadowing has always been a lesser evil compared to its balancing act of story arcs&period; <em>Rogues Gallery<&sol;em> pays the obligatory gratuities – Selina Kyle shows up randomly&comma; people mill about Gordon’s now vacant apartment&comma; and a spiraling Barbara mopes around a bedroom&period; And is<em> Gotham<&sol;em> really trying to convince us that Barbara would mistake the voice of a sick&comma; giggling ten-year-old’s voice for Gordon’s sultry mistress over the phone&quest; Except for the absence of stately Wayne Manor&comma; we’re left with bits and pieces of the usual subplots&comma; all too short to feel developed and long enough to feel intrusive to Arkham&&num;8217&semi;s story&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;01&sol;Gotham-S1-Rogues-Gallery-Fish-BagoGames&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignright wp-image-70890 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;01&sol;Gotham-S1-Rogues-Gallery-Fish-BagoGames-300x174&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Gotham S1 Rogues Gallery Fish BagoGames" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"174" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You can <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;cloudy-skies-penguins-umbrella-review&sol;">leave it to Oswald Cobblepot<&sol;a> to produce the more eye-catching moments in the series&comma; but even his time in Rogues Gallery seems glossed over&period; Was his brief jailbird time at the GCPD’s something we really needed to see or does the show think we just always need to see Penguin and Fish&&num;8217&semi;s own side schemes with Butch&quest; Frankly&comma; I don’t know where Fish’s plans to topple Carmine Falcone are going&period; What I do know is it’s not going anywhere fast with these baby steps each week&period; Somewhere in the midst of Fish and Falcone’s feud there’s some interesting subterfuge between Don Sal Maroni and Penguin’s &OpenCurlyQuote;alliance&comma;’ but that&&num;8217&semi;s a lot for five minutes out of forty some odd minutes of run-time&comma; especially when you&&num;8217&semi;re introducing an entirely new locale like Arkham&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It’s a new dawn&comma; a new city” <em>Gotham<&sol;em> coyly reminds me&comma; but what I’m seeing is a whole lot more of the same in the new year&period; As a bizarre patchwork of hurried subplots on one hand and a love letter to comic fans on another&comma;<em> Rogues Gallery<&sol;em> bursts with ideas &lpar;and villains&rpar; left and right without building on any in particular&period; To that end&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m curious to see if Maroni&&num;8217&semi;s little head game with Penguin and Falcone’s mob moves forward and I could’ve stood for more Arkham this week rather than paying mandatory fan-service&period; If insanity really is trying the same thing over again expecting a different result&comma; than <em>Gotham<&sol;em> kept a cool head trying something new&comma; albeit it with a hugely disappointing episode&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&lbrack;divider&rsqb;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Gotham<&sol;em> airs Monday nights on FOX at 8&sol;7 Central&period; Catch all the latest episodes on <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;fox&period;com&sol;gotham&sol;gotham&sol;full-episodes">Fox&period;com<&sol;a> and all the latest reviews here at <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com">BagoGames<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;