TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Gotham Season 02 Finale!

As hopefully you have noticed dear readers, I have LOVED Gotham Season 02. It’s been packed with great villains, tight storylines, and twists and turns that have made me smile and laugh through and through. So it’s with a heavy heart that I say that the season finale was anything other than mediocre.

I’ll be fair, it had good parts, and laugh out loud moments (for the right reasons) but other parts merely meddled in its own futility, fought the face of logic, and seemed more interested in setting up Season 03 (which we are getting) rather than ending Season 02 off properly.

Now, it started off interestingly enough. With a drug-induced talk between Strange and Gordon, and a game of “Life or Death” between Nygma and Lucius and Bruce. But after that? Weird things. The Clayface angle that was introduced last week was very fun…but it was poorly executed. Not only did this “other” Gordon not sound like Gordon, he didn’t act like him at all. Which I guess under the circumstances is fine. But he didn’t even try to sound more like Gordon, or act less suspicious.

What made this worse was that it should’ve been obvious to both Bullock and Alfred just how messed up Gordon was acting. Instead, they kept playing like it was cool or that Gordon was just “off”. Funnily enough, it was Barbara (who is now in the employ of Penguin?…who is again in charge of Butch?) that figured it out. Now to be fair again, that slap reveal was awesome! Everything else about that arc? Not so much.

Then there was Strange. Who again started off great with that Gordon scene, then became basically irrelevant afterwards. From the confrontation with Fish Mooney, to his (should’ve been) “death” and then his wimperingness afterwards. It seemed nothing like the man we had known for the second half of the season. For him to simply be arrested at the end was totally a sad end to the character.

The bomb deal was a mixed bag. They seemed to keep emphasizing the danger of it, even adding radioactive plots to it to show just how “bad” it would be to detonate it. Even though we KNEW it wasn’t going off. Although, that ending with the water was pure comedy in the best possible way.

But then…there were still loose ends, and logic jumps. Why did Hugo want to take Freeze and Firefly with him? Why did Firefly refer to Selina as a “friend” when she thought she was a servant last episode? Basically reverting to her Bridget persona? And…where are they now?

Oh, and Ngyma. While he was great at the start, they kept going back to him as if to show that something important was coming…only for him to be screaming the rest of the episode. Then you inserted Penguin, who seemed more wacky than clever. Showing that we have no idea just how stable he is…even though he appeared stable an episode back with the Azrael death.

Fish Mooney though, was one of the better portrayals here, ironically enough. As she was the catalyst for much of what’s coming in Season 03. And it was compelling. Especially when she revealed herself to both Penguin and Butch, who couldn’t help but react like they’ve seen a ghost.

Now, the ending. Yeah, it was cool. And played out in true horror film fashion as an unsuspecting bystander opened the monster bus (literally!) and set loose the “Legion Of Horribles”…including Jerome!…AND A BRUCE WAYNE CLONE?!?!??!!?? What??!??!! Now, some are speculating that this is a pseudo version of Damien Wayne…I’ll just wait and see how this plays out. Add this to the details we got about the Court of Owls, and I’m excited for Season 03!…but, I’m depressed that this came at the cost of Season 02.

“Transference” was an uneven, unfortunate end to what could’ve been one of the greatest seasons in comic book show history. You have to stick the landing, and sadly, it didn’t. Thankfully, we’ll be able to remember the season as a whole very fondly.