Gotham 1.19 “Beasts of Prey”

Do you love serial killers? Did you love the character of Peter Petrelli in the late Heroes series?

Then you’ll be just like me, and you’ll love this episode, and more specifically all that has to do with the character of the Ogre (played by a scary Milo Ventimiglia).

There’s much darkness in the streets of Gotham, and this series is doing a perfect job of portraying that fact. Once more.

If I’m not mistaken, the anything-you-want favor that Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) can take from Detective Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) will not be asked until the season’s finale, giving some breathing room for the characters’ stories to continue, each in their own way.

While Gordon may want to do good by catching the Ogre – a lovely serial killer known for murdering the significant others of every cop that has tried to investigate him – that means putting Dr. Leslie Tompkins (Morena Baccarin) at literally deadly risk. His methods are leaning towards Gotham’s darkness, as we can see when he loses control upon learning that Commissioner Loeb (Peter Scolari) had set him up, by having him investigate the serial killer’s case, and therefore putting a bullseye on his girlfriend.

It’s a tough way to understand, really understand, what the fine folks of Gotham are capable of when trying to take him down, and even more so when they are feeling that – after last episode’s events – the situation is critical. Gordon, with the priceless information he now had, could get Loeb fired, and destroy his career.

Unlike Jim, Penguin seems to have a very clear idea of what the future holds in store for him, and how to get ahold of it. This leads to a particularly fun subplot, where we viewers are treated to Penguin’s sadism in all its glory.

Man, the poor guitarist didn’t deserve that…

We are still left in the darkness as to why Penguin would want to buy that particular crappy restaurant – I’m assuming it has something to do with Maroni’s childhood, given Penguin’s final statement.

Maroni vs. Penguin! There’s a confrontation I really want to see. Does this mean that Penguin, once again cheating his way to the top, is going to break the truce that Don Falcone established between the families, by offing Maroni? We’ll see…but again, I believe that will be a subplot left dangling until the final moments of the season.

There’s a dynamic that I’ve been particularly enjoying in Gotham, and that is the one between Detective Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) and Jim Gordon. The writers are clearly getting better at writing their scenes, and this episode was proof of that, giving us many not-to-be-missed sequences between the both of them. It’s really funny how Bullock tries to knock some sense into Jim, have him think at least for a second about the consequences of what he’s about to do, of who he’s going to piss off, etc…None of this matters to Jim, and in the end, a reluctant Harvey has to follow his pal.

It’s characters that drive the plot forward. Like the title suggests, there are indeed many beasts of prey in Gotham. The newest and most welcomed one is, of course, the aforementioned Ogre, who plays one of the most charming and at the same time scariest characters we’ve seen in Gotham so far. It’s great we’ll be able to enjoy him for at least two more episodes!

But we can’t forget about other monsters such as the Dollmaker (Colm Feore), whose plot with Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) – another monster of sorts, who sacrifices many lives just to get away from that dreaded island where she’s been captive for the last several episodes – had been stretched out a little bit too much, and needed another change in the status quo to keep it interesting.

I hope Dollmaker comes back with a vengeance, as he’s such a creepy Batman villain that I’d hate to see him disappear from the show.

Oh, and did you love as much as I did how Bruce (David Mazouz) wised up and, leaving Alfred (Sean Pertwee) in bed, decided to go after his former friend? How his quest for answers ended will haunt him, that’s for sure.

And it is just one more little step towards making him the dark knight.