For fucksake.

Following on from my initial assessment.

What I hated: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. I'm not even going to dignify it by commenting upon it.

What I loved: Pretty much everything else, tbf.

This ep was a whole new level (low?) of batshit. Like, it's morphing into Adam West Batman before our very eyes and I'm... kinda into it?

I mean, everything is so gay at this point (but no homo). Jeremiah re-staging Bruce's parents' death just to... bond with him? Just, Jeremiah in general. I did do a weary sigh when Bruce said 'he has no brain activity - he can't harm us any more ' or whatever it was, like, where have you LIVED for the past five years..?

Loved Selina getting her do-over and saving Bruce's loved-ones this time around.

Loved that the toxic waste was literal fluorescent green slime, A+

I'm honestly really liking Jeremiah and Ecco.

Didn't love having Tetch back.

Liked Tabby getting more posthumous love.

Liked Selina and Babs. Liked Ed and Oswald. Liked how Oswald has no idea what 'glowing' looks like and clearly couldn't give af.

Laughed so damn loud at the submarine plot.

Loved LOVED the Bruce and Alfred reunion hug, so damn wholesome.

No idea why Jeremiah put Jim up as his sacrificial victim when he'd had Alfred for hours and Alfred is clearly way more a father figure to Bruce.

I was loving how Lee was just NOT taking any shit from Jim, right up until the point that they randomly kiss because he has a magic penis or something, I just, I want to puke I hate this storyline so much. Her and Babs going off to raise the child together would make more pissing sense at this stage. Also WHY WOULD BABS ALLOW HERSELF TO GET PREGNANT? IN A TOXIC WAR ZONE? BY A GUY SHE HATES? OK, I'm calm, I'm calm.

I'm sad Wayne Manor got exploded.

I miss Lucius. There wasn't enough Harvey in this episode.

Did I mention I'm really here for Ed building a submarine?

I'm honestly wondering how they even managed to save Jeremiah in time. And, yeah, if he doesn't have brain activity, why not let him die instead of wasting medical resources on him that other people could need?

Didn't really get the "glow" scene with Babs, tbh. Technically, she was already pregnant when she saw Ed in 5x05 and 5x06. Why is he now suddenly picking up on it? (Yeah, I know, because then it wouldn't have been a surprise at the end of 5x06.) Well, I can at least appreciate the parallel to s2 when Oswald also didn't give any fucks about Lee's badly timed pregnancy announcement.

Yeah, the entire kidnapping of Alfred seemed a bit wasted for what it could have been. Personally, I'd loved it more if Jeremiah had hypnotized Alfred to shoot the "Waynes" or something as that would have meant a big fallout on all ends. He could have wanted to play Jim because he envies how Bruce looks up to him or whatever.

I would love it if Babs was only bluffing. But, clearly, she isn't. I liked that Lee pointed out that Jim let her down. Predictably, however, he gave her a short apology... then miraculously got "the girl" anyway despite all their issues. I hate how the narrative supports Jim's entitlement.

Edited 2019-02-27 07:30 pm (UTC)

I had this discussion with my other half. It HAD to be Bruce fishing him straight out of that vat again? At this point I'm just shaking my head... we GET you're noble and all, dude, but just once could you not have stuck your hands in your pockets and whistled innocently while he drowned, for the greater good?! Also EXACTLY about the 'wasting resources' - I thought we were in a critical war zone here? Maybe don't keep the proven psychotic criminal alive when he doesn't even have brain activity?

I thought the 'glow' thing was kinda dumb, but Oswald's 'wtf I don't care' reaction also brought me immense joy.

I hate how the narrative supports Jim's entitlement, too. It's especially frustrating because they could actually up-end so many tropes right now and they just won't. Like, maybe have some actual consequences for Jim's crappy behaviour? But no. He ~gets the girl~, because of course he does.

Maybe Bruce wants to be best friends with Jeremiah after all? ;)

I'd love it if there was a twist to the Jim/Lee love story, but I doubt it. TPTB already dropped the ball when they decided to wait with Lee's return until ep 6. Maybe they can save it a little by fleshing the Lee/Babs relationship out, but I don't expect a lot of stunning character work anymore.

I mean, it's the only explanation!

Nah, there won't be. It's gonna pan out exactly like you predicted, I'd put money on it. Babs dies (probably nobly) and Jim and Lee raise baby Barbara together. *gag noise*

After seeing what a total shitshow SPN turned into, as a new Gotham convert you know I initially wasn't TOO upset at seeing it finish after five (presumably good) seasons, however now seeing how they're clearly rushing through it, I really wish they'd at least given Season 5 the full run of episodes :\

I think it was tunglo's better half who predicted the entire pregnancy plot. Personally, I would have been far too optimistic that the writers wouldn't stoop this low...

Honestly, I have seen great shows that only consisted of ten episodes. They just need to keep it tight. But since TPTB love shoehorning a bunch of new villains in, that was never going to happen.

Edited to delete my rant.

Edited 2019-03-01 03:19 pm (UTC)

Ah, I'd forgotten who it was. But, yeah. I'm sad they did stoop that low :(

Mmm. I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, because they got messed around so much with timings and allocations and maybe it was just too hard to rewrite or condense down well, within timescale, but... yeah, some of the best shows I've seen have been shorter runs.

I'm usually a fan of "Slap-Slap-Kiss" pairings, but only if the kiss feels actually deserved. In this case, however, it didn't. First and foremost because it makes absolutely no sense for Lee to suddenly be upset about Babs' pregnancy. That said, I love the prospect that Lee will be Babs' doctor and the fact that Babs seems to have no delusions about Jim's involvement in her baby's life. Which, sadly, probably also means that she's going to die 100%. But I'm sure she and Jim will be able to ~make up before that happens... *rolling my eyes hard*

Now to Bruce and Jeremiah as well as the gayest lines of the episode: I offered for you to be my best friend! But I've realized if we can't be friends then we can be connected in other ways.



"best friend"

"best friend"

"best friend"



Seriously. Didn't expect the show to actually out-gay itself. But it did. I think I may ship those two now.

Thought Jervis' involvement was super random and the whole chemical bit could've used a little more build-up. While I liked that it was this super goofy setup, it all felt a little rushed. Same with the Thomas and Martha Wayne doppelgangers. Would've enjoyed the Jervis line about the s3 dinner party a lot more if it hadn't been such an obvious attempt to hint at the upcoming Jim/Lee reunion.

I liked my theory about Ed discovering Oswald and Selina's plan to leave Gotham better than Oswald seeking Ed out on his own. It probably means that the show has conveniently forgotten about Ed's promise to give Babs intel if she finds Strange for him in 5x05. That said, I liked the Babs/Selina bit and the fact that Selina threatened Oswald over Tabby. Tabs would be so proud of you, little kitty cat. <3


Other random stuff:

- WTF @ But unlike Walker, or whoever she is, I have the authority to take action.

So we don't know for sure if hot evil lady really is this Secretary Walker? Or is that government!guy just trying to cover his ass?

- The newspaper reported about the Wayne murders on Monday, June 27th. Neither 2014 nor 2015 matches that date-day combo.

- JIM: Plus, I never figured Zsasz for much of a cinephile.

Are you kidding me? The guy had popcorn with him up in that building in 5x04. He clearly enjoys a good show. That screams MAJOR cinephile to me.

- Stockton Subway. Near the location of Jeremiah's tunnel.

- I LOVED this Babs line: But your involvement in this ended the moment you put your pants back on.

- Alfred got some funny lines: And let me tell you, if ever I see that Jervis Tetch character again I'll stick that watch so far up his... his nose. PLUS [directed at Selina:] What are you doing here? And with that?

- I thought it would've made more sense for Bruce and Selina to kiss at the end than for Jim and Lee. But, honestly, if this means TPTB won't torture us with this shitty "love triangle" anymore, I'm just going to ignore it for the sake of my own sanity.

- Idk, I laughed at the river being mined. Still hoping someone will simply convince Victor Fries to freeze it. Was already spoiled for the submarine thing, but I liked that it was something Ed came up with. So far, I'd assumed that Oswald taking control of that factory was all along a cover to secretly build the submarine. But I guess not. He's just incompetent. Seriously. In 5x05, he was saying, Edward, I believe the time has come for a change of scenery. But he didn't even have a good plan ready??!

- Disappointed that the entire "case" was just a lazy excuse for Jim/Lee angst.

What specifically disappointed me:

• I wanted to see how Lee felt about the Narrows after all that's happened. Or how people would react to their former queen returning under these circumstances. Would they hate her for abandoning them? We know that the rich people left, how did the poor people fare? But the Lee-Narrows connection basically didn't matter.

• Was happy that Harper finally got a few lines in. But, no, Jim doesn't even let her investigate at his side because he's got Lee with him. Bullshit.

Why it still wasn't super bad:

• Lee's working as a doctor again. I respect that. I also loved her scene with Babs.

• Lee wasn't reduced to being a damsel in distress. We saw her fight. And when Jeremiah threatened her life, he also threatened Jim's.

• Lee pissed Jervis off.

• Lee slapped Jim. I'm simply going to ignore the rest.

That's all I have to say for now.

Edited 2019-02-22 09:51 pm (UTC)

i agree with all of this and this is a useless minor detail to hone in on, but: thanks for also being ??? at the zsasz line, lmao. of all the potential cinephiles in gotham...

*disappears back into the night, aka lurking and forgetting dreamwidth exists*

I guess they really wanted to hammer home that while Zsasz could be an option due to the "Z" on the corpse's chest, he clearly isn't the real culprit. But in that case, it would've sufficed to say that Zsasz usually operates with more firepower and only carves marks onto his own body. I think it's also pretty disastrous detective work that nobody even mentioned the pretty obvious Zorro connection. So, yeah, the whole thing was WTF.

I left it too long and now I'm gonna have to rewatch before I can properly gather my thoughts. But.

The slap-kiss. Jesus God. OK. Me watching that scene:

Ugh.
Noooooooo-
YES!!!!!!
NO.

I was so 'ffs' when Jim went in for that kiss, which I saw coming a mile off, and then when she smacked him I was SO OVERJOYED. But of fcuking course they couldn't leave it there. Like, we get he's pretty, but NO WAY would/should Lee take him back, ugh. GOD. I'm still so mad.

Re the general slap-kiss thing, I agree it can be hot af, but only in a fantasy kinda way and not in a 'we are holding this up as an actual end-game relationship' kinda way. I mean, the only thing I can say in its favour is that it does fit in with the whole noir aesthetic of Gotham so I guess that's what they're going for. High melodrama, detectives and dames. Sigh. (Let's be real, I'm just salty because I want Jim to end this single so I can make-believe he ends up with Harv, because Harv is clearly besotted with him.)

I can believe that Lee might be upset about Babs being pregnant - because even if she doesn't want Jim back, Jim getting his original psycho ex pregnant can't be great for her ego. Also, the whole thing about her losing a baby with Jim, that's likely to still hurt. But I still don't believe that she'd be upset about not being with Jim any more.

Also loving that Babs is like, yeah, this baby is going nowhere near Mr Disaster. (I guess that's kind of terrible because he's the father and all, but I am just 100% on Babs's side on this one.)

"Didn't expect the show to actually out-gay itself. But it did. I think I may ship those two now."
Same, same.

I kinda dislike Jervis anyway, so I wasn't overjoyed to see him back. But eh. I guess he had to be hiding out somewhere. Seconding the liking how goofy it was.

I thought of you when Tabby was mentioned again :)

"- The newspaper reported about the Wayne murders on Monday, June 27th. Neither 2014 nor 2015 matches that date-day combo."
Dang, you're good.

I just thought the Zsasz thing was kinda dumb. Just, 'who do we know with the intial Z?' It seemed too much of a crowbarred-in distraction. Not really in character for the detectives.

"- Stockton Subway. Near the location of Jeremiah's tunnel."
Map addition? ;)

Agreed on the excellent lines.

I went 'oooohhhhh' at the river being mined. I mean, I've been saying all along 'that river is swimmable ffs' so even though the mines thing is a bit of a stretch plot-wise, at least it answers a question. Also, Oswald's weary face as his scouts got blown up one by one was a delightful picture <3

The submarine DELIGHTS me. How proud Ed looked. Even though it's not even built yet. That whole level of silly overjoys me and I look forward to seeing how it will/won't pan out.

I think, at this point, Jim doesn't deserve Lee. If they had dedicated maybe two episodes to them just co-existing and working together on the refugee problem, I could maybe accept them back together. But not like this. It's also super embarrassing that they're completely ignoring the Lee/Ed thing last season. Or Ed's theory about the Tetch virus still being active in Lee's system. I'm also mad that nobody cares about the fact that she got that shitty chip implanted and whatever else the military deemed necessary to make her an asset. UGH!

I completely support Babs, but I honestly think that she's just super anti-Jim now because either she's jealous af (and, lbr, if she is, that is totally the reason why she and Tabby suddenly ended up being "best friends" at the start of this season) or she will ~conveniently change her mind about him shortly before she dies so that everyone is happy and Jim is seen as deserving of his new father role.

I really hope we'll get to see that submarine. I def want to see them all -- including Ed the Dog -- in it!

Oh, he definitely doesn't deserve Lee. He doesn't deserve Babs, either. He needs to do a lot of work on himself before he deserves a romantic relationship with anyone tbh (and I get that he's working hard and doing his best and he's under a lot of pressure and is doing great things in other areas BUT FFS he treats his personal relationships like crap and there's no excuse.)

Did I miss something, or doesn't she still have the chip in her head? Everything's moving at such a pace I realise it's possible I blinked and missed a removal, or an explanation, or I just forgot.

I mean, I'm not surprised Babs is anti-Jim? I'm guessing she had some level of feelings for him to have boned him (even if it was just base-level 'I think you're an idiot, but you're still hot, so go on then') so even if it's not exactly true love on her part, to see him instantly all over Lee again would have to be a smack in the ego. God I just don't even want this Daddy Jim storyline AT ALL. I hate it. I HATE IT. I don't know why I ever trusted script writers. So, anyway, I'm just gonna try and ignore that storyline as much as possible.

I am so very here for the submarine. It's just giving me mental images of the submarine in The Mighty Boosh and it's delighting me. I hope Ed the Dog gets his own little submarine dog bed, with stabilisers like pool tables on cruise liners :p

Yeah, I mean, a part of me really loves this idiot. But a part of me is also extremely annoyed with his writing right now. I just hope Lee and Babs will both remain badasses without getting pulled in an unnecessary love triangle. Both deserve better than that and I'd love to see some friendly scenes between them before all is said and done, tbh. I mean, if we can have all the gay for the guys, also give me a little more gay for the girls, pls!

I thought the implication was that Jim shocked her and thus disabled the chip. After that, it would seem logical to remove it because who would want it stuck inside their brain? There'd always be a rest risk of getting controlled again. That said, it still makes no sense for Walker to send in Lee when another similar asset was already disabled by Jim and friends.

I'm afraid that Babs is still harboring serious feelings for Jim because I remember even Sofia being kind of hung up on him, even though it would've made more sense for her to just have used him. Jim being a father is one of my lesser problems because I just don't think we will see much of it. And, I mean, it's always preferable to Sofia suddenly showing up pregnant, right? ;)

Personally, the submarine plot makes me think of Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. That image of Ed the Dog on his little submarine dog bed is super cute. I'll be disappointed if that doesn't make it into the show!

It seems very cishetdude focused, it is true. And I also sincerely hope they at least claw a little decency back by having Lee and Babs join forces even just a little bit.

Yep, I got the shock part (like he did with Ed earlier) but then surely they'd still have to remove it (like they did with Ed)? I guess Walker was just hoping that Lee would be the element of surprise and get a big kill in before she was taken out of action?

I kinda hate baby plots in general (personal taste) but this one is so surrounded by relationship mess so that's why I'm super hating it. It's clearly just Jim's magic penis shackling all the ladies to him - it's hardly his fun personality -__-

I've not seen that film. Although now I'm suddenly picturing a doggy scuba mask too...

I mean, everyone with eyes knows that Jim's bi as fuck, lmao.

It's just such a stupid move on Walker's part. But I'm generally dissatisfied with her baddie role this season since we still know practically nothing about her. Kind of hoping for one last big twist. (The most ridiculous thing I could come up with is that she's Jim's mother/aunt/cousin. Because why the hell not?)

Your magical penis comment reminds me of a fic I once read that took the whole thing quite literally. Imagine Jim had a magical penis that literally... cured people or something. It's Gotham...

Right? It's pretty damn hard to miss! :p

I mean, I hope she's at least explained a little more. I'm assuming she will be... although who knows?

That is the most horrifying concept ever and I'm cackling. If he had a restorative penis then (I was just gonna say 'at least he'd be able to do something good with it for a change' but then my mind flitted to the amount of people who've come back from the dead in Gotham and now I need brain bleach hahaha.)