REVIEW: Gotham Season Four

 REVIEW: Gotham Season Four

Gotham's fourth season, in many ways, feels like the beginning of the end. It's a season that features many call-forwards to future events within the famous caped crusader's life, as well as forwarding the journeys of many of the characters in preparation for its final season. Essentially this is a season that acts as a segue from this season to the next, a vital stepping stone into reaching that all important final season. It's an important task bestowed upon this season, and thankfully it largely succeeds.

The previous season hinted at young Bruce Wayne (David Mazvouz) finally starting life as a vigilante, and the fourth season follows through on this to a significant degree. The writers do a really good job at showing this younger and more inexperienced Bruce trying his hand at being a hero; he's a vigilante who makes mistakes and accidentally puts lives in danger as a result, and it's clear he's not quite ready yet for the work that lies ahead. This Bruce isn't quite the Batman that we are all familiar with; essentially he is still a kid who has to learn and adapt from his own experiences, and develop into the crime fighter from the comics.

There's also a real punch to the gut when Alfred's (Sean Pertwee) paternal relationship with Bruce starts to crumble. Although this may not be the first time this has happened in Gotham (Bruce previously fired Alfred from his butler duties in the Season Two episode 'Knock Knock'), this is the one that feels the most serious, as Alfred not only seems to take it more personally but also ends up living within the poverty-stricken community of The Narrows. It doesn't feel right seeing Alfred removed as Bruce's guardian, not just because of how iconic the pairing in other mediums but also because the show itself has gone to great lengths to make us really care and root for this duo. They usually appear as such a close-knit duo, and so seeing them at each other's throats can't help but come across as a shock to the system. Of course they make up and Alfred moves back into Wayne Manor, but it's an effective part of the narrative nonetheless.

Another interesting relationship in this season is that between James Gordon (Ben McKenzie) and Sofia Falcone (Crystal Reed), who follows James back to Gotham after he seeks out her father Carmine (John Doman) to assist with the latest development regarding Oswald Cobblepot's (Robin Lord Taylor) plans to seize control of the city. These two have a truly entertaining flirtatious relationship, and it's interesting because they both fall on different sides of the law. Sofia hails from one of Gotham's most notorious criminal families, whilst James Gordon works for the Gotham City Police Department and will one day become commissioner. It's strikingly similar to the romance between Bruce and Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova), the future Batman and Catwoman, and it provides for some great television.

As for these latest plans of Oswald Cobblepot, boy are they a hoot. This concerns Oswald creating a law within Gotham's criminal underworld that criminals must take out a license in order to commit a crime. This is such a wonderful piece of satire which essentially treats crime within Gotham as the equivalent of obtaining a license to drive a car or pilot a plane. It's a really quirky plot point that wouldn't work in any other television show; Gotham was never a show that shied away from some of the more exaggerated elements from the comics, meaning that a literal license to crime feels truly believable within the world of the story.

Oswald Cobblepot's role within the season also sees the Iceberg Lounge make its proper debut after being teased in the third season. It's great to see such an iconic location within the comics make a full appearance, as it means Oswald feels one step closer towards his comic-book counterpart. I also love how the centrepiece is an ice structure with Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) inside, after he was frozen in a ice cube during the previous season. It's another element of darkly comic humour that this show does so well, and fits the tone of the series nicely.

Of course, you can't review the fourth season without mentioning the excellent Professor Pyg (Michael Creveris), a Batman villain who I had not been aware of prior to watching this show but fast became one of my favourite Gotham characters ever. This is largely because of the episode 'Let Them Eat Pie', where Professor Pyg becomes the chef at a charity fundraiser for the orphanage run by Sofia Falcone and Oswald Cobblepot, and makes them eat pies comprising of the body parts of various homeless people. It has got to be easily one of the most grim and macabre twists in a television show I have ever witnessed, and it makes for such a horrific and instantly memorable watch. There are some very obvious comparisons to Sweeney Todd, which followed a similar narrative trajectory, but that doesn't take away from the sheer power behind the episode in question. I applaud the writers for going in such a gruesome direction, and I hope that we get to see more of Professor Pyg in future shows and films, because this episode really demonstrated the character's potential.

An element I wasn't quite sold on was the way that Lee Thompkins (Morena Baccarin) was incorporated into the season. Here, having recovered from being infected with the Tetch virus in the previous season, she returns to Gotham and opens up a doctor's clinic within the Narrows. One of her clients is Edward Nygma, and they embark on a romantic relationship. I never really bought Lee Thompkins falling for Ed Nygma of all people in this season, as I personally cannot buy that she would fall for somebody who has committed such atrocious acts within Gotham city. Their relationship feels somewhat false within this season, and it doesn't help that the actors don't have much chemistry together. Lee is a character who was always better suited to James Gordon. 

I also wasn't much of a fan of the storyline regarding Jerome and Jeremiah (both played excellently by Cameron Monaghan). This concerns Jerome tracking down his twin brother and seeks to prove that he's just like him. The twin brother aspect is a weird angle to take in order to lead up to the show's 'official' take on the Joker, especially as both parts are played by the same actor, and it ends up feeling like a pointless and contrived manner in which to properly introduce the character who the show's writers intend to later become the clown prince of crime. It doesn't help that Jerome already felt like a natural and engaging take on the man who would later take up that mantle, whereas Jeremiah - whilst still being a great take on the character - feels more like the writers rushed to get him where he needed to be in time for the fifth season. He's even been exposed to the laughing gas by the time the last episode of the fourth season arrives, due to a present left by Jerome (who Jeremiah kills earlier in the episode), and it's just like the writers realised they had little time left to set the character up for Season Five. 

More successful is the cliffhanger ending, which sees Jerome successfully blow up various points throughout Gotham City with the help of Ra's Al Ghul (Alexander Siddig). This causes the city to be separated from the mainland. I remember at the time of broadcast this cliffhanger got me hugely excited for the fifth season, because the concept of a 'no man's land' sounded like a really cool premise for the final ever run of Gotham. It's a truly jaw-dropping moment when Jerome's plans succeed, especially after they were foiled in the previous episode, and it sets the show up nicely for a season that would later prove to be one of the show's greatest ever run of episodes.

Overall, Gotham's fourth season provides an amazing build-up to its final ever season. It develops the show's characters nicely, whilst also introducing what is perhaps Gotham's most brutal antagonist in Professor Pyg. Whilst some aspects of the narrative such as Lee and Ed Nygma's relationship, and Jerome becoming the show's de-facto Joker, didn't quite work for me, overall this fourth season succeeds at preparing its audience for the show's approaching end point, whilst also offering a strong run of episodes in its own right. This season is arguably just as important as the fifth season that followed, as it builds the characters towards their eventual final goals nicely, and in doing so demonstrates the key ingredients that make this show work as well as it does.

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What are your thoughts on Gotham Season Four? Let me know in the comments.