GOTHAM: Bang Bang He Shot Waynes Down

I am an absolute sucker for a) atmospheric shows and b) superheroes, and Gotham seemed to fit the ticket for both. Before I get deep into this world, a disclaimer: I haven’t read the source material, but like the Fake Geek Girl ™ that I am, I read a bunch of angry internet comments. Grumpy fans are surprisingly good at giving you background when they list everything that they perceive to be wrong a product.

Gotham has some problems, but the sheer gorgeousness of the opening shot isn’t one of them. We open with a tiny ingénue in cute gloves perched atop a roof, crouching like…a cat. Um, not familiar with the canon, but I’m going to just guess that this is Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova). She’s young and waifish and already up to her feline ways, which involve slashing open a bag of groceries, tucking a quart of milk in her shirt (which HAS to be cold), and swiping some guy’s wallet before she scampers up the side of a building. After a stop to give a kitty some milk, she perches on a balcony just in time to witness the iconic murder of the elder Waynes.

The reviewer confesses that maybe she was only paying a little attention at this point. I hate Batman. I really do. I find him to be the ultimate male power fantasy, which is dull. True to form, the mugger tries to take Mrs. Wayne’s pearls, she drops them, they bounce all over the pavement, and the mugger’s like, screw this noise, and guns them down. I’m still trying to figure out why; he wasn’t startled or particularly easy to recognize, so killing the Waynes just feels like, “Huh, guess we’d better start the legendary Batman story now, bang bang.” He lowers his gun before he can shoot Bruce.

And now let’s meet our hero! Detective James Gordon is played by Ben McKenzie, who has plenty of experience with coplihood from Southland, and we know he’s a maverick from his first scene, which takes place in a busy police station. A con gets the drop on a lady cop and things quickly turn ugly when about 60 gathered cops all point their guns at the man who just needs his pills, you guys. Jim manages to defuse the situation and get to where he can subdue the man without a single shot being fired, though he’s perturbed when the cops start beating on the gentleman. After so many dismal anti-heroes, it’s nice to have a show about a guy whose response isn’t to shoot first and be considered a hero.

Jim’s partner Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue, and now I really miss Life) shows up to berate him over not putting a bullet in the guy instead, which Jim points out would have set everybody off. Even though they’re about to go off-shift, they cop a double-homicide in the theater district. Harvey snarks with the cop in charge and tries to get the case taken up by Major Crimes, as he doesn’t want to deal with all of the trouble that solving the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne will bring into their lives.

Jim spots Bruce, huddled off to the side under a blanket, and goes to talk to him. He tells Bruce that his father had been killed by a drunk driver when he was the same age, and no matter how dark the world seems, there will be light. Bruce describes the man who killed his parents as tall, wearing a mask, and shiny shoes. Right after he makes a promise to Bruce that he’ll find the man who killed the kid’s parents, Alfred shows up. Jim repeats the promise to him, and Alfred’s response is…a little jaded. “New boy, eh?” He wishes Jim luck and leaves, coaching Bruce on how to deal with the crowd.

Let’s bring in some other cops. First it’s Renee Montoya (Victoria Cartagena) and Crisp Allen (Andrew Stewart-Jones) of the Major Crimes Unit, who want the case. They snark back and forth at Harvey in a stereotypical diner (that I recognize from a lot of shows), and as much as he wants to unload the case, he’s goaded into keeping it. He calls Montoya and Allen a couple of do-gooders, while Jim stares at him with obvious dislike. The dislike only intensifies when Harvey tries to get him reassigned in the next scene with Captain Sarah Essen (Zabryna Guevara), but Jim apparently is a war hero and the son of a legendary DA. He’s also pretty unmovable. When Harvey tells him it’s not a city or job for nice guys, Jim’s answer is a shrug and “You’ll get used to me.”

TIME TO CRINGE AT SOME DIALOGUE: “You’re a cynic. A slovenly, lackadaisical cynic.” This is legit a line that Jim had to utter, and for some reason, Harvey doesn’t laugh him out of the police station for failing to use SAT vocab words correctly. Instead, they go “rouse some muggers,” and see a man named Nygma (Cory Michael Smith), who tells them that the bullet came out of a gun not registered in their database. He also gives them a riddle, which Jim solves with an eye-roll that makes me adore him already. I can’t wait to see the shiny green suit with question marks all over it. Iim puts forward the theory that the killer wasn’t a mugger but a contract killer. Harvey would rather go see Fish Mooney, the gangster who works for Falcone. Theater district’s her turf. Let’s go meet her!

Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) apparently runs a speak-easy, or at least that’s what the building looks like. Every time I see a bartender on TV, he or she is wiping out a glass, and this scene is no exception. At least he’s not back in the alley getting beaten up by Fish like the poor guy that apparently stole money from her. Fish yells at her second-in-command, a man they call Penguin (“You know I don’t like to be called that!”) and goes in to flirt with Harvey while Jim looks on disapprovingly.

Guys, we’re not even halfway through the episode. Gotham sure packs a lot of action, and I don’t know if recapping everything as it happens is going to work. For example: we haven’t even met Barbara Kean (Erin Richards), Jim Gordon’s fiancée, yet! She’s blonde and kind of stilted, and she promises that when she’s Mrs. James Gordon, she’s going to make him eat healthier. This would terrify me, but Jim seems to find it cute, given the fact that there’s some banter and sexytimes. Jim wakes up to a call from Harvey: he’s three sheets to the wind and he’s got a lead.

The lead? That would be John Pepper and what with Sam Pepper’s awful “pranks” (read: assault on women in public places) this week, what an awful name. And hey, John Pepper has a daughter named Ivy. Gee, I wonder who she grows up to become. I’m kind of amazed they didn’t walk by a girl in a motley on the way up the stairs, just saying. Anyway, John Pepper throws a table at them, runs through the same place where John Shepherd died on Fringe, and ultimately gets 86’d by the partners. Searching his place later leads them to find Mrs. Wayne’s string of pearls. Yay, the killer is found! The Waynes can be buried! Jim fulfilled his promise! They’re heroes! Yaaaaay!

Except Oswald Cobblepot has news for Montoya and Allen: turns out the police department set up John Pepper because Fish Mooney told them to. Montoya drops by casa KeanGordon to talk to Jim about it, but instead she has a pretty implication-heavy conversation with Barbara instead (“Does he know you like I do?”). Please, writers, I beg you, if I’m right, PLEASE actually use the term “bisexual” to refer to Barbara if that’s what she is. PLEASE. Anyway, Jim’s understandably less than thrilled that he might have killed an innocent man and goes to confront Fish by himself. Without backup. Oh, you sweet summer child, it’s no wonder that you get clocked on the back of the head by Fish. I mean, c’mon.

So Barbara calls Harvey looking for Jim, and that leads Harvey to put together what happened. He goes to Fish to bargain for his partner, and things seem to be going well (except for Jim, who’s strung upside down in a meat-packing plant), except, um, maybe don’t threaten Fish Mooney? Ever? She holds a grudge, as evidenced by the fact that she tells her men to kill Harvey, and the fact that she beats the hell out of Cobblepot for betraying her. Things look kind of grim for our plucky detectives, but TWIST: Carmine Falcone  (John Doman), the gangster boss, shows up to gun down a few of Fish’s men and talk to Jim a bit.

Oswald’s that ends well, though! Terrible puns aside, Harvey takes Jim aside and explains how it is in this town: everybody is dirty. Even the cops. ESPECIALLY the cops. The mayor, the captain, the cops, the criminals, it’s a very balanced ecosystem, and if Jim wants to keep his shoes as the non-concrete variety, he’ll have to play along. Which means taking Oswald to the end of the dock (I am really good at recognizing Vancouver) and shooting him to show his loyalty. Oswald babbles the entire way down the dock, revealing that something bad is coming and it’s only going to get worse. Jim tells him never to show his face in Gotham again—and shoots the air beside the man as he shoves him into the water.

That’s going to end really well for you, Jim. I can already tell.

The episode ends with Jim going to Wayne manor, where he sees Bruce balancing precariously on the roof (Alfred giving Bruce an earful is probably my favorite part of the episode). And he confesses that they don’t have the Waynes’ killer, but he’s going to get to the bottom of things. I know it’s Batman mythology, but I can’t help but think: Jim. Jim, that’s a ten-year-old kid. That’s a kid. Maybe let him keep the closure he needs to grow up at all remotely healthy? But without this sort of thing, we wouldn’t have Batman, I guess. And from the gate of the manor, the mysterious baby thief watches on. I can’t wait to hear her story.

Gotham airs Mondays on FOX at 8/7c.