Gotham continues to feel like a project where no one's entirely sure what the show is -- or, at least, how to make it function as a weekly TV series that has to offer some kind of episodic closure even as the different arcs build.
Both last week's episode and this week's are thematically cogent but dramatically inert. Which, again, is at least preferable to the shapeless collection of tangents that was the series premiere.
The reasons to love this one just keep coming, unlike weeks previously, where the comic bookery was limited to "guy with the name of an unrelated supervillain" or "guy with a pointy stick," "Viper" is classic Batman.
We're almost a quarter of the way through Gotham's first season, and the character that has seen the most development is Bruce frickin' Wayne, the emo Encyclopedia Brown. And the only reason he has the most is because he's getting any at all.
I recommended hanging in there when scoring Gotham's 4-Episode Test, and "Viper" made me feel good about that decision. It wasn't a perfect episode, but Gotham, I think, is always going to struggle to achieve "perfection."
Gotham finally felt like a complete comic book puzzle with no soggy pieces that didn't fit. Except for maybe like one of those Fish Mooney/Liza the Streetfighting Lounge Singer scenes.
