After a string of halfway decent episodes that made Gotham's second half mostly palatable, "The Scarecrow" marked a low point for the series since its January return to air.
The show manages to stretch its most tedious and frustrating elements across two episodes, and the resulting conclusion to Gotham's hyped Scarecrow story ends up being just another meaningless and dull riff on the Batman canon.
The hour was a mixed bag, but the focus of the main villain of the episode kept me interested. But with every name drop or introduction of a future Batman villain, it makes me wonder how much of Batman's world will be introduced before Batman.
"The Scarecrow" is the beginning of one of Gotham's greatest madmen, Jonathan Crane, and within the episode's 45 minutes, Gotham finally does an origin story right.
There is no hard-and-fast Scarecrow origin story, which gave Gotham lots of room to play and, in this instance, to craft a surprisingly sympathetic character... even with us knowing what the future holds for him.
This is another episode that I would say I enjoyed overall, but it is based more on it being better than other episodes, continuing to have fun stuff involving Penguin, and for featuring some cool visuals that put it over the top.
I love the Scarecrow storyline, and was really looking forward to it... Somehow, though, it sort of fell flat for me, and I think maybe it was because the other stuff going on was so dubious and unlikely.
Therein lies the biggest problem with Gotham, a problem so paradoxical it almost seems impossible. The more Gotham delves into a character's back-story, the more it takes away from the depth of that character.
