Gotham returned tonight with season 2, and it brought with it a much darker city, with characters even more conflicted than ever before.
Anyone that watched Gotham season 1 knows that the series had its flaws. While entertaining, the stand-alone episodes didn’t work for the fans who wanted to get to know the characters on a deeper level. And it wasn’t satisfying to be introduced to a new villain every episode only to have him gone by the end of the hour.
It seems that Gotham has managed to solve all of these problems, kicking off with the season 2 premiere. Right off the bat, it’s like the show reset itself. There seems to be a time gap between the season 1 finale and the season 2 premiere so that the characters aren’t where we left them. And they’re all in a very dark place.
Gordon is serving as a traffic cop, and barely hanging onto that job, while Bullock was kicked out of the force and is working as a bar tender. Captain Essen is still in charge, but at the mercy of the commissioner who is just as corrupt as before.
Meanwhile, Penguin is in charge and working to gain the respect from the gangs of Gotham. Some still see him as a weak link, but he has Zsasz, Butch, and Selina on his side. Arkham is full of the criminally insane, including Barbara who hasn’t recovered from her time with The Ogre.
As the episode went on, the characters grew even darker and we got a hint of where the rest of the season would be going. Gordon early on in the episode is fired from the GCPD, and seems at a loss as to what he should do. It’s clear that the only way he will ever have a career as a detective is if Loeb is gone. So he turns to the last person he wants to, Penguin.
Naturally, Penguin wants something in return and it’s not exactly legal. Gordon wants to remain the moral compass, so he goes and tells Bruce that he won’t be able to fulfill his promise to find his parents killer. Bruce offers the advice that it might be for the greater good, to do that one bad thing, so that Gordon can get his job back and help lots of others.
It’s just enough of a pep talk to get Gordon, who’s a little bit drunk, off to do Penguin’s favor. But it doesn’t go as planned, and Gordon ends up killing the gang leader in self defense. He still gets the money, so Penguin is happy to uphold his end of the bargain. But now it seems like Gordon’s soul is a little bit tainted.
After a frightening visit form Zsasz and Penguin, Loeb steps down from his position as commissioner and Essen takes his place. Of course this means that Gordon has his job back. But at what price? Even though he’s supposed to be even with Penguin, we’re sure this won’t be the end of their “friendship.”
To make matters worse, there’s a new big bad team in town. Theo and Tabitha Galavan have come to Gotham and they’re ready to take over. But first they recruit a team from Arkham which includes Jerome and Barbara for help. What they’re after isn’t exactly clear yet, but it definitely won’t be good. Nor will it help Barbara get over her homicidal tendencies as of late.
At the very end of the episode, Bruce found a way into his father’s mysterious cave and there was a letter for him. We think what he read will be a major theme for the season especially, “You can’t have both happiness and the truth – you have to choose.”
