“Pilot” Heroic Analysis (1 of 100) of James Gordon & Young Bruce Wayne from “Gotham”

Spoilers ahead:

Q. How can the show be good without Batman?

A. On the contrary, friends. A version of Batman is in the show. It is an origin story, and though the focus is on Gordon, we see early stages and development of many villains as well as a young Bruce Wayne. 

In the premiere episode of Fox’s new television series, Gotham, viewers are re-introduced to a respectable amount of familiar character archetypes – shadows, heralds, heroes, etc. But it is the premise of the show that customizes the most variation from much of the source material from which the show was derived. Many critics believe that a cop drama based on Detective James “Jim” Gordon (Ben McKenzie) could never work set in a Gotham without a “hero this city deserves.” But Gordon may just be the hero that the D.C. universe needs to compete with the growing Marvel industry and keep prime-time television refreshing.

The Conflicting Heroes

The first question (or second, given I have already included one) anyone seeking to do a review of what makes the characters fit into the heroic archetypes, like I intend to do, is who is the hero? Is the show the superhero origin story of young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) under the guise of yet another Fox prime-time cop drama, or does it adequately establish Detective Gordon as the hero? Is it possible to analyze the show with the incomplete knowledge of the comic-verse (I am certainly not a master of Batman history or lore), but knowledge none-the-less, that Bruce will one day don the mask of the bat and beat up thugs in back alleys?

All heroes must make the journey from an ordinary world into a special, unfamiliar and more often than not, dangerous one. This happens to both of the “hero” characters, if you consider young Bruce as a budding hero. 

First we get the traditional death of Thomas and Martha Wayne (Grayson McCouch and Brette Taylor Respectively) in the back alley by the anonymous thug. For Bruce, Gotham city is his home. It is what he knows, even though we do not know for sure how much Young Wayne is exposed to the dark side of the city (which is approximately 99% of Gotham city, even during the day). He goes from having parents and living in a comfortable place to not having parents and being thrust into the true heart of the city of which he lives. Now Wayne has reason to become the Batman that viewers know and love, and he is set up to have some form of atonement with his father later on during his journey. Even though viewers are aware of this origin, the show does a tremendous job at making it seem new. We don't get any idea of how Gordon can 'atone with his father'.

On the other hand, we have Detective Gordon, a straight-laced cop who is new to Gotham city. We see his introduction to a city where it is okay to shoot first and ask questions later, and his heroic approach to solving a dangerous situation immediately conflicts with the norms present in the city where he finds himself as a new detective. However, Gordon does come across as too straight laced, and his superior officers seem to be stereo typical  bad cop antagonists, i.e. threshold guardians. 

Both heroes, in their breaking from the ordinary world, also have their call to adventure, and their refusal to that call. In this, Young Wayne’s refusal is the strongest of the two, while Gordon’s call is louder than Bruce’s. When Bruce sees his parents murdered in front of him, he releases one of the most bone-chilling shrieks. For viewers who are being immersed in the city of batman for the first time, this cry stabs your heart and you immediately feel a deep sense of sorrow and worry for this poor little kid (Don’t worry, you will find it in you to actually be glad this event happens to this particular little boy in his future). This scream represents one of the strongest refusals in prime-time television in recent memory. It is a huge tone-setting moment for developer Bruno Heller and director Danny Cannon because it makes you want to keep watching.

Gordon does not have quite as strong a refusal as Bruce does, however his call is easily there. His first day on the job he is assigned a high profile case. This ties him with two of the richest people that lived in Gotham city, while also pushing him straight up to the front door of some of the darkest secrets Gotham has and will have in the future. It seems a bit shoehorned, yet reasonable to me, that through everything Gordon endures in the first episode, he will cling to his inner hero and be a beacon of "light" of the veiled city. I find it humorous that light is point of interest between Gordon and Young Wayne because we know that Young Wayne will indeed be a shadow in the city, for the city.

Either way, Young Wayne’s and Gordon’s fates are tied together, along with Detective Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue), because Gordon is assigned the case of discovering who murdered Young Wayne’s parents. With that, the pilot episode of what could be one of Fox’s best shows begins.

The Mentors

Both Young Bruce Wayne and Detective Gordon have “mentor” figures established in the first episode, though we get more from the Gordon-hero side (and rightly so because it is his show after all). Young Wayne not only has a mentor figure in Alfred, but will perhaps have one in Gordon himself. The interaction with young Wayne and Gordon are some of the pilot’s stronger moments, and they work for me in what I really hope to see developed further. Gordon seems to be invested in keeping his promise to young Wayne, and cities have been built and destroyed on a promise. We see Bruce “being strong” at his parents funeral when he shakes Gordon’s hand. Later, we see him attempting to conquer fear in that way a young batman would – standing at the edge of the roof of a building.

Gordon, at least for the pilot, has an initial mentor in Bullock. Though I don’t think it is a coincidence that his name is Harvey “cough maybe his middle name will be dent cough” Bullock. Bullock seems to be the character that Gordon will learn most of what he knows about Gotham from – good and bad. What Gordon does with this knowledge will shape him into the detective he will become, but for now, Gordon needs Bullock to introduce him to the cities major players and fill him in on the history of the city. Though Bullock and Gordon are polar opposites, written each with almost exclusively no grey areas, the relationship should continue to develop as the show progresses.

Shadows

The two most prominent and note-worthy shadows in the pilot episode are Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor). Mooney is clearly the supreme shadow in this episode, and set up to be so for future episodes. For starters she has a “friendly” relationship with Bullock that makes us initially suspicious of him as well. That is until he threatens her. We see how rash and henchman-killing she is. I would like to see some more depth to her character, like we get with Oswald, but for now I will settle for Jada Pinkett Smith’s great performance in the role. Just when you thought the Smith Family had exhausted their seemingly endless resource of talent, Jada breathes life into an unfamiliar character.

Oswald Cobblepot was the best thing about the 46 minute pilot episode. Although he does not really fit the traditional role (of shadow) quit yet, we know he becomes a shadow for Gotham heroes when he becomes the penguin. It may be too soon to claim this, but Taylor does for the Penguin what Heath Ledger does / did for the Nolan Joker – an entirely new soul into such a well-known and loved character. Ledger succeeded the great Jack Nicholson, and Taylor succeeds the INCOMPARABLE Danny Devito. In the few moments that we get from Taylor in this episode, we see fear (when Fish commands him to hold the umbrella closer or else), we see desperation (when he is in the car with the detectives crying foul about his boss), we see pain (when Fish confronts him about his betrayal), and we see the perfect amounts of crazy (beating the man with the bat – and killing a man and eating his sandwich). Taylor was perfect in this role! Perfect. However, as a heroic archetypal character, he does not seem to fit a traditional role very well. Not really a herald to Bruce or Gordon. Definitely not a mentor. At best he could be a threshold guardian for Gordon when Gordon has to decide whether or not to kill him (and after 40 minutes of watching there is no doubt in the viewers’ minds that Gordon will never kill a man for this reason – too honorable).

It may just be that I am reading into it, but I think the shows writers, producers, and directors clearly set up Fish Mooney to be defeated by Oswald. Though we know that Oswald will one day accept the nickname “Penguin,” we also know that Penguins eat what? Fish. Sexual jokes aside, I just blew your mind people. Blew. Your. Mind.

Some Other Major Players

In the Wayne-hero camp we have an introduction to Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova). Fans will know this to be Catwoman in the future, and the writers make it really obvious that she is a pre-Catwoman in training with the fun intro scene where she steals the milk and gives it to the poor homeless street cat. But for a character that is a street urchin, she sure does have some nice leather digs and fancy goggles. Is she homeless or does she just enjoy robbing people? I kind of hope we don’t find out until much later because right now the mystery is still fascinating. Like Joker says in the Nolan films, “some people just want to watch the world burn.” But this take on Selina is new to me as I have always seen Catwoman become the way she is by 'accident' – my two immediate ideas of her are Hale Berry and Michelle Pfeiffer, both who over acted and left subtlety to the birds. I already enjoy Bicondova’s interpretation a lot better than both (Anne Hathway still has her trumped… for now). For this pilot, we do not get much from Selina, but she sees the Waynes murderer, she creeps outside of the Bat-manor… I mean the Wayne estate... and she even attends the funeral of the Waynes. What is her fascination, or soon-to-be-revealed connection with Bruce? For now, I think she is a trickster figure for the Wayne side of heroic adventures.

Gordon meets all of the rest of the major players the show introduces, and there are TON of them! 

First, there is his partner, Harvey Bullock – a clear herald, mentor, and I suspect a future shape shifter as he switches from bad cop to good cop and then possible Two Face. Harvey is established as a crooked cop, though he may, and I really hope this is true, reveal more grey areas to his character in the future. A part of me believes he does what he has to do to survive in Gotham. Maybe he is afraid, or maybe he is just dirty to the core. It is too soon to tell, and hypothetical ideas derived from the pilot episode are bad ways to identify his complete character. I will stay on the lookout.

We also meet Alfred Pennyworth (Sean Pertwee) at the crime scene, but he does nothing more than introduce himself to Gordon and reveal that he may assume the responsibilities of being Bruce’s caretaker, i.e. father figure or mentor. Fans will know a lot more about Alfred’s involvement in Bruce’s development, but we will leave that for later since it does not happen in this episode.

In the police department we have a few wildcard characters who I am not familiar with, but I know their names have come up in the D.C. universe before because of some minor reading I did before writing this. Crispus Allen (Andrew Stewart-Jones) and Renee Montoya (Victoria Cartagena) are both colleagues of Gordon and Bullock, and for now seem to be honest cops who care about doing what is right, though they are doing so for glory and not for goodness sake. They are set up to antagonize Gordon and Bullock, but I would not necessarily deem them shadows because their end goal is to find out the truth behind who murdered the Waynes. In that, they have the same goal as Gordon. They may reveal themselves to be allies, but more likely they will serve as Threshold Guardians in future episodes. In the confines of this episode, they are heralds – at least, Renee is a herald. When Renee tells Barbara Keen (Erin Richards) about how she suspects that Gordon framed Mario Pepper (Daniel Stewart-Jones) this leads to Gordon realizing that they killed the wrong man (Though they did nothing wrong in investigating him and he was only killed because of his own stupidity). On that note, Keen is a clear ally / temptress / damsel in distress (though she has a mysterious past) and Butch is a clear threshold guardian. Keen believes in Gordon and has done nothing else so far, and Pepper gets in the way of them finding out who actually murdered Bruce’s parents. We don’t get enough of Captain Sarah Essen (Zabryna Guevara) to place her in the confines of Gordon’s journey. We also see Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) who fits the role of ally in this episode, though fans of the bat-verse know that he will don the question mark (and hopefully he does so in this series because I love his character so far).

Closing Remarks and Review

Gotham does a very good job at reinventing the wheel. Iterations of Batman are so popular and diverse that it seemed unlikely that viewers would see such a neat take on such a classic series. For what it is worth, I think the show has some really tough shoes to fill, but as a pilot I feel like the show did really well to impress me. The constant argument is that many villains are thrown into the episode and not enough time to develop them, however I think as a pilot it wet my whistle just enough to see what happens to nearly every character. I want to see everyone’s story develop, from the large man who cries for his pills (Geoffrey Murphy), to young Bruce Wayne who so obviously will become batman it is visibly palpable in that great young actor’s eyes.

Gotham, at its core, is an amazing insight into just how amazing stories can unfold because of the characters around the hero, as well as other characters being heroes in their own right! This is so true in this case because we are going to have so many characters that we care about. Hopefully Gotham will get its chance to live and die as a cinematic hero and not become a villain in the episodes to come.