Tuesday, January 24, 2017

My Review of Gotham's 3x13: "Smile Like You Mean It"


Written by Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt
Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi

Leslie: "Theo Galavan's dead."
Jerome: "Who beat me to it?"
Leslie: "Which time?"

And he's back, folks! Last week did the teasing and this week kind of did the pleasing as Jerome finally came back from the dead, had his face taken off him but also delighted in a wonderfully snarky conversation with Leslie before shit went down towards the final act of this particular episode.

I could honestly watch a whole episode of Jerome and Leslie just deadpanning everything from Gordon to Galavan and back again but the little scene we got with those two was just priceless. Actually, this embittered version of Leslie who just jabs people with syringes and generally treats Gordon with a level of disdain is a breath of fresh air. I really want this version of the character to stay around for a bit longer to be honest.

As for Jerome, it did take until halfway through this episode for him to properly get in on the action. Until then, it was mostly his cult trying their best to be menacing with Dwight intentionally coming across as hopelessly pathetic when he imitated his icon (including taking his face as well). Having Jerome then publicly punish Dwight was a great way of enforcing his authority along with putting the city into a blackout as well.

Of course it wasn't just Jerome causing so many problems in this episode as well (though his scenes were undoubtedly the best this week). Barbara and Tabitha upped their torment of Oswald by trying to get him to act out against some gang members and when the latter wasn't wiping out some of the gang members herself, Nygma was pretending to be taken hostage as well.

It's a little bad to see Oswald completely lose his shit over Nygma but on the other hand, it's providing some genuinely great drama and Barbara herself is getting some great lines too. However, it's pretty obvious though that Tabitha's desire to kill Nygma (which she's totally justified in having) isn't going to pan out so well for her though. That guy ain't dying any time soon.

Meanwhile Selina's storyline with her mother took the most predictable of twists. It turned out that Maria was scamming her daughter and Bruce and Selina certainly let rip at both her mother and Bruce - the latter who seemed pretty unfazed by Maria's deception. Even for a weaker-ish plot, it held up pretty well along with the Jerome and Oswald storylines this week.

- Jerome's look is totally family if you've read recent comic stories like Death Of The Family and Endgame.
- Barbara describing Oswald's hair as 'disco vampire' is brilliant. One of the best lines the show has ever thrown out there.
- Nygma didn't physically appear in the episode. Butch, Ivy, Barnes and Jervis were also no shows here too.
- Chronology: A couple of days since the events of Ghosts I think.

Smile Like You Mean It certainly gave Jerome the return he deserved. I could've done without every member of his cult feeling the need to mimic his laugh though but other than that, this episode was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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