Tuesday, May 30, 2017

My Review of Gotham's 3x20: "Pretty Hate Machine"


Written by Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt
Directed by Danny Cannon

Bruce: "Gotham must fall."

Well, going by the end of this episode, it's certainly going to get close to that. Thanks to a combination of our two main protagonists losing their minds, Tetch's virus has gone airborne and chaos is about to ensue. Oh and there's more gang war stuff too.

First though - our heroes. I was really hoping that Bruce was playing the long game with that Temple Shaman bloke and that he had a plan in mind but given his final scene with Alfred, it does seem like he was well and truly under the guy's spell and even though Temple was killed off, Alfred is certainly going to have to do his best to snap Bruce out of his current state.

Then there's Gordon. He tried to reason with the newly infected Leslie, who in turn decided to bury him alive with a sample of the virus in order to save himself. Because Gordon himself is now infected with it, it's definitely a safe bet that a cure will be found in the finale. As for Leslie, this bad girl thing the show is doing with her now kind of works. I almost don't want her to be cured but the show has enough baddies as it is at the moment.

Speaking of the baddies, Nygma went into full kill Oswald mode in this one as himself and Butch had Oswald and Ivy cornered, only for the two of them to escape and Tabitha to strong arm Selina into setting a trap for Oswald though. However, for a guy so determined to kill Oswald, Nygma was more obsessed of having his new moniker said to him more than shooting the man who killed his girlfriend earlier in the season.

Of course, the bigger thing to take away is how amateurish Nygma, Barbara, Tabitha and Butch really are. The constant backbiting and snide comments means that they're going to become their undoing more than Oswald or anyone else but the return of Fish near the last minute does show that none of them can be yet taken seriously as villains.

Fish's return for the finale was certainly timely and it was nice to see both Oswald and Butch delighted to see her while Barbara, Tabitha and Nygma looked on in confusion (Ivy too for that matter). However it seems that Oswald might have to be the one adjusting to whatever scheme Fish herself is cooking up rather than her being a pawn in his scheming.

- Ras Al Ghul was set up for next week then. Oh and I guess the Court of Owls are possibly no more for now.
- The finale basically feels like it's lifting off Batman Begins. Then again, that didn't stop Arrow from doing that with at least two of their finales, so I'm not complaining.
- No Lucius, Barnes or Jervis this week but it definitely seems like there will be roles for all three of them in the last two episodes along with Freeze and Firefly.
- Chronology: Not long from where All Will Be Judged left off.

Pretty Hate Machine did it's job in setting up the finale and it certainly had fun with our protagonists compromised and our antagonists all splintering in their own ways too. Here's hoping the last two bring this virus storyline to a good conclusion though.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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