Friday, March 23, 2018

My Review of Gotham's 4x15: "The Sinking Ship, The Grand Applause"


Written by Seth Boston
Directed by Nick Copus

Sofia: "James Gordon, this is where our story ends."

Except, it's more where their story was put on pause when Leslie decided to get revenge and save Jim by putting a bullet between Sofia's eyes, which landed the latter into a coma rather than six feet under. I guess Sofia will be another character we can await for the chaos that will be a rather jam packed finale.

I knew Sofia's quick succession of amassing enemies was destined to backfire on her but even I'm surprised that it happened almost this quickly, though at least the show didn't decide to drag things out. Oswald escaped and Sofia knew she was on borrowed time, so she got Zsasz and Headhunter to try and take out both the Penguin, Penn while she failed to deal with Gordon herself.

I've missed Zsasz in the last few episodes and it was nice to have him back here, snarking along the way while also failing to take out both Oswald and Arthur for good. This episode gave us some information on what Penn likes to get up to in his spare time and to be honest, it's one of those things I would've been fine not seeing at all.

As for Oswald, well he's clear of Martin's "murder" given that Edward rescued the kid and Sofia being coma bound means he's got a shot of reclaiming his underworld title before someone else usurps it from him. However the highlight of this episode wasn't so much Oswald escaping Arkham and having Sofia taken out of the picture for him but more his reunion with Nygma.

This episode finally laid their rivalry to one side as they both came through for each other. Nygma rescued Martin, busted Oswald out of Arkham and even refused to help Sofia while being tortured while Oswald put his revenge plan to one side in order to rescue his friend. While I don't think this show will ever give Nygmobblepot shippers what they truly desire, at least the two of them are back to being friends again though.

As for the rest of the episode, we got more of Leslie's dark side, considering her willingness to help Oswald against Sofia and her punishment of Samson when reclaiming the Narrows. There was also Bruce helping Selina with retrieving something from one of Ivy's former victims and there was also Butch putting the frighteners on both Barbara and Nygma while Tabitha did very little than protest a lot.

Speaking of Barbara, that shiny light from her former encounter with Ras came into play a lot this week when she kept getting headaches and saw the latter in the Sirens bar. I know next week's episode has more rogues returning but I'm really looking forward to the subplot she's going to have with Ras in among all that madness.

- I had to laugh at the joke between Oswald and Edward never wanting to see the docks again. We all know that's not going to happen for either of them.
- Nice to have a Freeze cameo in this episode along with Zsasz and Headhunter going off to get milkshakes.
- No Lucius or Alfred this week.
- Chronology: Not long from where Reunion left off.

The Sinking Ship, The Grand Applause is a pretty extravagant title but the episode in itself was rather showy in it's teams up this week. Of course Sofia's reign had to come to an end or pause but we already know that Oswald won't be long in losing his grip on the underworld when he gets it back though. As for next week, let the madness unfold.

Rating: 8 out of 10

No comments:

Post a Comment