Written by James Stoteraux & Chad Fiveash
Directed by Kenneth Fink
Bane (to Gordon): "If the world is full of monsters, the only way to defeat them is to become one yourself."
With two extra episodes we were delayed the inevitable but after months of trailers, cast shot and generally getting my head around the idea, Shane West is our Bane and it's something of a mixed bag if we're being perfectly honest here.
The positives first though - the voice is thankfully clear and intimidating enough and the backstory is similar to both the comics and what The Dark Knight Rises also did with the character and unlike Batman & Robin, this is also an iteration of the character that understands his intelligence and calculating persona. Also acting wise, credit where it's due, Shane West does do a decent job here.
As for the negatives, they're not many but they're still noticeable - the costume is not great and looks a bit cheap, West doesn't look physically intimidating enough as Bane and that's in spite of the fact that his mission to kill Barbara resulted in Alfred getting the back breaking treatment usually reserved for Bruce, not to mention that once again, he's not the actual baddie of the season but more the henchmen of the real villain of the piece.
Had I not gone onto Reddit weeks ago, then the reveal of Theresa Walker actually being Nyssa Al Ghul might have had more impact but eh, I did, so the reveal while decently done didn't quite deliver as well as it could. On the other hand, it was nice to see Jaime Murray go at it as she upped her revenge for both Bruce and Barbara given their role in her father's death last season.
The last scene in particular following Barbara having given birth to a little girl (gee, I wonder what she's going to be called) saw Nyssa make her own introduction at the Sirens and I do wonder with two episodes left and a lot of heavy handed scenes between Barbara and Leslie during the episode if we're going to end up losing the character as part of Nyssa's final revenge along with this episode ending on the city getting fire bombed.
Of course when the city wasn't getting a fiery vengeance at the behest of Nyssa, we did have both Selina and Alfred working well together as a team while Oswald and Edward were preoccupied with trying to leave, coming up with a temporary way of distracting Bane to save Barbara and generally adding a lot of humour to what should've been a very serious situation.
Even with Edward getting back the vital component for the submarine, I don't see either of them getting the chance to leave as things have royally gone to hell. Not to mention that in spite of being villains, both Oswald and Edward have been somewhat forced into anti-villain roles this season and there's still the issue of the opening flash forward to be realised in the next episode.
- Nice to have some continuity on both Leslie and Edward stabbing one another along with Alfred's plans to get Wayne Manor rebuilt.
- If last episode was the last appearances for Poison Ivy and Victor Zsasz, then I guess this one was the last for Hugo Strange who nearly came close to putting a chip in Gordon's head on Nyssa's orders.
- There will be a four week break before the show returns for it's last two episodes. The amount of breaks in this season has been a bit much at this rate.
- Chronology: It's Day 369 of this whole event so at least five months has passed since the events of The Trial Of Jim Gordon.
I Am Bane marks a decent outing for the titular baddie of the bunch while also revealing Nyssa's true motives all along. I do think had we seen more of Walker in action before the reveal, it would've made the thing more impacting but given that this No Man's Land storyline will be wrapped up next episode, here's hoping both Nyssa and Bane aren't randomly killed off though I suspect one of them will be.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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