Season 1, Episode 8: “The Mask”
Spoilers and blunt-force timepieces lurk below.
“Gotham” has not been subtle about its antipathy for the non-Wayne mega-rich.
It’s unclear whether the impulse reflects a genuine contempt for the Masters of the Universe by the producers, who are presumably 1 percenters (or close to it) themselves, or is just a cynical sop to the broadcast audience. But whatever the source, it’s emerged as one of the show’s unmistakable themes, whether it was the Balloonman dispatching a crooked financier a few weeks ago, to general approval, or the Goat puppetmaster orchestrating the deaths of wealthy youngsters because “We all want to eat the rich, don’t we?”
Early in Monday’s episode, we see a gilded twit kvetching into her phone about someone’s shabby yacht, before the Penguin steals her brooch. Later a soft-faced twerp taunts young Bruce Wayne about his parents’ murder. Batboy eventually delivers a righteous beat-down, using his father’s watch like a set of brass knuckles. In both cases, the comeuppance of the cosseted is sweet.
Then of course there was the main plot, which casts Wall Street as a cartoonishly suspendered, testosterone-addled death cult. Sionis Investments is a firm led by a pompous samurai wannabe who delivers Gecko-lite monologues equating business and war. His likes include wearing fierce Japanese masks and keeping job applicants in chain-link cages, which he opens only to allow them to fight to the death.
Gordon and Bullock become involved when the corpse of one of the losers turns up coated in printer toner and strafed with staples. The cause of death was a lethal blow to the neck with the blade of a paper trimmer. Some cursory investigation ultimately results in a final showdown in a derelict office building between Gordon and three of the bankers, which the rest of the firm watches with ancient-Roman relish on closed- circuit television. After the detective dispatches his opponents, the big boss arrives with his mask and best samurai sword, which Gordon dodges adroitly before knocking him out.
Look, I’m as susceptible as anyone to the lizard-brain pleasures of seeing privileged nasties get what’s coming to them. There’s just not much substance to it. Is there a message in there, with all the mask-wearing, about how the abstract math of high finance enables bankers to wreak destruction while remaining detached, emotionally and often legally, from the human consequences? Maybe. But mostly there’s just the cheap satisfaction of watching a sneering rich kid get punched in the face.
(I did enjoy the existential metaphor of office supplies as instruments of death, though you’ll perhaps forgive me for not pondering it too deeply as I type away in my cubicle.)
The Suspender Fight Club didn’t look like any kind of fun, but Monday’s episode offered further evidence that the very worst job in Gotham City is Fish Mooney underling. Timothy, we hardly knew ye. You’ll recall that the pilot episode included the ordered murder of Fish’s designated umbrella-toter, the Penguin, and later, her boy-toy Lazlo was beaten up to send a message. Another lover, Fish’s partner-in-plotting Nikolai, was machine-gunned to death last week.
The rivalry between Penguin and Fish Mooney has so much potential that I’m almost afraid to jinx it by saying too much about it. Their tête-à-tête on Monday was all oleaginous cordiality, up to the moment Fish put a pin through the Penguin’s hand. Later the Penguin learned from poor, doomed Timothy that Fish had someone close to Falcone.
Back at Fish’s bar, meanwhile, Liza, the someone in question, is complaining of cold feet as her boss orders her to stay the course.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, and that’s a promise,” Fish says.
I wonder who else has heard that promise.
A FEW THOUGHTS WHILE WE’RE REACHING THE END OF OUR ROPE
• Barbara finally wrote the Dear Jim letter that Gordon had logically had coming since the beginning of the series. So far, she’s been accosted by exes, menaced by thugs, kidnapped and nearly murdered by a bald psychopath with a paradoxically whimsical ring tone. But apparently Gordon’s hanging up on her was the last straw.
• Robin Lord Taylor has gotten lots of attention, here and elsewhere, for his fresh take on the Penguin, but Sean Pertwee, a Royal Shakespeare Company veteran, is arguably doing the same with his Alfred Pennyworth as Leroy Brown. The character often has a military background in the comics, but on-screen versions have tended toward kindly loyalty. Last week we saw Alfred manhandle Detective Allen, and this week he oversaw Bruce’s throttling of the bully, handing him the Rolex knuckles* and adding his own bit of trash-talk. “He tried to kill you; just you remember that next time you see him,” he tells a bloodied Tommy. “And you remember that I let him try.” The episode concluded with Bruce mulling his emotional torment and asking Alfred if he could teach him how to fight. “Yes, Master Bruce,” he replied, in a line that raised some goose bumps. “Yes, I can.”
• What did you think of the episode? I didn’t really get into Gordon’s possibly conflicted psyche or whether we really believe that Bullock has his back (the show beat that drum to a suspicious extent this week). Please feel free to weigh in on that or anything else in the comments.
*May not actually have been a Rolex.