‘Gotham’ episode 4 review: A Barbara, Renee, and Jim Gordon surprise

After spending a few weeks thinking that “Gotham” was getting firmly into procedural territory, there were quite a few things that we enjoyed about Monday’s episode. Some of the stories had taken some time to build, but most of them have been worth it.

One of the bigger surprises tonight was the reveal that Barbara and Renee were in a year-long relationship prior to her dating James, which is a significant change, but also not necessarily that shocking within the span of the show’s universe. After all, there were only so many reasons why Renee would be acting so protective of her. Barbara and Gordon may actually be no more, and largely thanks to his decision that he does not to bring her into his world completely.

There were quite a few moments of surprise in this episode tonight, given that we would also qualify whatever was going on with Fish Mooney in there as this. Why in the world would we really care that much about a random female apprentice.

The more interesting criminal organization right now is Maroni’s, given that this is where Oswald Cobblepot is currently rising up the ranks, and doing it in a pretty short span of time. He has a bigger piece of the pie, while a compromise between Maroni and Falcone for now has stopped a war between clans in Gotham. Criminals are controlling quite a bit, and that is a reason to worry.

In the end, though, this episode painted a pretty bleak picture for the future. In one of his few important moments at the end of the episode, young Bruce asked whether or not Gotham could really be saved, and he replied that it was at least worth trying. We’ll see about that in the weeks ahead. Grade: B-.

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