Another very good episode ! And with quite a different
feel from the first three.
They certainly gave Cristin Milioti a gem with this one, which sees her go from naive young woman to troubled, then tortured, mentally and physically, to a character bursting with theatrical madness.
And of course, she nailed everything! It's wonderful to see how blessed Batman villains are in live-action to get solid, memorable performances from their interpreters. And this show manages to get two of them!
One of the things I keep coming back to in the series is the care to bring a certain iconization in the visuals. The image of Sofia in a yellow dress and wearing a gas mask was striking and quite
comic-booky. Just like Gotham’s look and the Bliss depiction, I really like how all of these offers a certain uniqueness to the series so it's not
“just another gangster show”.
And I continue to greatly enjoy how the series really understands its format. While obviously progressing on an overall narrative, each episode has its own story, with the introduction of an event, an idea, its exploitation and a conclusion. It's perfect, with that added bonus of episode consistently endings with real and effective cliffhangers!
A damn solid show !
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Some various remarks :
- That Arkham was nightmarish and a bit
over-the-top but in a good way. This horrific tone fits in with what I said earlier: this adaptation draws some of its strength from that balance between
classic film noir tropes and
comic-book extravagance.
-Despite what I've just said, I thought the
"glockenspiel like scary music" when Sofia takes the little girl into the greenhouse was, perhaps, a little
cliché.
It's nitpicking, but it's the first time in the series that something felt
gimmicky enough to take me out of it, even if only briefly.
- It would have made sense for Hugo Strange to appear, but I don't see him happening, as the Ventris character could have been him...
Also, to give my two cents on the name discussion, I don't think “Strange” is all that out of place in the context of an asylum that looks this f***ed up, with mad doctors experimenting on inmates and organizing death matches...
And again, “Ventris”, how that for a name, huh? 😅
- About Mark Strong as Falcone :
Strong and Turro read like two sides of the same coin. Strong very much feels like the Crime Lord in his prime, ruling Gotham with an iron fist. Turro feels like that man much more withered with age and his equivalent to peace time arriving. He doesn't need to be intimidating or put on that style of front anymore. He has everything he's ever wanted, he can let the mask slip and nothing will happen to him really.
That's how I read it too. At no point did I feel that the interpretation itself made me notice the actor change.
I was able to put that aside in my mind and simply see this Falcone as the same as Turturro, but ten years younger. His posture is understandably a little more upright, his chest is fuller, his voice less raspy...
And like said, apart from the age factor, Falcone in
The Batman has been holding on to his pyramid of power for some time, no longer needing to adopt a
warmonger attitude, so... This works for me just fine.
- It was very cool to see Summer Gleeson! That, to me, is very natural and welcoming fan service
(which is rare).
Too bad she got the
“Jimmy Olsen treatment"…
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Bring on the next one!