Gotham S2 Ep. 6 Thoughts

"By Fire"

Whoever took over Gotham's direction for Season 2 is a mad genius and definitely deserves some form of an award for what they've done for the show overall. I'm actually loving this season which is strange to say considering how much I practically hated the majority of the first season. Everything wrong with Season 1 has been fixed and highly improved on this time around in many aspects. Characters are actually interesting enough to follow along with now and the villains are surprisingly great considering last season's bottom of the barrel pickings of a rogues gallery. 

The overall story feels like it's actually going somewhere intriguing and the action and thrills of each episode has significantly evolved. The drama feels a bit more necessary and well executed and and the visual style of the show has improved (especially in its atmosphere). This is a series set in Batman's universe after all, so it's about time that the show starts to feel that way whether or not his character exists yet.

Overall, Gotham has become an awesome comic book TV series to watch and it still blows my mind to see a series go from a huge disappointment with a little potential to actually being pretty entertaining with a promising future. I loved the introduction to Firefly (especially the suit considering how much it reminded me of the awesome design in the Arkham Origins' version of the character). Despite her looking a bit shaky with that flamethrower at the moment, everything worked out in the end as we get closer to Gotham's true rogues gallery taking its first baby steps. 

Firefly having her suit melted onto her after a tragic accident in the end got me excited knowing where that character goes in the future. I especially got amped up when it was implied that she may actually be fireproof due to the way her armor bonded to her skin while she was taken to that secret facility where "special people" were being tested on. That entire sequence introducing the Indian Hill division of Wayne Enterprises completely kicked open the doors to a fleet of fascinating characters (hopefully recognizable names from the comics) to pop up in the future. 

As for the other characters, I'm actually enjoying the scenes involving the Penguin a lot more now which is amazing considering how much I highly disliked his character and performance during the first season. There's also Nygma who is becoming more and more psychotic which is great as it slowly paves the way towards his Riddler persona as I'd imagine. I already liked Ed as being the only "not yet villain" character from Season 1, so this is essentially icing on the cake for me to see them begin to fully set the stage for his big reveal. 

So far I'm really enjoying the "Rise of the Villains" arc that they're going with this season focusing on Gotham evolving into the place that we know and love from the comics, cartoons, games, movies, etc. as well as evolving into the show that fans like myself wanted to see in the first place. 

Episode Rating: 9/10