S02.E02: Rise Of The Villains: Knock, Knock

[Sakura12]

I think Bruce is 14? I'm guessing since I'm thinking at least a year has passed from last season to this season. 

[ratgirlagogo]

 

Season two is about the bad guys coming out of the woodwork like so many demented cockroaches. It's going to get worse for quite some time until Batman shows up to stop it.

The way they've set up things up,  that's not going to happen until Season Eleven or so.  That's the problem with having Bruce Wayne be a kid and unless they recast the part (which I'm sure they have no intention of doing, they love David Magouz) this is the huge problem with the show.  Plus those of us who'd prefer to be watching an actual TV show about Batman already have Arrow for that.:)

[Chaos Theory]

The way they've set up things up, that's not going to happen until Season Eleven or so. That's the problem with having Bruce Wayne be a kid and unless they recast the part (which I'm sure they have no intention of doing, they love David Magouz) this is the huge problem with the show. Plus those of us who'd prefer to be watching an actual TV show about Batman already have Arrow for that.:)

I am not a comic person so I don't know if it ever really got into it but I Batman himself is probably the least interesting of the masked heros. Bruce Wayne however I find fascinating. So I am interested in seeing all the ways kid Wayne might have turned out "normal". Like with the letter if he had chosen happiness like his father begs him to buy then just had to write about a true calling. Batman doesn't interest me at all Bruce Wayne does.

[Kathemy]

Come on. No hero can be less interesting than Superman. :p

[Delphi]

Green Arrow was pretty uninteresting until Arrow got ahold of him.

I find Bruce Wayne and Batman both very interesting as characters. But I think what really makes Batman interesting is all of his rogues gallery and the extended Batman family. It's very complex and full of rich and fundamentally different people.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Delphi

[paigow]

Come on. No hero can be less interesting than Superman. :p

Were there 20 seasons of Smallville?? :)

[Kathemy]

Were there 20 seasons of Smallville?? :)

You've got a point...

[driedfruit]

The way they've set up things up,  that's not going to happen until Season Eleven or so.  That's the problem with having Bruce Wayne be a kid and unless they recast the part (which I'm sure they have no intention of doing, they love David Magouz) this is the huge problem with the show.  Plus those of us who'd prefer to be watching an actual TV show about Batman already have Arrow for that.:)

 

That's not a problem for me. Bruce's transformation into Batman and "Bruce Wayne" was one of the draws of this series for me. I want to see how this boy makes the choices he needs to that leads him to his famous endpoint. 

[jhlipton]

Was there some kind of subtext  with the Alfred/Lucius talk in the bar?  Alfred going on and on about "tucking you up like a kipper" felt like some kind of inside joke.

 

1) Alfred was saying that he knifed his "friend" in the gut.  That's what "tucking you up like a kipper" (stripped of gay sub-text!) means.  

 

2) I wonder if Lucius FOX is related to Lucious LYON...

[generate789]

I think this season they're doing a much better job of making Gordon less of a Marty Stu. Enjoying it so far, but I do miss Fish!

[mjc570]

Thanks, jhlipton!

[Kathemy]

To be quite honest it would be no major problem to put Mazouz into the Batman costume towards the end of the show. You could sell a young Batman age 18 to 20. It's mostly about how he'll grow up. Those kids tend to get big fast. It seems we're forgetting that.

 

If this show makes it to season six, I'd expect it to veer into real Batman territory.

[paigow]

Unless Wayne Enterprises developed "The Matrix" type brain connectors, Bruce is years away from learning enough skills to defeat Butch in single combat, much less a gang of red-shirt henchmen.

[ratgirlagogo]

 

If this show makes it to season six, I'd expect it to veer into real Batman territory.

Honestly that's still a LONG time.  Seven years is the average length of a successful TV show.  Quite aside from any other scripting problems.

[RCharter]

Honestly that's still a LONG time.  Seven years is the average length of a successful TV show.  Quite aside from any other scripting problems.

I think at some point they will, or at least should have a time jump of about 3-4 years.  It has to take a whole lot of boring and hard work for Bruce to gain the skill set to become Batman.  I think they should show some of it, but I feel like showing a lot of it would be boring.  I mean, how many times do I really want to see Bruce have his butt kicked by a martial arts master, or have Alfred show him he is doing it all wrong?  How many rough drafts of the Batdance do I want to see?  

[Blakeston]

I think at some point they will, or at least should have a time jump of about 3-4 years.  It has to take a whole lot of boring and hard work for Bruce to gain the skill set to become Batman.  I think they should show some of it, but I feel like showing a lot of it would be boring.  I mean, how many times do I really want to see Bruce have his butt kicked by a martial arts master, or have Alfred show him he is doing it all wrong?  How many rough drafts of the Batdance do I want to see?  

 

If they do a time jump of 3-4 years, I hope they recast the kid playing Bruce. There's no way they could pass him off as being that much older just a few months after filming the previous season.

[supposebly]

Is it even the plan for this show? I thought it was mainly Gordon's story. Not that I know anything about Batman that goes beyond the  Nolan movies (and some other Batman movies) but I'm not watching this show for Batman, I'm watching for the reasons there will eventually be a Batman. I didn't think this show will have as last scene Bruce donning the Batsuit.

And I absolutely adore what David Mazouz brings to the role of Bruce Wayne. So, I'd rather have no recasting and no Batman at all. I wouldn't have a problem with this show ending years before there is Batman.

Edited October 4, 2015 by supposebly

[Kathemy]

If they do a time jump of 3-4 years, I hope they recast the kid playing Bruce. There's no way they could pass him off as being that much older just a few months after filming the previous season.

Again that totally depends on when they do said jump, exactly how long it will be and how old David will be able to look at age, say, eighteen or nineteen. I think recasting would be a huge mistake.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Telepath

[RCharter]

If they do a time jump of 3-4 years, I hope they recast the kid playing Bruce. There's no way they could pass him off as being that much older just a few months after filming the previous season.

lets see, he is playing 13-14 now, so if they went another two years and he was 15-16 I feel like they might be able to pass him off as 18-19.  Or they could re-cast him.

[Danielg342]

1. I'm not sure how time moves in Gotham, but people have a tendency to try to get "back to normal" even when they shouldn't.  I could see a period of super stringent security measures for a little while and then they relax a little, and relax a little more, and people start to forget why there were ever in place.  And cops cycle in and out, and the ones that were there for the bad incident last year are replaced by new guys that don't know so they don't see why everything is strict.

 

2.  I also don't know how many entrances police stations have.  If GCPD only has one entrance/exit its entirely possible they had security measures (metal detector, ID check) but only one that regular folks have to go through (you wouldn't want police officers to go through metal detectors because they would always set it off).  Whoever was working the desk could have simply gotten a little relaxed with the ID checking procedure.  It certainly happens.  The TSA was formed out of one of a horrific terrorist act that was fairly recent.  As I was leaving an airport the other day I LITERALLY saw a TSA agent sleeping at her post.  On a chair....sleeping....full lights out.  People just get lax with time, even when they do remember.

 

3.  I'm not sure about other police departments -- but there are some things I can't imagine you plan for.  You may have a plan to take down a single shooter, but to foresee or even plan for a gang of people to shoot up a department seems like a lot of emergency planning in a town that doesn't seem to have much of an emergency plan.  Emergency plans tend to grow out of things that have actually happened at some point in time, they seem to be more reactionary than anything else.  A number of places in California didn't really have an Earthquake plan until after the huge Northridge quake.  In fact, I think it was after the Northridge quake that building earthquake safe buildings became a requirement.  And California has about a billion fault lines!

 

4.  I think Theo has a plan for Gordon.  He specifically asked Barbara to "tell him about Gordon" and there doesn't seem to be a reason for that if he just planned to shoot him up in the middle of a police station.  Theo also told Barbara that her "time" to be useful and integral to the plan was coming soon -- so to me it seems like he told Barbara to lure Jim out, but not to kill him.  But to lure him out so he was sure to be safe because Theo has some plan for him.

 

5.  The Maniax are all about maximum headlines and theatrics.  They could have just killed 7 random street people that no one would miss and spray painted on them and then set them out in the middle of the night.   They could have even lured 7 random street people up to the roof and killed them.  But they chose the victims, the time of day, method and location for maximum theatrics and maximum headlines.  7 normal guys who just went to work that day, did nothing wrong in life and ended up killed in the scariest way possible.  The same with the bus.  Shooting up a bus full of cheerleaders is awful.  But for maximum theatrics and maximum headlines and terror you can't beat setting a bus of cheerleaders on fire after you've handcuffed them to the seats.

 

6.  I will always forgive that the federal government doesn't arrive and that no one leaves town.  No one did in any of the movies, and I loved the first two.  Thats where I allow my willing suspension of disbelief.  In the first Batman you had some lunatic that was killing people with deodorant and killing people openly in the streets.  He took over TV communications with a message that featured dead models.  He gassed a museum full of people.  And then he announced he was throwing a party and giving away some money and the entire town turned out. Not a solitary person called the national guard, the FBI, or even Proctor&Gamble to get a few cases of untainted deodorant sent over.

 

7. Theo is in the process of introducing the Maniax to the city and to the world.  It seems likely Oswald was caught as much by surprise as everyone else.  Theo doesn't seem to be part of the underworld that Oswald travels in, so he may not have even been on Oswald's radar.

 

1. Four shooters, none of whom have any training, vs. 50 armed, trained, cops- yes, several cops would be dead, but not the entire force, and none of the four shooters would make it out alive.

 

2. I could buy a lot of security lapses at GCPD, but it's not very satisfying. I suppose I could give villains a pass for using stupidity to their advantage (since they're not supposed to "win" anyway), but it does make them less formidable in my eyes.

 

3. Main point is that the massacre of the GCPD should have been one episode. Not thrown in to the mishmash that was this episode. I would have loved to have seen Sarah Essen actually run things as Commissioner and see her battle the Maniax through several episodes. The character, as it stands now, had very little to do and they just killed her without much thought. Not just that, killing the entire GCPD should be a big "game-changing" event, so it should get the focus it deserves.

[RCharter]

1. Four shooters, none of whom have any training, vs. 50 armed, trained, cops- yes, several cops would be dead, but not the entire force, and none of the four shooters would make it out alive.

 

2. I could buy a lot of security lapses at GCPD, but it's not very satisfying. I suppose I could give villains a pass for using stupidity to their advantage (since they're not supposed to "win" anyway), but it does make them less formidable in my eyes.

 

3. Main point is that the massacre of the GCPD should have been one episode. Not thrown in to the mishmash that was this episode. I would have loved to have seen Sarah Essen actually run things as Commissioner and see her battle the Maniax through several episodes. The character, as it stands now, had very little to do and they just killed her without much thought. Not just that, killing the entire GCPD should be a big "game-changing" event, so it should get the focus it deserves.

1. How do you know they don't have any training?  And you should never underestimate the element of surprise.  Especially when you're talking about a police department where most officers are carrying smaller guns.  Speed and surprise could easily win the day.  Any officer responding would have to do at least four things things:  1) recognize that a shooting is actually happening which takes time to process, 2) figure out where the shooting is coming from, which is difficult to do when there are four shooters that are disbursed around the area 3) get out their gun, which is likely holstered or in a desk drawer, and 4) take cover in a place to keep from getting shot themselves.  And these are all things they have to do before they ever fire a bullet.  Against four people who are completely prepared and have planned an attack it isn't impossible.  Its not really even implausible

 

3. I don't fault the writers for not having it fill an entire episode.  First, having it come so fast gave it an "oh crap!" quality that devoting an entire episode to it wouldn't have done.  Second, I don't think I would have wanted to see that much more of the GCPD massacre.  I'm fine with the fact that I didn't see the planning, I'm fine with the fact that they didn't drag out a massacre scene over a half an hour.  I think it had more impact the way it went down.  An entire episode devoted to seeing the plan fall into place and then watching for 20 minutes as the place was shot up and another 10 minutes of whatever Barbara and Jim were doing would have bored me.  I just couldn't see an entire episode based around an incident that would have maybe taken an hour or two in real life.  Killing the entire GCPD is a huge event, but its going to be the aftermath that I think its going to be the most interesting part.  So I want to see more of that..

[Chicago Redshirt]

There is no reason to think that any of the Maniax have had real training (i.e., the sort of training that involves spending hours at a range shooting targets, going through simulated situations, etc. etc.). The sort of training that is commonplace in real-world big-city police departments and that one would assume GCPD has.

 

Even assuming for some reason that all of the Maniax were trained as extensively as the cops, and assuming that "Let's dress up as cops" gets them through the front door with big-ass guns, sheer numbers would mean that at least one of the dozens of cops would get a shot in and wound/kill most of the Maniax. Even assuming that the element of surprise/poor GCPD shooting managed to allow the Maniax to kill most of the cops present with suffering minimal casualties, there is pretty much no way the headquarters would not be surrounded by the time Jerome and his buddies kill the Commissioner.

[Philbert]

 

The sort of training that is commonplace in real-world big-city police departments and that one would assume GCPD has.

 

You'd be surprised just how poor police tactical training really is here in the 'real world.'

[Camera One]

I thought last week's violence was off-putting, but this episode was non-stop killing, and I find it hard to derive any enjoyment from it.

 

I did like the little bits of Bruce, Alfred and Lucius, though Alfred smashing the computer was frustrating to watch.  

 

I'm disappointed they killed off Essen.  There needs to be some good guys around.

 

I thought Fish was hamming it up for the camera, but Jerome takes the cake.  It's exhausting to watch.  I might be out, but Alfred, Lucius and Bruce will probably draw me back.

[Raja]

You'd be surprised just how poor police tactical training really is here in the 'real world.'

It is because just about every character who carries a weapon on TV was a Navy SEAL. If they are the proper age they were on the Bin Laden raid

[Kel Varnsen]

. Essen was the only replacement Commissioner I remember from the comics. I wonder who gets her job? Who would want it?

Can a new commissioner even be appointed considering no one knows where the mayor is?

Bruce, you may be able to fire your butler (temporarily, of course) but I don't think a 13 or 14-year-old can actually fire his guardian.

I figured Alfred knew that and was just teaching Bruce a lesson. Either Bruce would realize he made a mistake and apologize or ask Alfred to come back because he was tired of eating cereal at every meal.

So someone has probably already noticed this, but Greenwood takes the first shot right? Then Jerome takes shots 2, 3, and 4. He proceeds to hand the gun to Greenwood for his next turn, which never actually happens. But Jerome's plan was there were only two possible shots left. Either Greenwood would kill himself or Jerome would know the last bullet would be for him. Then Jerome would probably just shoot Greenwood, knowing that shot number 6 contained the bullet. Brilliant right?!

I assumed that Jerome's logic was each guy takes 3 shots, and he took his all in a row.

1. How do you know they don't have any training? And you should never underestimate the element of surprise. Especially when you're talking about a police department where most officers are carrying smaller guns. Speed and surprise could easily win the day. Any officer responding would have to do at least four things things: 1) recognize that a shooting is actually happening which takes time to process, 2) figure out where the shooting is coming from, which is difficult to do when there are four shooters that are disbursed around the area 3) get out their gun, which is likely holstered or in a desk drawer, and 4) take cover in a place to keep from getting shot themselves. And these are all things they have to do before they ever fire a bullet. Against four people who are completely prepared and have planned an attack it isn't impossible. Its not really even implausible

Plus once you do realize what is going on it appears to be guys in uniform shooting guys in uniform. How long does it take to figure out which ones are the bad guys and which ones are real cops returning fire?

Also even though Harvey is back to being a cop i still hope there are scenes in his bar, because it is a real bar that i have actually been to. It is the Old Town bar in NYC , the potato salad is awesome.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Kel Varnsen

[Raja]

Can a new commissioner even be appointed considering no one knows where the mayor is?

 

In the real world you would have a chain of command and the next in line would move up as the interim Commissioner until the political appointment is made. Depending upon the customs of the organization that interim person in command may be called Commissioner or still be refereed to by her permanent rank.

[ratgirlagogo]

 

It is the Old Town bar in NYC

One of the most filmed locations in the city.  In Letterman's opening sequence forever, most famously.

[John Potts]

What exactly was the point of having Gordon & Harvey off the force at the start of the Series if, two episodes in, they're both back - and largely in charge, too? I did like Harvey "Manning up" and admitting he was back, no matter what his woman (sorry, Fiancee - yeah, like that's going to last) thinks. I hope TPTB have a plan for how they want the series to evolve (beyond, presumably, "Don't get cancelled"), but I does seem that Gordon's arc is all over the place.

 

Mister Glass Part of me hopes they will focus more one what Alfred and Lucius can do behind the scenes than on what Bruce can do.

 

 

I did like their scene together, particularly where Lucius pointed out that, either way, he'd say he was an honest man. But he should be guarded, working in a cess pool like Gotham.

 

Danielg342  Four shooters, none of whom have any training, vs. 50 armed, trained, cops- yes, several cops would be dead, but not the entire force, and none of the four shooters would make it out alive.

 

 

Totally agree - particularly in a place like Gotham where cops shooting suspects is probably an everyday occurrence, you'd think all the "Maniax" would be dead.

 

Dobian I wish the scene did end with Jerome getting the last shot and shooting Greenwood in the face.  That would have been classic.

 

 

That was what I was expecting too!

Edited January 21, 2016 by John Potts

[Chas411]

The whole thing with Bruce firing Alfred was just ridiculous but as already said I think Alfred just went along with it. 

Cameron MonaghAn is definetly chanelling Heath Ledgers Joker and he's doing a great job.

[bethy]

On 9/29/2015 at 9:40 AM, Timetoread said:

 

That was just his temper and Alfred playing along with it.  Bruce is an interesting case as a child.  He is very young but is such a serious kid who has suffered the worst possible tragedy.  On top of that, his name means EVERYTHING in this universe and he's trying to bear the load of it all.  I do wish, like you though, that Alfred would put him in his place every once in a while.  Discipling a child isn't about beating them down when they are bad, it is about showing them their boundaries.  If you are a good parent or guardian, it is safe inside those boundaries and the kid can relax mentally.  Baby Batman, psychologically at his core, is probably most in need of feeling safe and protected.

I’m late to the Gotham party, but I agree with this post so much.  Every time I think, “Man, Alfred, that is so not the best way to deal with a traumatized kid,” though, I have to remind myself that for this baby-Bruce (who I kind of love and want the best for) to become Batman, he has to stay pretty broken. I can’t help but wonder if some of this weird servant/guardian/parent dynamic between Bruce and Alfred is deliberate. If those two transition into happy, healthy parent/child territory then how does Bruce eventually become the brooding, tortured Dark Night.