Gordon’s not the only member of the GCPD trying to save a member of the fairer sex from herself. (Ugh.) When twitchy Eddie Nygma loses his cool with the macho cop who’s beating his beloved, it’s the first time the Riddler-to-be has seemed like anything more than a cutesy comic-book character. Beyond that, however, Ms. Kristen Kringle’s abuse is handled so perfunctorily that it barely qualifies as a subplot at all. Actual dialogue from the victim: “He didn’t mean to. I said some things I shouldn’t have…It’s none of your concern.” Actual dialogue from the abuser: “Women…they need a firm hand.” So you’re going to write domestic violence into your Batman show, and that’s the best you can do?!? There’s no effort to rise above the most basic clichés, and less than none to actually make Kringle the subject of her own story. Put it together, and the eventual archvillian’s debut murder to defend her honor falls flat. (And would it have killed them to involve a riddle in it somehow?) There’s a term in comics, coined by writer Gail Simone, for treating female suffering as a means to a male character’s ends:women in refrigerators. Writers of superhero shows, we beg you: Close the damn icebox door.
I reviewed this week’s Gotham for Rolling Stone.
Tags: gotham, reviews, Rolling Stone, TV, TV reviews