Title: Gotham: “Anything For You”
Network: FOX
Air Date: October 17, 2016
Genre: Crime, Drama, Action
It seemed like New Day Rising was really forcing the rivalry between Butch (Drew Powell) and Nygma (Cory Michael Smith). Well, Anything For You seems to be the parade for it and yet, it still manages to be a good episode. It’s leaps and bounds better than New Day Rising, if only because it tells a more focused story. Anything For You, unlike the last episode, does at least give a reason for Butch to dislike Nygma. I still have no idea why Nygma disliked butch in the first place but what can you do? Furthermore, it establishes a new direction for the show regarding Butch and Oswald’s (Robin Lord Taylor) relationship. So despite being based on a plot point that was forced, to begin with, Anything For You still represents a solid episode for Gotham‘s third season.
Anything For You sees The Penguin basking in the glory of being the new Mayor. As a result, he even erects a statue of his deceased mother in front of the courthouse. However, The Red Hood gang returns, destroying the statue and making Oswald fear for his life. As it turns out, this was all just a ploy by Butch so that he could kill the gang that he hired and get back on Oswald’s good graces. However, he soon discovers that Nygma has figured him out and his own plans to boot. Meanwhile, Bruce (David Mazouz) & Selina (Camren Bicondova) do their normal shtick and top it off with a kiss. Yes, fanboys, you can leap for joy now. Bruce hires Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) to find Ivy Pepper (Maggie Geha).
Now, I’ll be honest, if there is one highlight of the episode, it is certainly Edward Nygma. Before Anything For You even hits its ten-minute mark, there is a scene where Nygma just walks through the doors of the GCPD with a huge smile on his face, while everyone stares at him in disgust. Given his history with the GCPD, this was a perfect scene. “It is good to be back. I have missed all of you,” Nygma scoffs at them as he laughs in their faces. Don’t worry, he gets his when Lee (Morena Baccarin) punches him in the face. God, I love her. That being said, the main problem with Anything For You is also Nygma. As I said, they give a reason for Butch to hate Nygma, but no reason as to why Nygma would hate Butch. Thus, it comes across as very forced.
After Nygma finds out about Butch and the Red Hood gang, he tries to hire Butch to kill Nygma. When Butch refuses, Nygma reveals that he had Tabitha (Jessica Lucas), his ex-girlfriend and love interest, kidnapped. My biggest question here is how do you kidnap Tabitha? Tabitha Galavan has proven time and time again that she can take down even the biggest of criminals. That being said, putting her in a damsel in distress situation kind of takes away from her character, doesn’t it? I mean, she gets away but even that doesn’t help. Of course, this all leads to Butch going along with Nygma’s plan, only for Nygma to double cross him and finally push him out. Honestly, who didn’t see that coming? That being said most everything else comes together quite nicely.
Despite some story problems, this was a good episode in regards to Butch. You definitely understand his frustrations with Nygma trying to force him out of The Penguin’s organization. You’d think The Penguin would trust him more after everything they’ve been through. It’s clear why Butch would go to such extremes to secure his place at Penguin’s side. In addition, his plan leads to some very interesting scenes regarding Barbara (Erin Richards) and Tabitha. It also led to a priest being blown to bits in front of a school bus full of children. Yeah, this episode was a bit harsh but, in many respects, that’s a good thing. Despite its flaws, Anything For You was able to take some risks and, for the most part, it succeeded. It even made me excited to see where Butch and Tabitha will go from this point onward.
As I said before, we see more of Bruce and Selina’s relationship develop throughout the course of the episode. This begins when Bruce hires Gordon to look for Ivy, who strangely reveals herself to Selina in a rather funny scene. “Not yet, it’s too much fun,”she says to Selina, as she grabs Selina’s arm. I can only assume this will lead to something better in the near future. I sure hope so because Ivy was in all promotional material for the season and yet we barely saw her all season. C’mon, Gotham, get with the program. You promised Ivy; Ivy this show up, will ya?
Anyway, Selina and Bruce share a very nice moment on a rooftop. In any other episode, this would be their normal shtick. Bruce says something stupid, Selina gets mad but forgives him right away. However, that didn’t happen this time as Selina took it upon herself to kiss Bruce. So I guess they’re a couple now. This could be interesting if done right. I just hope they actually develop their relationship and don’t have them break up in a couple episodes. I know they aren’t staying together forever (I have read the comics that the show so rarely follows) but after three seasons of this, it better last awhile.
Other parts of the episode included brief moments of Jim Gordon and Valerie Vale getting to trust one another. In all honesty, they still can’t make Vale into an interesting character. Or at the very least, they haven’t yet. I hope they do down the line but there just isn’t much to her at this point to make me care. She is the least interesting love interest they’ve given Jim Gordon to date. She doesn’t have to be a psycho or a doctor who rebounds with a mob boss but something resembling an actual “character” would be nice. So far, she’s just kind of a wood stump.
Also, Barnes’ (Michael Chiklis) exposure to the virus grows as he no longer needs his cane by the end of the episode. I want to see him go over the edge, Aaron Eckhart style, but let’s just hope they don’t try making him into a ghetto version of Bane. I mean, it worked for The Dark Knight Rises but Bane being a cop doesn’t work for me. Like most things with this show, we’ll just have to see where they go with it. I sincerely hope it’s somewhere great.
Maybe he’ll get help from The Mad Hatter (Benedict Samuel), once The Mad Hatter is done dressing girls up like his deceased sister and slitting their throats. Gotta say, if they wanted to pump me for the next episode, they did a good job. Overall, Anything For You represents a solid episode in Gotham‘s third season. It’s not great but it tells a focused story and has some really good moments between certain characters.
Bring on Follow The White Rabbit.
[review]
