Gotham Review: Look Into My Eyes (Season 3 Episode 3)

Gotham has introduced a number of new characters in the last year and brought back a few that we know really well.

Gotham Season 3 Episode 3, “Look into My Eyes,” introduces yet another new character who may creep us out more than any other villain we’ve seen so far, but without sufficient back story, how are we supposed to get invested in him?

Jervis Tetch is a new villain, hypnotist, and magician who is in search of his poison-handed sister Alice, and while his plot is interesting it isn’t fleshed out sufficiently to make me care about the characters.

Let’s start with one question: did we ever find out why Alice wanted nothing to do with Jervis? Her reaction to being found by him was so strong and yet, after watching the episode twice, I still can’t point to why she would run away from him.

Maybe this will come back in a later episode, but right now it feels like the entire storyline, and most of the Indian Hill escapees are being introduced just to give Jim Gordon something to do.  How about spending some time with the characters we’ve followed for two years instead of creating more monsters of the week?

While I enjoy  Gotham’s universe, and I love the atmosphere that they create, I find myself begging for fewer storylines. I want to see more character threads converging and I want to see more of the character’s we know and love.

This subplot of Jervis Tetch just doesn’t feel satisfying on an emotional level or in originality. As I watch this episode, I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen Tetch’s abilities before.

This new magic man seems like an answer to The 100’s psychotic A.I. hell-bent on assimilating people into the hive mind.–yes, Trekkies, that is a reference to the Borg–not to mention the terrifying Kilgrave in Jessica Jones.

Don’t get me wrong, Tetch’s ability is terrifying–and probably one of the reasons I will never volunteer to be hypnotized. The idea of someone’s free will being taken away because they volunteered for what they assumed was a stage show is scary enough.

Seeing Tetch effectively hijack a person’s free will for his own purposes is another bag of tricks. Still, it feels like it’s an old trick in different packaging.

The more interesting plot of this episode involves the Bruce Wayne doppelgänger. Who now has a name, Five. Once, again seems familiar: replicators, Stargate: SG-1, anybody?

At the end of last season, Five’s existence was the most shocking reveal. Of every prisoner to escape Indian Hill, did anyone expect a carbon copy of Bruce Wayne in desperate need of a haircut to come out of the van?

Knowing that Bruce grows up to be Batman, the idea that there is an evil twin out there is very troubling. We don’t know Five’s purpose and we don’t know why he’s suddenly been inserted into Bruce Wayne’s life, but it is creepy to see him studying Bruce’s mannerisms and speech patterns.

Just because he looks like Bruce Wayne, and came out of Indian Hill doesn’t mean that has to be evil, but the intention of creating him can’t be good. Why would they create a doppelgänger for someone unless you intend to replace them with a puppet?

Which is exactly what Five is doing. Five cuts his hair takes Bruce’s car, and proceeds to track down Selena Kyle. I want to believe that Five’s intentions are genuine and that he has no intent to harm Selena, but that’s not what my gut tells me. Not after five revealed his secret ninja skills.

Right now, it feels like Gotham is trying to service many story lines at once and in doing so they aren’t allowing for sufficient time to flesh out the characters they are introducing.

If the writer’s and producers behind Gotham don’t pull back from introducing new characters and flesh out the one’s they have, they will lose the audience.

There are a lot of origin stories to explore, but they don’t have to hit the gas and burn through new characters every single week.

Stray Thoughts

• So, Lee is engaged to Don Falcone’s son. That’s surprising, and I am sure Jim isn’t going to like that when he finds out.
• How is that Jervis doesn’t know that Barbara had abandonment issues? Didn’t the whole church thing make the news?
• Does anyone else expect Penguin’s run for election to slightly resemble the current presidential run?
• Nygma’s release from Arkham and his reaction to the certificate that declares him sane is just perfect. Does anyone else think those declarations of sanity are just comical? Especially given that Penguin cooked children last season after getting his?

What did you think of this episode of Gotham? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Gotham airs Mondays at 8/7c on Fox.

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