Gotham Knights Season 1 Episode 3 Review: Under Pressure

Gotham Knights Season 1 Episode 3, “Under Pressure,” heightens the excitement and widens its mystery while touching on class, daddy issues, and a familiar Batman villain.

The episode delves deeper into Carrie Kelley (a.k.a. Robin), the mysterious sidekick of Batman, who is already embedded in Gotham’s criminal underworld. In particular, she has a long-running feud with the Mutant Gang and its leader, Vernon Wagner.

This is a nice nod to Batman lore, as the storyline of Robin’s feud with the Mutant Leader comes directly from the comic books.

Including this popular villain is exciting and shows that Gotham Knights is widening its little Batman universe by setting the stage for certain villains to rise and return in the future.

“Under Pressure” also delves into topics of class and parenthood, which is another nice nod to Batman history. Given Bruce Wayne’s immense wealth and the loss of his parents, they are topics that rise smoothly in any Batman adaptation.

Gotham Knights is especially ripe ground for this topic because it has the wealthy son of Batman and his prep school friends forced into an uneasy alliance with a group of runaways and the daughter of a criminal.

This division has been lightly touched on, with Duela calling Turner Hayes a “Bat brat,” but it is only a matter of time before serious contention arises.

“Under Pressure” shows some animosity between Harper Rowe and Stephanie Brown, which is to be expected. Stephanie has escaped fugitive status due to her wealth and has a prestigious education to foster her coding skills.

Meanwhile, Harper is the group engineer with knowledge of bomb disabling. However, perhaps because she learned her skills on the streets instead of in school, Brown ignores her input when disabling a bomb and endangers both.

Harper’s subsequent outburst shows tension, insecurity, and even envy growing beneath the surface between the members of the gang, who come from different backgrounds.

While she can’t speak for everyone in the group, it shows at least one member fears being looked down upon or seen as less intelligent just because of their class.

There’s unfairness in the story arc. However, it cannot be denied that a large part of Harper, Cullen, and Duela being suspected of Batman’s murder is that their backgrounds make them good scapegoats.

Meanwhile, speaking of envy, it turns out that Turner, Carrie, and Duela all share some daddy issues. Turner envies Carrie for being chosen as Batman’s sidekick, while Carrie reveals she envies Turner for being treated like a true son.

Duela’s issues with the Joker are less clear, but her deranged father still impacts her, as she requests Cullen bring her a Joker card from evidence.

It’s a bit surprising to learn that Carrie wanted to be treated like a daughter by Batman due to not having a father of her own.

It’s also sad to learn that Batman wasn’t fatherly towards her despite his history.

This storyline shows the merit of having Turner be an original character and adopted son of Batman instead of being Damien Wayne or the adopted Dick Greyson from the comics.

It makes Batman a bit more human to see he seemingly adopted a son for the sake of having a son and experiencing fatherhood, rather than Turner being an accident or involved in his superhero career.

However, it is likely to foster some animosity as those without good fathers like Carrie and Duela, envy the privilege Turner had to be adopted by a billionaire superhero.

While “Under Pressure” does well to explain exciting conflicts between the characters, the Court of Owls storyline sits on the sidelines.

Essentially, the episode rehashes what the previous two episodes already established — that the Court of Owls has a longer history and farther reach than anyone anticipated.

It’s about time the Gotham Knights drops some real information about the Court of Owls instead of repeating the same teases each episode.

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Gotham Knights airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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