Gotham Season One: The Fearsome Dr. Crane

"This is my city!"

While Fish tries to get back a Penguin, Gordon and Bullock hunt a killer who is targeting people with serve phobias and Bruce confronts Gordon about his lack of progress on his parent's murderer.

So this episode explored the origins of one of my favourite DC villains, Scarecrow, or to be more accurate his father. I think Julian Sands as Gerald Crane did an awesome job and we got to delve into his own madness and obsession with fear and he came off as a really creepy serial killer. We also got to see some creative ways he used to kill his victims and I am guessing his exaction of the glands could be the origin of Scarecrow's famous fear toxin. We also got to see Jonathon Crane as a teenager and I hope we get to see more of him in the future, maybe even don his Scarecrow mask. Another highlight of the episode was Bullock because he took the lead in the investigation this time and I got to say whenever he is the main focus over Gordon it is a really entertaining episode; like the Goat killings episode. Plus I think his fear story in the meeting was actually true so maybe we got one of the reasons way he chose to be on the take at first, also I liked the chemistry between him and that other phobia member so I wouldn't mind something more happened between the two. Speaking about relationships I think this one between Gordon and Leslie has been handled ALOT better than the one between him and Barbara (which just felt unbelievable) so I hope they stick with this one and don't  find some stupid reason to break them up for Barbara to swoop back in.

Penguin always manages to come on top in all situations

As for the rest of the episode Penguin got into a spot of bother and his scenes with Maroni, especially the one during that truth game, was done really well. Seems like Penguin will now work for Falcone full time now since he wasn't even able to talk his way out of his mess with Maroni, he had to convince someone else. Nygma continues to be a great addition to every episode and I just wish that they would make him the main focus of an entire episode rather than a few scenes. However I do think we have gotten a hint of his villainous ways by how he framed the medical examiner because lets face it that was kind of overboard. Seems like Fish has been captured by some military type of thugs and even though I really still hate Fish I am kind of interested to see where this goes (though her charging at the solider at the end was silly) and I am glad she wasn't in this episode much. Finally I do like that Bruce has addressed the issue of his parent's murder with Gordon once again but it is a shame we only got the one scene with them and we didn't get to see much of a reaction from Gordon about the whole thing afterwards.

"I should not have messed with Nygma"

Overall a really enjoyable episode, a definite improvement over the last one and looks to be the first of a two parter in to the origins of Scarecrow.

SCORE: 9/10

Highlights: Scarecrow origins/Bullock focused episode
                   Gordon and Leslie relationship going well
                   Strong scenes from Penguin and Nygma

Let - Downs: Could have expanded more with Bruce and Gordon

 

The great screenshots of the episodes where provided by the great site Screencapped. You can look for yourself from the link below;

 

 





http://screencapped.net/