Originally written June 12, 2018

This might shock some people, but as a reviewer I don’t always know what I’m going to say in my review, or even how I feel about something I’ve watched right away. Sometimes I actually use my review as a way of figuring out my opinions on something, and that’s kind of what’s happening here. See, something weird happened for me while watching season 4 of Gotham. After three seasons of generally feeling lukewarm on the show, after the halfway point of season 4 I found myself really enjoying the show. I’m not entirely sure what changed for me, since I don’t necessarily feel like the show really ramped up in quality or anything, so I want to try and feel that out here.

I feel like the three big things that are coming to mind for why I’m feeling the way I am are: where the show is at, an acceptance of what the show is, and some positive story decisions for this season. I’d like to go a bit into each of these things and see where that train of thought leads me.

So let’s talk about where the show is at as a whole. A lot of the joy in the first season of the show came because it was fun to see the early origins of a lot of these characters that we all know and love. It was cool to see Bruce Wayne right after his parents were murdered, see Penguin when he was still just a lowly servant in the crime world, see Riddler when he was just an employee of the GCPD that liked riddles, etc. It was really cool to see the early origins, but the problem with a show like this usually winds up coming more in the middle seasons. There’s just that awkward transitional phase where you can’t have these characters fully become what they’re going to be, but you can only tease so much development before actually making the development, so this probably made seasons 2 and 3 a bit difficult. However, now at this point in the show we’re beginning to see these characters slip into the roles that they’re most known for, with some people like Ed Nygma fully embracing the name of The Riddler already. Some are farther along than others, but the point is that we’re now seeing a lot of these characters starting to enter their end games, and so I think that ramps up the enjoyment in that regard.

Then, I feel like I’ve just started to accept Gotham for what it is. I think for a long time I felt resistance towards the show because I wanted the show to be something that it’s not. This aspect is probably the hardest one to explain for me. I used to get really frustrated with the show for how it is. While I still feel like some of these feelings are legitimate, I just needed to accept the way the show is, and it became more enjoyable. I would get frustrated that the show would bounce back and forth between a dark, serious tone and something goofy and ridiculous. I still don’t necessarily think this is a good thing, but accepting that it is how it is makes the goofy moments a bit easier to swallow for me.

The other thing that would really frustrate me is how quickly the show would go through storylines. In a 22 episode season (which season 4 also is, by the way), the show would be in a completely different place from start to finish. A lot of times there would just be storylines that would last for 2 or 3 episodes at a time. This would always be really frustrating to me because I felt like there would be a lot of interesting directions that a storyline could go, but it was always abandoned so quickly. The upside of this was always that if there was a bad storyline going on, you could usually be certain that it wouldn’t last too long, but it would frustrate me because it would always feel like the show was throwing everything it could at a wall and seeing what would stick, rather than taking time to develop characters and storylines. Again, this was something that I had to just accept the pace of, but to the show’s credit I think this is one of the biggest things that season 4 has improved on.

See, while there are certain storylines that are short-lived or that don’t really go anywhere, a lot of the characters actually go through an arc in season 4, believe it or not. For example, in the beginning of the season Ed Nygma finds that he’s lost brain function after being frozen, and so he’s not as smart as he was before. He seeks help from Lee Thompkins, and over the course of the season the two of them form a bond of sorts. While Ed definitely goes through different story beats throughout the season, his arc remains consistent, and so his character is able to be explored more. This is what I’ve always wanted out of Gotham, and while I’m trying to accept some of its more “soap opera” elements, I definitely think it’s improved its handling of story this season.

I also just really like a lot of the story directions that were chosen for this season. I wasn’t a fan of all of them, such as Penguin’s storyline at the beginning, or Bruce’s weird phase that he goes through in the middle of the season, or really…anything involving Ra’s al Ghul. However, a lot of the story is really enjoyable this season. I think a particular standout is the inclusion of Sofia Falcone in this season, especially in the first half. She makes for such an interesting character, and she really helps mix up things on the show to keep it fresh for everyone involved. She was definitely my favorite new character this season.

The other one I want to mention is the show’s version of the Joker though. The Joker has remained one of the biggest mysteries on the show for a lot of its run, and while many people are speculating whether we’ve really seen the end of it all, we definitely see a lot of new developments in this realm. I don’t want to spoil anything, especially since it all happens much later in the season, but it is an interesting development. I remember hearing about what happened before I actually saw it, and I hated the idea when I heard about it. However, when I watched how it actually played out on the show, I fell in love with it. It’s a fascinating idea that they’re playing with, and it opened the door to see a much different Joker than what we’ve seen done before. I’ll say no more, but I think in the second half of the season this development really helped me love the show.

Okay, so I think that’s about as clear as I can get for now on why I thought season 4 of Gotham was great. I actually think it was the best season yet, although it might partially be because of my shift on my feelings of the show as a whole. I think the show improved a lot of gripes I’ve had with it in the past, but I’m also able to accept some of the things that aren’t quite where I want them to be too. I think the show is starting to go in a lot of interesting directions, and I think this is helped by the fact that we’re now starting to approach the endgame (as of the time of this writing, it’s been said that season 5 will be the final season). It’s becoming really enjoyable to watch the characters starting to fall into their iconic roles more and more, and so now I’m really interested to see how they all end it. While I’ve always found enjoyment in Gotham in a weird, guilty pleasure kind of way, I feel like now I’m starting to love the show in a genuinely fun kind of way. While I wish it could have been this way for me from the start, I’m happy that the show has really started to find itself, at least in my opinion. It may have taken me four seasons to get to this point, but now I’m finally really on board. I can’t wait to see how the final season ends it all.

4/5