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*This review contains some spoilers*
After four years of slowly transforming Bruce Wayne and the other citizens of Gotham into their famous comic book counterparts, “Gotham” sprints through its final season, and doesn’t quite stick the landing.
With only twelve episodes to work with, the show had little choice but the fly through this season’s plot. Unfortunately, it overdid it. Things go so fast it’s hard to really take them in. Factor in some unnecessary detours, and you’re left wanting. The story is sacrificed for fan service, and fan service gets the short end of the stick due to time constraints. Scarface and the Ventriloquist, a proto-Killer Croc and other Batman staples are introduced and quickly cast aside. This season quickly evolved into an homage of “The Dark Knight Rises,” but the lack of originality and the inability to live up the quality of that film make the final season feel hollow.
There still are plenty of bright spots. The chemistry between Penguin, Riddler and Barbara is a joy to watch. And every time Bruce or Selina takes a step closer to becoming Batman and Catwoman, you feel a bit giddy. But the best part of the season is once again Jeramiah. While I still don’t care for Cameron Monagham’s more restrained persona, his overall antics and evil plans are classic Joker. Transforming his stoic sidekick Echo into a rip-off of Harley Quinn feels a bit cheap, but knowing this will be the closest we’ll get the that iconic villain makes it pretty fun. Meanwhile, most of the remaining cast is underused. Lee is absent the first half of the season, Tabitha is gone immediately, Harvey only got one episode focused on him, and we got stuck with yet another James Gordon hallucination episode. This season also introduced Bane. But, instead of the muscle-bound strategic genius, we get some kind of cyborg lackey. The design is terrible, but at least the Tom Hardy-inspired voice works perfectly.
And then there’s the series finale. There were some great moments, like the classic Penguin look, Gordon’s famous mustache, and the new and improved Jeramiah. (For some reason, they absolutely refuse to call him Joker, and the producers still imply the “real” Joker has yet to be seen.) But the biggest stuff fell flat. Despite the uncanny resemblance, using a new actress to play Selina was distracting, especially after watching Camren Bicondova come into her own over the years. As far as Batman himself, it was quite disappointing. The voice sounded strange, and the whooshing sound effects made it seem like the character was magic or something.
The final season of “Gotham” raced along, trying to tie up its storyline and maneuver all the main characters to where the needed to be. But, a disappointing interpretation of a major villain and too much meaningless fan service cause the show to stumble to the finish line. And once there, it wasn’t quite the prize we were expecting.
**1/2 out of *****