American Horror Story Freakshow S04E02 – Massacres and Matinees Review

This review contains spoilers

After the strong start to the series last week, the second episode continues on in the same brilliantly batshit vein. Two new freaks rock up at Fraulein Elsa’s camp, Twisty continues to be totally fucking terrifying, one of Sarah Paulson’s heads channels her inner Glee (fuck, wouldn’t it be amazing if Rachel Berry had two heads?) and we get to see more of Finn Wittrock’s excellent, and strangely attractive, Dandy.

Being someone with ungodly amounts of free time, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the unspoken rules of television is to not overhype a series. You can’t be all OMG WASN’T THAT THE BEST THING EVER (APART FROM BREAKING BAD AND THE WIRE) IT’S GOING TO CHANGE THE FUCKING GAME FUCK after like one episode. It just ends in tears and it makes you look like a bit of a twat in front of complete strangers online. BUT, a big Anaconda style BUT, even though were only two episodes in, I’m liking the fact that this series is actually pretty fucking scary. I haven’t been this creeped out by American Horror Story since poor Chloe Sevigny got turned into that fucking syphilitic, legless thing in Asylum.

Most of that is down to the amazing John Carroll, who has managed to disrupt my sleeping pattern without actually having uttered a single syllable. This week we see him turn a toy store into a chamber of Dr Satan (yet another movie recommendation, House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. They might sound like one of those crap DVD’s you’d buy from Poundland, but you should totally give them a go) as he decapitates its owner and uses a creepy wind up monkey to lead a store clerk to the same fate. In one of the episodes unexpected highlights, Gloria (Frances Conroy) stops him as he’s walking along the highway and asks him to come round to cheer Dandy up. One of the only issues I have with this show is the fact that everybody is totally cool with this clearly deranged clown wandering around town when there’s a serial murderer/kidnapper at large. If I saw that fucking thing walking down the side of the motorway I’d probably start to have some kind of hysterical fit.

Dandy meanwhile, after drinking alcohol out of a baby bottle and having an argument with his mother, storms down to the freak show and tries to join up. Probably owing to the fact that he has no kind of physical, although clearly untold amounts of mental, deformity, he is rebuffed by Jimmy and has a temper tantrum in his car. If it wasn’t already clear by now, Dandy is one unhinged dude. He returns home to find that Gloria has brought Twisty round to play with him. The shot of a bloodstained, seriously grubby Twisty standing in Dandy’s pimped out playroom amongst his cuddly toys and croquet set is a brilliantly eerie one and reminds me of some kind of twisted fairy tale. “Your silence is utterly proactive” Dandy tells him in one of his American Psycho-esque speeches about the theatre, Finn Wittrock is absolutely killing it. After attempting to get Twisty to play with hisThe King and I puppets, Dandy looks in his gross bag of tricks and is rewarded with a juggle pin (is that what they’re called?) to the back of the head. Twisty runs off and goes back to his peedo caravan in the woods where he attempts to entertain his captives. Somehow, he’s even more terrifying when he’s trying to be nice. Bonnie (Skylar Samuels), who is surprisingly still able to function after being held captive by the stuff of nightmares, hits him over the head with a bit of loose wood and her and the little boy Corey (Major Dodson) run for their fucking lives. As she hits him, Twisty’s masks slips and HOLY FUCK HIS MOUTH IS TOTALLY FUCKED AND BLACK AND FULL OF METAL and just all around messed up. I bet we get his backstory soon. Bonnie bumps into Dandy in the woods and he takes her back to Twisty, “you’ll have to do a much better job of of confinement if were going to have any fun!” he says, scolding him like some kind of murderous school teacher. And thus, the creepiest partnership since Trinny and Susannah is born. I feel like Dandy could end up being a bigger psychopath than Twisty, which is really saying something. I’m really interested to see how this storyline pans out, I feel some proper interaction with the rest of the freaks cannot be far away.

Flipping over to the actual Freakshow, the two new arrivals are Strongman Dell (Micheal Chiklis) and his wife Desiree (the amazing Angela Bassett), a sassy hermaphrodite with three breasts. Yes, you read that right. It turns out that they’ve had to leg it out of Chicago, where they starred with the famous Ringling Bros, after Dell snapped the neck of a gay guy (with his bare fucking hands) after he found him having sex with Desiree. He also happens to be Jimmy’s (Evan Peters) father, a fact which raises some odd questions in his taste in women. Why is he only going for the ones who have mannish qualities? Calling it now, I feel like they may be heading toward Dell being secretly gay. Dell obviously has some pretty severe anger issues, is he on steroids? I feel like he might be on steroids, shown after he beats up Jimmy for taking the freaks on a school trip to the local diner and the fact that HE MANAGED TO KILL A MAN WITH HIS BARE HANDS! (Fun fact, apparently it’s actually really difficult to snap somebody’s neck like that, I’m sure I read some kind of Cracked article on it whilst I was busy procrastinating from something) and it looks like he’s about to cause some real trouble for the freaks after he manages to suss out Jimmy’s plan to frame him and gets Meep (Ben Woolf) arrested and killed (R.I.P Meep, may you enjoy all the chicken heads you can in the big freakshow in the sky) instead. I’m not really sure what the guys in the jail were planning to get out of Meep, the only word he can say is his own name for fuck’s sake. The twins meanwhile, make their musical debut in front of an audience with Dot performing “Criminal” by Fiona Apple. She’s about thirty years too early, but I can let that slide. Elsa (Jessica Lange) slips into their tent at night and gives Bette a creepy (shit, even people breathing in this show is creepy) little pep talk telling her that she mustn’t let Dot try to steal her stardom and slips a knife under her pillow. The only flaw I see in this plan is the small matter of the twins being able to read each others minds, surely Dot would realise that her sister wanted to hurt her? But then again, it’s not like she can runaway is it?

With a nice bit of character development and the introduction of some interesting new freaks, the second episode of the series was all in all a success.

Gotham S01E04 – Arkham Review

This review contains spoilers

Having reached the fourth episode (I can’t be the only one who feels like it’s been way longer than that?) of a recently confirmed 22 episode series, it’s practically a guarantee that some elements of this episode are going to be a bit a dull. We’ve got a pretty long way to in terms of story, so it’s to be expected that there would be some kind of cut back on the action. This is mostly felt in the uninspired monster-of-the-week type investigation from Gordon and Bullock and the ongoing feud between Gotham’s two big Mob players, Carmine Falcone and Salvatore Maroni. As always, you can count on Robin Lord Taylor’s Penguin for some proper entertainment and finally we have Fish Mooney doing something a little more interesting.

The episode starts right where we left off last week, with Oswald Cobblepot showing up at Gordon’s door. Barbara invites him in for a drink but he’s soon swiftly evicted and shoved up against a wall outside. It’s a nice moment to see Gordon so rattled and it adds further weight to the idea that Oswald has the potential to be a serious threat. The acting from Ben Mckenzie gets a bit cringeworthy here as he angrily rasps his way through various threats (WOOOOOR? WHY WILL THERE BE A WOOOOOOR?) and Cobblepot drops the hint that there might be some serious shit about to go down with the old and now derelict Arkham Asylum. It turns out that Falcone and Maroni are arguing over the plot of land, with one wanting to raze it to the ground and build a housing development and the other a waste disposal plant. Which as Mob plans go, isn’t all that exciting. I was expecting something way more juicy when I heard this episode was titled Arkham.

As seems to be the norm these days for the crooked folk at the very top of Gotham’s political and social ladder, yet another assassin (Hakeem Kae-Kazim) is making his rounds. This time he’s using some kind of deadly flick blade to take out councilmen working for both Falcone and Maroni. I got really excited for a minute there when he first popped up and thought oh fuck it’s Deadshot, But alas! it wasn’t meant to be. This guy has been hired to help swing the vote for the Arkham plans between the two Mob bosses. After a strange tip off from Cobblepot, Gordon and Bullock corner him in Mayor James’s (Richard Kind) house and pump him full of bullet holes. Again, although the investigation is fairly standard stuff, it’s quite a nice touch to always have it relate back to the Wayne murders in some way. After all, they seem to be the catalyst for a lot of this stuff.

Speaking of the Wayne’s, Bruce seems to be pretty well adjusted for a kid whose parents got gunned down in front of him a few weeks ago. Not that I want his character to be one huge sobbing mess, but a little more realism wouldn’t go amiss here. We see him examining the Arkham files for a connection between the murders of the councilmen and his parents. While it’s quite cool to not have the detective part of Bruce’s identity ignored, he will grow to be the World’s Greatest after all, I hope we don’t get him going full Sherlock Holmes on us too soon. Gotham is supposed to be about Bruce Wayne’s journey into Batman and that should be more of a gradual, calculated thing.

I know I go on about how brilliant Penguin is all the time, but God damn it’s true. Whether he’s kidnapping douchey frat bros, killing henchman or just smiling his creepy ass smile, he’s amazing. Part of what makes his storyline so great is how it so constantly develops. No matter what is going on in the rest of the episode, Penguin’s arc is evolving at just the right speed to make it really fucking enjoyable. He’s still working at Maroni’s restaurant, but this time he receives a real accolade from the big boss himself after he manages to save a load of cash during a robbery. Seemingly perpetrated by some of Falcone’s goons and ending with a dead body, hopefully this robbery is just the first step in the Great Gang War that’s been threatening to erupt for a couple of episodes now. Otherwise, the Mob storyline is in danger of becoming a bit stale as the weeks go on. Cobblepot is also seen working as a double agent and supplying Gordon with information. I’m not really too sure how I feel about this development, it seems like a bit of a strange turn of events. How is this beneficial in anyway to Cobblepot? The writers haven’t put a foot wrong in the glorious Penguin saga yet however, so I have hope that this decision will eventually become clearer.

In the other Mob related storyline, Mooney is once again used as a one stop shop for information by Bullock and hires a new club singer in the form of Liza (Makenzie Leigh, this must be the day for mistaken identities because once again I got really excited and totally thought it was a slutty Rory Gilmore). Although this doesn’t sound particularly spellbinding, she makes Liza fight another contender to the death to prove that she’s really fucking serious about working for the mob (wouldn’t it be amazing if Alan Sugar employed this tactic for The Apprentice? I would pay some serious money to watch the final two duke it out) and it seems like Fish is planning something pretty big for her. I like the idea of Fish having a kind of badass female sidekick to do her dirty work for her, who knows how she’ll be used?.

We end the episode with the reveal that Penguin is actually a double, double agent. So a triple agent?, being the one that orchestrated the robbery against Maroni. So he’s pretending to work for Maroni and trying to make his way up through the ranks of the Mob whilst simultaneously giving Gordon information and working to his own twisted agenda. I hope he has some kind of app system to keep track of all the deception. In his classic twisted style, he poisons all the robbers with dodgy cannelloni and pockets the cash himself. What a crazy fucking bastard. Both Maroni and Falcone end up winning the bid for Arkham, with both a waste disposal unit and a housing development to be built. Which doesn’t seem all that sanitary but there you go. Mayor James also reveals that Arkham Asylum itself is to be rebuilt (which will make for a pretty crowded plot of land) for the modern day mentally ill, and we learn from Gordon that Maroni holds the contract for its refurbishment.

Hopefully the introduction of the infamous Asylum signals the start of something truly epic.

Gotham S01E03 – Balloonman Review

This review contains spoilers

The Balloonman. Not exactly a moniker which strikes fear into the hearts of men. But, to be fair, I imagine his particular breed of vigilante justice is actually quite terrifying to be on the receiving end of. Being randomly swept in to the air by a bright pink weather balloon only to come hurdling back down when it eventually bursts at around 60,000 ft. Luckily for the good citizens of Gotham, this particular vigilante is targeting corrupt officials. Perhaps unluckily for the citizens of Gotham, corrupt officials seem to make up around 80% of the population. The rest seems to consist of prostitutes, homeless children, stupidly rich people and mobsters. I wasn’t really all the enamoured with the Balloonman at first, but his methods of execution are pretty original and, although the name is terrible and conjures up an image of someone who has the power to transform themselves into a balloon, it’s kind of interesting to see how positively people react to a vigilante, considering who is yet to emerge.

As always, it falls to Gordon and Bullock to investigate the murders. They narrow it down to frustrated social worker Davis Lamond (Dan Bakkedahl) who’s pretty sick of not being able to make a difference to the lives of Gotham’s homeless kids and is understandably pissed about last week’s whole send-them-out-of-sight-to-an-upstate-prison plan. Despite the whole investigation element not being particularly exciting, (although the cheesy montage of Bullock attempting to gather information from some of Gotham’s less savoury characters and the shot of one of Balloonman’s victims falling out of the sky to crush some poor rich women were two unexpected highlights) Lamond’s final villainous monologue is a truly great moment. Ben Mckenzie does a brilliant job of demonstrating Gordon’s conflicting emotions, he knows that what the Balloonman is saying is the stone cold truth “the people running this city feed off the weak and the law protects them” but doesn’t want to admit to himself that his quest to be a good, honest detective in Gotham is effectively a futile one. “Why don’t you ask yourself Detective? Who are you fighting for? A mayor in the mob’s pocket? Cops on the take? Or for the weak and innocent?”. He isn’t going to be able to change the city and Lamond knows it. His way of dealing with things gets results, and you can see Gordon struggling not to let his feelings of agreement show. It’s such a good moment because it sets the groundwork for Gordon’s future relationship with Batman. He doesn’t like operating outside of the law, but he respects Batman’s ability to get shit done and knows that if he wants to clean up Gotham, then he’s got no choice.

The show’s other main storyline revolves around fan favourite Oswald Cobblepot as he manages to make his way back to Gotham and begins to worm his way into mob boss Maroni’s (David Zayas) goodbooks. After stabbing one of Fish Mooney’s associates who threatened to drag him back to her, he gets a job as a dishwasher (after murdering the previous one and taking his shoes naturally) at restaurant run and frequented by Maroni. Despite being only three episodes in, Robin Lord Taylor’s portrayal of a young Penguin is already the best thing about Gotham (his turning up at Gordon’s door at the end of the episode was truly a “OH DAYYUUUM!” type of moment, and did anyone else get a kind of Killing Joke vibe when Barbara answered the door? Wouldn’t it be amazing if she was the one to get crippled instead of Gordon’s daughter Barbara?). A manipulative, stone cold psychopath with an eerily prophetic side to him, Cobblepot’s starting to begin his descent (or should that be ascent?) into becoming a big criminal threat. The mob in Gotham means power and the thought of Oswald with a lot of power is a very scary one. I can totally see him rising through the ranks to become Maroni’s right hand man before deposing of him and Fish Mooney (If he doesn’t make some kind of pun about penguin’s eating fish then I’ll be very disappointed) and seizing command. Maroni and the other mobsters are a bit too stereotypical for my liking, I fully expect one of them to mention a cousin Vinny or it being the day of their only daughters wedding, but if it means more Penguin then I’m happy for them to stick around.

Speaking of mobsters, Fish Mooney is really starting to grow on me as a character. Her main role in the episode is yet again as a source of information about Gotham’s underworld as Montoya and Allen question her about Cobblepot’s murder. She tells them about it possibly being James Gordon who pulled the trigger and leaves them to work out that Falcone ordered it done, which is pretty standard stuff. Her scene toward the end of the show is a lot better as she callously instructs one of her goons to murder Falcone’s mistress Natalia as revenge for him beating up her fit bartender last week. I feel like these little chunks her and Falcone keep taking out of each other have the potential to build up and up until it blossoms into a full out mob War. Which again, would make for really exciting scenes. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really a fan of the Jada Pinkett Smith casting at first, the only other thing I’ve seen her in was Madagascar when she voiced the hippo, but with a bit more of a developed role I feel like she could really do well.

The two other minor storylines include an scene between Montoya and Barbara as well as the escape of Selina Kyle back out onto the streets. Montoya crashes Gordon’s flat to see Barbara alone and we learn some things about their past. Their relationship is confirmed and we learn that it ended up being pretty shitty because Montoya used to be some kind of drug addict. She also tells Barbara  to ask Gordon about murdering Cobblepot again. Stone cold Montoya, stone cold. Selina Kyle takes Gordon to the sight of the Wayne murders and he handcuffs her to a nearby staircase whilst he retrieves the wallet she dropped into the sewer. Whilst he’s knee deep in shit, she picks the lock and runs (pads? Cat’s pad right?) off. Adult Catwoman is one of my favourite characters in the Batman universe but this teenage incarnation is starting to piss me off a little bit. It’s not totally the actresses fault, the script makes her seem wayyy to cocky and develops her into a master thief at like 14 years old. I get that she’d be a pretty proficient pick pocket, (dat alliteration) having been homeless for what I assume is a fairly long length of time, but be able to lock pick her way out of a pair of handcuffs? fuck off.

Aside from that minor grievance, the episode is a pretty strong one.

American Horror Story Freakshow S04E01 – Monsters Among Us Review

This review contain spoilers

Within the first fifteen minutes there’s been a pretty bloody murder, the always amazing Jessica Lange in an equally amazing fur coat and a conversation about conjoined twin masturbation. Ah American Horror Story, how we’ve missed you!. Back for a fourth season, it’s 1952 in the fictional town of Jupiter, Florida and the titular freak show has just rolled into town. Lead by Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange), a German expatriate desperate for some of that juicy Hollywood glory, it’s clearly seen better days. Always on the look for new freaks, she recruits conjoined twins Dot and Bette Tattler (Sarah Paulson) from their hospital bed in the hopes that they’ll be able to bring in the crowds.

Also included in the freak show is “Lobster Boy” Jimmy Darling, (Evan Peters, who, even as a deformed sideshow freak, is ridiculously attractive) his Mum Ethel (the legend that is Kathy Bates) a bearded lady with a truly bizarre accent, creepy pinhead Pepper (Naomi Grossman, look her up on Google images. It’s kind of weird seeing her look normal) who is the only character to appear in two different seasons which opens up a whole fuck load of questions regarding continuity, Paul (Mat Fraser) with two malformed arms, Amazon Eve (Erika Ervin) who, as her name suggests, is reaaaaaally fucking tall, Meep (Ben Woolf) a dwarf who bites the heads off chickens which makes him a kind of backwater Ozzy Osbourne, Suzi (Rose Siggins) who doesn’t have any legs, and Ma Petite (Jyoti Amge, I don’t mean to be patronising but she is fucking adorable) officially the world’s shortest woman.

I don’t know if any of you (if people are actually reading this, if so I then I LOVE YOU!) saw any of the promotional material for this season, but there were quite a few interviews where Ryan Murphy (who I just found out also created Glee. How the fuck can one man go from making Rachel Berry sing her cute little Jewish heart out to this?) assured everyone that this series would contain one truly terrifying clown. Obviously, I was pretty skeptical. How many times have you heard TV people make these kinds of promises? When someone repeatedly tries to convince you of how fucking scary something is, it usually means that it’ll be about as creepy as Prince George. Kate and Wills son with the chubbiest cheeks that ever chubbed, not one of the maniacal ones from English history. But holy shit, American Horror Story Freakshow is one massive exception to this rule. Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch) is absolutely fucking horrifying. His first appearance IN THE DAYTIME! SCARY SHIT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO GO DOWN IN THE DAYTIME! as a young couple have a picnic is straight out of a horror movie, more so when he stabs the guy in the chest and kidnaps the girl Bonnie (Skyler Samuels). He later breaks into some houses (yet more nightmare fuel, imagine waking up and seeing that looming over you) and kidnaps a young boy imprisoning them both in a creepy, dilapidated bus in the middle of the woods.

Rounding out this fairly large cast is series regular Francis Conroy as Gloria Mott, a wealthy, slightly eccentric women who seems to be unaware how creepy her spoilt, adult son Dandy (Finn Witrock) is. With a Norman Bates vibe to him, I get the impression that Dandy could cause some real trouble for our freaks in the future as he unsuccessfully tries to buy Dotte and Bette for $15,000. I can totally see him kidnapping them and tying them to a chair so they can have a tea party with him.

In my humble opinion, one of the best things about past seasons of American Horror Story is that, generally speaking, 95% of the cast can actually act. It’s no different this time round as everyone manages to absolutely nail their role. Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson (this might sound lame, but sapphic reporter Lana Winters is one of my favourite American Horror Story characters ever) are brilliant as always, with the formers dodgy German accent and David Bowie tribute giving the whole thing a kind of camp value. Paulson does a great job in giving the twins different personalities, Bette is the fun, slutty one and Dotte is the more serious, calculating one, and the special effects team (the budget for this series must be massive) do an eerily convincing job. Evan Peters is quite touching (literally, as he uses his ectrodactyly hands to masturbate women at a tupperware party) as Jimmy who craves acceptance for himself and his fellow freaks. The whole idea of the freaks, despite their appearance, being beautiful on the inside and vice versa for general public seems to be one of the main themes for this season. It’s really amplified in Jimmy’s angry war cry of “DON’T CALL US FREEEEAKS!” as he slashes a judgemental policeman’s throat along with the actually quite heartfelt speech he delivers at the mans graveside. John Carroll Lynch manages to install the fear of God into me without actually saying a word and it kind of reminds of the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is like my favourite TV show ever. Seriously, if you’ve never seen it go and fucking watch it. Right now. I’ll still be here. Yeah, the first series is kinda crappy but stick with it) where the demonic Gentleman steal everyones voices. An honourable mention has to go to Kathy Bates who has one of the weirdest accents i’ve ever heard. For real, If anyone knows where she’s supposed to be from, message me.

For a pilot episode, the storylines all manage to be quite strong. The idea of Bette and Dotte seeking refuge in the freakshow after they (well, Bette) stabbed their mother is interesting considering how it’s presented to us as some kind of demonic hell hole, Jimmy slitting the throat of the policeman could have any number of consequences and there’s a lot of horrific potential in the Twisty storyline.

With a very strong pilot under its belt, American Horror Story Freakshow has the potential to be one of the most exciting and psychologically scarring seasons yet. Well done Ryan Murphy, you crazy bastard.

Made in Chelsea S08E01- Review

After a summer in NYC, which involved fighting over women like they’re well groomed pieces of meat, shagging fit American boys (Estelle would be proud), hooking up with each other and loads and loads of pardying and posh arguing, everybody’s back in Chelsea for the brand new series.

Well, Andy, Stevie, Lucy, Binky and Louise are in Devon. Everybody else is in Chelsea. Andy is surfing and he manages to look hot even half in and half out of a wetsuit like some large nostrilled fish, whilst Stevie is looking really pleased with himself pretending to surf on dry land. Bless him, he must have forgotten his arm bands. Lucy is sunbathing all by herself really far away from both of them and looking she does not give one single fuck about anything. You go Lucy, you go. Andy and Stevie have a really wet hug and Stevie tells him that Louise has a boyfriend, in the form of sexy American Alik, and he seems genuinely upset by the news. Made in Chelsea is so complicated and incestuous with everybody shagging each other (apart from Rosie and Cheska, they never seem to get any) that I can’t actually remember/don’t give a shit why Andy and Louise actually broke up. Wasn’t it because she was apparently shagging the blonde one from One Direction?. Who knows man, who knows?

Her and Binky are being very posh and riding horses on the beach when they stop to have a conversation about Alik. Binky asks if they’ve been having “sexual phone calls” or “sex timing”, Louise laughs and says they’ve been messaging everyday, which is obviously Chelsea code for yes, we’ve been having lots of awkward phone sex. She’s convinced that Alik won’t care she’s seeing Andy, but seeing as this is Made in Chelsea, I’m going to assume that it’s going to stir up a whole lot of shit.

Back in Chelsea, The glorious MF and Victoria are chatting (or should that be speaking? Surely MF is to posh to chat) on the phone about planning a get together whilst Sam (who looks even more like a five year old than Stevie) is doing some weird skiing/rollerblading thing round a very sunny park with a girl called Toff. He tells her that Louise has told him he needs to grow up a little bit and get job, which sounds pretty reasonable to me. Sam seems like he is vying to be the cringiest person on television as he is swiftly friendzoned by Toff and considers asking Jamie for an internship. I have no words.

Lucy, aka the queen of amazing facial expressions who may or may not be an android, wanders up to Andy and Stevie and they talk about how she kissed Proudlock in New York a few times. Definitely did not see that one coming. Lucy admits that she likes him and says she doesn’t like talking about feelings and stuff. Amen to that. Spencer and Alex are sat in a cafe. Spencer’s hair makes him look like a fucking iced gem and he seems like even more of a pretentious prick than usual as he sips his green tea. Proudlock joins them and they also talk about the fact that he kissed Lucy in New York a few times. He calls her a “cool chick” about fifty million times and says he’d like to see more of her. The fact that he refers to women as “chicks” like some kind of hipster version of the guys from Grease is reason enough for Lucy not to go there as far as I’m concerned.

Spencer, Jamie, Sam and Toff are all playing tennis in appropriately blindingly white outfits. Jamie is looking at Toff in such a way to suggest that he might say “I love you” any minute. They all talk about Sam possibly being hired as Jamie’s intern and after a hideous mock interview he agrees for a couple of weeks trial. Alex turns up (looking, as Holy Moly pointed out, like a poor mans Robin Thicke) and it seems he is forgiven for shagging Jamie’s ex. Happy days.

Andy throws a bonfire party and admits to Stevie that he still likes Louise and was thinking about giving it another shot. Sweet timing bro. Binky and Louise end up meeting the two guys that they saw jogging topless on the beach earlier, Will (kind of sexy) and Lonan (not so sexy). They’re both personal trainers and it becomes evident through some weird exchange of orgasm facts that Binky and Will want to shag each other. Binky is the Chelsea Queen of many hearts, mine included, so Will, if you start shagging around, there will be hell to pay. It turns out that they know Alex from Uni, he apparently started going out with a girl Lonan was seeing. Oh Mytton! to think, a couple of series ago we all thought you were some kind of sex god. At a really empty bar, Lucy introduces the bois to her little sister Tiffany. Like dogs returning to their favourite humping pillows, they all smile and eye her creepily. I would be willing to bet a fairly substantial sum of money that Spencer tries ,and lets face it most likely succeeds, to shag her whilst Jamie watches on sadly, crying biscuity tears.

HOLD UP, SEXY ALIK IS BACK! For once, it seems like Made in Chelsea has actually produced a couple that genuinely seem like they’re into each other. As opposed to the other kisses that look like a small child is smashing barbie and ken dolls together. Andy goes to Spencer’s studio (this is presumably where he conducts his sacrifices to the ancient Mayan sex gods. How else does he get all these really attractive women to sleep with him?) where he is painting something that looks suspiciously like a multi coloured vagina, but is apparently an onion. Who ever said that rich people have too much time on their hands?

PARDY TIME! Spencer is having a Saints and Sinner’s themed birthday party which Jamie has clearly misinterpreted as a gay stripper theme. Alex meets Will and Lonan again and it’s all a bit awkward. Sexy Alik gets talking to Spencer and he warns him about Andy’s sharky ways when it comes to Louise, excuse me while I choke on the irony. Him and Louise have another awkward conversation (anyone would think this would some of kind of scripted reality show!) which gets about a billion times more awkward when Andy rocks up and says he’s “gutted” that Louise has a boyfriend. Oh loooooooord. We end the episode with Proudlock and Lucy pinky promising to go on a secret date, which is actually very cute.

Gotham S01E02 – Selina Kyle Review

This review contains spoilers

After the pretty intense pilot, the second episode manages to slow things down a little bit. It’s kind of a monster of the week type episode, balancing the defeat of a self contained threat with small developments in the other plot threads. It’s a shame that the monster of the week is so tame and predictable, because I feel like this is formula that has the potential to work quite well for Gotham. It’s what the show should be. Not about Batman, but about Gordon and Gotham and how it and everything in came together as one massive, violent force becoming so evil and uncontrollable that the only person that could sort it out was a crazy vigilant styled after a bat.

Speaking of which, the episode opens with our pre Batman Bruce Wayne (who, for someone whose parents got brutally gunned down in front of them like a week ago, doesn’t seem particularly upset) crouched in the dark trying to test himself by holding out his hand over a flaming candle. Although yeah, it’s not particularly realistic, I quite like the fact that they’re showing Bruce as this kid who wants, or maybe needs, to test his limits. Batman has always been a bit obsessive, the guy that needs to hunt down his parents killer, the guy that has to sort out Gotham. It’ll be interesting to see how these little acts develop into full fledged vigilantism.

Anyway, Alfred bursts in and after flipping out over the massive burn on Bruce’s hand, he goes in for the apology hug. I’ve heard people moaning about this new version of Alfred, saying he’s way too brash and heavy handed and not that fatherly badass we’re used to. I’m not sure if they’re just sad about the Michael Caine shaped hole in their Batman franchise, but I actually think this take on Alfred makes a lot of sense. If you think about, most incarnations of Alfred are shown in relation to an adult Bruce. They’ve had a lot of time to cultivate a relationship and so naturally, Alfred would be a kind of second father to him. But whilst Thomas and Martha Wayne were alive and everything was all sunshine and roses (well, as sunshiny and as rosy as it could ever be in Gotham) Alfred was just the family butler. A well liked butler sure, but a butler none the less. He would have been friendly with Bruce, but presumably Thomas Wayne would have been the one that Bruce loved and who he looked up to as a father figure. So when he dies, Alfred is thrust into this unfamiliar role and he doesn’t quite know how to react. Sean Pertwee nails it.

Side note, wouldn’t it be amazing if Alfred ends up taking Bruce to a psychologist because he thinks he’s self harming and it turns out to be a younger Dr Crane?

The episode is called Selina Kyle, so most of the main plot for this episode revolves around her. We see her affectionately batting a necklace (LIKE A CAT GUYZZZZ!) before her and a group of other homeless kids end up getting kidnapped by a creepy looking man (Frank Whaley) and a creepy looking women (Lili Taylor) posing as charity workers. After being called to investigate the shooting of a homeless guy, Gordon and Bullock end up becoming entangled in the case. With another confrontation over the treatment of suspects (Gordon, understandably, objects to Bullock beating the shit out of a homeless kid who escaped the kidnappers) they take a visit to Sarah Essen (Zabryna Guevara) Captain of the Gotham City Police Department homicide squad, and their boss, who forbids them from leaking the story to the public. “Jim, it’s not like I can order you to break the law” she says after Bullock voices his complaints “but this is Gotham. If you don’t bend, you get broke.” You get the sense that Gordon’s quest to stay on the right side of the law is a futile one, and I hope we see him struggle with that as the series goes on. Again, it kind of presents Gotham as its own character. Something dark and forbidding, that can’t help but corrupt those within it. Nygma makes another appearance as the smug, slightly cocky forensic scientist who informs them that the kidnappers are using ATP, a fast acting knockout drug the doctors at the old Arkham Asylum used to use. His screen time is really small, but I think Smith continues to make quite a good impression as the future Riddler. With his blind expectation to be let in on the action, you really get that sense that he thinks he’s way more intelligent than everyone else.

Gordon and Bullock are sworn to silence, lest the city begin to panic at the thought of a group of mysterious child snatchers, but Gordon’s fiancee Barbara (Erin Richards) ends up anonymously tipping off the police after he confides in her. What the fuck Barbara? It’s a pretty shady thing to do, and coupling this with the very strong hints that her and Renee Montoya (Victoria Cartagena) used to be in a relationship (something she hasn’t told Gordon about), I’m convinced there’s something dodgy about her. We’re watching you Babs.

Of course this most recent batch of kids were snatched on Fish Mooney’s turf, so Gordon and Bullock pay her a visit. Prior to their entry, we see her and Falcone (John Doman) having a pretty intense conversation regarding Mooney’s loyalty. The thinly veiled accusations, the slick arse kissing, the demonstrations of power are all fairly stereotypical mobster fare, but its exciting all the same. Doman makes for an intimidating figure and Jada Pinkett Smith’s mini rage attack after his goons beat up her fit bartender, gives the impression that Mooney could be quite dangerous if she wanted to be. Her interactions with Gordon are always intriguing, as though she can’t quite figure him out yet, and she tells Gordon and Bullock that someone overseas is the one responsible for taking the kids.

Acting on one of the Riddler’s tips, Gordon and Bullock investigate and subsequently shoot up a chemist where the kidnappers are storing (is storing the right word? I feel like you can’t really store a human being. Maybe holding?) the homeless kids. The kidnappers escape but the kids (who all look fairly polished for kids that are supposed to be living a hard street life) are rescued, prompting the mayor to evoke this weird kind of “tough love” program which essentially involves sending all the ugly ones “upstate” (which is a creepy enough phrase in itself. It makes me of think of the bit in Animal Farm when Boxer, R.I.P, gets taken away to the knackers) to a juvenile prison. Which doesn’t really seem all that fair to me, but whatever. The creepy kidnappers resurface and hijack one of the juvie buses, which of course, happens to be the one that Selina Kyle is on. What follows is kind of a weird mixture between Adam West lucky-I-always-carry-my-shark-repellant-bat-spray campy Batman and modern dark, gravelly voice Batman. The kidnappers, who we find out are working for the Dollmaker, are almost pantomime with their actions, the high pitched voices, the high fives, Lilli Taylor’s weird air hostess hat, they make a strange contrast to things like Selina Kyle gouging out a henchman’s eyes with her bare hands. You never really get the sense that anyone is in actual danger and it’s not like they’re going to kill off Catwoman in the second episode is it? Even Game of Thrones or Joss Whedon wait a while before killing off the main characters.  Gordon and Bullock manage to track them down by deciphering the logo the chemist owner described to them and all the kids are rescued. Selina Kyle manages to get an audience with Gordon, by threatening to tell everyone another police officer molested her if he didn’t call him down, and in exchange for not going back “upstate” she tells him that she saw exactly who shot the Wayne’s.

Last, but no very means least, we have the developments in the glorious Penguin saga. Already one of my favourite characters, we see him trying to make his way back to Gotham when he gets picked up by a couple of frat bros (DUUUUDE! DUUUUUUUDE!). They share an ice cold beer before he stabs one of them in the neck and takes the other one hostage in a crappy looking trailer. Him trying to bargain with the bros mum (or should that be mom?) is a bit rookie, but it shows just how much the other characters are underestimating him. His pointed smile as he puts down the phone is brilliantly psychotic and you get the sense that there’s a lot more to come from him in the future. Another unexpected highlight of the episode is Montoya’s and Allen’s (Andrew Stewart Jones) interview with his Miss Havisham esq German mother, who assures them that she would feel it if anything happened to her beloved Oswald.

I feel its still too early to make a complete judgement of Gotham, there’s still so much more to go plot-wise and we haven’t even met all of the characters (especially the villains) yet, but I’m confident that it can still find its footing as the series goes on.

Gotham S01E01 – Pilot Review

I’ll admit it, when I first heard about this show I was proper fucking excited. I LOVE Batman. Both the standalone animated television series and the animated DC Universe films (with the exception of Son of Batman. Damien Wayne is the whiniest little prick since Connor from Angel) are brilliant, the recent Rockstar games (come on, Origins wasn’t that bad) are pure gold and the graphic novels and comics (that shamefully, I’ve only recently started delving into) are fucking legendary.

So yeah, Gotham had a lot to live up to. Couple this with the fact that the pilot episode is probably one of the, if not the, most difficult episode of any series to get right, (think about it. You’ve to introduce the setting, set-up several story-lines with the correct amount of pacing so that people remain interested after the episode has ended, and perhaps most importantly, introduce the characters, both good and evil, in a such a way that is convincing yet not too heavy handed so that we instantly get a feel for their personality) the creators had an absolutely massive challenge on their hands. For the most part though, I think they’ve succeeded.

We start the episode like 95% of live action Batman adaptations do, with the brutal shooting of Thomas and Martha Wayne. They’ve been targeted by a seemingly random thug after a night out at the cinema, leaving a young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) as a pretty traumatised orphan. His ear splitting scream of despair is actually quite heart-wrenching as the camera pans out to show him stood alone between his parents bloody corpses. It’s all pretty standard Batman fare. Where Gotham differs from previous adaptations (well Christopher Nolan’s at any rate, I feel like everyone has just kind of blocked Joel Schumacher’s from their memory. Kinda like the British public did with Cheryl Cole after she punched that toilet attendant in the face) is that this whole rather scarring exchange is witnessed by non-other than baby Catwoman (Camren Bicondova). A young homeless kid who we just saw steal a carton of milk, which was half empty even though it looked like the woman she stole it from had literally just bought it from the shop, so she could feed a stray cat.

I’m not too sure how I feel about this inclusion. With her frequent appearances throughout the background of this episode it almost seems as though they’re setting it up for Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne to become childhood friends. Which when taking into account what happens in the future, doesn’t really seem to make that much sense. But hey, that’s all just speculation. What the fuck do I know?

Anyway, everything is set up quite nicely for the introduction of our hero, a rather dapper looking James Gordon (Ben Mckenzie). No longer the wise, stoic Commissioner that we’ve all grown to love, but a rookie detective vehemently opposed to all the violence and corruption abound in the GCPD. “Hey, come on man! take it easy!” he protests as his fellow officers violently subdue the crazed gunman he just talked down. It immediately paints Gordon as the one with a sense of morality and provides a nice contrast with corrupt partner Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) who advises him to just “shoot the son of a bitch” if it ever happens again. They’re called to the scene of the Wayne’s double homicide and its here that James Gordon and Bruce Wayne meet for the first time. It’s a fairly emotional scene, which I feel is amplified by us knowing how this story plays out. “I promise you, however dark and scary the word is right now, there will be light” Gordon assures, and after seeing so much of Batman as a dark, almost obsessive vigilante who often borders on anti-heroism, it’s interesting to be reminded that he was once just a scared, shaken kid.

It’s also here that you really start to get the idea of Gotham itself as a character. Helped in part by the gorgeous cinematography, you really get the sense that the long shadowy alleyways and dark towering skyscrapers are a force all on their own. Acting to conceal some very evil secrets.

Continuing with this idea of evil Batman has always been a franchise with very strong villains. It’s not like Superman or Wonder Woman who only really have a couple that are good, Lex Luthor is pretty fucking cool and some of Wonder Woman’s more famous enemies (which lets face it, there aren’t a lot of) include the God of War and a half women/half cheetah hybrid, basically all of Batman’s are amazing. Everybody loves the fucking Joker (thanks in part to Heath Ledger), but you’ve also got Mr Freeze, Ra Al Ghul and the League of Shadows, Two Face, Bane, Black Mask, The Mad Hatter, Deadshot, Killer Croc, Zsasz, Harley Quinn (my personal favourite) I could go on but then you’d probably all get bored and not keep reading. Which you most certainly shouldn’t do. No matter how terrible this is. So naturally, some of the heaviest speculation around Gotham was how the show was going to handle Batman’s enemies. Four, well five if you count Catwoman who has always struck me as more of an anti-hero than a straight out imma-murder-you-and-all-your-loved-ones villain, are present in the pilot. The Riddler (Cory Michael Smith), Poison Ivy (Clare Foley), Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) and Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith), a character created exclusively for the show. The Riddler and Poison Ivy appear for just a few minutes, and almost seem like little easter eggs, whilst both Penguin and Fish Mooney are set up to be main characters. It seems as though Smith will do pretty well as The Riddler. He definitely looks the part and he’s got this kind of smarmy, almost arrogant charm to him. I’ve never really been a particularly massive fan of Penguin (Danny Devito scared the crap out of me when I was younger) but here, holy shit, Taylor absolutely kills it. He starts out as one of Mooney’s lowly lackeys but by the end of the episode has evolved into something much more terrifying. You get the impression that despite his polite, almost pathetic exterior, Oswald Cobblepot is actually pretty fucking ruthless. Taylor captures this perfectly and I’m quite excited to see his fully fledged transformation into the Penguin. Mooney isn’t quite as exciting, but I think that’s more to do with how she’s written. Jada Pinkett Smith gives it her all as a mob boss with loads of icy, intimidating scares and a liking for violence but I never really felt like she was that much of threat. It almost seems like she’s just a way for Gordon and Bullock to get information which is a bit of shame. I’ve always got time in my life for the mob.

The episodes pacing is pretty fast, managing to introduce several plot-lines and a whole host of characters. Whilst the introduction of the characters is a little messy and kind of heavy handed, if her name being Ivy (as opposed to the original Pamela Isley) wasn’t enough she’s also dressed in green and stood next to a load of plants, and a lot of the information seems to come at you quite fast, I did have to be a complete noob and pause it once to sort it all out in my head, the plot seems intriguing enough to keep the audience hooked in. Although outshone by the brilliantly nasty Bullock, Mckenzie makes for a reasonable Gordon and it seems unfair to judge him too harshly just yet. All in all, it was a fairly solid pilot and I’m excited to see where they take the show next.