Gotham

Fox’s pre-Batman saga had, by my count, three different series finales. Technically, season 5 ended Thursday. “The Beginning…” felt more like an epilogue, though, skipping forward a decade while sacrificing two day-one cast members. And it was also a prologue, table-setting the characters for their legendary journeys. See Commissioner Gordon on the rooftop. See the Dark Knight emerging from the shadows. See the Joker, for real this time. See The Batman Story.Gotham Season 1-5 Download.

Fine, but what about this Batman story? Last week’s “They Did What?” was the proper climax, uniting the community of crazies in one final showdown against the forces of (more) evil. And the final hour filmed for this series aired last month. “The Trial of Jim Gordon” was added late in the order. “How will we fit a new story into our rigidly constructed continuity?” is not a question you worry about the Gotham writers asking. And “Trial” had a sweetly handmade quality: written by Gordon Himself, Ben McKenzie; directed by Barbara Herself, Erin Richards. It was one of those “love letter to the characters”-type episodes. Typical Gotham, this love letter featured an actual wedding.

Somewhere between those three endings is the one that’s just right: Bloody, sappy, explosive, campy, funny, generations of Batmyth tossed in a blender, every genre possible stewed into a high-tech, supernatural, ultraviolent cartoon. The final statement came last week from Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor), declaring once and for all that his blood pumps through Gotham’s broken concrete. (It’s Gotham, man, all the concrete is broken.)

“The Beginning…” was a bit of a letdown from those endings only because it was so much more obvious. In the opening scene, Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) walks off a boat toward distant mountains, promising he’ll “return when I know I’m able to protect the people I love.” Flash forward 10 years, and everything looks familiar. Gordon has a mustache.