TV Review: GOTHAM: Season 1, Episode 21: The Hammer or the Anvil [Fox]

Fox‘s Gotham The Hammer or the Anvil TV Show Review. Gotham: Season 1, Episode 21: The Hammer or the Anvil wasn’t as good as last episode, but it still had some interesting twists and built anticipation for the season finale.

As the third episode in the saga of Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) Vs The Ogre (Milo Ventimiglia), it signals that we may actually be done with the “Villain-Of-The-Week” drudge that plagued so much of this season. That said, the methodology Gordon uses to cap this case is a bit too familiar; he goes to see Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor) and ask him for a lead on the trail, though this time its obvious the alliance between them is falling apart. Gordon and Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) follow his lead through an unsavory location, and eventually a tense showdown occurs.

More interesting are the bits about Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) and The Penguin. Bruce uses his new bootlegged key to infiltrate his own company and investigate unethical practices by his company’s Board of Directors. Things don’t go according to plan, though, and while the results aren’t too action-packed, they do give the impression, somewhat unique in this series, that something new and even deviant is entering the Batman mythos–especially given the “secret passage” scene revealed in the season finale trailers. If things are going where they seem to be, then this is a rewrite of history that some longtime Batman fans may not like. Still, changing things up is practically the point of adaptations, so let it be tested.

Meanwhile Penguin, as noted before, has taken aim at Don Sal Maroni (David Zayas), but these don’t go quite right, either–or do they? Not for the first time, Cobblepot has kept some of his aces up his sleeve, and the fact that he’s usually not very subtle paradoxically gives him a good poker face for such things. It’s something of a shame Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) wasn’t around this time to match wits and depravity with him, but she’ll be back next week for the season finale. It could be a good one!

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