Fish Mooney (guest star Jada Pinkett Smith) takes matters into her own hands to locate Hugo Strange (guest star BD Wong), forcing Gordon to reluctantly team up with journalist Valerie Vale (guest star Jamie Chung) to find her. Penguin rises in popularity after criticizing the work of the GCPD and Bruce’s investigation of the Court of Owls is compromised. Meanwhile, Ivy Pepper (Maggie Geha) is reintroduced into Gotham city.

Gotham is an interesting one with an episode that feels like it’d fit quite well with X-Men: The Last Stand. The search for Fish continues as Fish continues to search for Strange. Gordon makes deals with Vale and the GCPD takes on Fish’s gang leading to a battle in the latter part of the episode.

It’s an odd episode due to that final part which feels like I should expect Magneto to walk in at any moment and give a speech as to why he doesn’t have his mark. I mean, you’ve got a speedster in black leather wearing a lower mask covering some of her face. It doesn’t get more X-Men than that. All that was missing was someone saying the word “mutant” and politicians railing against them (though we get the Penguin to do that, so we sort of have that).

A confrontation with Fish is what a lot of this episode is about, and even then that is just a step to whatever comes next when it comes to her. This all feels like a series of events as opposed to a solid ongoing narrative.

The closest we get to a narrative instead of events is Bruce’s dealing with the mysterious group who is manipulating Wayne Enterprises from behind the scenes. Comic fans will know them as the Court of Owls, who stand out partially due to their anonymity and their masks. Of course that’s ruined within minutes as the person Bruce is talking to and we’ve only seen briefly removes her mask. It kind of kills the vibe of the group and the confrontation is so early in the season it also kills the mystery itself. This was a story that lasts less than two episodes. Way to kill that reveal and build up really quickly.

And then there’s the return of Ivy who is aged up now and that’s disturbing for a whole bunch of reasons. We’ll see how far they go with her character in future episodes and how creepy it is when you think about it. This episode though doesn’t give me high hopes there.

Gotham is currently the best X-Men television series on right now that’s not animated. As far as being a Batman series… that’s debatable.

Overall Rating: 6.05

Gordon (Ben McKenzie) works in a monster-ridden Gotham as a bounty hunter and seeks to find Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) for answers about the Indian Hill escapees – and why their powers appear to be killing them. Meanwhile, Bruce’s (David Mazouz) doppelganger roams the streets, and Barbara (Erin Richards) and Tabitha (Jessica Lucas) open a new nightclub called The Sirens in the all-new “Mad City: Better to Reign in Hell…”

Gotham returns for a third season picking up where the second left off and setting up a lot of mysteries to come. The first episode is a mix of plotlines as the Indian Hill escapees are running loose in the city in a proto-Batman villain sort of way. There’s a guy that’s similar to Killer Croc, there’s a Man Bat knock-off, there’s a lot to make you want an actual series with the straight up rogue gallery we enjoy.

With the introduction of so many with varying powers, the first episode feels like the X-men’ing of Gotham, especially with Fish Mooney running around with her group of individuals. There’s a power for each moment’s needs and it includes some costumes that don’t help the comparison. And as far as that X-Men tone, the series feels more like X-Men: The Last Stand, than the more higher quality films. Watching the episode I awaited for the word “mutant” to be dropped at any moment. It’s a very odd tone and direction for the show, especially with Batman’s more horror roots, this at times camp feels a bit mixed in what it’s attempting to achieve.

The key players are back, though at this point Bruce is more front and center as he attempts to figure out the corruption at the heart of Wayne Enterprises. This mean David Mazouz has more on-screen moments, unfortunately known of that is good. Mazouz is the weakest point in the series with line readings that are flat and without any personality at all. Every scene he’s in drags killing any flow of the series.

Gotham is going in an interesting direction with a weird mix of Schumacher’s Batman and Ratner’s X-Men and in a way moving further away from the classic characters it’s based on.

Overall Rating: 6.75