Gotham (TV Series) A Dark Knight: The Sinking Ship the Grand Applause (2018) User Reviews

Friends, Feuds and Falcone's

[highmarksreviews · 8/10 · 24 March 2018]

After last week's Ivy centric episode, it was a smart choice to shift the focus on to the real fight for Gotham and its heroes. The episode sought to rebuild Gordon's (Ben Mckenzie) and Bullock's (Donal Logue) relationship, along with seemingly ending the prolonged Falcone conflict in an admittedly unsatisfying manner. Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) and Riddler (Cory Michael Smith) also shared the spotlight with the cop duo, providing some surprisingly heartfelt moments. Bruce's (David Mazouz) arc was also massively toned down to give room for all this to unfold and the inevitable return of a villain will surely raise the stakes in the next few episodes. Overall, Gotham produced a solid and streamlined and perhaps a little disappointing chapter in "The Sinking Ship, the Grand Applause"

Great Episode

[vovaparkour · 24 March 2018]

Great episode! Every now and then a great Gotham episode comes on, and I just have to go and let people know! Great stuff from everyone - Bruce, Gordon, Bullock, Penguin, Nygma, Barbara, Butch, Sophia, Zasz, and many more. Great relationship dynamics between these characters we love, alliances that come from times of need, tough choices, big outcomes. I am keeping this all very vague on purpose, go see for yourself! Next time, TAKE THE DEAL!

~9/10 had an awesome time

A different take

[hnt_dnl · 7/10 · 25 May 2020]

Yes, this was most definitely a great episode for the virtually perfect Season 4, but I have a HUGE gripe with it, thus my subpar rating, and that's the shoehorned role of Lee Thompkins! After months of the labyrinthine machinations of Sofia Falcone (brilliantly played by Crystal Reed) and all the time she spent pulling the strings of both Gordon and Penguin and playing them like a fiddle, it all came down to the increasingly annoying Doc Thompkins to swoop in and save the day. With the very tenuous thread of Lee and Sofia being bound by Mario as Lee was his wife and Sofia his sister, the writers concocted some nonsense scene in the previous episode where Sofia breaks Lee's hand thereby giving the Doc a reason for wanting revenge. Where was this mutual bond over Mario early in the season? Why didn't the sisters-in-law see fit to meet prior to this?

What really grates on my nerves is that the writers opted to end the BEST female character of the entire series Sofia Falcone at the hands of it's WORST character, regardless of gender, Lee Thompkins. In a time where the writing for female characters in TV and film is so incredibly bad, but especially in comic book shows where the female characters tend to be annoying Mary Sues who have magic unearned skills and powers, there was this amazingly written character of Sofia Falcone, who was actually grounded, smart, devious, diabolical, cold-blooded and convincing who EARNED her power and strength and didn't have it handed to her through fantasy writing. Then all of that gets ended by one of the poster children for horrendous female representation in the annoying Dr. Lady. It totally should have been either Gordon, Penguin, or Zsasz to get their revenge on Sofia. But instead it gets to be the irrelevant Lee Thompkins, who had zero to do with any of Sofia's long game plot to take over Gotham's criminal underworld.

I have two guesses as to why the writers did this. One is that they needed some quick "character development" for the Doc because they otherwise don't know what to do with her, so turning her into a killer (well, she low-key was already one) makes her somehow one of the villains. Lee's already a villain in my book, but not for the killing stuff, which leads to my second guess. The MAIN reason they did this is so Lee could swoop in and save her "true love" Jim Gordon. Yes, somehow, even though she's been trashing him and hating on him for well over the last 2 seasons up to this point and even here acted like it was all about revenge on Sofia and not to save Jim, the writers would actually have us believe that subconsciously, Lee actually did this because deep down...DEEP down...there's still something there. Yes, let's ruin this brilliantly orchestrated season-long plot carried by one of the best characters introduced to the series in Sofia Falcone by having it end at the hands of Dr. Lee "Won't Go Away and Stay There" Thompkins.

Are there seriously even more than a handful of obsessed fans that would even still want Gordon and Lee together at this point of the show? Are people THIS desperate for their main hero to have a love interest that this toxic relationship is their idea of some great love story? It's really sad that this otherwise superb series gets grinded to a screeching halt because modern TV writers just can't stay away from this shipping nonsense.