Episode 5 - City of Light Discussion Thread

Okay, so I'm just going to talk about the season as a whole.

It seemed a motif they were going for was having people that Bruce trusts betray him. His father, his childhood friend, and his best friend all turn against him. It's honestly a cool motif that carries throughout the season, and my only problem with it was Harvey... Honestly, Harvey is still my biggest problem with this series. Just... don't let there be a choice to try to save him. Don't tease us that we can save him. Just have him become Two Face and let that be it. There are so many problems with the way they did it.... I mean, for one, it just pisses people off. The whole bait and switch thing. Also, it's ridiculous... they clearly want him to be Two Face, so him without the burns just feels.... really off. Especially if you confront him in Episode 4, because then he's burned everywhere on that side of his body but his face. My biggest problem though is that it suggests he's only becoming Two Face because of the drug, which makes no sense... The drug just makes you lose impulse control, it shouldn't just create an entirely new personality. Really, they should have just made him become Two Face no matter what, just remove the choice. He'd look like Two Face, there'd be the kind of cool idea of having the Two Face personality come from a place of shame, everything would be great. And maybe they'd even be able to explore that "some problems resurfacing" thing a bit more if they weren't worried about trying to keep some illusion of choice going. As it is, now I just want to go back and change my choice because at least he'd look like Two Face.

Something good though: Basically everything with Selina. This is pretty much the only version of Selina that I actually like, so... that's something. For me, anyway. And the choices seem to matter here. Since I didn't save her, she never really opened up to Bruce. Also, it remembered the whole time that Bruce decided to only be friends with her, and it actually felt natural. Honestly, everything with Selina was done well.

I can't actually speak about this, but from what I've seen, it seems like some choices with Gordon mattered too. I mean, obviously he and Bats work together no matter what, but there was enough there that it seemed like Bats's choices actually made some difference in how Gordon interacted with him.

The action overall was.... okay. If the game didn't stutter as much, maybe I'd have more to say. But it does stutter. So.

I actually really liked Penguin as a villain.... My only complaint is that the name Penguin is never explained, but whatever. I liked that they kept gradually introducing more elements of the traditional Penguin in different ways, and the final scene with him was pretty great. Really not much else to say... Just, they did a good job on Penguin.

They also did a good job with Lady Arkham. I really wasn't expecting that they would, but... yeah, they did. The whole final scene was just fantastic. Everything from once Bats got to Arkham, it was just great. And the scene in the hole was.... honestly kind of chilling. Everything about that scene worked for me(though I had predicted it last episode. I didn't really think that they'd go that far with it though...).

And then the finale scene after the confrontation with Lady Arkham was pretty good, too. I wish there were more options other than just giving money to Arkham or the Police, but hey, it worked. And a Joker tease at the end, because of course there was. How did he escape? Eh, whatever.

Basically, great episode, pretty good series, the big fatal flaw was the Harvey/Two Face thing. Looking forward to Season Two or whatever.

-Forgave Alfred.
-Insisted Selina was more than a thief.
-Hugged Selina.
-Said that Batman was just a mask.
-Removed the cowl.
-Went as Bruce Wayne.
-Promised to give funding to Arkham Asylum.

Alfred can lose an eye?? Is that what happens if you don't remove the cowl? That's way worse than Bruce losing a chunk of his ear.