♫”It’s a nice day to staaaart agaaaain…”
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
Hey, you know what? I enjoy me some coo-coo crazy Barbara. And “Tonight’s the Night” was overloaded with her nutso antics. So it was all good on that front. Plus, the storyline even seemed like it was marking Barbara’s end. I mean, it felt like her elaborate Se7en-style scheme to nab Jim and make him participate in a wedding-from-hell ceremony would certainly spell out her own doom. Tabitha was there for the assist, but basically, like Jerome, she was left to twist in the wind by Theo. As Jim said, she was just a disposable pawn in the Galavan grand scheme.
But she didn’t die!
Not that I wanted her to die, but this was clearly a “Barbara dies in the end” story. And that final top-of-the-cathedral drop down was pure “hero tries to do the right thing, but it’s too late.” And as much as I like Barbara on the series, I was accepting of her fate. She got to go out big. I thought it worked. And the moment of her “death” even marked a commercial break.
We want to hear it.
But when we came back from commercial we immediately learned that some bushes broke her fall. What an enormous cop out. We didn’t even get to really see her after that. She was just off-screen, still alive and being tended to. It really worked to undo a lot of the episode. Sure, Jim learned a juicy piece of intel about Mayor James, but everything else was made less-impactful, retroactively, because they chickened out with her death. In the grand scheme of the show, of course, I don’t know what’s in store for Barbara. Or how important she’ll be. Is this the moment that brings her back around? To, you know, be a Barbara more in line with canon?
We want to hear it.
I do hope there is fallout from all this though. Not just Theo being arrested, but emotional stuff. That sticks. There’s been a rift brewing between Leslie and Jim all season, though she still seems very accepting of his dangerous maneuvers. And she still can more-than-handle herself under pressure. But will this week’s Barbara plot be the thing that finally pushes her away? Last week, I wrote about how dumb it was for Jim to confront Theo the way he did. And how much danger it would put both him and Leslie in. Well, it seems Leslie was rightfully concerned about that move too.
The scenes between Theo and Bruce worked, for the most part, though I am VERY GLAD that Alfred brought up how much of a dick move it was for Theo to basically withhold the information about Thomas and Martha’s killer until Bruce agree to hand over his shares in Wayne Enterprises. And then when Alfred mentioned how awful it was, Bruce also had to come to terms with it. It was a true bonehead move on Theo’s part. Because, in the end, Bruce didn’t sign. He wasn’t interrupted by cops or anything, he just refused on his own. And if Theo, perhaps, had just given the information to Bruce as an act of good faith to begin with, he might have gotten his way in the end.
Unless, there was no actual information in that folder. But then…why even burn it?
Sticking with this story for a second longer, the moment when Bruce cried and just wanted everything to be over was really good. As was Alfred stating that the Wayne family legacy wasn’t the company, but Bruce himself. Good work from both actors. In fact, Alfred deserves a reward. How about a new girlfriend? In the form of…let’s see…Leslie!
We want to hear it.
Ed’s picnic in the woods was fine. He’s now one person, no longer talking to his alpha-half. And he’s got Kringle to thank for that. And thank her, he did. With a tributary riddle (answer: sleep). So his puzzle personality is slowly coming together, though right now he’s still more of an out and out murderer. The Penguin reveal at the end sets us up for a potentially fun pair, though Penguin seemed like he was in too rough a shape to venture out of that cabin to eat Ed’s sandwich. Also, if he needed help, from anyone, why didn’t he just stay at the picnic and wait for that “anyone” to return?
Oh, and aren’t we all glad that there’s a new nameless crop of new Strike Force members? Lesson learned, I see. No need to know their names or histories anymore. They’re just body shields.
“Tonight’s the Night” had a really cool Barbara story, marred by the weird non-death ending. If they wanted to keep her alive, there were certainly other ways to do it other than the one way that made her death almost necessary by design. Also, and this is more of an observation than a negative, the Se7en homages were pretty out of control during the first 15, 20 minutes. Barbara turning herself in. Offering to lead Jim and Harvey away on an escort mission (followed by armored cops). It’s just that instead of the box, it was a church. And a dress. And also a kidnapped Leslie.
Other than that, the best stuff this week belonged to Bruce and Alfred.
