Spoilers below for the third episode of Gotham's third season.
Boy, oh, boy. Gotham hasn't put much effort towards getting political in its two seasons and change, but things are getting positively batty in Season 3 now that Oswald Cobblepot is looking to compliment his Penguin persona with something on the morally sound side of the law. As made clear in tonight's episode "Look Into My Eyes," Cobblepot has made a goal out of becoming the mayor of Gotham City, and the show put out a campaign video that makes a pretty hilarious reference to current presidential candidate Donald Trump. Check it out.
Step aside, Saturday Night Live. Anytime I'm silly enough to think that Gotham can't possibly do anything wackier that the baffling assortment of situations we've seen so far, the show proves me wrong, and "Make Gotham Safe Again" is a stellar example. It's already weird and somewhat uncomfortable that Penguin is going to attempt to run for office in a city where he is a known felon by 75% of the population, and making that brief but unmistakable connection to Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan puts it over the top.
Sidestepping any and all political commentary on any correlations between Trump and Penguin, I'd prefer to think of the similar slogans as a funny little way to bring the real world into Gotham City as only this show can do it. Now I'm waiting for Poison Ivy to start up the mantra "I'm With Her-bivores."
This is such a ridiculous area to take Penguin's story, though I of course understand the advantage in having a ruthless villain in a position of high power. But there's no way Gotham City actually puts this dude in the Mayor seat, right? No doubt Richard Kind's Aubrey James was a mindless dope who got the gig years before, but this is different, right? RIGHT?
Dammit, he just looks so good, I guess I'd have to give him my vote. Politics, schmolitics. He combed down his Penguin alfalfa, so now I can respect him as an adult.
Beyond his crowd-pumping speech, Penguin had another big moment in tonight's episode, namely when he went and picked up the newly freed Ed Nygma. These two partners in crime are about to give the basket of deplorables that is Gotham City a run for its money as Season 3 goes on. Let's get The Joker hooked up with them too, shall we?
With the Mad Hatter now around to shake things up even more, Gotham airs Monday nights on Fox at 8:00 p.m. ET. To see when everything else is getting mad with hats, check out our fall premiere schedule.
