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babybatcatandco · 6 years

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Gotham Season 4B Trailer Breakdown

So I was going through the trailer frame by frame, as you do, and I have some thoughts/theories:

So Bruce is breaking the suit out again. I think it’s going to take place post-vision where he sees his Darkness™ personified. I’m really hoping he gets over this angsty stage and spends like three months apologizing to Alfred.

Further evidence of some kind of mind-whammy changing Bruce’s perspective. The speaking over this is Bruce explaining to Jim that he thinks he’s seen who he really is. I’ve been saying for a bit now that S4 is really laying the groundwork for who Bruce and Co. become later on, and I think this is a big moment. Also, it looks like they’ve got David in the same outfit as the earlier screenshot, so I’m willing to bet that this all takes place post-Bruce’s vision.

We’ve got Jim and Barbara in what I think is her club. There are some people dancing in the right of the next frame. The decor here looks similar to what I can remember the Artemis as looking, but I think we’ve seen enough of Barbara’s penchant for old-timey, almost art-deco furniture and fashion to assume that this is her club. Her outfit has a very similar vibe, very 1920′s flapper aesthetic. I’m willing to bet Jim is asking for her help with something he can’t get on his own, whether he’s outfoxed or he just needs her to do something illegal for him.

Jim and who looks to be Harper are at a crime scene here. We can’t tell much about the victim, but Jim’s holding an evidence bag and their face looks pretty torn up. I don’t want to go out on a limb and say Jerome yet, because from what I can tell he’s still in Arkham. I’m thinking this is the mystery Jim goes to Barbara about.

Jim’s threatening Sofia, and I have a feeling a good portion of 4b is going to be him trying to get her off his back. I see no immediate change in Sofia’s goals at the moment; I think she’ll be trying to consolidate her power in Gotham, which is what makes Jim going to Barbara so curious. I wonder if they’ll have a moment where he plays on her pride and asks if she’ll let someone lord over her or something in that vein.

We’ve got an enraged Lee on our hands here. The ‘Heavy Hitters’ poster on the wall, as well as just the set in general and the fact that Sofia’s walking into a room while Lee waits, tells me we’re in Lee’s territory in the Narrows. Sofia’s also got her gloating face on, and Lee’s very visibly upset and threatening her. I think the bad blood here is tied to Sofia gaining complete control over Gotham. I don’t know if she’s refusing to have other gangs around acting as viziers like we’ve seen before, so she wants Lee gone, or if Lee’s people love her too much, or Lee’s just being stubborn about something, but I think Sofia’s done something horrible. Knowing Lee and her weaknesses, Sofia’s probably done something cruel to the poor people in the Narrows and now Lee’s being a protective mama bear.

Jim and Lucius are exiting a store, you can’t quite tell here but it has a clown and the name KRANK on the window, so I’m thinking something Jerome-related. Jim’s obviously distressed though, as he’s reaching for his gun.

My baby girl is peering into a window here. The stairs look a little wooden to be a fire escape, but you tell by the window frame and that the curtain is closer to the camera that she’s on the outside. Very similar lighting/colour palette to the apartment we see her and Ivy in later, but then Gotham does love its shadowy grays.

A burning mask. Looks practically identical to Bruce’s but it’s white. I don’t know why but it’s giving me some Court of Owls vibes, but I doubt the two are related at all. White tends to be coded as the colour of innocence and purity, so it might be tied to Bruce’s vision/representative of him embracing his darkness.

The second screenshot is from a bit earlier, but they have very similar gold set design/GCPD officers running around, which you see a lot in this trailer. Some catastrophe is happening, no clue if it’s Ivy or Jerome related or someone else wreaking havoc. Bruce has a very ‘oh shit’ expression (props again to David Mazouz, he and Camren Bicondova are so talented at such a young age), so I wonder if he’s going to break out some vigilante justice and we’ll get to see proto-Batman and Jim interact.

THE KIDS ARE BACK TOGETHER AND MY HEART IS FILLED WITH JOY. Ahem, so, Selina’s asking Bruce for his help, and he’s looking pretty receptive. I really think whatever vision he goes through takes place very early in the season, if not the first episode. If he was still in Billionaire-Brat mode I don’t think he’d be as willing to hear Selina out (plus the tail end of 4A wasn’t very focused on him and his development, so I think to make up for it we’re going to get a lot from him right out of the gate. @the Gotham writers please have Selina be like ‘what the actual fuck’ when Bruce tells her Alfred’s gone.) Their posture is halfway between open and closed off; they’ve got their arms extended between them with ‘let’s make a deal’ fists, but they’re both leaning forward towards each other. Also, it sounds like they’re making up?

So this scene literally reduced me to incoherency (please tell me the first two shots are them giving each other the side-eye like ‘we’re gonna fuck shit up?’, ‘yeah we’re gonna fuck shit up’, boom, action scene) and I had to go back and rewatch it like a million times over, but the children are officially back to kicking ass and taking names together. I’m willing to bet this is what Selina needs help with, and the set makes me think that this is a fence, what with all the antiquated knick-knacks kicking around. Maybe Selina lost an important item, or someone stole from her, or this is related to an overarching plot we can’t see yet? Either way, my soul is healed. And if that ‘cup your jaw, hand dragging down your chest as I walk away’ move wasn’t the most BATCAT thing I have yet to see on this show. AND THEY’RE SMILING. Well Selina definitely is, Bruce looks a little more wistful, or kind of like ‘oh shit she’s getting under my skin again’.

We’re getting our first good look at Jerome and Oswald! It looks like Jerome’s built up his own little gang at Arkham, and he’s demanding Oswald make him laugh. The lighting/set looks pretty different in the last two screenshots, so I think it’s at a later date, but I could be wrong. Jerome’s costume is a bit altered though, his shirt is on and buttoned before. It looks like Jerome has got some kind of gladiatorial ring on the go here, and during their fight he’s got a hammer while Oswald is fighting bare-fisted. It looks as though Oswald wins, and the set-up makes me think it’s some kind of fight for respect or power. I’m excited to see what Jerome’s got going on this season, as he’s being played to perfection by Cameron Monaghan as per usual.

And we get to see Ivy! They’ve recast Maggie Geha, and I will miss her until the day I die. (Peyton List is a great actress though.) She’s looking pretty badass, the sweater seems like a callback to Clare Foley’s Ivy. It looks like she’s got her full-on powers nowadays, and the man it looks like she was feeding off of is wearing what seems to me like a GCPD uniform, might explain why Jim’s got an APB (basically a modern wanted poster) out for her. That bottle on the shelf to her left shows up later in the trailer, interestingly enough.

The decor of the apartment she’s breaking into gives me Barbara vibes, and it seems to have similar lighting as the earlier shot of Selina looking through that window, as well as when we see her and Ivy talk later. I have a feeling she’s looking for Selina/wants Selina to leave Tabby and Barbara to join her. And Ivy’s cracked at this point, the trailer description says she’s looking to make Gotham her green paradise, so I think Selina will have a ‘wtf no’ moment.

And here we find Selina’s ‘wtf no’ moment. I think she’ll go along with Ivy in the beginning out of fondness/nostalgia, but I think Ivy’s going to be on the kind of crazy kick Selina can’t condone. I think we’re really going to start seeing Selina’s moral greyness, and possibly the more altruistic, ‘good guy’ side of her. Knowing Ivy this is a part of her ‘kill all people who harm the ecosystem’ schtick.

Ed! He still looks decidedly un-Riddlerish. He’s delivering one of the funnier lines, “oh that is so Gotham.” I think that this is about whatever crime he came to Babs about, and now he’s there to talk to either Ed or Lee. Either that or he’s looking for their help to boot Sofia out of the criminal underworld.

Ivy and the girls at what looks like the nightclub. Babs is still wearing the same dress as when she was talking to Jim. These are two very differently placed shots though, the first isn’t a reaction, Selina’s standing in different places. Same dress, however, so the same night/thread of scenes. Ivy’s probably there either to ask for their help with her grand plan, or to retrieve Selina.

Bruce is again, sadly, wearing a turtleneck and a blazer. Tragic. He looks like he’s giving a press conference or something though, and this shot flashes as Ivy says “you have no idea what’s really going on at your company, do you?” So there’s some business intrigue going on with Wayne Enterprises, and this is probably Bruce making a ballsy move or trying to assess what’s on the go.

Speaking of, here’s that discussion. I think whatever hidden motive Ivy’s got going on is tied to whatever what’s on the go with Wayne Enterprises. I also think that Ivy’s got some kind of weird superpower going on, and this is where Bruce gets mind-whammied with his vision. I can’t see another reason for her to kiss him, (which I lowkey feel kind of weird about as a sixteen-year-old? Like art is art, and I’m sure everyone consented and jazz, but I don’t know it gives me the creepy crawlies) unless she’s compelling him to do something for her/give her something/tell her information.

So these look pretty different from the other shots of Bruce’s vision, and I think they might be separate. I think at least one of them is Ivy-related, and I’d put my money on this one. We see Ra’s with his dagger, dressed pretty strangely. I think the second shot is Bruce being tugged into the vision, and Ra’s is doing the tugging because you can see that he’s wearing the same pair of black leather gloves in both shots, and they have a similar red, wispy outline. I think Bruce’s vision is going to have him confront killing Ra’s, and openly face his darker parts. I think Jim and Selina are going to play a big role there, as they’re two very morally gray characters and Jim reminds Bruce in the beginning of the trailer that he isn’t alone.

So Bruce’s vision is kind of divided into three, the first one with Ra’s, now this part where he’s standing in an alley and is pounced upon by the same dark, masked figure we see later. The lighting is similar enough between the second and last portions of the vision that I can see them being the same scene, with the transition probably happening as we see the figure jump on Bruce.

So here we have the bulk of Bruce’s vision, with the dark figure informing him that he is “the one you cannot escape, the one you cannot kill.” I don’t know if this is related to Ra’s (snide ‘you can’t kill me’ remark) or if it’s the metaphysical embodiment of the darker side of Bruce, or if it’s similar to the creepy old monk guy (whose name I headcanon as Dante, bc A) that’s just a cool name for a monk, and B) the actor plays President Dante on The 100) where Bruce is getting his mind manipulated again. Time will tell.

We’ve got Ivy and Lucius! She’s got a bottle of some green, glowy thing. Might’ve compelled Lucius to make it for her, might be stealing it, who knows. It looks very similar to a bottle back in her apartment:

They’re not entirely the same, the shape is a little different and the second one has naturally green glass, but I can’t see it being a throwaway detail. Maybe she’s run out of whatever the bottle contains so she needs Lucius to make her more.

It starts to devolve into a montage here, so we’ve got Oswald in a suit and top hat in what looks to be a party setting, and the wavey effect could either be for the montage or to show that it’s a hallucination, and I’m betting on the latter. I think Arkham is going to push him to the limits of his ‘sanity’ all over again. Arkham has always been Oswald’s lowest point, his ‘rock-bottom’.

We’ve got Ed here in his Riddler gear, and the decor/henchman in the back makes me think that this is Sofia’s place. Probably later on in the season, and it looks as though he’s been tortured maybe, what with the blood? It being all over his mouth like that makes me think of Jerome, so it might be connected to him and Oswald somehow.

Jim’s flat on his back in what looks to be a hospital or kitchen setting. Could be a chase, but the intensity/length of the shot makes me feel like he’s in a dire situation. The lighting and set look very similar to this shot of Sofia, as she says “you!” all menacingly. She could be talking to either Jim or someone else who’s attacking them both.

I think this is Lee either in a fight at her place, or just beating the shit out of someone there. The stairs/rest of the set tell us this is her club/fight ring, and she looks pissed as hell. I think it’s related to the earlier situation with Sofia, I can’t see her flying off the handle unless it’s a situation like that.

Harvey’s got his gun back, so I think he returns to the GCPD at some point in 4B. Can’t see it happening off the bat, but it looks like he’s infiltrating Arkham. I think it’ll be either midway through or at the finale of 4B when things with Jerome and Oswald start coming to a head.

So Barbara is spotting Ra’s in the crowd at her club. (Also this is how you can tell Gotham reuses extras bc that girl in the silver, sparkly dress walked in front of Babs and crew earlier in the trailer, but she’s dressed entirely differently so it has to be a new thread of scenes, despite Barbara’s penchant for dramatic costume changes.) Since Ra’s is very, very dead this has to be a hallucination, and I think it’s because Ra’s passed whatever he had been attempting to pass on to Bruce, on to Barbara at Blackgate. I don’t know how Gotham is going to play the Heir to the Demon’s Head thing here, but I’m excited to see what they come up with.

Oswald is out of Arkham, wearing a very warm coat that looks a little frosted over, and pointing a gun. Could have had a run-in with Victor, but you can tell this isn’t a hallucination because he’s wearing his prisoner uniform underneath the coat. Probably later on in 4B.

Ed is looking very unstable, and this is probably the moment where he transitions from Ed back to the Riddler. I’m thinking it’ll be somewhere around mid-way through 4B.

Ivy’s telling Selina here, “let’s make Gotham our bitch,” and the set/lighting looks very similar to when Ivy kicked that door in. I think this is where Selina lives with Tabitha/Barbara, and this is where Ivy tries to rope Selina in on her scheme, and Selina eventually watches her kill that man.

We’ve got Jim talking to who looks like Alfred, right as an explosion occurs. There are too many subplots being thrown around to pinpoint which one might have caused the explosion, but I’m more interested in Alfred and Jim’s conversation. Nine times out of ten if they’re communicating it’s about Bruce, so I think it might be about whatever shady shit is going down at Wayne Enterprises.

Jerome and Oswald again. I’d like to point out while we’re here that Jerome has really started taking on the physical aspects of the Joker, the smile, the gloves, the shoes. He’s asking Oswald to help him find the “crème de la crazy”, and it looks like it’s after their fight since they’re both a little bloodied up.

I really wish the lighting wasn’t like this?? Who is Ivy feeding on? The hair kind of looks like Alfred’s ngl, and I swear if she hurts my son I will pop through the screen and fight her. I’m really curious as to how they’re framing Ivy’s powers here though, it looks like she has full control over plants.

So that was my ridiculously long analysis of the 4B trailer, it’s looking really great and I can’t wait to see where they take it all. I’ll probably elaborate on specific points in the future, especially when the season starts to pick up, or if I have any sudden epiphanies.

#wrote this when i should have been studying for my bio midterm tomorrow morning at 9 am #it's currently midnight and i have no regrets #but i had to do it up twice #bc the page timed out #i was so pissed #this is shaping up to be such a great season #just going through the frames the cinematography was mindblowing #this show just continually impresses me #i lowkey hope the lee/ed thing doesn't go anywhere?#i just want lee to have an arc that doesn't involve her having a love interest #and she can just be a freaking badass who dismantles sofia's throne through sheer spite and determination alone #but i still want sofia to be an amazing gangster queen???#i have too many badass female faves on this show that keep butting heads #it needs to stop #when babs and tabby were fighting i was so sad #anyway that's why i didn't mention lee/ed #also the nygmobblepot fandom would have crucified me #y'all are some scary ass people #i stay the hell in my lane there #same thing with the people who really hardcore stan jerome #i'll just be over here with baby batcat #sobbing #wishing alfred pennyworth was my cool uncle #cursing bruce out for treating him like shit #i was so ready to throw hands with bruce at the end of 4a you have no idea #i'm like five foot with the strength of a newborn kitten but i would have whooped him out of sheer 'fuck you'#gotham #gotham fox #gotham season 4 #gotham season 4b

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