Five thoughts after watching "The Laughing Cats" and "Fleurs du Mal"
1) See, now, if you hadn't already burned me out on multi-villain episodes, The Batman, I would have been ALL OVER the idea of a well-executed "Most Dangerous Game" callback with Catwoman and Joker, in addition to Batman and Batgirl. As it happens, I felt a little been-there about it, despite the fact that it was pretty frakkin' awesome, judged on its own merits. It's also kind of weird that I watched this the same day that I read the Zoo of Death chapter of Princess Bride.
2) I will never stop loving Barb, and I am extremely glad this show has only made that easier for me. I think the offer to be Catwoman's sidekick was an interesting angle - particularly given her history on this show as a bit of a delinquent with a complicated friendship with a villain - that I would have liked to see given more time to be explored. Unfortunately, this show isn't really about character development the way some other superhero shows ::coughcoughtheentireTimmversecoughcough:: are, so it didn't *surprise* me that this Temptation of the Batgirl was used only as a brief distraction/complication for Batman rather than a way to flesh out Barb and Selina. Oh well. I'll take what I can get.
2a) Both of the female villains on this show (who are also the two most significant female villains in Gotham, so it's not just this show) are morally corrupt vigilantes who are, to at least some extent, obsessed with acting on behalf of a pet cause. Interesting...
2b) I'm not thrilled that Batman rescued Catwoman yet again (only moments after Batgirl rescued herself, thank you ever so). It's not that male characters are never allowed to help out female characters, but it is problematic when it becomes a recurring thing, and when it is played so obviously as an "I'm going to rescue you now" moment. What happened to my Irene Adler-y Catwoman from her first appearance?
3) The way the symbol on Bats' chest moves and distorts when he's typing is amusing me to no end right now. I'm certain it's meant to be caused by his Rippling BatPectorals™, but my mind went straight to Gigantic Jiggling Yaboos™. We're going to go with the reasoning that I have first-hand experience with making a Batsymbol distort like that because I have typed while in possession of a set of Gigantic Jiggling Yaboos™, rather than the alternative explanation that I am, in fact, a 14-year-old boy.
3a) Considerably later in this same episode, he births himself out of a plant!egg!vagina. When he rescues Batgirl, he blows a giant, jagged, amorphous hole in the thing, but this is what it looks like when he slices himself out:
Well. Looks like I don't need three years and an M.A. after all - I can already spot genitalia in children's shows.
4) Any villain who can't figure out by his...ninth fight with Bats that the dude uses a grappling gun and is therefore difficult to evade in a hot air balloon is kind of dumb. Any villain who has had eight schemes foiled by Bats and still acts genuinely shocked when he fires his grappling hook at a hot air balloon as it launches, thereby boarding said balloon and making short work of preventing an escape, is just a moron.
4a) Boring fight scene is boring.
4b) Uh...I spoke a little soon, there. Before I even finished typing 4a, things suddenly got interesting, as Penguin fell quite a long way to the ground, and Bats actually sounded concerned when he checked on him.
5) "Vegetation Rights Act" HAHA OH GOD, THIS WOULD BE FUNNY IF THE WORLD WEREN'T FULL OF "PERSONHOOD BILLS" AND "CORPORATE PERSONHOOD." Meanwhile, this is actually quite a nice little bit of Invasion of the Body Snatchers/Extreme Makeover, Eco-Terror Edition horror, here.
5a) I'm...gonna go out on a limb (HAHA OMG I'M AWFUL) and say that raining "A highly concentrated herbicide" all over the city is a VERY BAD THING. If Captain (not Cap'n) Jack was so disturbed by the estrogen in the rain, it's a good thing he was in Cardiff and not Gotham. Bad form, Bats; I'm siding with Ivy on this one, and she was kidnapping and drugging people and replacing them with an army of plant mutants.