【Watch Scandal Sin in the City (2001)】

Another season of Gothamhas come and Watch Scandal Sin in the City (2001)gone, and after the Season 4 finale, “No Man’s Land,” the question of when Bruce Wayne will finally become Batman seems to finally have a clear answer: soon, or else.

The events of “No Man’s Land” necessitate the appearance of the long-awaited Dark Knight in a way that no finale has done before, by essentially transforming the entire premise of Gotham from a cheeky bat-prequel to...the plot of every single game in the Batman: Arkham video game series. No, really, Gothamis a video game now.

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The insanely popular Arkham series games by Rocksteady all have the same premise: Batman villains take over Arkham Asylum / an open-air prison in an abandoned neighborhood of Gotham / all of Gotham after an evacuation order leaves only villains left in the city. Each of these situations is designed to make sure that Batman never comes into contact with ordinary civilians (except in the case of the occasional cop or hostage), and has free reign to punch the bejesus out of every person he sees walking around on the street.

In “No Man’s Land,” the show’s Joker analogue Jeremiah Valeska uses a bomb threat to force civilians to abandon Gotham before blowing up the bridges, leaving the city itself a citadel of ne’er-do-wells. Like in the Arkham games, Bruce Wayne stays behind, trapped on an island of villains, and if the last few scenes of the episode are anything to go on, he’s going do a whole lot of bejesus-punching come Season 5.

“No Man’s Land” goes a step further with its Arkham parallels when it ends on a montage of villains wreaking havoc in their respective areas of the civilian-free world. Mr. Freeze, Firefly, Penguin, Riddler, Man-bat, Scarecrow, and the League of Shadows all get their dastardly moment in the sun before the episode ends...and those villains also happen to be most of the main antagonists of Batman: Arkham Knight.

Also, Bruce spends some of his last moments furiously searching for Jeremiah, who is the closest thing Gotham has to the Joker, which is pretty much all Batman gets up to in Batman: Arkham Asylumand Batman: Arkham City.

There’s nothing wrong with Gothamgoing full Arkham for Season 5. It will be the show’s final season and has a shortened order of 13 episodes, which means that the countdown to Batman is more imperative than ever for the prequel series. There’s no better way to up the stakes on the Caped Crusader’s arrival than to emulate some of the most action-packed Batman stories released in recent years.

However, while the villain set and sense of urgency generated by “No Man’s Land” are certainly evocative of extant stories, Gothamcan always be counted on to be completely unpredictable, and fans of the show should look forward to where the similarities between Gothamand the Arkham game series begin, end, and crash into each other spectacularly. Preferably with explosions. And maybe a Batmobile tank.

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