Random lengthy Gotham meta time.
There’s a gif set of Oswald visiting Jim and Barbara’s apartment doing the rounds. It’s the little scene where Barbara tells Oswald that Jim never tells her anything, and that he never introduces her to any of his friends.
Looking at it made me think of one of my perceptions of Jim, which is that he’s not actually too great socially. He’s not especially good at making friends, and probably doesn’t have a particularly wide circle of friends. After we find out about Ed, and what he’s done, you’d expect absolute anger and contempt from Jim. But that’s not what we get. We get, instead, the same thing, rather plaintively repeated from Jim
I considered you a friend
Neither statement is thrown angrily at Ed. He’s not bitter, or accusing. The first sounds almost confused, resigned. It takes place when they confront each other in the woods. Ed is laughing about how easy it was to frame Jim, and Jim just replies, quietly, ‘I was your friend’. Of course Jim would have trusted him, and wouldn’t have expected him to deliberately hurt him, because they were friends.
Jim tries repeatedly to find a way to explain Ed’s betrayal away
When Ed tells him this is just the truth of who he always was, Jim replies
And then, finally, in an attempt to somehow absolve Ed of his actions
Even Ed points out that the latter explanation is simply the one Jim finds easier to deal with. The notion that Ed did this because he is unwell allows Jim to still keep hold of the idea that their friendship was sincere.
The second is downright sad. In the car, waiting for Kathryn to show up and take Ed to the Court of Owls, Jim talks about the night that they all had dinner together. He says that Lee had to twist his arm (which ties in with what Barbara says about not getting to wear her fancy ‘night out’ clothes anymore: Jim is not the most social of guys) - but that he enjoyed the time they spent together. And again, there’s that plaintive I considered you a friend.
With that last instance, there’s no reason to share this with Ed right now. Jim is exactly where he needs to be in the context of his larger mission at this point. He needs to keep the Court of Owls sweet in order to save the city. The Court wants him to deliver Ed. Ed is demanding to be delivered to them or he’ll continue to wreak havoc.
Jim can solve both problems - but here he is, looking suspiciously red-eyed, trying to remind a man with a gun pointed at him that he once saw him as a friend. What will that achieve? What would he have done if Ed had wavered? If Ed had lowered his gun, and changed his mind? Would Jim have turned the car round and got them both the hell out of there as fast as possible? It would have put him in a very tricky position with the Court, but I honestly believe that Jim would have done it. Despite everything that’s happened between them, all Jim is looking for here is an excuse not to hand Ed over.
This, in turn, made me think about the times where Ed just hasn’t been quite able to pull the trigger on Jim.
Now. The game is up at this point. Ed knows that he’s thoroughly caught. There’s no real reason not to kill Jim right now - even if it’s only out of rage and frustration. Ed is done, anyway.
But he doesn’t. He points the gun for a couple of seconds, he stares at him… and then there’s a strangled snarl of frustration as he drops it and runs.
We see him do exactly the same thing in The Primal Riddle, when he brings Aubrey James to GCPD. At about 2m11s, Jim reaches into his pocket. I glanced back at my recap to see if the same thing occurred to me at the time:
Ed aims his gun. Jim reaches for his pocket. Ed reverts for a moment to GoodEd in terms of flustered impotence – reduced to yelling
Don’t!
(An aside. And isn’t that interesting. I think it’s unclear whether or not Ed doesn’t want Jim to go for his gun because it’s interfering with his image of how this would go; or because if he shoots Jim he risks losing the information he needs; or simply because – somewhere – there’s a part of Ed that doesn’t want to shoot Jim.)
I honestly think it’s the latter. Yes - it bruises Ed’s ego when things don’t go to plan, but the plan’s already ruined at that point, because the detonator didn’t work. What’s bothering him here is the prospect of Jim forcing his hand by going for his gun, because - in spite of everything - there’s still some part of Ed that sees Jim as a friend, and doesn’t want to shoot him. He couldn’t bring himself to do it in the woods, and he can’t bring himself to do it here, either.
(It’s all much sillier in tone - but I think the same would go for season four, when Ed has Jim in his squishing machine. If Ed really wants Jim gone at that point- he just shoots him. If he insists on torture, then maybe choosing a more private location would have worked. This is just begging to be caught and stopped before he crosses the point of no return)
I do like it, the idea that neither of them is entirely willing to relinquish their friendship. I like even more that it’s partly down to the fact that neither of them does well with making friends, and so they’ll stubbornly cling to those they genuinely felt friendship for at one point. They’ll merrily punch each other in the face whenever they meet, but they’ll be damned if they’ll shoot each other.
