Speak No Evil

  A gene-spliced talking gorilla stalks Gotham.
  Original Airdate: November 4, 2000
  Episode # 45
  Rating: * 1/2

Pondering the imponderables: Fingers the Gorilla sure picked up English in a hurry; if I was spliced with some of that DNA could I learn Finnish or ancient Babylonian as quickly? After being spliced, the gorilla knows to avoid a subway's third rail; is that knowledge encoded in the human genome? What about the ecological ramifications of letting a super-intelligent ape loose in the wild to breed; wouldn't its offspring (carrying its DNA) be just as intelligent? Without physical evidence, van Dyle needs witnesses to be charged with poaching; did Fingers testify at his trial, and if so, did he rip the defense attorney's throat out on cross-examination? Fingers was caught by a poacher (bad, bad, bad, says the episode); would it have been any less bad if he had been caught and sold legally to a research institution? Is Fingers likely to make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate forms of research once he's returned to the wild as the ape-kingdom's "Dark Knight"? Is he likely to pay any attention to the legal and moral niceties Bruce so rightly insists upon?

Yeah, yeah, its a cartoon and you're only supposed to enjoy the ride. But the story is so obvious and the moral hammered at with such bloody force (it's only marginally less shrill than a Captain Planet episode) that the only entertainment value lies in poking holes in its numerous absurdities.

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What Others Are Saying ...
"... an episode that has a message, but is fun as well." –World's Finest