One of the weirder things to happen to the story of Batman over the years is that we've all just sort of agreed that it makes perfect sense for the family's butler to step in and raise a ten-year-old after his parents are killed. When we see Batman as an adult, Alfred fits so naturally into the role of a surrogate father, it feels like it makes sense, but when you can actually see it in action with a young Bruce Wayne, you can't help but notice that the whole setup is both completely bonkers and possibly illegal. At the very least, it forces the viewer to ask the question of just what it's like to be a parent for someone hell-bent on punching every criminal in the face.

That's what makes Sean Pertwee's performance as Alfred so fun to watch. In what is arguably the weirdest possible version of Bruce Wayne's childhood, Pertwee has to walk a fine line between serving as a father figure and a literal employee, and he actually pulls it off in a way that's compelling and believable. He balances the proper demeanor of the Wayne family butler with hints of his working-class roots and his background as a soldier, showing him as exactly the kind of person who could conceivably raise the kid who would grow up to become the world's greatest crimefighter.

Gotham's take certainly isn't perfect, but Pertwee's performance manages to convey how much Alfred genuinely cares about li'l Bruce, even as he's going through the kind of over-the-top child-rearing struggles that lead to fistfights in the Manor—not to mention all the other weirdness that you get from trying to be a parent in a city where the mayor is a member of a templar death cult. Raising a precocious, vengeance-driven orphan would be tough enough if all you had to worry about was getting to soccer practice on time, let alone having to deal with someone called "The Penguin."