• Airdate: October 8, 1992
• Director: Boyd Kirkland
• Writers: Jules Dennis, Richard Mueller & Sean Catherine Derek

     Bruce Wayne is volunteering at the Dock Screen Rescue Mission, where the priest he is helping tells him about the disappearances of homeless individuals and how the police haven’t investigated as it doesn’t rank high on their priorities. That evening, under the disguise of older Gaff Morgan, Bruce goes to investigate himself. When he is offered a “job” by a couple of thugs after asking about the slums, Wayne fights them off, but is taken out by a third thug from the shadows.
        Gaff awakens chained up in a shack in the desert, where he meets Dan Riley and Salvo Smith, two men who are kidnap victims themselves. Asking him his name, it is revealed that the attack has given Bruce/Gaff amnesia. Gass meets boss Biggis, and learns that the kidnapped men are used to work in caves mining. Back at the manor, Alfred goes to wake up Bryce in the morning, only to find his room empty.         Gaff works in the mines and talks to the two men he just met, when there is a sudden cave-in, a normal occurrence. Alfred, meanwhile, covers for Bruce by telling people looking for him that he is away. He uses a tracking device to realize that Bruce is in the Bowery, which is a low-income section of the city. Gaff is seen wandering around a funhouse with mirrors, where he sees a laughing reflection of Bruce Wayne that suddenly turns into the Joker. Gaff awakens and remembers the Rescue Mission.
        After a confrontation with Biggis, Gaff and Dan are thrown into metal, solitary boxes under the sun. Elsewhere, Alfred is able to track a truck with thugs, hoping they lead him to Bruce. While in the metal boxes, Dan tells Gaff of his family, which makes Bruce’s memories returns. Bruce escapes and runs off into the canyon, where we see Alfred, quite shoddily, flying in with the Batwing before they reunite.
        Batman arrives in the camp, where he takes out the thugs inside the darkened mine before getting his hands on Biggis just as the mine explodes and is destroyed. Dan is reunited with his family and he offers to help Bruce in any way he needs. Bruce declines and introduces himself, offering the two jobs if they need them. Bruce heads home and Salvo makes a joke to Dan, telling him to hit him so he may wake up from amnesia as a billionaire.

        In line with The Underdwellers, The Forgotten is another story where Batman deals with important issues in a very throwaway, uninspired episode. While homelessness is a very serious topic that should be discussed more, the way they go about it here is… head-scratching. Not only do we have the far-reaching premise of homeless people being kidnapped to mine gold for a boring villain, we are also treated to the frustrating use of amnesia here. It’s frustrating because it’s such a simple and obvious go-to for any show to use at some point in its run, but what makes it worse here is that we are still so early into this series. I’m not sure if they would have found a better story to use the amnesia aspect on down the line in a later episode, but at least if it was later on it would feel like something they just eventually got to.
        There isn’t much to say about the episode as a whole. There are a few interesting and legitimately really funny moments, but it is all surrounded by a really uninvolving story. The problem with stories like these, besides the baffling way they are integrated into a plot (again, like The Underdwellers), is something that Bruce Timm himself had talked about in an interview; it’s really hard to make one-time villains memorable or interesting. It can be done but it’s hard to get right, especially when you’re building a villain whose evil revolves around such a ludicrous premise that tries to shoehorn in obvious messages and reminders to important subject matters.
        While the writing is decent for what it is, it doesn’t have the chance or time to fully expand the supporting characters into more than just caricatures. Riley is a family man and Salvo is the funny one, and though they aren’t grating or annoying characters, they’re not memorable either. The reason why they do come off well in the episode, despite being caricatures, is because nothing else during the majority of the 22-minutes really stands out.

        But I did make sure to say ‘the majority’, because this episode has one of the funniest moments throughout the entire series; Alfred flying the Batplane and his interactions with its computer are golden. The sassing back and forth, his piloting outfit, and just the fact that he gets a chance to be hands on are easily the highlights here. There’s also a really touching moment between Alfred and Bruce afterwards, where they both sit and Bruce nudges him, that is really sweet.
        Even in an all-around unremarkable episode, we are still treated to a fun and pretty well-staged piece of action, with Batman taking out the criminals in the darkened mines, their flashlights used to great effect. There are also two fantastic moments of sassy Batman and, as I’ve mentioned, there’s not better Batman than sassy Batman.

        The Forgotten isn’t a painful episode, and I’d go so far as to say that it does rise above The Underdwellers. Of course that praise, though it isn’t really that hard to achieve, lies solely on the fact that this episode involves Alfred flying the Batplane and getting sasses by its computer. It’s a moment that is worth hunting down and watching separately, though.
        The action I mentioned, while good, isn’t one of the greatest of the series. It’s mainly a point of the location and plot of the episode being used in an interesting way that actually makes sense to Batman himself. The two lines that I mentioned as being so sassy you can read anywhere (like below). Again, it’s harmless as an episode and won’t make you mad (unless you’re one of those people that blows things out of proportion), but it’s also simply just ‘there’.

Great Lines and Moments
(Coming to wake Bruce and bring him food, Alfred realizes he hadn’t returned from the night before)
Alfred: “That's odd. Only vampires loath daylight more than Batman.”
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Alfred: "This must be the place. Bring us down."
Batwing: "Negative."
Alfred: "But Master Bruce is down here, we have to land."
Batwing: "Impossible, area too confined."
Alfred: "Land, you bucket of bolts!"
Batwing: "Your funeral."
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(A henchman from a group is taken out in the darkened mines, the others not realizing)
Henchman 2 (into the darkness, addressing the disappearing henchman): “Are you okay?”
Batman (approaching from the dark): “Not really.”
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Biggis: “Don’t let me drown!”
Batman: “When you taste the prison food, you’ll wish I had.”