More Dark Knight Thoughts

***BAT-PIRATE SAYS: DARK KNIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD MATEY!***

So I've been chewing this over in my mind since I saw the movie last night, they really drove the point home that Batman is alone at the end of the movie. Of the people who know Bruce is Batman, Rachel is dead, Lucius' status is questionable (he resigned, but did he take it back when Bruce let him blow up the listening equipment?) and Alfred, well Alfred's still cool, but he still needs a little more. On top of that he has to deal with the fact that Harvey Dent has turned evil and Gordon has to, at least publicly, come after him. I guess the point is, did they do this to set up the possible introduction of a partner in the next movie?

Obviously, we're talking about Robin here, and I realize that the conventional wisdom is that Robin=FAIL, and Christian Bale's already discussed that Robin's inclusion pretty much guarantees his exit from the series, but it just felt odd to me that they would hit the isolation theme so hard at the end without having a plan to bring it full circle. Given Nolan, Goyer, etal's track record so far on the series, you almost have to give them the benefit of the doubt, even if they tried and it didn't work, it would still probably go down as a noble failure. I mean, I'm pretty positive at least there will be no more nipples featured on the bat-suits.