Bad guys play their end games. Barbara goes totally freaking insane. And, once again, Bullock is the only one with some sense in his head.
First, I really hope we've seen the last of Fish Mooney. Nothing made the overall action of the show stop deader than one of her scenes. Does anyone remember the name of the girl who she used to get to Falcone half a season ago? Does anyone know what an island approximately two days' travel where people lose parts has to do with Gotham? Her whole purpose, as a character, was to try to kill Oswald and Falcone. And fail.
Speaking of Oswald, Jim has officially called him Penguin. And, he is raving like a lunatic on a roof edge by the night's end, so I think we can retire the name "Oswald".
Bruce will basically spend the episode looking at all his dad's books, so we can leave him for the end. Instead, we'll note that the show put Cat in Fish's new, punk gang simply to get her in the season finale without having to come up with a separate plot for her. Maybe Fish could have been the mentor that Cat needed to truly become the pilfering thrill-seeker we'll come to love; that could have been a great addition to the series.
But, the series is really about Bruce and Jim, revolving around each other, in and out of each others' lives. The other characters wander in and out of both Bruce and Jim's lives, creating a chain of heroes, villains, and soon-to-be villains. This show isn't about how a homeless teenager becomes the stuff of burglary legend. This show is how a rookie cop led a crusade to clean up a city, and a scared boy will grow up to help him.
The show has yet to tackle one of the Batman Legend's central conflicts: how do you stand for law and order when you're a vigilante? Jim has spent a season working inside the system, outsmarting and outfighting every attempt to knock down his ideals. Now, just as he appears to be the leader GCPD needs, he's already given up on staying in Gotham, and decides Falcone needs to be running Gotham's criminals. It's a strange reversal, but it allows Jim to confront Falcone in the hospital right when the crime boss needs him.
Falcone, injured in an RPG attack on him while he indulges in his fondness for chickens, is about to be slashed by none other than Penguin. Penguin literally parades through the hospital, with Butch openly carrying a high-powered rifle along the hall with him. Penguin just can't help grinning as he confesses his plot to kill Falcone. Penguin assures Falcone that he actually likes the guy, but he wants Falcone's job.
Everyone, it seems wants Falcone's job. Maroni is coming to the hospital with the same aim as Penguin, and it's only a just-informed Jim standing between the two crime bosses and the would-be crime boss. By the time this happens, Penguin and Butch are handcuffed in the hospital room, and a pissy Penguin has to remind Jim that since he and Butch are in police custody, Jim will have to protect them, too. Oh, and Jim still owes him that favor.
Well, Jim more than repays the favor in a shootout throughout a quickly-emptied hospital. Right after telling Commissioner Loeb, who briefly appears in something that resembles a dream sequence, that the guy's a disgrace. Side note: the action of the shootout, shot with some sort of yellow ochre filter over the lens, is supposed to distract you from the question: isn't anyone there to mind the other patients???? Were they evacuated, too???? It takes Jim a whole minute to get through them all. Unlike other episodes, Bullock doesn't arrive in time to save the day- he arrives right after Jim's shot all the bad guys, hands up so Jim doesn't shoot him, too.
Falcone, at first, wants to reclaim his empire, He says it will take two days. So, Jim, Bullock, Penguin and Butch escape the hospital by plowing through Maroni and his extra gunmen in an ambulance. They spend some time skulking through the city after dark, presumably because there are no more cars in the city. During which time, they're found by a ragtag gang of punks.
Who, turn out to be Fish's loyal buds from the transplant "hospital" island. And a new recruit: Cat, with a Pat Benatar hairstyle. Oddly enough, no one asks her, even during the brief villain/hero chat what's the deal with her new blue eye. Everyone's too busy wondering why she's killing all the main characters in the first place. Turns out, she's putting together her own deal with Maroni.
When it turns out the deal comes with Maroni as her boss, and a wildly sexist boss at that, the deal's off and Maroni is finally dead. But, hey, at least Fish is relaxed. Jim and Co. briefly scurry away, only to be dragged back, then they get to scurry away again when Penguin decides he's had enough of this shit day. Penguin storms the place with a machine gun, then demonically pursues Fish, who he's sure is the cause of all his problems.
Sometime between the morning, and the first time they escape Fish, Falcone has decided that he's done with this town. Jim is calling him the least of the bad options, and grudgingly accepting that Falcone can actually control Gotham's criminals better than GCPD can, when all of a sudden Falcone just decides to hand Gotham to Jim. Now, free of Fish, Jim decides to take them all to a place he has no business being: Barbara's apartment.
Which, due to a Fatal Attraction-like plot point, has become the scene of a screaming, panting brawl between Lee and Barbara. I won't get too much into it, as it involves Lee doing psychiatric work she's not really qualified for, in Barb's apartment, which is also wildly unprofessional. It involves knives, and breaking down a bathroom door, and Barb's head being repeatedly bashed into a stone floor until she passes out.
Bullock sums up Barb's entire character arc perfectly. And, since he mentions it, he did warn Jim that Barb was trouble. Twenty episodes ago. Can she go to Arkham now?
Nygma's got his own girl troubles. Basically, the clue he left in Doherty's note, causes the inevitable trouble it was going to cause. Kris Kringle's had plenty of time to go over the note again and again, which women will do, looking for Doherty's emotions in every word. Instead, she found the first letters of each line spell out a very specific name. Nygma is interested, but treats it like a coincidence, and Kris can only walk away, not convinced but not helped.
Ever since killing Doherty, Nygma's been starting to talk to himself. He doesn't do it in the distracted way normal people do. He's having a full-blow conversation between what's left of his sanity and some gleeful thing that loves leaving word puzzles to cover his crimes. And the gleeful word puzzle guy really likes a good laugh. And wonders if maybe Kris is too dangerous to let live.
Falcone and Jim, presumably after getting Barbara in handcuffs and sent to a hospital for her head injury, have decided to hang out in Barbara's apartment. Cause, reasons. The city's war, without Maroni and Falcone to fight it, has started to die down. Falcone is still retiring somewhere nice. And, he reminds Jim that he was friends with Jim's dad by giving him something of Gordon, Sr.'s. A knife. A wicked-looking knife. Gordon carried it during his career as a prosecutor, until he gave it Falcone. Falcone points out that Gordon, Sr., was an honest man. But honesty didn't protect him.
Falcone has realized that Jim doesn't need a relationship with the mob to do his job; Jim can already do his job. Just as long as Jim remembers that he's got to protect himself, Jim can keep his honesty. Falcone, the only lesson he has to teach Jim taught, can now walk away into his future.
After apprehending Jim and Co. the first time, Fish has been worrying over Butch. Butch, who was programmed to be Penguin's assistant, becomes a scared little boy when the programming starts to wear off. He doesn't know which part of his brain to listen to. So, when Penguin finally finds Fish for their final fight, and Butch gets a gun, he doesn't know who to shoot. Fish pleads with him to remember who loves him; Penguin screeches that Butch is his!
Butch does what anyone confused in Gotham should do; he shoots both criminals. Fish is moaning in pain, but still alive and awake. Butch goes right to her, and she's surprisingly forgiving, still blaming whatever programming Butch endured. Penguin is not so charitable. Butch is quickly knocked over with a wood plank, and Penguin simply charges Fish, launching her over the rooftop. She screams before she hits the water below. She doesn't surface.
While a horrified Butch watches, Penguin has the most childish victory celebration ever. He extends himself from the parapet, screaming his triumph in Gotham's crime world for all Gotham to heed.
Bruce, after a day of searching all his dad's books, based on some reminiscing by himself and Alfred, still hasn't found anything his dad might have done or hidden to bring down Wayne Enterprise's criminal leadership. Until, that is, someone tosses out a line originally written by a Stoic philosopher, which leads Bruce to a book that he didn't search before? Which reveals a remote hidden in the cover.
Alfred double dog dares Bruce to press the remote's one button. And, we're treated to Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights, blaring through the study as the fireplace, somehow, floats away (pulley system?). Bruce has either discovered he's really been living in Hogwarts the whole time, or he finds a tunnel his dad made, Shawshank Redemption-style. It's dark and leads to steps going down. Bruce and Alfred peer into the darkness from the warm light of the study, hoping that maybe it's a rec room or something.
And, that's our season. Characters are pretty set at this point. Bruce is the older-than-his-years persistent searcher. Alfred is his often-disregarded voice of caution. Jim is the clever, talented, badass pursuer of justice, while Bullock is his often-disregarded voice of caution. Lee proves that Jim really doesn't have to worry about her after all, while Barbara will be in a madhouse. Penguin has all of Gotham's criminal underworld to take for himself, if he can. Nygma's one crime will lead to more. Essen will float in and out, trying to make sense of what Jim and Bullock are up to. Cat will float in, declare everyone is wasting their time, and float back out.
Is this enough for a whole show? The show tries to use a case-of-the-week to show Jim's slow progression to the Commissioner's office, while Bruce eventually has to give up on Jim's investigation, and then his own. Will the next season show them actually taking charge, as we know they will? Will Jim decide it's time for Loeb to go, and get him fired? Will Bruce decide it's time to really learn how to fight?
The format is great for a show that you don't want to spend too much time thinking about. With everyone's progression into characters we'll come to know later, there's plenty of time to just skip through, and check in occasionally. One gets the feeling that no one episode is special, and that you don't actually have to watch every episode.
Does the Odyssey approach really work with a mass audience, though? Ulysseys takes ten years to fight a war, then ten more years to get home. Do we really want to live through twenty years, day by day, in each episode? My own opinion is that the characters will have to become more engaging to watch, week in and week out, for that to happen. Donal Logue's Bullock is a joy to watch, but will need to become less repetitive. Lee needs to stop wavering between His Girl Friday and Dana Scully. Pick one, Lee. Cat needs to successfully pull a crime off, now and then. Penguin is already awesome, he just needs to get awesome-er. Jim needs to start acting more like a regular guy. And Bruce needs to get his ass in school, for fuck's sake. With every step away from comic book tropes of the mid-20th century, the show becomes better able to stand on its own.
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