Jim finds The Ogre easily enough, but only after Jason's had a whole day to totally traumatize Barbara to the point that will require lots and lots of therapy. Her parents are dead, for fuck's sake. Is her purpose to somehow die, in the next episode, sending Jim into a tailspin of grief and self-blame that he never fully recovers from? Did The Ogre impregnate her during their one good night, and she somehow dies after giving birth, leaving Jim with the kid? Not really sure where Barbara can go now, except maybe Arkham.
The big importance of Jim's investigation is that he, once again, goes to Oswald for help. He needs an invite to a swanky, private bar. Oswald needs to concentrate on his scheme to kill Maroni, already in progress. Oswald has already sent Butch into Olivia's restaurant, with guns for the hit crew to use. Butch conceals them under a bar, and behind a juke box. Oswald then lets Connor, the head of the crew that will actually do the shooting, know where they are. Despite Connor bitching that speeches at killings are useless, Oswald wants to make sure Maroni gets his last message.
So, when Jim strides in without much time and nothing to trade, Oswald feels like he's earned the right to say "no".
Here's what I think of "no"
Jim doesn't have time for bargaining; he'll pay off Oswald's favor later. It's telling that Jim doesn't even bother keeping a weapon on Oswald; he's a relatively harmless guy to Jim. Oswald is shaken up enough to be useful, but warns Jim that Jim gets no more favors until he repays the ones he already owes. After Jim returns with the precious invite to a club called the Foxglove, Bullock tries to warn Jim that owing favors to a Falcone Lieutenant is not how he wanted to be a cop. Jim brushes it off, as a problem he'll worry about later.
When Bullock volunteers to go the Foxglove for Jim, as he's got the Italian suit to blend in with the clientele, the investigation's other highlight shows. Bullock wanders through the S&M crowd, becoming ever more aware that he really doesn't belong there. The show is so twisted he ends up blowing his cover and arresting everyone. No one manages to escape, meaning that there must have been some sort of police surveillance around the club.
Jim and Bullock interview the one woman at the club who can identify Jason from their really crappy sketch. Sally, the hostess, has a wicked scar from her eye to nose, circling around the cheekbone. She has an even wickeder story, and the info that eventually leads to Jason. After telling Jim and Bullock that the cops didn't take her seriously when she reported the guy years ago, she asks Jim to just kill the guy. Jim, in a move he never would have done early in the season, agrees to it. Does he already know Jason won't surrender peacefully?
Bruce's investigation of Sid Bunderslaw hits the deadest of ends. While Alfred is identifying Reggie's body and making funeral arrangements, Bruce will pretend he doesn't feel totally guilty about Reggie's murder. Bruce will use the free time to arrange a tour for himself at Wayne Enterprises. And use the nifty, new key he just got made.
The plan goes pretty well at first. The fire alarm empties the division of the building right by Sid Bunderslaw's office. And Bruce manages to slip in, supposedly undetected. And Sid's safe is easy to find, and the key works.
I'm sure this won't lead to a life of crime
Bunderslaw ruins all of Bruce's plans. He's charming, and low-key and completely understanding as he enters his office, definitely not out of town, and offers Bruce a cookie. Bruce doesn't want a cookie. Bruce half-expects to be dead by sundown. But, Sid's not here to hurt Bruce. This conversation has gone easily enough in the past; there's no reason for him to even raise his voice.
Sid admits, freely, that Wayne Enterprises breaks laws. Everywhere they're located. And, that lawbreaking makes the Waynes wealthy men. And each Wayne Man has accepted the fate of enjoying the vast wealth generated by Wayne Enterprise's lawbreaking in exchange for their silent complicity. So, go ahead, Bruce, take the cookie (is anyone else wondering if this is like the Matrix, and he'll feel right as rain?).
When Sid's protegee Lucius Fox shows up, a young man recently hired, mostly in charge of putting cameras everywhere, Sid sends Bruce off with Lucius to find the tour guide. Lucius is less interested in getting Bruce back to his tour guide, and more interested in giving Bruce a secret message: Bruce's father was a Stoic. Well, I guess it's nice to know his favorite philosophy, but that doesn't really help Bruce.
It's only later, when he's back home with Alfred, who's pretty stoic himself over losing his war buddy, that Bruce can start to figure out what Lucius tried to tell him. Bruce freely, but guiltily, admits his part in Reggie's death. Alfred's not so much concerned with Reggie, who dug his own grave, but with Bruce's risky plan that failed. And, it's Alfred that insists that Bruce's father would never have gone along with Wayne Enterprises' crimes. Lucius must have been trying to tell Bruce that his dad hid some secrets behind a facade of resignation. Bruce, his faith in his dad restored, ends the day pinning a snipped picture of him to his Wall of Murder. Was Thomas Wayne killed because he was ready to make his own move?
Nygma's day is going spendidly, and involves making sure that Doherty's body will be impossible find or identify. It involves wheeling the body in pieces through the precinct to his own Forensic Exam Room. Here, he douses the body with whole pails of some kind of acid, reducing the thing down to bones that then get smashed in a bag. Who should interrupt the process, and inadvertently see the remains, but Kris Kringle, herself. Doherty's body is cut up, making the remains impossible for her to identify, but she's still wondering where Doherty could be.
So, Nygma needs an exit strategy for him. The mumbling and scheming of Nygma while he conceals his (we think) first murder show the beginnings of a madman obsessed with getting his story right. Nygma eventually finds Kris puzzling over a typewritten note, supposedly from Doherty. He tells Kris to move on, and that he's going away. Kris is angry that Doherty couldn't even dump her to her face. Nygma thinks maybe there's more to the note than the text. Kris has the night's best wisdom: "Sometimes with men, you just need a drink." When Kris leaves, he has a good chuckle to himself; he practically incriminated himself with the first letter of each line spelling his name in the letter. It's a bold move that shows a few things: Nygma loves wordplay; and he loves skirting the edge of getting himself caught, confident no one will ever catch him.
We end with Oswald's brilliant debacle. Connor and his men get to Olivia's, find the guns, and deliver the last words, supposedly from Falcone. Just when Connor thinks the job can be completed, the guns click, with no bullet coming out. No gun works, except the guns Maroni's guys have pulled. They're pissed that "Falcone" decided to kill them. Pissed enough that Falcone will have to pay.
Butch runs to Oswald with the news, hoping Oswald will flee before the hammer can come down. Oswald has no intention of doing anything except enjoying the soon-to-be war between Maroni and Falcone, which Maroni launches with an all-out assault on a car containing one of Falcone's people. The head, severed after the body was shattered with bullets, horrifies Falcone, leaving him no desire to do anything but respond in kind.
It's Essen who informs her precinct, still celebrating after killing The Ogre, that they're officially on duty for the duration of Falcone and Maroni's war.
Oswald's planned pretty well. Success always depends on everything coming together; failure is much easier to make happen. And, with Connor dead and Butch not talking, who could tell anyone what's really been happening? Well, Olivia could. Does Maroni really not question her about the hidden guns? Or, is she already dead. assumed to be a traitor? She's Oswald's only loose end, and he better cut her before she can implicate Butch, and through Butch, Oswald.
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