Jervis is still determined to get to his sister, and being held in a police station has never stopped anyone before. He hired some muscle “with flair,” and broke in the station to obtain his sister. I admit I would also probably go to Barbara for advice on that. She seems like someone knowledgeable about flair. My first thought wasn’t luchadores, but honestly it is probably the only thing that truly fits that description. Turns out Gotham really has everything. I can just imagine little Harvey going to wrestling matches.
Gordon talks with Barnes about his suicidal thoughts brought on by Jervis (dude you don’t work here anymore). He emphasizes and advises accordingly, but he also clocks him on the head later too when he actually sees Tetch’s influence in place. After hitting him on the head with a cane, he brings him too Lee. It sounds like Barnes really hates Gordon sometimes, but it was for the best I promise.
Seeing Lee gives Gordon the opportunity to finally talk with her, and reach some type of closure. Well, they don’t actually reach any type of closure because Gordon has to keep up his tough guy act, deflecting his feelings with sayings like “the past is the past.” Dude just tell the truth; what do you really have to lose right now? Your shitty apartment? Your booze? Your leather jacket? Where even is Val?
Still, it turns out this short conversation was enough to help Gordon. When they corner Tetch in the amusement park setup, with Alice in a dress that really plays up the Alice in Wonderland thing, Gordon is finally able to break Tetch’s influence, and therefore no longer wants to kill himself. Unfortunately, this break-through isn’t enough to save Alice, and she is impaled while trying to escape from her brother.
Barnes sees the dead girl at the scene, and pulls Harvey aside to say, “Gordon is going to get you killed one day.” Barnes I just don’t understand what your feelings towards these boys are sometimes. At one point it’s empathy, and another it’s contempt; make up your mind. Oh, but that might be difficult now that he is infected with Alice’s blood (why isn’t the crime scene essentially quarantined considering what they know about her condition?). There were no immediate effects that we saw at the end of the episode, but the blood will bring out his “true character,” and I have no idea what that means for Barnes. I just thought he was a sick guy trying to deal with Gordon’s shit; I never thought they would have added this blood plot line to him when they were already hinting at his illness so much.
So Gordon got over his suicidal thoughts and is trying to get over Lee, so does that mean we will see more of Val? She didn’t appear in the entire episode; I’m just wondering what she is up to. She is probably covering the mayor race, or just writing an entire article solely about Penguin’s new fake tan. It might have been the best part of the entire episode honestly.
The Riddler was also a great part of the episode, though. Penguin is just so happy to have him around, and Nygma is just so happy to be back. They are laughing about having their release forms framed, and it just makes me so happy to see them so happy. Butch ruins Nygma’s happiness, however, and they both quickly become suspicious of one another. Of course, Nygma is much better at spying and sneaking than Butch is, and ruins Butch’s plan of paying off officials to guarantee Penguin’s victory. Penguin is nearly ready to kill him when he finds out, but Penguin still wins in a landslide; he is happier than ever, the answer to Nygma’s riddle was love, and Butch is sick of this shit already. Then Penguin calls Butch out on not believing in him, and he probably doesn’t even need a hypnotist’s influence to want to kill himself in that moment. He looks even angrier when Nygma is announced as Penguin’s chief of staff (and won’t people like Gordon see that announcement and wonder when he got out of Arkham?).
It’s a good thing Penguin never brought up pussy during his campaign. He probably would have lost the race that way, since his campaign based on “name calling and fear mongering” still won. The people just really want Gotham to be safe again (was it ever safe?).
Speaking of multi-billionaires, Bruce has the unique problem of trying to find his clone. The car he took was found nearby Selina’s apartment, and Selina is walking around town with him (does she ever just do this casually with Bruce? Why doesn’t she find this suspicious?). He doesn’t remember anything that she references, but apparently Selina just writes off the large memory gap as good ol’ forgetful Bruce. She probably is just more focused on causing chaos (which I love her for, and both Bruces probably do too). Yet, even with Bruce rescues her from the chaos she caused, even his good fighting skills don’t give him away. But what does end up giving him away? His scars. And honestly, Bruce is so reckless, having new scars seems like the most realistic thing about him.
Fake Bruce just saw the way Selina looked at Bruce and wanted that; he’s never had a friend or anything. By GOTHAM standards, I’d say that’s actually pretty normal. Actually, comparing him to Selina, he seems much more normal in comparison to her. Despite the fact that he was only talking of friends, her empathy is apparently enough to lean in for a kiss. He probably just did it to irritate Bruce, but it was still cute either way.
Bruce is already irritated with him when he finds him, and Fake Bruce saying things like “you’re angry because I was pretending to be you or I was with Selina?” and “thank her for the kiss” was SAVAGE but probably didn’t help improve Bruce’s feelings towards him. It doesn’t matter to him what Bruce thinks anymore because he isn’t going to stick around him for much longer. He believes that he doesn’t belong in Gotham (kid you are only normal here, we just established that), and he goes off to do reckless things as a true Bruce Wayne would do.
Overall, Bruce and Alfred are handling the Fake Bruce situation quite poorly. They really should be treating a possible dangerous situation (because clones aren’t usually made for charitable purposes) with more care. Instead, they just spend time talking about his possible kiss with Selina. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to see Bruce be a regular teenager worrying about girls, but I don’t really think that now is the time. Bruce was the one that said they should keep him close for the time being in the first place, and now he just lets him go so willingly. I blame his hormones as the reason that Fake Bruce was captured by the Court of Owls.
Written by Nicole Teeters, GOTHAM Beat Writer -- Click here to read Nicole's posts
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