GOTHAM Season 4 Episode 7 Review: A Day in the Narrows


The show starts with a particularly old flashback of Bruce punching one of his schoolmates. I couldn’t even remember it happening in the show, and I barely remember Bruce looking that young. However, why would they show such an old flashback if it wasn’t relevant? 

Bruce is not okay after the whole Ra’s incident. He’s consumed not with guilt, but with anger. Therefore, he is yelling at everybody he comes across. Alfred is afraid that anger is going to consume him. Luckily, he doesn’t need to worry too much. Enter: Grace. 

Grace went to school with Bruce back in the day, and for some reason has decided that now is the perfect time to reconnect with him and introduce him to all her friends. Enter: guy Bruce punched in the face awhile back. He admits he deserved it, which makes me suspicious of this entire situation. They must want something from Bruce. 

However, these are all rich kids. What else could they need? The richest kid there doesn’t even want Bruce there. Also, Bruce is going to punch this kid. There’s a scene of Bruce punching the kid that I genuinely believed to be true at the time, and I’m not sure if that says more about me or Bruce. Instead, Bruce imitates the Arthur meme and reigns in his anger. Everyone else brushes it off, calling that one guy a tool, and they head off to a club together. 

They have trouble getting in to the club, and Bruce is sick of this kid’s entitled attitude. Bruce then does the best thing I have ever seen: he buys the place just so this rich kid couldn’t get in. It might be my favorite scene from this show. 

Once in the club, Bruce is just making out with this girl and downing drinks. While I’m sure Alfred will be disappointed in him once he finds out, at the same time, at least he’ll be worrying about your typical teenage problems instead of murder. It might be a nice change of pace for him. 

Bruce isn’t the only one affected by the loss of Ra’s. Without Ra’s, Barbara is pulling the plug on the shop. She doesn’t want to be with Selina and Tabitha anymore. Selina wants to prove that they could be a successful gang together, and goes to rob a motorcycle gang’s stash. She lasts about 3 minutes by herself before she needs to call for help. 

Barbara refuses to help, so Tabitha goes after her alone. Unsurprisingly, Barbara comes to save the day, and agrees to keep the store open. She sticks with her gun as her weapon, so either she has not learned whatever mysterious power Ra’s has given to her yet, or she is just keeping it under wraps. My girl gang remains together and strong. The only girl they are missing at this point is Sophia, but there is still time for that. 

Sophia isn’t really doing much for Penguin in this episode, and instead is focusing on the orphans. The only interaction they have is an argument over Penguin’s involvement with the GCPD. Sophia thinks he shouldn’t align himself with the GCPD, because they are known to fail and she doesn’t want Penguin to fail with them. Maybe this is her master plan to end Penguin’s license scam. 

Penguin hears this and immediately gets even more involved to prove her wrong. Penguin offers his help to the GCPD in catching Pyg. Namely, an assassin named Headhunter. Gordon refuses, but Harvey accepts his help. Tensions were already high between them, but now there is the added bonus of Penguin’s troops running around with them. There are some A+ dramatic closeups of Gordon’s irritated face whenever Penguin gets involved. 

Gordon admits even he feels like breaking under all this corruption. He admits to an injured policeman in an ambulance that he is going after the dirty cops once they are done with the Pyg situation. I know this was meant to sound comforting, but instead sounds like Gordon plans on becoming the next murderer. It’s all about choice of words. 

Turns out that guy in the ambulance was Pyg in disguise. He is creating a new, better Gotham and a new, better Gordon. He warns Gordon to stay out of a building if he wants to live. When Gordon tries to warn everyone else, no one listens to him. Penguin questions why Pyg even supposedly likes Gordon, and Gordon says it’s because he is not a dirty cop. Penguin fires back, “except for all the times you are one.” He really got him there. After such a great burn, Harvey takes Penguin’s side and they go in for the raid. 

It ends up being a setup, where they accidentally shot the missing officer dressed like Pyg and a turret shoots the lot of them. Penguin orders his men to get in there and they refuse, so Gordon goes in and saves the day. Penguin blames Harvey for the disaster, and in his anger, stabs Headhunter for being annoying. Don’t we wish we could all do that? Harvey blames himself as a cop that shot another cop. Everyone thinks that Gordon is a hero, little do they know that Pyg is using Gordon as his muse for his next crime. 

Since everyone thinks so highly of Gordon, they are no longer accepting Penguin’s licenses. Harvey finally decided to go clean again. However, since they are no longer accepting licenses, what is there left for Sophia to do? Penguin loses a lot of his power with the loss of his licenses. All that’s left for her to do is usurp him, which is highly likely at this point.

Written by Nicole Teeters, GOTHAM Beat Writer


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