Hey there Gothamites! We’re back with episode 20 of season 2, “Unleashed.” The episode opens with Harvey Bullock, Jim Gordon, and a gaggle of police officers marching through Arkham Asylum with a warrant. Harvey, as cocky and loveable as ever, demands to search Hugo Strange’s office, though they soon find that he “conveniently” shred all his files. Harvey insists they’ll be back with a warrant to search the entirety of the asylum.
Back at the GCPD, Harvey is handing out orders to the lower-ranking cops and hesitates when he finds the entire police department looking to him. With Barnes in the hospital and Jim Gordon without a badge, they’ve turned to Bullock as a sort of…de facto captain. He provides a somewhat shaky to lift their spirits and get the motivated. Jim and Harvey decide to pay Tabitha Galavan a visit, who they find packing up to leave Butch. Butch begs her to stay and we find that he kicked Barbara out. (How rude though, what the shit Butch.) Bullock and Gordon convince Tabby to help them locate Azrael, and she leads them to her grandfather’s grave.
Her grandfather procured treasures related to the Order of St. Dumas and was buried with the true Sword of Sin. Azrael surprises the trio and knocks Harvey out. He throws Jim through the doors, but is stopped from pursuing the former detective by Tabby. She locks them in and tries to remind Theo of who he is…her brother. Theo regains a few memories, memories of his first mission: Killing the son of Gotham. He is also reminded of Tabitha’s betrayal and stabs her in the stomach, steals her whip, and leaves her to die. Ugh, my poor Tabitha.
Gordon finds Tabby on the ground and in critical condition. She admits that she reminded Theo of Bruce, and that she didn’t mean to steer him in that direction. It sends Jim off on a search to find Azrael, something he does by “borrowing” the car from a police officer. I’d be careful if I were you, Jim…with all these noobies and rookies on the force, they might not realize who you are. Jim uses his super fly flip phone to call Alfred, who tells him he has no idea where Bruce is, and that the Wayne boy decided to go find Selina earlier that day.
Bruce does find Ms. Kyle, and convinces her to break into Arkham Asylum not only to find evidence, but to rescue Bridgit (A.K.A. Firefly) as well. Edward Nygma, frazzled and terrified by what he saw in the basement, decides to escape. He runs into Selina in the air vents and ends up striking a deal with her. He’ll tell her how to gain access to the basement, if she will give him the route out of the asylum. After climbing to what he thought was his freedom, Eddie gets surrounded by a handful of Guards and their guard-dogs. Unfortunately for Selina, his escape sent up a red-alert which made her break-in more difficult. Selina hides for a moment and ends up overhearing Hugo Strange and Ms. Peabody discussing the transfer of the subjects, as well as their increasing interest and fears in Azrael’s lack of check-ins.
They part ways and during Selina’s search, she spots what looks to be a man morphing into Killer Croc? I’m expecting a giant two-legged Crocodile in the sewers soon, dammit. In any case, Cat eventually stumbles into Firefly’s testing area. Bridgit looks at her and demands to know if Ms. Kyle is another subject. Selina tells her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but that Bridgit needs to come with her. Bridgit tells Cat that her name is Firefly and shoots a blast of flames at her. That’s how it ends, and personally if Cat gets hurt in any way, shape, or form, I will straight up lose my shit. Gotham you’d better do that precious, curly haired babe right. That reminds me, her hair was straightened in this episode and ??? They did not approve this through me? How dare they touch that beautiful mane.
Anyway, while she’s getting into life-threatening danger, Selina did manage to convince Bruce to go home. He finds Alfred on the phone with Jim, who orders the Wayne boy to lock all the doors and windows, and turn the lights out because Azrael was coming for them. Bruce stumbles upon a busted window and runs to tell Alfred. Azrael appears and exchanges blows with our beloved Butler. Alfred gets thrown out a window, which leaves poor Brucie alone and defenseless. He runs into the garage and ends up using one of his many bomb-ass vehicles to run Azrael over. Once the Knight of St. Dumas vanishes however, Bruce gets out and looks for him. (Look you’re supposed to stay in the car, dummy.) Azrael surprises Bruce by wrapping Tabby’s whip around his throat. He drags him away from the car and draws his sword so that he can end his mission. Thankfully, and as per frickin’ usual, Jim shows up just in time to riddle Theo’s body with bullets before tending to Bruce’s injuries.
Rewind a little, back to when Tabitha was injured and taken to the hospital. We find Butch Gilzean at her bedside, tearfully explaining to an unconscious Tabby how much he adores her, and how he’s not ready to lose her. Penguin interrupts the touching moment and tells his favorite one-handed enemy that if he helps take Theo Galavan down, Oswald will permanently leave them alone. Now, fast forward back to Wayne Manor. Gordon is tending to Bruce, and a seemingly dead Azrael lay on the ground behind him. Just as Alfred limps his way to Jim and Bruce, Theo rises again. Butch and Penguin appear with a Bazooka, which Gilzean expertly aims at Azrael. Penguin makes a quip to Theo about having lost his other umbrella (after it was lodged down Theo’s throat) and is intending on sticking the new one somewhere else, and Butch blasts him to complete smithereens. They make their exit, Butch waves goodbye, and our trio are left dumbfounded in the Wayne Manor driveway.
Personally I cannot WAIT until the next episode, because if you haven’t seen the trailer for the next couple episodes, I will say this…And I’m paraphrasing this from the trailer….”Fish Mooney is BACK, Bitch!” That’s it for this recap, be sure to check Twitter at 7 pm central every Monday for my Gotham Live Tweet. I’m going to leave you guys with a final gif of Theo exploding. Thanks for reading!
