Gotham S04E07 ‘A Day In The Narrows’ Review

Hello Gothamites,

After his encounter with Pyg last episode, Bullock is already out of the hospital. He should be resting but he really wants to catch Pyg. Gordon and Bullock are you yet again because Gordon really wants Bullock to stop taking money from Penguin. Just as their argument gets a bit more heated, bloody boxes are rolled in by deliveryman at the GCPD. When they open the box, it contains a pigs head. After a quick calculation, there are 44 boxes, one for each cop in the GCPD. However, there are a total of 45 cops. It looks like Pyg is escalating his actions, but is leaving Gordon out of it. Just when Gordon is releasing the delivery men, they only got a phone call with the information, Penguin shows up at the GCPD to offer his help. He brings his new security consultant with him called Headhunter. Victor is off visiting someone. Headhunter brags immediately to Gordon why he always carries two guns. One is killing the victim, while the other is for extra, kinda like his signature. Gordon says he doesn’t want Penguin’s help, to which Penguin answers that Pyg is affecting both of them, GCDP’s agents get killed while they are Penguin’s allegedly employees. How much Gordon doesn’t want it, in the end, it is Bullock’s decision and he does want Penguins help, he feels like they can’t do it themselves. Especially since half the GCPD is skipping town afraid they might be next. Gordon still believes that the people of Gotham need to know that they don’t need gangsters to keep them safe, but this is, of course, not helping. When Bullock and Gordon are almost arguing for the second time that day, Harper shows up with unpleasant news: three cops are missing in a place called The Narrows.

The GCPD go to The Narrows with Penguins men. A bobblehead in the cop’s car shows that Pyg took them. But the amount of blood in the car actually concerns Gordon. When Bullock is doing a pep talk for all the cops and gangers, someone is throwing household items from a window towards them. They break into the apartment building since the abduction happened right for their place they could have seen something. A lot of cops use a ridiculous amount of violence towards the residents of the building, they knock people out while they actually could be relevant to the investigation as witnesses. Their excuse is that it’s only The Narrows, the pourest of the pour live here. Gordon starts knocking onto a door and enters one of the apartments, this one has a full view of the place where the cops were taken. The woman living in the house, together with her sick man, says she saw nothing. She is obviously scared, but Gordon tries to reassure her that he already knows that the cops were freelancing to bring the people of The Narrows some more protection. Three cops from different departments all in the same car aren’t very common at the GCPD. Just as the woman is ready to tell Gordon what she saw on the street, Headhunter walks in and drags the sick man outside of the building. He threatens all the residents that if they don’t talk, the man will be shot. The GCPD does a lot of dirty things, but killing an innocent man isn’t one of them, so the GCPD and Penguins gangsters end up straight against each other. The woman can’t stand to watch it anymore and tells everyone what she saw and in which direction Pyg went. It’s a very small area and not many buildings are abandoned there. The GCPD and Penguins men search through a couple, but it is Gordon who finds two of the three cops, one is dead and the other one is still alive. It looks like Pyg and the third cop got away.

Penguin is watching the police action from Sophia’s orphanage. After the reporter mentioned that one cop survived, Penguin turns to Sophia and tries to convince her that he sort of saved the guy’s life. Sophia sort of shrugs it off and continues her work while Penguin turns to the tv where a little girl is blocking his view. He moves her to the side before claiming that helping the GCPD is one of his best ideas ever and that it will bring Pax Penguina to a completely new level. Sophia again doesn’t really listen but when Penguin asks about her opinion she has no choice but to react. She says that her father never publicly helped the GCPD. And that they are incompetent and unreliable and when they fail, he will fail with them. Her speech doesn’t have much effect on Penguin because he only wants to be more involved now. He leaves the orphanage, but not before having to move the little girl again.

Gordon is riding with the survived cop towards Gotham Central. Just when he is being called by Bullock, the cop wakes up. He doesn’t remember anything, except being tortured for hours while Pyg was singing rhymes and talking crazy stuff. The cop confesses to Gordon that he was on Penguins payroll. It started with small-time deliveries but it ended with him doing really bad stuff. He thinks that Gotham is rotten and that is perhaps why Pyg is trying to clean up the GCPD. Gordon wants to go after Pyg, then Pax Penguina and lastly all the bad cops in the GCDP. Gordon wants the cop to help him set things right as a compensation for all the bad things he did. Then the cop suddenly remembers something, that Pyg is planning something nearby. It could be where Pyg brought the third cop. He remembers something Pyg said: I’ll bring justice to where there is justice no more. Gordon immediately thinks it could be the old courthouse in The Narrows, this one has been abandoned a few years back. Before Gordon gets out of the ambulance, the cop tells Gordon that he is one of the good guys that the GCPD has.

When Gordon arrives at the courthouse, he sees a blood trail on the ground and knows he is at the right place. Someone sneaks up behind him, it’s Headhunter who has been told by Bullock where Gordon went. Then the entire GCPD shows up with a squad team, Penguins men and Penguin himself. The first thing Penguin does is holding a small press conference for the gathered press. He tells that it was his idea to help the GCPD and so far it’s a success. Gordon and Bullock have a little private affair. Bullock didn’t want Gordon to go to the courthouse all by himself. He has the idea to let Penguins men go in first and then the GCPD to keep them out of the line of fire. Then Gordon gets a call from an unknown caller. It is Pyg who tells him he wants to create a new and better Gotham and a new Gordon. But he can’t recreate him if he is dead, something he’ll be if he goes into that courthouse. Pyg got a hold of the living cop in the ambulance, but then the Pyg makes the cop says something interesting. Something he also said to Gordon in the ambulance, about how he is a good guy. Then Gordon realizes that the cop in the ambulance was actually the Pyg in disguise. And that he fed them the clue to get them to the courthouse. Gordon immediately wants to break off the raid because he now knows it is a trap. But, Penguin and Bullock don’t believe him, they still think that Pyg is in the courthouse. Bullock says they have a spotter on a nearby roof who can see the Pyg and the third cop in the building. Penguin gets sick of all the arguing and tells his men to start the operation, while Bullock orders Gordon to stand down. Two of Penguins men guard him.

Bullock, the GCPD and Penguins men go into the courthouse. Bullock thinks he sees Pyg next to the missing cop and shoots Pyg down. But when they move closer they see that what they thought was the cop is actually a dummy and that they shot the cop. She is wounded, however, the shot is not fatal. It’s now that they realise it was all a set-up and that Gordon was right. Then from both sides of the room machine guns start firing. A couple of people can find cover, but plenty get shot. The leftover people can’t find a way to escape since the exit is blocked. Outside where Gordon is guarded by two of Penguins men, they also hear the shots firing. Penguin orders his men to go inside but they are too scared. Gordon takes one of the guy’s guns and goes inside himself. Around the same time, inside of the courthouse Headhunter tries to take out one of the machine guns but gets hit in the face. Gordon walks in and takes out one of the machine guns, then saves Headhunter before shooting the other one.

We flash forward some time because we are now back at the GCPD. Penguin is again giving a press conference where he tries to keep himself out of blame by saying that it wasn’t him who ordered the cops inside the courthouse, it was Bullock since he doesn’t have authority over the cops. Then Gordon walks inside and all the press follows him. The press wants a reaction from Gordon, but all he does is threatening the Pyg. When walking to Bullock’s office, he gets compliments from the rest of the cops, a signal that his popularity is rising again. Right before he walks into the office, he gets another call from Pyg. Because we watch Pyg during the phone call we see that he is indeed the ‘wounded cop’ from the ambulance and that he killed the ambulance workers. He doesn’t say much about what he’ll do next, only that what Gordon said to him in the ambulance gave him another idea to cleanse Gotham.

Penguin and Headhunter go back to The Iceberg Lounge. Headhunter is wounded and takes a seat at one of the couches. Penguin is not happy with the result Headhunter gave him, so he stabs him in his neck. Then he retrieves his knife and stabs him again in his stomach, because ‘two is his signature’. Back at the GCPD, a criminal gets brought in. He claims to have a license, which he does and retrieves it from his boot. One of the cops takes it and rips it in half because they stopped accepting them. Gordon hears this and turns to Bullock who tells him without words that it came from him.

Somewhere else in Gotham, Barbara is pulling the plug out of the weapons shop. It opened so she could be Raz al Guls eyes and ears in Gotham. But now he is gone, that’s no longer necessary. Plus he was bankrolling it as well. Selina still sees ways to still make it work, while Tabitha is pissed at Barbara that she pulls such a stunt, but she could have seen it coming. When Selina and Tabitha are alone, Selina says that she followed a biker gang the other day and ghat she knows where their stash is hidden. She wants to steal it, but Tabitha thinks it’s too dangerous.

The biker gang is chilling in their workshop when Selina is sneaking in looking a lot like Catwoman. When she opens the trunk of the car where she knows the money is hidden, she triggers the alarm and has to go and hide. When the bikers show up at the car, they don’t see anyone. There was a guy who was supposed to stand guard, but he was lying under a car when Selina broke in so he didn’t see anything. The other bikers are not pleased with it and they force him to lie under a motor while they let the wheel spinning, killing him. This all happens right under Selina’s nose, who is still in hiding. Back at the weapons shop, Barbara is counting and dividing the money for her, Tabitha and Selina while Tabitha keeps a close eye. Then Tabitha is called by Selina asking for help since she can’t escape from the gangsters herself. Even worse, the gangsters called for backup. Tabitha wants Barbara to help her because the only reason why Selina went to the bikers is to prove to Barbara that they can do heists together. Barbara only calls it a teachable moment for Selina, so a pissed Tabitha leaves alone. Tabitha though Barbara was changed, but she still only thinks about herself.

Tabitha arrives at the bikers workshop, but not before distracting the bikers with an explosion. Sadly, the backup arrives before they can get away so Tabitha has to hide with Selina. Then Tabitha opts the idea that she’ll distract the bikers wile Selina gets out of there, but Selina dismisses the idea quite quickly since ‘they are in it together’. Before they can attack the bikers, Barbara walks in, she shouts some guys while Selina and Tabitha use their whips. In no time all the bikers are down. As a reward, Barbara takes a part of the money that Selina stole and wants to walks out. Apparently, she changed her mind and the business will continue. Them we have an awesome shot where the three women walk out of the shop being super badass.

Bruce is at an annual cocktail for a fundraiser held at his house. But he is very short tempered because he gets very mad when a waiter accidentally knocked into him. When Alfred wants to talk to him about his behaviour he walks away. He can’t stop thinking about the moment he killed Raz al Ghul. It’s not that he feels guilty, he mostly feels anger and has no way to deal with it. When he is in the kitchen to cool down, Grace Blomdahl walks in. She is one of his former classmates before Bruce became homeschooled. She is bored at the fundraiser and asks if he wants to go somewhere with her. She takes him to a penthouse where he is re-introduced to Tommy Elliot, the boy he beat up in season one and Brant Jones, who acts arrogantly against Bruce. As soon as Bruce sees Elliot he wants to leave, but Elliot says that he deserved that punch and that he was a bit of a prick back then. The second guy, Jones asks if Bruce wants a drink, but he refuses. He asks what Bruce does for fun, to which he replies that he was ‘walking on rooftops and fighting crime’ but now he isn’t sure what is now. Then Jones sort of offends Alfred and Bruce himself. He calls Bruce a dork and a freak and talks very lowly of Alfred. The next scene is quite interesting because we see Bruce who is beating up Jones while in reality, it is only something he thinks about. To ease the tension, Elliot suggests that they go to the club.

Jones apparently thinks that he knows the bouncer well enough to be let it, but he doesn’t. No matter what he tries, the bounce won’t let him in. Then Bruce likes to give it a try. He first talks to the bouncer and then to what it seems, the owner. He comes back to the group saying that they can all get in, except for Jones. Jones can’t believe that and likes to speak to the owner, but it turns out that Bruce just bought the place. The next couple of scenes consist out of: Bruce drinking, Bruce partying, Bruce making out with Grace and Bruce having the time of his life.

I absolutely loved this episode! Especially that Pyg is now in Gotham for about three episodes and we still don’t know who it is. That was one of the main things that bothered me in the previous seasons, that we and the GCPD knew who the villain really was in the first episode they appeared in. Hopefully, they’ll keep this new pattern going! Tune in with us every Thursday on Fox to catch up on the latest episode of Gotham!