Welcome back, Gothamites! This week’s episode was a weird and creative mixture of emotional and hilarious, and there were a couple of times where I even experienced some secondhand embarrassment. In all honesty, this was one of the most raw episodes we’ve seen – Gotham hasn’t really explored the emotional side of their characters, and the fact that they tipped it over onto Harvey was an interesting choice to make. Also the episode title gave me war flashbacks to my childhood fights with my big brother. But I digress, let’s dive into it and get through the nitty gritty details of the latest Gotham episode!
Let’s kick this off with Ed and Grundy, who’ve become the hottest attraction at The Narrows underground fight club. The crowd goes wild over their act, where Ed poses as a mockery of the Penguin, before Grundy stomps into the ring and “murders” him. But their fun comes to a stuttering halt when Penguin finds out about the ordeal, and manages to convince Tabitha, Selina, and Barbara to go in and brig Ed to him – alive. Of course they get distracted: Tabitha runs off finds out Butch is alive, Barbara sees a broken-yet-somehow-still-badass Lee and decides to investigate why she’s slummin’ it in the Narrows, which leaves 15-year-old Selina Kyle to do the dirty work.
The Riddled Penguin?? – Gotham – Fox
Babs takes a few jabs at Lee’s situation and asks about Jim, which Lee brushes off, Tabitha tries to remind Butch of who he is, and Selina successfully captures Nygma. Basically they’re useless as a trio, yet I love them so. Barbara eventually helps Selina, but when Grundy sees them with Ed, he gets overprotective. Selina invokes the code of The Narrows by demanding a fight: their Champion, Tabby, versus Ed’s Champion. Of course, Tabby believes Butch won’t hurt her…til he punches her in the face. She hits him on the head a few times, and just as he remembers her, she knocks him out. Unfortunately, Penguin sent his backup plan to take care of it. Surprisingly, Firefly doesn’t get too far along in her terrorizing, because Lee pulls out a friggin’ gun and shoots out Firefly’s tank. Then she ousts the fight-club leader as Penguin’s informant, who tries to turn the crowd on Barbara. Babs shoots her in the head, announces their resignation from Oswald’s crew, and promptly decides to leave with Tabitha and Selina. Later that evening, Ed makes it apparent that The Narrows crowd has elected a new leader….Lee Thompkins. Like…what?! Now Lee is a ring-master for a fight club in The Narrows?! Oh man, can we bring Jim into the mix already? pleeeease?!
First Rule Of Fight Club Lee – Gotham – Fox
Speakin’ of good ol Jimbo, in his duty as best friend to Harvey Bullock, denies the offer of Captain from the Mayor. He originally believes it’s from Penguin – until he finds out that Sofia used her name to get him promoted. All he has to do is sign on the dotted line and boom…he’s the new Harvey Bullock. At first, in true Jim Gordon fashion, he remains loyal to his partner. But when Harvey asks him to attend an unofficial club meeting of GCPD officers who had been shot in the line of duty – including the one officer who Harvey had fired on, thinking it was Professor Pyg, things get a little hairy. Instead of actually attending the club meeting and using Jim as his anchor, he instead foists the Captain’s duties onto Jim himself. When Gordon confronts him about it, Harvey basically admits to being a chicken shit, and so Jim signs it, relieving Harvey of his duties effective immediately. It’s been pretty obvious from the start of the season that their friendship may come to an end, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard to watch. I’m really disappointed in how Harvey handled the club meeting. Like…come on, man, those cops deserved more than that. They deserve someone as strong as Jim.
Jim deserves the rank of Captain – Gotham – Fox
Which finally brings us to Penguin. After Oswald finds out about Edward’s antics, he goes to Sofia to vent and complain. She tells him he needs a new hobby to clear his head of work – her father tended to chickens, maybe he needed to try that. Instead Oswald sets his sites on one of the kids at the orphanage, who is getting consistently terrorized by two of the others. Mute and unable to talk, he communicates with Oswald only through drawings and written words, but still Cobblepot manages to teach him how to stand up for himself and manipulate the people around him. One of the biggest lessons he teaches is that friends are almost always actually enemies – it’s a lesson he takes to heart when Sofia calls Oswald her friend, and he begins to realize that maybe she’s the cause behind all of his current issues.
Sofia needs to keep a closer eye on Oswald – Gotham – Fox
Things slowly seem to be unraveling, and honestly I don’t know how its’ all going to work out, but I can’t wait to see it for myself. Tune in every Thursday on Fox to catch up on the latest Gotham, and be sure to come back to the site every week to check out our recaps and opinions on all of your favorite shows!
