Gotham S04E09 ‘Let Them Eat Pie’ – And do the Meat Pie Tango!

Hello Gothamites!

We start this episode with a disguised Pyg who offers doughnuts to homeless people, offering them soup and pumpkin pie if they come along with him. When they are eating he snaps pictures of them before they all collapse. Apparently, the soup was poisoned and he starts butchering them.

In the GCPD HQ, Bullock is packing his stuff out of the Captain’s office. Gordon walks in, again apologizes for how he became the captain instead of Bullock. Bullock says that he was thinking about their first case together and how different things could have been if Gordon walked Penguin down the pier and put a bullet in his head. Falcone would probably still be running things and a lot of dead people would still be alive. Gordon still believes that what he did was the good thing to do and that doing good will help the city.

Gotham doesn’t need heroes, it needs people who’ll do what is necessary. Is what Bullock’s reaction to that is. Right before Bullock walks out of the office, Gordon offers him a desk when his leave is up, but Bullock declines.

At the Falcons orphanage, Sophia is getting ready for the fundraising dinner she has prepared for the orphanage’s donors. Penguin shows up telling he can’t make it to the dinner. It has something to do with Gordon’s promotion. Also, the mayor is missing. He thinks that Sophia is behind it, but he can’t prove it. When Sophia leaves the room, Mr Penn offers to let Victor Zsasz talk to her, but she is literally his only friend so he waves the idea of it quickly away. He already has another idea, he wants to use Martin as his spy. But he doesn’t know that Sophia is listening in. And that she is about to call Gordon to tell him that Penguin knows someone paid the mayor to make him Gordon. And that Penguin thinks it’s her. It is true though, she already has the mayor skip town after this decision. Gordon thanks her for the info but still tells her to not call him again.

Then, Gordon gets a call on his landline. It is Professor Pyg. He says that the police were only the low part of all that is rotten in Gotham. Now is the time for the elite to feel the pain they have caused and that phase two is about to begin. He hints towards Gordon that he should take a look outside, where he will find the next step in his plan. When Gordon and Harper step outside, they see a tent standing next to the GCPD. Inside of the tent is the scenery of a nice tea party, except that the two guests are dead. Pigs are also calmly walking around in the tent until they get hungry and start to take bites out of the dead person’s leg.

At Wayne Manor, Bruce is hungover after yet another night out clubbing. Therefore he acts all grumpy and disrespectful towards Alfred. Alfred tries to tell him some words of wisdom and that he knows what Bruce is going through. Bruce says he doesn’t care, as long as he can have his coffee. By coincidence today is the day Thomas Wayne would always take Bruce out camping and they would place a stone on a special mountain. Alfred would like to continue this tradition, and also hopes that something like that will bring Bruce back to his old self.

Back at the GCPD. Fox talks Gordon through what the medical examinator found on the people at the tea party. They know they were homeless and that their organs are removed. Since most of the homeless people live in The Narrows, the plan is to go and see if anyone there has seen whoever took the homeless people. Some searching later, the officers of the GCPD haven’t found anything that could lead them towards Professor Pyg. Harper gets a call from Fox about the toxic report ran on the homeless people. Apparently, there are specific traces found of chemicals that are common in manufacturing paper. As by coincidence, there is an abandoned paper factory not far from where they were in The Narrows. When they arrive at the factory, Harper wants to wait for backup, but Gordon can’t wait. They go inside and find yet another body belonging to a homeless person with the organs removed. They also find a still smoking barbeque and realize that Pyg is cooking the organs for an unknown reason. They hear a loud bang somewhere at the back of the factory and go take a look. They find a van parked there. When both Gordon and Harper approach the van, Pyg is sneaking up behind Harper. He captures her and threatens to kill her if Gordon doesn’t drop his gun. Pyg says that Gordon found him too soon and that he’ll take Harper as a hostage. Gordon wants Pyg to take him, but according to Pyg, he must see his final act.

In the orphanage, Penguin is making Martin believe that he thinks that either Sophia ordered Martin to act in a certain way around him to manipulate him easier, or she just had a group of children and Martin was the one who stood out the most. Penguin tells Martin that he needs him to be his eyes and ears inside the orphanage. He must find out what Sophia is planning and who she is planning it with. In another room, Sophia is missing her chef. He does show up, but what she doesn’t know is that it is a disguised Professor Pyg. He took the liberty by changing the menu a bit and he made Gotham Meat Pies. Apparently, Sophia’s guests ‘will die for them.

At the paper factory, Gordon has to deal with the gathered press. The main message he has to offer them is that they’ll do their best to get Harper back. The GCPD is still investigating the Paper factory and Fox has found something interesting. It’s a sign with a poem on it. The poem mentioned not only rich people ‘eating’ the poor people, but at the same time, the poem suggests that the parents are actually eating the children. Suddenly, Gordon knows that Pyg has targeted the orphanage and the fundraiser. But it could be one of Pygs tricks again, so he decides to go there alone.

Bruce and Alfred have set up their camp in the woods. To hopefully inspire Bruce, Alfred tells him the story how he and Thomas met all those years ago in London. Alfred just got out of the army and he woke up in an alley covered in blood. He has no idea how he got there of where the blood comes from. He goes to the police where they might know what happened, but instead of helping him right away, they make him wait. Thomas is also waiting and they start talking. When it is Thomas’ turn he tells a story that keeps Alfred out of jail. And that is how they became friends. Alfred concludes his story by saying that he knows what Bruce is going through right now. Bruce then suddenly starts looking through their bags saying that the stones they brought must have fallen out in the car. Alfred tells him where he can find the car keys and Bruce goes to the car. Too late Alfred sees that the stones are still inside the bag and he knows that Bruce is sneaking off. He just misses the car when he goes after Bruce.

Sophia’s fundraiser is going great. Penguin suddenly does show up, with a neatly dressed up Martin. After Sophia asks Martin to go and find the other kids she asks Penguin about the missing mayor and if he has found him yet. Then Sophia goes and checks on the chef, while Martin follows her. He is not being careful enough because Sophia figures him out. Meanwhile, Gordon walks through the backdoor into the orphanage. He comes across a waiter whom he asks where he can find the chef. The waiter points him to the kitchen, but what he doesn’t know is that the waiter works for the Pyg. They fight but Gordon knocks out the waiter easily, but then himself gets knocked out by Pyg. When he wakes up, he is locked inside a storage room where Harper is also laying. She is still bleeding from the moment Pyg took her hostage, so the first thing Gordon does is stopping her wounds. Because Pyg never really searched Harper good for hidden weapons, he missed the knife she had hidden on her body. Gordon then uses the knife to loosen the hinges of the door to the storage room.

Back at the main room of the orphanage, Sophia gives a small speech to the benefactors. When all of them move to the dining room, Sophia and Penguin continue talking. Sophia almost confesses to him that she bribed the mayor into making Gordon captain. Out of nowhere, they hear gunshots and Professor Pyg shows up ordering them to join the benefactors in the dining room. Pyg gives a speech, a song, and even a little dance; calling it the Meat Pie Tango. The waiters place meat pies in front of the guests while Pyg mentions a name for each meat pie. Sophia tells him to stop whatever he is doing, but he answers by stabbing a knife into her hand. Penguin wants to pull it out, but Pyg threatens to stab her in the eye next. Each meat pie has an envelope with a photo of a person next to it. It’s then that the guests realise that the meat pies are made of human flesh and that Pyg wants then to eat it. Just as most of the others, Penguin refuses, but Pyg threatens to kill Martin if they don’t. One of the other guests says that it still won’t become a cannibal because of an orphan. Penguin gets pissed, takes the knife out of Sophia’s hand and stabs it in the guys head, killing him. It’s then that Pyg reveals that Penguin is the reason he is there and that it all has something to do with Penguins Pax Penguina. Pyg is serious about killing Martin and Penguin then has no choice but to eat the pie, making sure the rest eats as well.

In the meantime, Gordon is still working on removing the hinges. As soon as he has opened the door he rushes to the dining room where Sophia, with the help of Penguin, is about to take the first bite of her meat pie. Gordon overpowered one of the waiters before shooting them both. Then Gordon points the gun at Pyg, intending to shoot him. Penguin jumps in between them, worried that Gordon might hit Martin who Pyg is now holding. All the guests see their chance clean to flee the scene, including Martin. Pyg then starts to throw knives at Gordon, but he dodges them. They end up fighting each other, Pyg with multiple knives and Gordon with whatever he can find in his surrounding. It looks like Pyg is winning, but Gordon pulls the knife out of the guy Penguin killed and stabs Pyg, ending the fight. Sometime later, Gordon is escorting the wounded Pyg out of the orphanage. The gathered press immediately start to question him about the actions that he took, but at the same time, they are very grateful that Gordon kept his promise about locking Pyg up. The press finally starts to trust the GCPD again.

Later that night in the orphanage, Sophia confesses to Penguin that she paid the mayor to make Gordon captain of the GCPD. She did try to talk Penguin out of implementing the licenses system, but he wouldn’t listen at that time. She tries to convince him that she did it out of friendship and to save him. Penguin is just pissed that she went behind his back and that she could be one of his enemies. He thinks about killing her, but he finds that the fact that she was willing to eat the meat pie for Martin saves her out of it. He will abandon the licenses system, but only on one condition: Gordon cannot be captain of the GCPD. But somehow it is part of her plan, because what Penguin doesn’t see, but we do is that she smirked as soon as he had left the room.

After Penguin has left, it is now Gordon who pays Sophia a visit. He says that he knew what he was getting into with asking Falcone for help getting rid of Penguin, but that doesn’t mean he has to like everything they do. He accepts it nevertheless because he finds that he deserves to be captain. Gotham needs and deserves law and order without criminals what’s wrong and right. He also says that Sophia is not his enemy and she’ll never be his enemy before they share a kiss. What both of them don’t know is that Martin was still spying on Sophia. He sees the kiss and goes to Penguin in his car to inform him about it. Because it was Martin who gave him the info, he starts to see him more and more as a friend. In comparison with Sophia, she will answer for what she has done by kissing Gordon.

After Bruce left Alfred alone in the woods, he decided to throw a party in Wayne Manor. When Alfred enters the room after walking home from the woods, the first thing he does is smashing the pickup signalling that the party is over. He wants all the kids out of the room, but Bruce refuses by telling him that it is his house and he can do what he wants. Alfred gives the kids one stare and they all pretty much flee the house. Bruce still thinks that Alfred has no idea what he is going through. He avenged his parents’ deaths by killing Raz al Ghul, but still, he feels like it didn’t make any difference. Alfred replies by saying that Bruce has to face up to who he really is and that he needs to start living with the things he has done. Bruce still won’t listen to him because he tells Alfred that if he really wants to help, he can stop trying to be his father and start being his butler again. He leaves Alfred to clean the place up while he joins his friends to go to the club.

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