Gotham Recap Mid-Season Finale “Lovecraft”: Cat and Mouse

In the mid-season finale Gotham recap, assassins are on the hunt for Selina Kyle forcing her to grab Bruce Wayne and go on the run while Jim, Bullock and a bad ass Alfred search for them in the Gotham underworld…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

The first half of the debut season of ‘Gotham’ came to an end on Monday night with an episode titled ‘Lovecraft’ that continued to weave the web of mysteries that have surrounded the show since the opening moments when Thomas and Martha Wayne were gunned down by an unnamed assassin working for a mystery boss still yet to be revealed.

Actually, Gotham’s strongest moments have been in the episodes surrounding this very crime and the fallout that splintered across every family and business in the city. The investigation has been perplexing to Detective Jim Gordon, who wants nothing more than to solve the murder and give peace to their freshly orphaned son Bruce. Unlike the innate amount of throwaway episodes of ‘Gotham’ this season where the ‘crime of the week’ is a dull and rather pointless cop exposition, the hours we spend digging deeper in the Wayne murder as layer after layer is peeled back with more questions raised than answered only keeps the intrigue going.

I’m happy to report after two weeks of largely forgettable episodes of ‘Gotham’, the mid-season finale ended with a rather solid hour to set up the second half of the season in 2015. We’re still not any closer to finding the Wayne’s killers, but the intrigue about who is behind the crime is just that much more intriguing. Carmine Falcone actually seemed like a moderately scary mobster for once and the strongest part of the entire series, Oswald Cobblebot, was mostly a background player but the episode didn’t need him for once. Normally when a bad episode happens on ‘Gotham’, Cobblepot’s appearance is the only saving grace. This time around he was barely there but thankfully the rest of the players picked up the slack

With that let’s talk about the mid-season finale from ‘Gotham’ titled ‘Lovecraft’

Run, Bruce, Run!

It doesn’t pay to be Bruce Wayne’s groundskeeper or at least not enough after the poor unfortunate soul charged with cutting the grass and bagging the leaves on the property runs into a trio of assassins, who end up killing the poor guy en route to charging the mansion in search of a little girl with a contract out on her life. The female assassin opts to gut the groundskeeper and smear his blood on her forehead ‘Walking Dead’ style so when she shows up on the Wayne doorstep and Alfred answers, she can feign as if she’s just been in a terrible car accident and needs help. My only question is this — if Wayne Manor is as big as it seems on the show, how fucking far did she have to walk after her ‘accident’ to make it to the front door? For somebody bleeding from the head, you’d think that might be one or two steps too far. I digress.

Alfred complies and lets the lady in, but in a manner of seconds he realizes he was duped when the would be assassin spots Bruce and Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle on the stairwell. She starts to make a move, but Alfred ‘Yippee Ki-Yay Motherfucker’ Pennyworth punches her in the face while telling young master Bruce to run. RUN!!! The two kids dart off through an employee closet and out a back door while Alfred fights off three killers on his own. You know why? Because he’s Alfred Pennyworth.

Eventually the lady assassin slips away and gives chase, but the kids are long gone except one problem. Bruce doesn’t want to leave Alfred behind. Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle is ready to leave all together and slip back into the underworld of Gotham where she feels most safe. When Bruce sees the killers running out of the house towards them he realizes his plan was stupid and takes off with Selina.

Alfred ends up getting winged by a bullet in the pursuit, but he does manage to grab a gun and put down one of the assassins before they can escape the grounds.

When Gordon and Bullock show up, Alfred is definitely pissed. This was the exact reason he didn’t want to hide Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle in the Wayne house in the first place. She saw who killed the Waynes, which automatically made her a target and Gordon’s hubris led him to believe no one could possibly find out about this super secret hiding place. Not like Wayne Manor is five minutes from Gotham City or anything.

Bullock is also pissed at Gordon because after he stuck his neck out for his partner and joined his holy crusade a few weeks back, he didn’t know a thing about this deal. Gordon is supposed to share this kind of crucial information and instead, he kept it to himself, which put lives in potential danger because if no one knows she’s there, then no one can protect them in a moment of need. In other word, Gordon is on everbody’s shit list this week. Oh and this happens to be the only episode where the one person who should be insanely pissed at Gordon — Barbara Keen — doesn’t show up! Sorry, the frustration I have with that lack of a character bugs me even when she isn’t around.

Moving on…

Gordon decides to search for the leak to find out how Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle’s location was given away while Bullock teams up with Alfred to go find the kids. Yes, you read that correct — Bullock teamed up with Alfred and it was awesome. Stay tuned for more of that in a bit.

Spaghetti Anyone?

Over at Carmine Falcone’s place he’s a little more perturbed this week after criminals (Fish Mooney) stole a bunch of his money and blew it up to smithereens. He pulls in Oswald to grill him about Salvatore Maroni hitting his money warehouse, but clearly that’s not who is at fault here. Oswald insists that Falcone has a mole in his operation and he should look at Fish as the culprit. Even when Liza walks in to serve some tea, Oswald doesn’t even blink to give up the fact that she’s the rat working for Fish. He’s got bigger and better plans for her and turning her over to Falcone right now doesn’t serve his greater good. So instead he just continues to point the finger at Fish (which is the right person anyways), but Falcone won’t hear it. He’s stupid enough to believe she’s a good earner and that buys her loyalty for at least a certain extent.

Falcone does turn a corner in the threats department this week, however, as he throws a dinner party for all of his top captains. When everyone is seated, he shoots one guy in the head as he falls face first into a bowl of pasta. This was the guy charged with protecting Falcone’s millions in that warehouse that was robbed. Maybe he was in on the robbery. Maybe he wants. The point was he failed at his job and now he had to pay. Falcone plans on making anyone who crosses him pay, except they won’t get a quick painless death like this poor schmuck. He then has everyone eat at the dinner table while their fallen comrade sits there like the fat guy in ‘Seven’ with too much spaghetti on his brain.

Cat and Mouse

Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle tries to ditch Bruce in the city when all he wants to do is call Alfred, but the future Batman gives chase and won’t let her out of his sight. When he finally does a death defying leap between buildings, she finally caves and lets him tag along to an underground basement where all the wayward kids from town hang out. It’s there they meet up with Ivy Pepper (future Poison Ivy) who has been staying there ever since she was put up for adoption when her father (accused of killing the Waynes) was gunned down and her mother slit her own wrists. Ivy is disgruntled and disturbed little girl, but even when she finds out that the person hanging out with Selina ‘Call me Cat’ Kyle is Bruce Wayne, she passes on no ill will towards the boy. He wasn’t the person who shot and killed her father and he certainly wasn’t the one who made her mother take a razorblade to her wrists.

When they run off to meet a fence to sell some stolen items for cash, even Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle doesn’t sit well with Ivy. She tells Bruce no more eye contact because that one is a psychopath just waiting for the right time to explode.

Meanwhile, Gordon heads over to Assistant District Attorney Harvey Dent’s office to find out how the leak about Selina might have slipped out. It seems Dent — being a complete and utter moron — put word on the street that it was Gordon’s witness who saw the Wayne murders as further proof that they actually did have somebody and not just a nameless trick trying to get the real criminal to slip up. Dent confesses his part in the idiocy but Gordon doesn’t have time to clean up this mess, he’s got bigger plans to attend to.

Bullock and Alfred are shaking the tree of some street kids to get a beat on where Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle and Bruce might have wandered off to after the failed assassination attempt at Wayne Manor. Alfred’s method is a lot less painful that Bullock’s because he just offers up a couple hundred bucks and the kid starts singing like a canary. He knows Cat, but hasn’t seen her in a while. If they really want to know where to find her, they need to find her new fence and the only person who will know them is Fish Mooney.

A trip to Fish’s club doesn’t yield much in the way of results at first because Butch isn’t letting anybody see his boss. Alfred has other ideas. He puts the big bodied mobster down in about two seconds before turning on the British charm to ask Fish for help. Fish can’t help but to look in those big puppy dog eyes and make some calls for him. She finds the fence and off they go to see if he knows where Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle might be right now and where she goes, Bruce Wayne can’t be far behind.

It Wasn’t Me

Considering Dent’s move and the subsequent assassination attempt on the life of Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle, Gordon is convinced that Dick Lovecraft must have something to do with the Wayne murder after all. Who had better reason to go after a witness once that rumor hit the street? As it turns out, Lovecraft wasn’t the guy at all.

When Gordon arrives at his place, Lovecraft is hiding out in his bedroom with a gun and a briefcase full of secrets. Gordon puts him at ease before Lovecraft divulges some of the most interesting information in the series. It seems he was never a major player in the Wayne’s murders. He might actually be a real asset once he reveals that his biggest connection to the Wayne case was a tip he received days before the murder that he should free up some cash and buy stock. Buy now and buy big. It seems this killing was anything but random, and somebody is seriously skilled at covering their tracks. Before Lovecraft can hand over anymore evidence, the three-headed assassin team shows up and ruins everything!

Jim tries to fight them off, but ultimately he’s overpowered and the female assassin uses a nice collar choke to put him out (Brazilian jiu-jitsu nerds will get that one). When he wakes up he’s getting a call from Bullock with a lead on the kids whereabouts. Only then does he realizes what’s going on and when he hops up he finds Lovecraft in his own bathtub, dead of a single gunshot wound to the head and guess whose gun was used in the killing? Jim is mortified and he has no choice but to call this in and wait for the other cops to show up.

Meet Me at the Warehouse

There’s something about old creepy factories and abandoned warehouses used for criminal enterprises. There’s just an abundant number of these anywhere around Gotham and at least one of them is set up a high-haired fence named Clyde, who Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle uses to sell her stolen jewelry whenever she needs a quick buck. She takes Bruce with her to see him and unload some stolen trinkets from the Wayne household she ‘borrowed’. Clyde isn’t biting and lowballs her an offer, but really he’s just buying time because he kidnaps the two youngsters and tosses them in an upstairs holding room because he’s made a deal to sell them to the assassins that have been hunting them all over town.

The thing is you can’t capture Bruce and Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle — you can only hope to contain them! The dynamic duo builds a ladder out of file cabinets and shelves so Selina can escape through as sunroof. Bruce darts out to distract the assassin, who refuses to kill the little boy because the contract isn’t out on his life. The move works, she gets away and Bullock, Alfred and Gordon show up just in the nick of time to foil the crime. The female assassin also slips out so chances are she pops up again in a future episode. Alfred and Bruce embrace in one of the sweeter moments on the show. All’s right with the world except it’s not.

Back at the police station, Gordon and Dent are getting slammed by the Mayor for overstepping their bounds and eventually getting Lovecraft killed in the process. He reprimands Dent, but the Assistant District Attorney is clearly a weak, no spine buffoon who rolls over and plays dead immediately when the Mayor raises his voice. Gordon will play no such ass kissery. Actually he instructs the Mayor to kiss his ass before walking out of the meeting.

When Jim pops up again he’s packing his desk and telling Harvey to work well with whatever partner he’s given next. Jim’s been reassigned to work as a security guard at the newly re-opened Arkham Asylum. It’s the only way he could stay on the payroll but not get drummed out of the force completely. Edward Nygma even pops up and offers to write a letter of support for Gordon before giving him an awkward, two second hug. Gordon leaves while the Mayor makes a public statement about the ‘tragic suicide’ of Dick Lovecraft, who took his own life after the overzealous efforts of a police detective led him to the most extreme act possible (entire story made up by the Mayor). Gordon’s the fall guy and it’s the move the Mayor has been waiting to make ever since he was arrested several weeks ago.

Back at Wayne Manor, Bruce is home and Alfred is happy to have him there. The only problem is the place is awfully quite and lonesome without Selina ‘Call Me Cat’ Kyle around to liven things up. From out of nowhere she appears and gives back the stolen swag to Bruce and apologizes. He accuses her early in the episode of not being a nice person. She can be good, but nice isn’t one of her attributes. Selina was clearly miffed after the accusation so she turns back over the goodies before flashing the one jewelry box from the house that she will be keeping. Bruce tries to speak up in protest, but she grabs him and kisses him before flying back out of the window. Alfred then pops in and knows Selina has been by and mentions to Master Bruce how much quieter things are without her around and silence is just no fun at all.

Last week’s ‘courtship of Bruce and Selina’ was rather creepy as the two pre-pubescent tweens flirted and talked about kissing for almost an hour straight. This week it was all rectified as the kiss came at a logical moment and it was kind of cute. Bruce clearly has puppy dog eyes for everything Selina does, but her motives are still a little more mysterious. The first kiss was more ‘Sandlot’ this week than the ‘To Catch a Predator’ feel that was going on in the last episode.

Finally, Gordon shows up for his new job at Arkham Asylum where he’ll be working with the most fanatical scum Gotham has to offer. It seems odd that Gotham’s top cop isn’t really even a cop anymore although he will assuredly earn his badge back by season’s end, but this is a fun and interesting twist. We’ve heard about Arkham all year long, but now it’s time to meet some of Gotham’s sociopathic best and find out why this place has haunted the Batman mythos for so long.

Gordon will be our tour guide when we return to Gotham in 2015.