In the Gotham recap, Penguin seeks revenge, Galavan celebrates his election and Gordon gets closer to the truth about the new mayor…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It was only a matter of time before Theo Galavan’s mask started to slip and people from Gotham City started to see the monster that was hiding underneath, but the title of this week’s episode actually seems to reference Oswald Cobblepot and his thirst for revenge.
Weeks after Galavan kidnapped the king of Gotham’s mother, Penguin finally hatched a plan to free her from his clutches only to find out that his top lieutenant was a turncoat and instead he was forced to watch her die in his arms, a victim of Tabitha Galavan’s wicked blade.
Penguin didn’t really have anywhere else to turn except pure, unmitigated anger and after nearly slashing Galavan’s throat, he made a daring escape through a window so he could live to fight another day.
But unlike his rapid rise to power last season, Penguin was reactionary and vicious in his retaliation and maybe he was truly frightful for the first time since he first debuted as Fish Mooney’s bat boy as the only glee in his eyes came from torturing another person with impunity.
Now with his mother dead and Galavan pointing all the fingers at him for the crime happening in Gotham City, Penguin has no choice by to fire back with both barrels and things are about to get really messy.
With that said let’s recap the latest episode of Gotham titled ‘Mommy’s Little Monster’…
New Boss
Galavan won the election by a landslide as expected, especially once he got the endorsement of super cop Jim Gordon, who also happens to be the police union chief. Despite his recommendation of Galavan for mayor, Gordon still doesn’t fully trust him simply because he’s a politician and they can never be taken at their word.
Galavan takes his job title quite seriously because his plans for the city run much deeper than just acting as mayor, but he promises his sister Tabitha after they acquire Wayne Enterprises, she’ll finally be able to unleash some real mayhem on this sprawling metropolis. Galavan is closer than ever to having it all — he’s now the mayor and his niece Silver St. Cloud has Bruce Wayne wrapped tight around her little finger.
With his new role in leadership, Galavan can even order a near state of martial law where he orders a curfew and a door-to-door search for the Penguin after the attempt on his life. Gordon may be a man of the law, but even he’s a little suspect of flat out turning the keys to the kingdom over to the police. Unfortunately, his boss Nathaniel Barnes believes Galavan shits gold so he follows his lead while the entire police force also preps for his election celebration later that night.
Galavan’s planned celebration isn’t just about glad handing the people who got him elected — he holds a press conference taking a few well placed jabs at the Penguin, which he knows will draw him out of hiding and force him into the light where the long arm of the law (or his sharpshooter sister) can deal with him once and for all.
The plan works because Penguin watches the entire thing unfold and plans his revenge by sending Victor Zsasz after turncoat Butch while he deals with a strategy to finally get to Galavan.
Letting Yourself Become Tyler Durden
Ed wakes up the morning after strangling his girlfriend Kristen Kringle to death but there’s one small problem — her body is missing. Instead, Ed is tormented by his ‘other self’, who decides to play a game, one involving a little riddle on where he could possibly find her body.
Deep down inside Ed knows this is all coming from himself, but he’s still a split personality with two halves operating within the same brain. So the hunt begins for Kristen’s body at the place where they first met — the Gotham City Police Department.
After figuring out a few clues, Ed finds her body wrapped up in the morgue inside the medical examiner’s office — Leslie Thompkin’s medical office. When she walks in and nearly busts him investigating the body, Ed sweats a few bullets but finally comes up with a cover story about how his relationship is on the rocks after they had an argument (and he killed her) so he asks Leslie for advice over coffee.
When he returns, the other Ed shows up again and taunts him about this latest riddle and how he unraveled it to serve his own means. What’s even scarier, however, is that Ed’s other half finally asks him how it felt in those tense moments with Leslie standing in front of him, inches away from discovering the body and knowing that he would have to kill her if she found out what happened.
Finally, Ed merged with his other self in a full on Fight Club moment as he admits that it was all quite beautiful. Ed has officially crossed over to the bad side.
Princess vs. Gutter Trash
As noted previously, Silver St. Cloud is working her charm on Bruce Wayne to get him under her spell so her uncle Theo can eventually steal his family’s company away. Before Silver can completely sink her hooks into Bruce, Selina shows up to pay her old friend a visit and suddenly gets invited to an impromptu dinner with just the three of them.
When Bruce goes (is told by Silver) to ask Alfred to set another place at the table, Silver lays it all out on the line to Selina — Bruce only has a place in his life for one of them and if Selina isn’t careful, she’ll get turned into road kill and because she’s such gutter trash, chances are no one will miss her.
Bruce returns and of course Silver is all smiles and sunshine.
At dinner things are going well enough but finally Selina snaps and tells Bruce that he’s a moron for not realizing that he’s getting played. Silver played wounded and limps out of the room before Bruce admonishes his former partner in crime and tells Selina to hit the bricks.
Later that day, Bruce goes to Theo’s apartment to reconnect with Silver and the two finally share a kiss as Selina stares on from a rooftop a couple of buildings away. It’s a good thing she has some common sense because our future Batman is woefully lacking and has a lot to learn before he’s dancing with the devil by the pale moonlight.
Say Hello to the Bad Guy
Gordon and Bullock are ordered to track down Butch and his new gang of thieves after allegedly splitting with the Penguin and hopefully turning him against his former boss. When they arrive, Gordon and Bullock don’t get much accomplished before Victor Zsasz shows up and demands that anyone who doesn’t want to die leave in the next 60 seconds or face his wrath.
Everybody outside of Butch, Gordon and Bullock run for the hills and 60 seconds later a gun battle breaks out. Gordon cuffs Butch to a pipe and tells him to give up the goods on Penguin or he’ll hand him over to Zsasz. Finally, Butch sings like a canary — telling Gordon that it was Galavan who ordered Penguin to burn the building and kill the other mayoral candidates all thanks to having his mother kidnapped and held against her will.
He also explains that all hell broke loose after Galavan killed Penguin’s mother and now he’s on a bloodthirsty trail of revenge that won’t stop until one of them is dead.
It all makes sense to Gordon now because he never quite believed that torching buildings and killing candidates was actually Oswald’s style. While returning fire with Zsasz, Butch pulls off his fake hand and makes a quick escape.
Gordon and Bullock high tail it to the mayor’s election ceremony where he fully expects an assault to take place with Penguin leading the charge. Galavan was right all along that by taunting Penguin about his mother, he knew the criminal under lord would show his nose but he didn’t anticipate a well plotted strategy to get the job done.
Penguin dispatches an army of lookalikes — all dressed in his suits, all walking with the same limp and all carrying the exact same weapon. When a shot is fired against orders, Gordon’s Alpha squad figures out that there’s another shooter trying to take out the Penguin. Little does Martinez (one of Gordon’s guys) know that it’s Tabitha Galavan until she shoves her heel through his throat and another of Gordon’s Alpha squad is dead.
Meanwhile, Penguin’s army floods the ballroom as they go to battle with Gotham’s fines while Jim tries to shuffle Galavan to safety.
Before they can get to the car, Penguin shows up with his shotgun drawn and trained right on Galavan, who is now hiding behind Gordon. Penguin tells his ‘old friend’ that this monster killed his mother and Gordon tells him that he knows but this isn’t the way to get revenge. Penguin tells Gordon that he knows what Galavan’s end game is all about and it involves someone that the police detective cares about very much.
Gordon stalls, but before Penguin can fire off a shot, Tabitha pumps a round into his shoulder and as bullets start flying from every direction, Oswald jumps in the mayor’s new car and drives away in great haste.
Back at the police station after the chaos calms down, Gordon finally reveals that he’s going to clean up this city once and for all and it starts with the real trash at the top of the heap — Theo Galavan. The new mayor laughs because right now he holds all the power, but if there’s one thing Gordon likes it’s a good fight and he’s in for a hell of a battle as he tries to take down the Galavan.
Gotham returns next Monday night at 8pm ET for a brand new episode on FOX.
