After the Joker reveal during last week’s episode, this week’s showing, “Red Hood†did little to convince us that we actually met the “real Joker.†But, it did provide us with a pretty good episode. The Red Hood Gang was the main protagonist in this episode, but the show made some serious strides with Bruce Wayne’s storyline.
The Red Hood Gang is a group of ragtag bandits who steal from banks and give a small portion to the citizens of Gotham. The Red Hood seems to make the wearer feel bulletproof; this is shown as a cop missed six shots to a perp that was less than 20-feet away. Of course, we later find out it was because he refused to wear his glasses, naturally. But once the first Red Hood allowed the fanfare get to his head, he’s shot by someone else in the crew who then takes up the persona. It’s funny that a simple red hood can change people that drastically, but it was a nice hook for the episode. They are eventually killed in a shootout with the police, and the last scene with them shows a random kid donning the Red Hood.
While the whole scenario clouds everything about the Joker again, it was a nice villain-of-the-week. I also enjoy that they did utilize a cliffhanger but didn’t leave you assuming we won’t see the villain for years, similar to what they did with Scarecrow a couple weeks ago.
Alongside the Red Hood storyline, we got a nice storyline with Alfred’s old friend, Reggie. Reggie was one of Alfred’s mates back in his SAS days. Right when he randomly showed up, I had a weird feeling something wasn’t quite kosher. Bruce and Reggie have an off-the-cuff sparring session that shows Reggie’s more aggressive nature. Where Alfred is the more passive-structured fighter, Reggie takes the more no holds barred approach. Bruce doesn’t mind the approach because he just wants to do whats most effective, but Alfred strongly disagrees. It’s always nice being able to see the cornerstones of what will become Batman. The group later goes down and has some vintage wine together, and they talk about war stories. As you know, this always leads to an uncomfortable moment, and they pack it in.
Shortly after, Alfred catches Reggie trying to “steal†from them. But what he really wanted to do was get Alfred out of the way, so he stabs him, even though Alfred was going to give him money to get back on his feet. Later we find out that Reggie was hired by Wayne Enterprises. Boy is it nice to finally have an overarching theme to Gotham. They have finally nailed down a developing and interesting plot for the season. They can still throw villains of the week at us, but it’s nice to finally see some structure for the show.
Now, we come to Fish Moony’s storyline. Fish’s meeting with the manager turned out to be a meeting with one of his closest associates, but we did find out that “The Manager†is none other than the Dollmaker from earlier in the season. Fish tries to strong arm him into allowing her to run things down in the cells, but he says she has beautiful eyes and wants them. So what does she do? Gouges one out with a spoon, and splat it goes on the floor. The whole scene just felt so weird. Fish clearly didn’t have a leg to stand on, and now she only has one eye. It would only make sense to kill her right then and there, since one casualty is a simple numbers game versus the rest of the people below them. The entire scene was just far too abrupt for my liking. Although, it will be interesting to see where the tales of Fish will lead us to next.
Cobblepot did have a few scenes but they were of little worth, though we do learn that Butch is quite cunning in his tactics. Maroni blocked booze from coming into Penguin’s club, and he attempts to take it back by force. But luckily, Butch had a bunch of Gotham’s Finest on the payroll. They both concede that, of all people, they both miss Fish. The scene did a good job of creating one of those, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,†duos.
Last but not least, Barbara does show up, albeit as a drunken throwaway character. When a young teenager destroys your thought process, there’s a good chance you don’t really need to be on the show. I hate the turn they are taking with Barbara as I think she could be an interesting character with depth. But as of this moment, she is little more than a drunk ex at this point.
