Gotham’s first episode back from the fall break, “Rogue’s Gallery,†appeared to take a huge step back by producing an hour of pitfalls from the shows earlier episodes, but somehow it all clicked this time.
Early on, Gotham had the trend of throwing a ludicrous number of characters at you, sort of similar to that of Game Of Thrones. The main problem being, these characters would show up in one episode and not be mentioned for another five or six episodes. Ivy is the epitome of that character, but in this episode we finally get some insight into her ways. Although not part of the main plot, Selina and Ivy have a few nice scenes. And to my surprise, they were actually quite enjoyable. Selina finds Ivy hiding outside in the rain, and Selina knows just the place for them to stay. Jim Gordon’s place hasn’t been lived in for quite some time, since he was punished to Arkham Asylum and Barbara left. It isn’t until Barbara calls Jim’s place that we truly see the conniving Ivy. She speaks as if she is much older and tells Barbara that she’s a friend of Jim’s, thus continuing the turmoil that is Barbara’s life.
While Barbara is barely hanging on to a semblance of her life, Jim isn’t really faring much better. Having been punished to Arkham Asylum, after trying to arrest the Mayor, Jim has his hands full dealing with Gotham’s clinically insane. The first scene we see here is one with the inmates doing a play, a very creepy play at that. This scene did such a great job at conveying how utterly terrifying Arkham Asylum really is. Jim, while trying to do his job as he should, is catching major flak from Arkham’s director because more inmates are acting out since Jim arrived. Not that it was his choosing anyway, but the Director doesn’t care much for that. While Jim clearly loathes his new “job,†he does find some solace in Dr. Leslie Thompkins, played by Morena Baccarin of Homeland and Firefly fame. They seem to be on the same wavelength and are able to confide in one another. But, their mutual admiration of one another is short lived as inmates are beginning to act even more abnormally than before. Jim goes behind the director’s back and calls in some backup.
Harvey Bullock is on the case and finds that someone is administering some electroshock therapy to the inmates. After some strangely good GCPD work, they find that Nurse Duncan is actually an inmate in disguise, so it must be her. She was able to hide in plain site because she was there before Arkham Asylum closed. She simply hid out until the Asylum was reopened, about half way through the season. But, as Jim confronts her, she runs away and opens all the cells in Arkham. She then proceeds to be trampled by the rush of inmates. This being Gotham, things are never that easy, and we find out that she has the same electrical burns on her forehead as the other inmates. Arkham Inmate Jack Gruber (played by actor Christopher Heyerdahl), the one eerily performing The Tempest at the beginning of the episode, is the one behind it all. So who is Jack Gruber? It’s tough to say considering the name doesn’t actually come up in comic book lore, but there are some serious connections to Batman’s comic villains.
This was the first episode where there was a nice twist in the villain’s story. Usually, it is relatively straightforward and insanely easy to figure out, but this one get things up in the air until its close. Bullock also provided some comic relief which was a nice segue away from all the mob business.
The last key players of the episode are the mob bosses. A scene plays out where Fish and Butch are talking with Saviano, the next heir in line to Falcone. Saviano explains that he is clearly next in line, but Fish isn’t exactly seeing it that way. So, she has Butch “talk†with Saviano, and we know what happens when mob bosses have a “talk†with people, only one of them comes back alive. The scenes were just enough of Fish not to get annoyed with her, and it was interesting seeing more about Butch.
On the other side of the mob realm we have good ol’ Cobblepots, and what is he doing? He feels it’s a good idea to hustle fisherman by forcing them to pay a higher tax… Fisherman. The cops, of whom he thought were on his payroll, swiftly throw him in jail. Later on, Falcone shows up and explains that he did this intentionally, to sort of put Cobblepot in his place. It’s a unique back and forth because I don’t really see Cobblepot being that dumb; I feel there’s an endgame because with The Penguin, nothing is as it seems.
