Gotham’s latest episode, “Light The Wick,†perfectly expresses how far The Court’s influence actually spreads. The episode not only delves deeply into their plans for Gotham, but we get a peek at some characters the show has kind of forgotten about as it has progressed through The Court storyline.
Jim’s continual infiltration into Gotham’s most secret society has caused a great deal of stress across various characters in Gotham. As has been going on for a while, Lee has been pushed to the outside from Jim as well as any other character that knows what Jim is up to; that includes Lucius and Harvey. The fact that they keep stonewalling her only causes her to push for the truth harder, and she even attempts to open an investigation into Jim saying that he killed his Uncle Frank. Where that doesn’t make any sense is that it was shown that his uncle killed himself, so how can she call it a homicide? This tidbit leads me to believe that Lee could possibly be twisted up, in some unknown way, with The Court. I feel like they may have a long end game to pit Harvey against Jim to slowly decay that relationship.
As one would expect, Jim’s foray into actual detective work fares just as well as his work with the GCPD, quite terribly. Sure, he does eventually find out who Kathryn actually is, but he essentially leaves breadcrumbs for her to discover that Jim was in her house. Adding onto this, the characters in this show layout a theory that is blatantly obvious that it tends to be aggravating. The example in this episode was when Barnes was mysteriously taken, and Lucius, Jim, and Harvey are sitting around discussing why The Court would possibly have done this. The fact that they could find a way to use his blood to cleanse Gotham was obvious, but they still had to go through their long winded dialogue. Not a big deal, but it’s a tad annoying waiting for them to finally get to that same conclusion.
As much as I was annoyed with the way they got there, I do enjoy that Kathryn appears to be turning Barnes loose on Jim. It appears that Barnes could become Bane, or at least a Bane-type of character. The scene where they are are testing a weaponized version of the Tetch virus and, once again, testing Jim is well done with the inclusion of Penguin and Firefly. As per usual, Robin Lord Taylor is outstanding in his persistence in convincing Jim to tell him where he can find Nygma to exact his revenge. In typical Gotham fashion, Firefly torching Talon (The Court’s main henchmen) means that The Court will find him.
Bruce’s storyline with the Temple Shaman is actually progressing far more quickly than I would have first imagined. The Shaman is helping him to harness “The Rage†from when his parents were killed. It plays out as you would expect, but we do get a tidbit that what really bothers Bruce is that it didn’t seem like anyone even cared that his parents had just died. At the wake, all anyone had talked about was how Bruce would fare becoming an orphan. It adds a bit of a wrinkle that’s often left untouched when discussing Bruce Wayne’s drive for making Gotham the greater good.
The Temple Shaman is also an interesting character in the sense that he is with The Court, so his justification to Bruce isn’t as pure as it would seem. After Gotham tears itself apart with the weaponized Tetch virus, should it get to that point, are we really supposed to expect a young Bruce Wayne to clean up the streets? The timeline is certainly condensed, but it is unclear how much of actual Batman we will be getting in the show, if we get any at all.
I’d be remiss not to mention the Selina/Ivy storyline, but there wasn’t really all that much to it. Ivy was able to save Selina by using her plants, but that was really about it. Selina does say that she needs to go kill someone at Wayne Manor, alluding to the fake Bruce Wayne, of course.
The show did feature some old characters such as Hugo Strange, who is playing both sides to save his own skin, and a short intro to the events of what is taking place by Mad Hatter. Strange’s inclusion makes sense since he is definitely one of the few in Gotham that could synthesize the weapon, and I love the fact that he gave Jim a sample of the blood and all his work since that would give him a pardon of sorts with the GCPD. It wouldn’t be in Strange fashion to take the side that could lead to his demise. If nothing else, Strange is a survivalist who will always play whatever side he needs to continue onward. Although Tetch was just tied to the episode due to it being his sister’s blood, I will never not love seeing that character, even if him showing up again in the future is a complete unknown.
