The previous episode did Edward Nygma some serious justice, but in the latest episode, “These Delicate and Dark Obsessions,†we get just as convincing storylines for a variety of characters in Gotham.
We are really starting to see just how much sway The Court has within the daily ongoings in Gotham. They talk themselves up as the elites and protectors of Gotham, but their inability to seemingly maintain some form of order disproves the latter idea. There’s mention that The Court has already laid waste to Gotham twice, and are about to do it again, but they need a weapon. It’s unclear if this weapon would physically bring Gotham to its knees, or if it in someway simply targets people within Gotham. We do know that the shipping container  where the weapon is says that it is from Indian Hills, which never alludes to a positive outcome.
The three characters that have direct ties to The Court get some heavy screentime in this episode: Jim, Frank, and Bruce.
As we learned in the previous episode, Frank is in deep with The Court, as was Jim’s father before his suspicious death. Surprisingly, Jim actually does his job here and investigates the suspicious way in which his father died. It’s officially down as a drunk driving accident, but due to the perp’s medical conditions, that report is impossible. As Bullock helps the investigation, they discover that the car in which he was driving when he murdered Jim’s father was paid for by none other than Carmine Falcone. This point immediately piqued my interest; although, it should have been quite obvious with the sway that Falcone had in Gotham. It really only made sense that The Court would “partner†with him to do their bidding.
As for Frank, his standing within The Court has been waning, and it’s clear that they sense that he is going to attempt to bring the organization down just as Jim’s father had attempted. Thus, we get a scene which was admittedly pretty easy to predict, yet was impactful in the end. The Court knows that Jim is starting to know a bit too much, so they tell Frank that he must kill Jim, or as it happens, if Jim kills Frank he will be accepted into The Court. It’s a bit strange how they’ve had Jim pegged to become one with them, even though his convictions as a cop clearly counter their often times shady decisions.
While Bruce doesn’t directly interact with The Court, he is as much a part of their plans as anyone. Bruce finally wakes up in what we assume to be Nanda Parbat, and he meets the Temple Shaman (Raymond J. Barry). With faux Bruce standing in for his real counterpart, The Court has some unknown plans for actual Bruce.
Bruce’s main sequence here dealt with a scene we’ve seen over and over in the Batman Universe, the death of the Waynes. It doesn’t bother me seeing various takes of the occurrence in different mediums, especially since this is a cornerstone of the character’s future. The Shaman triggers into Bruce’s memories and forces him to reimagine the event over and over until he overcomes the death of his parents. It will be nice seeing how a much younger Bruce will overcome the death of his parents and what other training The Temple Shaman has in store for Bruce Wayne.
Penguin and Ivy are the other characters who had strong plots, yet completely irrespective of The Court plotline. The relationship between the two characters runs the gamut in this one, and we quickly come to realize that Ivy may just be crazier than Penguin. The latter, at first, doesn’t want anything to do with Ivy once he gets Gabe, but things turn in her favor after she correctly predicts that Gabe is going to turn on Penguin and “sell†him to the highest bidder.
Ivy has a henchmen smell her perfume, which puts him in a trance, and kill everyone but Gabe. The joy in which she has when doing so is hilarious, almost as much so as the pure joy that Penguin has when hacking up Gabe after Ivy’s perfume forces him to tell the truth. The truth that he never had guys that loved him, only ones who feared him. The two are going to be quite the duo, and their first stop to get revenge against Edward Nygma? None other than amassing an army from the experiments of Indian Hill.
