Gotham - 'Pinewood', 'Azrael', 'Unleashed', 'A Legion of Horribles' and 'Transference'

Karen Jennings: An original character who is interesting, sympathetic, and
therefore dead.

Okay, so it's time to wrap up Season 2 of pre-Batman quality rollercoaster Gotham.

'Pinewood' leads Bruce and Alfred to investigate the titular Wayne Enterprises programme, long-since shut down, which conducted genetic experiments which killed most of the recipients and left a girl named Karen Jennings with the hand of a velociraptor. Jennings, who had been in Blackgate for murder after killing her abusive father, was rescued and placed in hiding by Thomas Wayne, and could identify the head of the programme, a man known only as 'the Philosopher'. As it happens, this is the same name that Barbara - of all people - helps Gordon to get from the Lady (Michelle Gomez) as the contractee for the Wayne hit. Unfortunately, Victor Fries shows up in a new suit of body armour and kills Karen, but they are still able to link the alias to Hugo Strange.

"Know that men call you liar..."

Playing his cards close to his chest since he has no official standing, Gordon rocks up to Arkham and is all 'I totes know you dunnit, lol.' Strange covers his tracks, then brainwashes a reanimated - and superstrong, because that's how reanimation works, yeah - Theo Galavan to believe that he is Azrael, servant of St Duma, and sends him to punish Gordon's sins. With a sword. Despite the obvious stupidity of sending a man with a sword and a suit of body armour (seriously, how much time and money is Strange spending on fabricating bulletproof costume armour for his reanimated crazy people? And where is he getting this done?) into a precinct full of armed cops, this is the GCPD and he goes through the bullpen like a blender. I seriously don't know where they keep getting recruits, because the attrition rate is fucking insane.

Ahh-hahahaha!

Azrael's fake sword is broken while he's stabbing Captain Barnes, so he goes after the real deal, the sword of sin, buried in his grandfather's grave. Tabitha leads Gordon to the sword and gets shanked trying to snap Theo out of his Azrael persona, but does remind him he was supposed to be killing Bruce Wayne. He heads to Wayne Manor and has a sword fight with Alfred, which made me happy. Then Bruce hits him with a car, establishing early that the 'no killing' rule does not apply when Batman is in a car. Not that it actually kills him, because reanimated, yeah, but then Penguin turns up with Butch and a rocket launcher, and that really made me happy, because I don't think Galavan is coming back from this. He was a crap Azrael anyway; his sword wasn't even slightly on fire.

It's not a real comic book series if folks are going to stay dead.

Speaking of fire, Bruce persuades Selina to break into Indian Hill looking for Brigit, who has been persuaded that she is Firefly, Goddess of Fire, and that Selina is there for her to experiment on, although Selina manages to knock her out between episodes going into 'A Legion of Horribles'.

Strange continues raising corpses, although Fish Mooney is unique in remembering who she actually is rather than being imprinted with a new supervillain persona. Unfortunately for Strange, his employers in 'the Court' (who wear owl masks, so presumably the Court of Owls) are concerned that sending costumed lunatics out into the city might endanger their main purpose - find a way to live forever - and order him to burn down the facility, along with Bruce, Lucius Fox and Gordon, who have been caught trying to sneak in and save Selina, who is busy saving herself by convincing Firefly she is her servant.

"A little song, a little dance; stepmom's head on a lance."

Strange buys time by getting one of his monsters - the future Clayface, one suspects - to impersonate Gordon. Bullock and Alfred both smell a rat, but only Barbara is both sharp enough and crazy enough to notice the difference and entertain the possibility that someone has whipped up a phony Gordon in the space of a lunch break. Then again, she hangs out with Penguin and Butch, giving advice on the tasteful placement of mummified stepmother heads. Penguin and the GCPD all descend on Arkham with the intention of saving Gordon and Bruce and/or executing Strange on account of some dissatisfaction with his therapeutic method.

Seriously, the series needs more of this sort of thing. More gatling guns, and
more Alfred having sword fights; less villains being incompetently diabolical.

Things go to hell as Fish uses her newfound psychotropic mind control bad touch - because
reanimated, and with the DNA of the notoriously mind-controlling cuttlefish no less - to break out. Selina refuses to let Strange execute his prisoners, but Strange sets off a bomb. Fish and a bus full of experiments are ambushed by Penguin, Butch and Ol' Painless, but Fish's appearance scatters the goons and she bad touches Penguin.

Gordon and Fox stop the bomb, Strange is arrested and Gordon heads south to look for Lee. And an old homeless woman opens the back of the bus and lets out the monsters, including a long-haired double of Bruce Wayne. OMG!

Once more, Gotham pulls out the stops for the closing stretch, and I am more than ever convinced that this, like Agents of SHIELD, would benefit greatly from a shorter season. It's actually pretty good at crazy, comic book action. It's when it tries to be all clever and conspiratorial that it falls down. Also, on the strength of the last few episodes, damn Ben McKenzie and David Mazouz got good. McKenzie plays Clayface Gordon and Gordon on truth serum to the hilt, while some flashbacks to Season 1 remind me how much Mazouz has grown, in terms of acting range as well as physically piling on the inches.