Gotham - 'Rogue's Gallery'/'What the Little Bird Told Him'

Welcome to Hell, Officer Gordon...

After the dramatic mid-season climax of 'Lovecraft', Jim Gordon is now a security officer at Arkham Asylum (which is apparently a GCPD job of sorts, given his speeches about refusing to quit.) His boss, Director Lang, is clearly out to scapegoat him for the continual outbreaks of violence in the underfunded, underequipped and undermanned Arkham (recall from the first half of the series that the Waynes' plan to turn it into a state of the art mental health facility were honoured in name only by just opening it back up in all its grimy, 1970s/movie psychiatric institution glory,) although whether to force Gordon out or just to cover his own arse is unclear.

When an inmate is rendered braindead by a crude imitation of electroshock therapy, Gordon calls in Bullock to investigate, with the added assistance of women's wing physician Dr Leslie 'Lee' Thompkins (Firefly's Morena Baccarin.) Cue interviews with a parade of inmates which is... amusing, if not entirely sensitive to the realities of mental health issues.

The homemade villain costuming this series shares with The
Flash is actually really growing on me.

This A plot flows on into the next episode (screened as a double on Channel 5) as Lester Buchinsky, aka the 'Electrocutioner' (the always awesome Chris Heyerdal, who makes his first appearance as Prospero in the Arkham inmates' frankly amazing production of The Tempest) escapes and seeks revenge on his former partner, Don Maroni.

Gordon confronts the Commissioner and makes a hail Mary throw, offering to catch Buchinsky in 24 hours if his shield is returned. He does so by taking Maroni into protective custody, and by wearing heavy galoshes. It is pretty much his finest hour so far, and coupled with the ever growing Gordon/Bullock bromance, I might finally be convinced by the show's central character rather than turning out for the supporting cast.

Seriously; what is up with those outfits?

Alongside this, Fish Mooney makes her move, 'kidnapping' her own honey trap, Liza, and blackmailing Falcone into leaving town. Despite being constantly interrupted by the Electrocutioner's attacks, Cobblepot turns the tables on Mooney by revealing Liza's alliance with her, leaving him to be rewarded with Mooney's holdings, while Mooney and Butch are taken away by Zsasz (and his weird cadre of oddly-dressed hitwomen) and Falcone strangles Liza himself, symbolically reclaiming his power and discarding the last of his decency. The Penguin grins like a smug snake, again, despite really only pulling through on luck.


In subplot land: Montoya breaks up with Barbara on the reasonable grounds that Barbara showed up at her recovering junkie girlfriend's place and started popping pills. While it's a shame that Gotham's only gay relationship (so far) is shown so negatively, it was set up that they were together when they were co-using, and thus it makes sense that they don't actually have a healthy dynamic. On the upside, this development kind of salvaged Montoya.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,
And they're like, 'it's better than yours',
And yeah, like, that's because it's laced with mind-controlling
botanical psychotropics.

Barbara immediately tries to place a double-rebound booty call to Jim - because she's classy that way. Meanwhile, Cat has found Ivy, sick and starving on the streets, and as Ivy refuses to see a Doctor, Cat takes her to Gordon and Barbara's place to recover (not to Wayne Manor, and in fact these two episodes are conspicuously free of either Bruce or Alfred.) While they are there, Ivy answers Barbara's phone call, in a scene which makes me want to see more Ivy and, as is par for the course, less Barbara.

"I am a sympathetic character!"

I may have mentioned that I am not a fan of this show's interpretation of Barbara might-one-day-be-Gordon. She's basically there because the name is known, but they don't know what to do with her except have her complain or get kidnapped.

While I'm not a fan of Fish Mooney, her right hand guy Butch got a good subplot this week. Charged with dealing with a rival capo and his childhood friend, he first tries reason and is in return offered Fish's holdings if he rolls on her. He meets with his friend again, ostensibly to agree to his offer. He offers a heartfelt apology for cheating him out of a score - the steaks from a haul of stolen meat - when they were boys, and after his friend forgives him, Butch shoots him dead. It's gangster cinema at its finest and most subtle.

"It's a riddle."

Finally, socially inept (possibly autistic) CSI Edward Nygma offers a token of his affections to file clerk Kristen Kringle in the form of a riddle, or more explicitly a cupcake with a bullet in it. His attempt to explain is interrupted by a thick-necked detective with the classic 'is this guy bothering you,' and this dismissal is clearly psychologically important for him, as he overhears Kringle expressing to the detective that he freaks her out. It's a breaking point for him, as he has clearly never been told this before. This is the sort of thing that happens when Arkham Asylum is at the cutting edge of your understanding of mental illness.

We've known each other for two days now, so...

Just to wrap up, Barbara goes home to stay with her parents (the ones who don't approve of Jim) and Jim and Thompkins lock lips in the GCPD break room after three days, as many conversations and - to give them their due - an adrenaline-surging chase to escape a tide of angry Arkham inmates.