Recap
This week on Gotham, Gordon adjusts to his new life working at Arkham Asylum, which includes enjoying a play put on by the inmates. His new boss, Director or Doctor Lang is really riding him and thinks he's unfit for the job. Gordon discovers one of the patients, or someone else, has been shocked to the point of being brain dead. Lang puts the blame on Gordon even though Gordon tells him its a skeleton crew running it with no surveillance. Gordon goes on the hunt to find out how this happened. He interviews the inmates and finds little help from them. Gordon discovers an inmate out of his cell and sees his head has been fried, like the man before.
A new doctor makes her way into Arkham Asylum: Dr Leslie Thompkins. Apparently, Gordon is now infamous among the people of Gotham and the inmates of the asylum. She helps Gordon help with the investigation of who is shocking the inmates.
Bullock comes to Arkham to help investigate the assaults. Bullock puts Lang in his place, in a hilarious manner, and takes him down to the station as a suspect. When he gets there, he sees Penguin in a holding cell. Penguin was taken downtown after threatening some dock workers. Penguin wants Bullock to call Maroni to get him out, but Bullock makes a couple of jokes about loving seeing Penguin while he's working at his desk. Bullock grills Lang about who could be doing this.
It turns out that an inmate posing as a nurse is behind it all and she releases all of the inmates from their cells.
Selina and Ivy are both living on the streets together, but it's tough for Ivy to adjust to her new living situation. Selina breaks into Gordon's place so she and Ivy have a place to stay, out of the rain because Ivy is sick.
Fish Mooney starts to make a play for power in the crime family of Gotham. She wants to be on top, but she's not next in line. She gets Butch to help her out but she thinks Butch may be turning on her. Butch has a chat with Jimmy, the man next in line for the throne. Jimmy makes Butch an offer to join up with him and leave Fish. Jimmy offers Butch almost too much to pass on.
Barbara is staying with Renee now. Renee knows Barbara needs help because she's popping pills. She calls Gordon's and gets to talk to Ivy on the phone.
Turns out inmate Jack Gruber was behind it all with the help of the help of an inmate named Aaron. Gordon and Bullock make it back to the Asylum to find Lang, dying. There's a note for Gordon at the Asylum from Gruber. In the note, Gruber says he's been using electricity to warp people. Gordon comes home to find the someone had been staying at his place, but Selina and Ivy are not there.
Butch meets Jimmy at the docks and Jimmy asks him if he's in. Butch ends up taking Jimmy out.
Thoughts
Putting Gordon into Arkham Asylum was the best thing you could do to the show. Not that the show was getting stale, but it really was getting a "villain of the week" flavor to it. Throwing Gordon into Arkham not only shows another side of how Gotham operates, but it gives Gordon room to grow away from the other supporting characters, which is pretty cool to see.
Donal Logue really shines in this episode. He's really found his footing with the character of Harvey Bullock. He brings a comic relief to the show, which isn't over the top at all. In addition, he brings some hard-boiled detective work to the show too. He's made Bullock a very dynamic character.
As much as I've complained in the past about Selina, Barbara is a badly written character, far worse than anyone else. She's a folly for everyone else's emotions and stories. She got to have a scene talking on the phone to Ivy, which was the highlight of two poorly written characters engaging in some bad dialogue in an awful and meaningless scene. Both of these characters make me really appreciate Selina Kyle right now.
David Zayas as Salvatore Maroni is awesome. I'm so happy to see him back in this role on the show.
It's revealed nurse Dorothy is the person behind the madness, and least we think she is. And for the time being, I was cocky and said "I called it." However, we get this fantastic turn and find out Gruber was behind it and I was actually pretty surprised. Better yet, this story will continue onto next week as well.
The story for the episode really works. We're introduced to some great, new characters and the episode really grabs the audience. There is another downside that this episode will be a one and done for Gordon at Arkham, since next week's preview shows Gordon back on the streets. I think for the good of the show, he needs to stay there a few more episodes. One doesn't seem like enough.
"Rogues' Gallery" wasn't a powerhouse episode filled with action and adventure, but it was a great episode that sat more in the realm of police procedural with a mix of mafia. This was the episode that felt like Gotham found its footing. Sure, the Barabara and Ivy scenes were utterly awful, but on the bright side, Selina was a much more subdued and tolerable character to the point where I actually kind of enjoyed her short time on the screen. This episode was broad and covered a lot of ground, but it did so extremely well. Gotham has me hook, line, and sinker.
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