They are able to find Penguin relatively quickly, and Nygma just burst in with a gun, but Penguin slips out and locks them in. However, if Nygma had just shot him the moment he walked in like Butch wanted to, this problem would have been resolved. Luckily, Nygma’s team still has a back-up plan, as Tabitha takes down Selena outside and gets her to work for their side. We still haven’t seen anything particularly cat- like from her yet.
Penguin knows he is screwed. He has no safe houses or monsters. He reminisces about the old days with Falcone and Mooney in charge, where things in the underworld were handled with respect and loyalty. Nygma and Barbara don’t live by those same codes, instead they are erratic. Just hearing Mooney’s name gives me hope that she will reappear. When Penguin hears that Selena is coming by, he knows it is a setup, but it is too late to stop it. Nygma walks in with a gun, once again, but still doesn’t shoot him. First, he wants to hear Penguin call him The Riddler, and he will make his death slow and painful if that is the only way. Maybe my constant complaints about her lack of appearance lately were heard, because Fish Mooney walks in.
Fish Mooney comes in with goons at her side (of course she has goons), and poor Penguin must regret his previous thoughts about her now. I’m not sure if the other villains even really know who Mooney is (it’s been awhile since she was in charge after all), but Butch is pretty happy to see her. However, Nygma must hate her because she whisks Penguin away for her own purposes. But, in a sense, Penguin didn’t lie about having an army of Professor Strange’s monsters, considering Mooney can also be considered one of them at this point.
I doubt that she took Penguin just to kill him, but I’m unsure of what plan Penguin could possibly help her with. He has lost his title as King of the Underworld and as mayor, hell he is still considered dead by most people. There’s not much he can do to help her. At least she has given Penguin more time against The Riddler. As much as I love both of them, I have been rooting for the Penguin since the very first episode, and I’m not going to stop now.
Outside of the criminal underworld, things have reached a peak with the Court of Owls. We are informed that the old guy is in fact the leader of the Court (not surprising), and him and Bruce return to speak to the Court. He tells Bruce to give the order, and when Bruce doesn’t, he gives the order himself, which led to the entire room having their throat slit. The old guy seems like he wasn’t lying to Bruce when he said that he wanted to take down the Court.
Gordon, Harvey, and Alfred are checking the locations for Bruce, and they find the slit throat guys, and discover that the leader and Bruce were there. They still don’t understand how Bruce fits into all of this (me too, buddy). However, Gordon decides that this isn’t the most important thing going on right now. Even after hearing confirmation that the leader is around, he still decides to go to Lee to investigate if she injected herself with the virus.
Gordon knows Lee probably injected herself because of what she said to him, and he goes to her place. He still thinks that she can be saved, but she sounds like she is as far gone as Barnes is already. She reveals that something in her loves the darkness that Gordon has, and she wants to help him find his true darkness. Apparently the first step in doing that is knocking him unconscious.
At least Alfred and Harvey both understand what is important right now. They are still searching for Bruce and the leader. When they run out of locations, they go to the Whisper Gang to find more unlisted locations. Alfred deserves a badge more than Gordon does at this moment. The next place they try just happens to be the exact location that the leader and Bruce are at, but Bruce’s mind is long gone.
Bruce feels failure that he didn’t give the order (to kill a dozen people). Somehow, not aiding in murder is failing his parents in his eyes. He is determined to press the detonation button for the bomb in order to redeem himself. When Bruce sees Alfred, he barely reacts. His only care is that old guy remains unharmed, so that he can pursue his destiny to take down Gotham. Poor Alfred is very confused.
Luckily, Alfred and Harvey gained something from that encounter: Professor Strange. Harvey gives Alfred the okay to interrogate him with no rules whatsoever. This is probably why they shouldn’t give Alfred a badge, because his dangling-off- a-ledge abilities are too good to be wasted on the GCPD. He is also willing to give freedom to a criminal, which would probably be looked down upon in the GCPD too. Professor Strange tells him that Bruce is at Wayne Enterprises, and his mind has been entirely altered. He also throws in the time that the bomb is going off. In exchange, Alfred knocks him out, to either prevent or delay his escape from custody.
However, there are other problems to deal with first. Lee walks in to the GCPD with a definite villain vibe going on. Apparently step two to her plan was perfecting winged eyeliner for her villainous debut. She tells them that Gordon was buried alive, and his only way out is to take the virus. Harvey immediately takes the walkie talkie to Lucius so that they can track Gordon’s location. Lucius doesn’t get any screen time of course, he used up his quota a few episodes ago with Nygma.
Harvey takes out officers and canines to go find Gordon, even though that is arguably a waste of resources when the virus is about to take out the entire city. Eventually, he sends the officers to go to the union station in an effort to stop the bomb. Gordon overhears this, and while he doesn’t want to take the virus, he knows he always has to be the hero. He takes the virus to break out of the ground and head downtown to stop the bomb. It was probably a good move considering Harvey was nowhere near him to save him naturally. He finds his empty grave after the fact, and this alerts Lee to the fact that Gordon is out there with the virus in his system. She needs to get to him, so that they can be together in their insanity (she really is oblivious to everything else going on here).
But will the bomb even go off? It is up to Bruce to pull the trigger. The reshaping of Bruce’s mind has given him a real fear of failure (honestly, that’s just relatable), so he is determined to follow through on this command. Afterwards, the old guy will bring him to the man that determined Bruce would be the best hero for this city. I would love to meet the guy that determined an elementary school student as a perfect hero, but unfortunately that may take some time. Alfred finds Bruce and old guy, and tries to prevent Bruce was detonating the bomb. He gets Bruce to hesitate, but old guy presses the button using Bruce’s hand, and Alfred kills him. His death has not altered Bruce’s mind in any way, and he is pissed that Alfred killed him before he could fulfill his destiny.
Now the only person left who can stop the bomb is Gordon (and the GCPD, but let’s be honest, Gordon is the only one with a chance). Gordon runs to the bomb with his new found strength, and gets there in time to destroy it before it goes off. However, he is stopped before he can do anything about it. Lee knocks him away and lets the virus infect everyone else as it infected them. In the end, this town is screwed. Yet, I believe that the people to rise from the ashes of this destroyed town will be Bruce and Fish Mooney; Bruce, as a hero, and Fish Mooney, as Queen of the underworld once again. A good crisis is exactly what she needs to get back to where she was.
Written by Nicole Teeters, GOTHAM Beat Writer -- Click to read Nicole's posts
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