GOTHAM Season 4 Episode 9 Review: Let Them Eat Pie

The episode starts with high tensions between Harvey and Gordon as Gordon takes over the office. Harvey wishes that he would have killed Penguin all those years ago on their first case together, but Gordon says if he could go back he wouldn’t change anything. He seems to be much more confident in himself and in his position as captain. Gordon promises a seat for Harvey when he gets back, but Harvey doesn’t want to come back to him as captain. 

Like Harvey, Penguin is upset that Gordon is the new captain. He is looking into who appointed Gordon as the new captain, and is clearly suspicious that Sofia is the one who did it. However, Sofia is aware that Penguin is suspicious of her, so Penguin needs a spy. He recruits Martin to follow her around and take notes of her activities. 

Meanwhile, Pyg is killing and cooking homeless people to prepare a meal for the poor. Someone leaked to the press that Pyg is cooking his victims, and even by the end of the episode, they never really determine who did that or if it was important at all. 

Harper finally gets a little bit of screen time in this episode, mostly because Gordon needs someone to act as his new partner now. Her time to shine is cut short though, as she is kidnapped and held hostage by Pyg early on. She’s tied up and bleeding while Pyg goes to make the people pies for Sofia’s party, but she still has a knife strapped to her leg that she can offer to Gordon for assistance when he finds her. 

Sophia thinks that the chef is a little odd, but doesn’t realize why. To be fair, my mind wouldn’t jump to cannibalism if I met a weird chef either. She is more worried about Penguin’s suspicions of her. Martin is following her and detailing notes, and Sophia catches him in the act. It cuts to a scene of Penguin and Sofia talking, but that gets cut short by Pyg putting his plan into action. 

Penguin thinks this is just another one of Sofia’s plans. Then Pyg stabs her in the hand, and Penguin begins to question that. Sofia just wants to make sure all the other children are okay, and wants to keep Martin safe from Pyg. If they eat the people pies, Martin will not be killed, so Penguin starts eating by the handful and threatens everyone into eating the pies. He even stabs a guy that refuses to eat. 

Pyg admires Penguin’s chutzpah, but that doesn’t change the fact that Penguin’s actions are the reason he started this whole thing. Luckily, Gordon storms in to save the day, the lone wolf as always. After a fight on top of the table, Gordon wins and takes Pyg to the station. 

Penguin checks in on Sofia, and she tries to convince him that she instated Gordon to help him. Penguin doesn’t know whether that is true or if she is just his enemy, but he appreciates what she was going to do for Martin, and makes her promise not to betray him again. He even agrees to give up the license system if Gordon is not captain anymore. It seems her plan worked out. 

Sofia meets up with Gordon later to discuss their activities of the day. While it sounds a little arrogant, Gordon says he does believe that he does deserve to be captain. I guess Pyg’s words did give him a bit of confidence in the end. Instead of mentioning that Penguin wants her to change who the captain is, she starts kissing him, but Gordon pulls away relatively quickly. 

However, Martin catches them kissing, and tells Penguin about it. I think that this is still part of Sofia’s plan. She caught Martin spying on her earlier, and while Pyg interrupted that entire situation, I think she still meant for Martin to catch her kissing Gordon. Otherwise, I can’t imagine that she would be that careless when tensions are high between her and Penguin. 

Meanwhile, Bruce is still in a downward spiral of drinking and partying, and Alfred is sick of it. Alfred thinks he is lost without the driving force of vengeance for his parent’s death, and Alfred takes him out to try to help him. They talk about Bruce’s father in the middle of the woods, but it isn’t successful as Bruce steals the car to drive home and throw a party. 

For now, they aren’t friends. Alfred is just to act like his butler and nothing more. Bruce doesn’t want him to act like his father, to tell him who he is, or try to help him with his feelings. It will probably be a few episodes more before Bruce finally gets it together, and gets in on the action again. At least, in the next episode in two weeks, it seems to focus more heavily on the all the villains anyway, since many of them weren’t involved in this week’s episode, so Bruce can keep having his fun.

Written by Nicole Teeters, GOTHAM Beat Writer

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