“Jim, there will be another dead body tomorrow. Go fishing, get drunk.”
Harvey might have started a new drinking game for Gotham; every time someone dies the viewer must take a drink. Either that, or we pray hard that Harvey will stand over a body, check for a pulse and say, “He’s dead, Jim.” Looks like Gotham has pulled out all the stops for their fall finale, with a wedding, a death, a long awaited kiss, arrival of a long-lost parent and the start of a bloody gang war in Beware the Green Eyed Monster. If it’s Mario who has the green eyes, I can’t tell; they look brown. Things are certainly going to get interesting when the second half of the season returns.
El Predicto was right concerning Lee and Mario’s wedding, but let’s back up a moment. Mario was indeed infected with the Tetch virus; Jervis himself dosed Mario at the hospital when Gordon was hit with the psychedelic Red Queen in the eponymously titled episode. Like Barnes, Mario has the super strength and rage of the Tetch blood virus, but Mario focuses all that rage on Gordon, whom he believes still loves Lee. It’s jealousy that fuels his rage, and Mario plans to destroy Gordon by having Lee hate him. The question that ran through my mind was, why does the Tetch virus make its victims spell out their inner thoughts or make plans known while speaking to the people they are roughing up? What is this, the magic lasso? We saw it with Barnes, who felt compelled to tell every one of his victims that Hulkamania was coursing through his veins right before he killed them, and now we see it with Mario. This time, however, he spells out his plan to an unconscious Gordon after roughing him up at Gotham Bio-Labs. I know it’s for the benefit of the audience, but it does seem a bit on the nose. The only thing slightly more obvious would be if Mario curled a handlebar moustache à la Snidely Whiplash.
Gordon knows Mario is infected and somehow managed to beat the test designed to diagnose the virus, which made him more obsessive in catching Mario. Gordon’s obsession sees him arrest Mario on his wedding day and confronting Lee, but she doesn’t believe him and begs him to seek help. Gordon finally, finally opens up to Lee, but she is angry as she believes this was a last-ditch effort on Gordon’s part and says she never wants to see him again. Gordon then realizes he fell for Mario’s plan and played the sucker well. Fox tells Gordon Mario had indeed cheated the blood test; it seems Mario had enough blockers in his system to make the Russian track and field team envious. Gordon goes after Lee, who is about to be stabbed by Mario. Turns out the voices in his head are telling him to kill Lee as she still loves Gordon. Gordon saves the day, but shoots Mario in front of Lee, who doesn’t see the attempted stabbing and the knife conveniently bounce out of view. As Ringo Starr sang, “It don’t come easy” and they aren’t for Gordon. But then again, we like having our characters put through a meat grinder, otherwise it wouldn’t be compelling viewing.
Not focusing solely on the Gordon/Lee/Mario love triangle, we see the consequences of the Nygma/Isabella/Penguin triangle. Bat-crazy Babs visits Nygma with news that Penguin was responsible for Isabella’s death out of jealousy. Erin Richards plays Babs as wonderfully morbid in her confrontation with Nygma and the show would do right by having more of her. Nygma denies it at first, of course. But he tricks Penguin into confessing his feelings for Nygma and confirming Babs’ allegations. Nygma visits Babs, Tabs, and Butch with a proposal to not merely seek vengeance, but utterly destroying Penguin. Babs, in return, wants to rule Gotham’s criminal underworld in the post-Penguin vacuum. She knows Nygma has the brains and strategic know how to help convince the other families to fall into line. Penguin has no idea what’s in store for him, and I hope this is the emergence of Riddler. Perhaps there will be a break in the alliance that sends Riddler to the top of the pile. Things are already shaky, with Butch and Tabs wanting to kill Nygma for his actions last week, and to be fair, his apology to Tabs really needed a lot of work. I will continue to advocate this storyline be pushed to the top of the pile, for the story is engaging and the acting stellar. The look on Nygma’s face when he realizes Penguin killed Isabella is one of shock, betrayal and anger rolled into one, similar to Michael Corleone’s in The Godfather II when he looks Fredo in the eye and says, “I know it was you.” The fallout of the revelation is going to be good with Nygma and Babs activating their Wonder Twin powers to take down Penguin. We know he won’t die, but there will be, in the words of Jim Morrison, “blood in the streets and it’s up to my ankles.”
The third story sees Bruce, Selena and Alfred break into the Court of Owls headquarters to open the safe. Building up to that is tension created by Talon killing the rest of the Whispering gang, Alfred stating his reluctance and Selena leaving because it’s too risky. But everyone gets back on board for the heist only to find a glass figurine of an owl. How that is supposed to bring down the Court is unknown. I would have rather seen Bubo from Clash of the Titans (the 1981 film, he had a bigger role) in the safe, at least would have made things interesting. Talon crashes the party and fights Alfred who, after taking some lumps, gets an assist by a mysterious masked female and he finally, finally shows off his skills and kills Talon. So in this story we get Alfred being a badass, Selena kissing Bruce, and the revelation of the stranger who is Selena’s estranged mother, Maria. Long time coming for Alfred, though his line to Selena when she sneers at him about protecting Bruce sums him up nicely; “My job is to prepare him for the man he is to become.” Or something like that. I tried to hit rewind on my VCR but the tape got stuck. Selena’s kiss may be a confirmation of their romance, but could also be a gesture just to shut him up. In fairness, he did go on quite a bit about the “are we, aren’t we together?” and he does have more important things to focus on at the moment. We’ll also see how Mommie Dearest fits into the picture when the second half resumes.
I’m looking forward to the Nygma/Penguin battle that should hopefully shake Gotham to its knees. Gordon will face fallout for killing Mario, considering he swore to Carmine he would bring him in alive. But it wouldn’t be a show if there weren’t complications. I doubt Barnes will be cured, but maybe he’ll escape and cause some havoc, just because. Selena will get to interrogate Maria about her disappearance, and Bruce will figure out the importance of the figurine and take on the Court of Owls.
Less sarcastic Harvey this week than I would have liked.
Tune in next time – same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.
