Welcome back, Gotham-aholics! Wait, that doesn’t sound good. Gothamites? What’s the name of our fandom? Psyche, trick question! I don’t think anyone actually likes this show!

This week’s episode opens up on a flashback, set 10 years in the past. A man walks up to a mirror, puts on a mask and gloves, and then, in his best Christian Bale voice, says “I am the spirit of the goat” and breaks a mirror. We then cut to an apartment, where a strategically placed TV newscast says that the city was still under siege from the killer known as “The Spirit of the Goat” (This show really does love the TV-News-As-Info-dump trick.) There’s a girl on the balcony, and she’s about to peek inside the apartment when the Spirit comes up behind her and grabs her. We cut to what looks to be an abandoned building, and we see a car driven by a slightly-younger Harvey Bullock and his grumpy partner – you guys, I think we’re about to get the “this is how Bullock lost faith in Gotham City” episode! Bullock is gung-ho about going into the building, but his partner, Dix, is less so, and says they have to wait for back-up. He tells Bullock that gotham’s golden rule is “no heroes.” GET IT BECAUSE ONE DAY THEY WILL HAVE A HERO NAMED BATMAN. NUDGE. Bullock runs in anyway, and they find the girl trussed up as some kind of sacrifice, dead. The Goat pulls Dix through the floor, tells Bullock that he will “always come back” – which is weird, because Bullock hasn’t actually done anything yet but get knocked down on the ground. It does give Bullock the opening to say “come back from this!” when he shoots him dead!

Instead of a commercial after the opening title, we jump right to the present day, with Bullock at a crime scene where the victim is dressed up and hanging just like the one from before. He looks terrified. Nygma walks up, and asks Bullock if he’d “figured out his riddle” which is really awkward, because, well, dead body, and Bullock rightfully so tells him to shut it and give him the time of death. In case you didn’t know, Edward Nygma is going to one day become the Riddler – i’m betting in part because everyone’s always mean to him. Because he’s a creep. Based on the background of the victim, Bullock is sure that they’re dealing with a copygoat. He tries to call Gordon, but he’s not answering his cell because he’s in an argument with his girlfriend Barbara – she’s trying to get him to open up to her – I thought they had broken up two episodes ago but I guess not.

We cut to Detectives Allen and Montoya (he calls her “Monty” which, uh, sure, whatever) as they pull up to the docks, where they are apparently interrogating strangers about Gordon’s shooting of the Penguin. The first guy they come up to says he saw the shooting and confirms (based on the picture they have of him) that Gordon did it. Just like that!

After the commercial, Gordon finally shows up at the crime scene, and they interview the victim’s parents about the murder. They meet the family therapist, and there’s some grumble grumble from Bullock about therapy. At the police station, Nygma goes into the file room, where he creeps on a girl, sniffing her as she walks past him, obviously freaked out (seriously this guy is at his job.) Her name is “Kristen Kringle” and he goes on and on about her name. Man, he’s a weirdo.

A short while later, Penguin shows up at his mom’s house, so he can tell her he’s not dead. She accuses him of being “tangled in some hussy’s demon purse” (what?) and he explains that no, he was just thrown into a river and had to kill some bros and get a food/bev job and etc, so forth. He tells her he’s going to “be somebody.” At the police station, Bullock and Gordon are sitting in on the autopsy, and the body matches those from the Goat’s crimes from 10 years earlier – Bullock realizes that this is not someone copying the crimes, but the same killer. (dun dun dun!)

At stately Wayne Manor, Bruce is listening to another info dump newscast, explaining that the Goat is targeting the first born children of the city’s rich and powerful – because he’s a big scaredy cat, Alfred suggest leaving, but Bruce is all “no way, I’ve got to keep pinning evidence to my evidence wall.” Then he asks why Alfred thinks anyone would take him, because “there’s no one to take him from.” Alfred’s head turns into a sad-face emoticon.

Back at the station, Kringle walks in on Nygma reorganizing the file room, which she had explicitly told him not to do – they’re going to fall in love, aren’t they? She tells him that he’s a weirdo, and he realizes he should go – yet leaves her to clean up his mess, like a big jerk. Gordon and Bullock go to question Dix, who is in a wheelchair, about the case. After a little back-and-forth, Bullock walks off in a huff, and Dix tells Gordon that Bullock is like a “white knight jumping into the breach” which leads to some ha-ha you don’t know him at all banter from Gordon. BUT we come to find out that Bullock has been paying for Dix’s stay in the home, because he’s actually got a heart of gold. I KNEW IT!

We cut to a blonde girl in a huge house, who’s kidnapped by the Goat!

After the break, Barbara catches up with Montoya, and Montoya tells her that they’re issuing a warrant for Gordon’s arrest that night, and that she needs to get as far away from him as possible.

After reviewing the employee records for the people that had access to both of the victim’s houses, the detectives are led right back to the crime scene from 10 years ago. They go in without backup, and we see the Goat in the process of sacrificing the blonde girl. They sneak in, but he’s able to hid in almost an exact repeat of what happened before. Gordon gets the girl down, while Bullock searches for the Goat – they get into a fight, and he tells Bullock (again) that he will always come back. Just before he’s about to kill Bullock, Gordon jumps down and beats the crap out of the Goat, making that he’s the only good guy that ever gets to punch things on this show. Case closed!

After the break, we find Selina straight up walking through an open window right into Bruce’s office, where he’s asleep (because sure when there’s a guy going around kidnapping rich kids, you’d definitely be lax on the security.) She sees his evidence wall, and then, because she’s going to one day be Catwoman, hops up on a chair and crouches. Like you do. Then she leaves.

Then we see Penguin in a bathtub. And his mom brings him his suit. And bathes him. This is gross. Bullock and Gordon go over the history of the Goat with Essen, but Bullock is not happy – he doesn’t understand how two people that never knew each other could end up committing the same crimes in the same way, even though they worked for the same company 10 years apart. He waves Gordon off, and witnesses the suspect in the interrogation room freaking out – he says “holy ghost on a bicycle” and runs out. That’s going to be my new catchphrase, FYI.

Gordon gets home to find Barbara, who tells him about the warrant, and tries to get him to run away with her. He’s a good guy, though, and willingly opens the door to be arrested by Allen and Montoya.

Bullock goes back to the first victim’s house, where he finds the therapist – he makes the always classy “therapist/the rapist” joke, because he’s pretty endearing. He mentions that he’s found that she’s a hypnotherapist, and had treated Earl, the suspect, in the past. It turns out that she had also treated the killer from 10 years ago, and he accuses her of hypnotizing both of them to become the Goat. She comes clean immediately, explaining that this is her way of cleaning up the city (what?) Since she’s a girl, there can’t be a punch-em-up, but she gives the first victim’s father, Mr. Hastings, the cue to go all growly and attack Bullock. He’s pretty old, though, so Bullock knocks him down pretty easy and shoots her in the leg. Case actually closed! While Bullock is briefing Essen, Gordon is dragged through the police station by Allen and Montoya, who start to arrest Bullock, too – but then Penguin strolls into the room, all wet and giggly. The episode ends with Bullock jumping into Gordon’s face, because he now knows that Gordon didn’t actually kill Penguin – JUST WHEN THEY WERE MAYBE GOING TO POSSIBLY START TO SORT OF MAYBE BE FRIENDS!

What’s going to happen next week! Something, I’ll bet! See you then!

Sorry for the lateness of this Recap; I was out of town due to my day job and could not watch the episode until today. But enough about why I stink – let’s jump right into this week’s – er, last week’s – episode of Gotham!

The episode opens on Bruce Wayne in his (?) study, hanging up various pages from the files on his parent’s murder (there are tons of boxes on the floor, which leads me to believe that this investigation is waaaay more complicated than we’ve been shown; it also shows that maybe someone’s pet police detective is giving out case information. But I digress. Already.) Alfred walks in, and shows how good of a father figure he is by asking Bruce what would happen if his obsession just turned out to be a waste of time. He asks what Bruce would do if he never found out who killed his parents and had his revenge. Bruce replies that he doesn’t want revenge; he just wants to know “how Gotham works.” He wants to know why the Wayne Foundation never did anything to fight the corruption.  That’s a pretty good question.

We cut to a street musician with a hilarious sign that says “Why Lie I Need Money for Drugs” – since it’s Gotham City, he’s already got what looks to be a decent amount of money in his guitar case. A spooky guy walks by and leaves a vial of green liquid (with “Breathe Me” printed on it) in the case. Since this guy was not joking and actually does want drugs, the musician opens the vial and breathes in the vapor that seeps out. He gets super high (you can tell because the camera shifts to his point of view and everything’s glowy and blurry and shot with a fish eye lens,) goes into a convenience store, and starts drinking straight from a jug of milk. The proprietor tries to stop him, and the musician says “do not vex me, mortal” (?) and his skin goes all splotchy.

We jump to Bullock and Gordon ordering street cart cheeseburgers. While they’re talking, Selina Kyle lands on a parked car, and slides down the hood to the pavement, so she can land in this super cool completely realistic looking crouch pose. Again, all of this is done in daylight where there are tons of people (a guy even walks past the car, completely oblivious.) Gordon does finally see her when she tries to steal a guy’s wallet, but a perfectly timed cab prevents him from crossing the street and chasing her. It’s probably for the best, though, because all of a sudden they hear an alarm and Gordon runs towards it. It turns out to be coming from the convenience store, but when they get there they find the attendant stuffed in the wall. It turns out that the musician stole the store’s ATM machine. There’s some chit chat about how he could have done this but that’s not really important because we cut to the guy RUNNING DOWN THE STREET LIKE A MANIAC WITH THE ATM MACHINE ON HIS BACK LIKE A MANIAC!

After the commercial break, we open on Fish Mooney’s club, where she is sort of hippie dancing her arms around while the girl who won the girl fight in the last episode is singing along (badly) to opera. There’s some sassy back and forth but it comes down to how she has to sing in order to do…something. Oh, I don’t know. She’s Mooney’s weapon, or something. Commence slow hippie arm dancing, change scene. At the police station, Bullock and Gordon and Essen are looking at footage of the crazy ATM guy, even though (as Bullock was right to point out earlier) they are homicide detectives, and no one has died.

After a brief scene featuring Falcone assuring all of his people that the Arkham deal was a good one, we go back to Gordon and Bullock walking the streets, asking after the crazy ATM guy. A nice hooker-type lady tells them where he can be found, and it’s under an overpass – when they get there, there are tons of empty milk jugs strewn about – I know we’re blaming this on the drug, but what if his strength’s just due to all of the delicious calcium the guy’s been ingesting?  Oh wait, they find the guy and as he’s about to toss the ATM machine at them, all of his bones break and he’s crushed by the ATM machine. My bad. Gordon says “God help us if that drug gets out” just as we cut to a scene of the creepy guy handing out vials on the street, to everyone! No!

At stately Wayne Manor, we find young master Bruce asleep among paperwork, only to have Alfred stomp in, opening blinds and telling a 10 year old that he has to go to a Wayne Foundation gala. During this scene, Alfred mentions (twice) hoe he wants to throw all of the files into a fire, but Bruce orders him not to. I wonder if this will come up later. Bruce notices a news report on “Viper,” which is the name they’ve given the new drug, and we cut to the police station, where cops are trying to throw super strong criminals into the cell that’s in the middle of the room – it kind of reminds me of when we try to put out cats in their carriers, so they can go to the vet. Ed Nygma skulks around, looking creepy. He explains that the drug burns excess calcium (I WAS RIGHT!)

At Maroni’s restaurant, we find him ordering one of his goons to hit one of Falcone’s casinos, and the goon is telling him how difficult the job would be. The Penguin overhears, and runs up to tell them how he could get them in super easy. He then proceeds to tell Maroni his life story of crime; how he worked for Mooney, etc. When he’s done, though, Maroni slams his head on the table, so I guess things didn’t work out the way he’d planned.

At the station, a group of lawyers for one of the companies that could have the ability to manufacture viper shows up, and tells Gordon and Bullock that they would prosecute anyone who might think to accuse them of doing so. A minute later, though, the lawyer tells them that the creepy guy passing out vials of the drug totally used to work for them, and was sort of crazy! Before Gordon can leave to find the guy, however, he’s stopped by Maroni’s goon – it looks like Penguin gave him up and he’s got to pay a visit to Maroni. With a bag on his head.

After the commercial, the bag’s taken off of Gordon’s head and he’s sitting at a table in front of Sal Maroni and wait wait wait wait. The guy owns a restaurant. In public. Where people eat. Why are they treating this like is a secret location? Anyway, Maroni has Gordon recount Penguin’s story, to see if he was telling the truth – if Gordon’s story differs, they both die. It doesn’t, though, and Maroni lets Gordon leave, with the promise that he will call him if he needs him.

Working off the records the lawyers provided them, Gordon and Bullock track the creepy guy to his old philosophy professor. He informs them that creepy guy’s job was actually to create chemical weapons for the army, and that viper was the first batch of the drug. The second batch, called “venom” (uh-oh) worked out all the side effects (uh-oh) and that creepy guy actually tried to get the company to shut down the project, and, when they refused, he went directly to the Waynes. As he’s telling this story, the professor hobbles over to a table, snorts from a vial of the drug, and throws Bullock through the door! Oh man, I bet that’s going to be the “bane” of his “existence.”

Sorry.

Before he can kill Bullock, Gordon shoots him and he dies, but not before giving away that the final step it creepy guy’s master plan involves the Wayne Foundation’s charity gala mentioned earlier. Which is where we find Bruce and Alfred and creepy guy, who’s planning to dump a large barrel of the drug into the air ducts. Bruce fulfills his creepy kid quota for the episode, by talking about how he wants to meet with the board to discuss the “irregularities” he’s found with the Arkham project. Before he can really get much further, though, creepy guy pops onto the TV screen, telling everyone how he made the drug for a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises, and how everybody is going to die. Except not, because Gordon gets to the roof in time and shoots the barrel, which covers creepy guy and gives him super strength (smooth, Gordon, real smooth.) Before anything can happen, though, he tells them to look in “warehouse thirty nine” and jumps off of the building! Just like that!

Gordon goes to the warehouse, and it’s empty. At Wayne Manor, Bruce is back to reviewing the files, only this time, Alfred his helping him, which makes his little day. The episode ends (well, there’s a weird Fish Mooney sex scene, but I’m ignoring it) with the Fish’s girl successfully picking up Falcone in a park, while he was feeding pigeons. All of a sudden, he’s a doddering old man? I have no idea.

And that’s that! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for this week’s recap!