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!
