This week's Gotham continues the strong 4th season for the hit Fox TV show. Gotham gets introduced to a new serial killer, Grundy becomes king of the ring, and we find out why Lee is back. The main current story lines from the show are:
Nygma story arc – “Ed’s gonna be smart again”:
Nygma sees Dr. Lee Thompkins at the bar and engages in some
playful banter with her. She is clearly in a dark place (both literally and
figuratively). Nygma asks Lee to help fix him and make him smart again. Lee
emphatically turns him down and says that she will never help him. Nygma puts that aside and enrolls Grundy in a few underground boxing matches. Grundy dominates his competition, leading to him becoming the crowd favorite and a hefty pay day for Nygma.
Lee patches up Grundy after a fight and sees that instead of
blood he has swamp water coming out of his wounds and he is missing a heartbeat.
She shrugs that off, chalks it up to typical Gotham craziness. Lee tries to
tell Grundy that Nygma is using him, but Nygma manages to interrupt the
conversation. He again tries to convince her to help him get smart, and she
denies him once again.
Nygma follows Lee and sees that she has set up an
underground clinic to help the less fortunate. I knew that under the tough
exterior, there was still the good ole kind hearted Lee we all know and love.
Lee is running low on medicine, so she agrees to take Nygma’s money and help
him regain his intelligence. It turns out that Lee is guilt ridden about her
role in the Tetch virus affecting the narrows and she came back to Gotham to
help the underprivileged people.
My thoughts: I’m really enjoying this story line, mostly due to it's humor and the fact that it is chalk full of fun.
Nygma’s stupidity is hilarious and so are his interactions with the equally
lacking-in-brain-cells Grundy. It is also great to see Lee back and we know it’s
only a matter of time before her and Jim cross paths again.
Penguin & Sophia story arc – “Get the shovel”:
Sophia has been chipping away at Penguin’s ice cold outer
shell by using slight manipulations to remind him of his mother. Jim is getting
tired of waiting and goes to her apartment to question her plan. Sophia gives
herself a deadline of a couple of days to take care of Penguin or she would
leave Gotham if Jim wants.
Sophia cancels on a lunch date with Penguin, making him
suspicious. The only logical way to deal with this is to send Zsasz to spy on
her. It turns out that instead of lunch with Penguin, she had lunch with the mayor. Zsasz
continues to do some digging and it comes to light that Sophia has purchased The Heritage Hotel and
built a wall and gate on the hotel's grounds. Penguin does not take this news lightly and shows up at
Sophia’s house. He says he knows her plan is to build a fortress to attack him and he forces her to show him the hotel.
It turns out she has actually transformed the hotel into an orphanage leading Penguin to
apologize and her to have an even deeper hold over him.
My thoughts: I am
still unsure about the motives going on here. Is Sophia playing Jim - trying to buy time to make Penguin stronger and rule Gotham with him, or is she in fact playing Penguin? Only time will tell, but as long as Zsasz keeps rolling out the one liners and Penguin keeps up his
crazed antics, I’m sure it will remain entertaining.
Professor Pyg story arc – “Oink Oink”:
A crooked GCPD officer is lured into a creepy room where Pyg
sneaks up behind him and butchers him. Pyg then puts a severed pig’s head mask
on the body and leaves him for the GCPD to find. Harvey let’s Jim know that the
officer is a dirty cop, or that’s the rumor at least, and the officer was
working with Penguin. Jim decides to let Penguin know one of the cops on his
payroll has been murdered. Penguin of course is willing to help the
investigation and the GCPD. His accountant lets Jim know that a person recently
applied for a burglary permit from a place called ‘The Pork Barrel’ – a butcher
shop in Gotham.
Jim and Harvey bring in the small time crook from the
butcher shop for questioning. In the dumpster behind his shop is a decapitate
pig. As Jim and Harvey are charging him for murder, he rats out someone he
calls ‘the professor.’ They only spoke on the phone, but the professor had him
prepare 4 pigs heads to be dropped off at a nondescript location.The next stop for Jim and Harvey is to go interrogating a
bunch of dirty cops. They know that Pyg is after corrupt officers that are working
for Penguin and he has at least three unused pig head’s. As they are tracking
down these officers, Pyg is one step ahead of them and has left two more bodies
for the GCPD to find. Harvey realizes the killer knows inside information about schedules
and routes for the GCPD and there is a chance that Pyg might be a disgruntled
officer.
Jim and Harvey follow a lead to an abandoned warehouse. After
a shockingly savage trap laid by Pyg, Jim gets knocked out and wakes up in
Pyg’s lair where he meets the psycho – face to pig face. Pyg says he is a huge
fan of Jim’s and lets him know that Harvey is dirty. Pyg politely excuses
himself and goes to take care of Harvey. Jim manages to get free of his bonds
and right as he approaches Harvey, Pyg cuts Harvey’s throat and escapes. At the
hospital Jim asks Harvey how long he’s been taking money from Penguin. He’s finally
figured out that Harvey is dirty and can barely look at him in the eyes. Jim
tells Harvey that him taking money from Penguin stops now.
My thoughts: Pyg
is a sick bastard, but is entertaining as hell to watch. He is eccentric and boisterous
– like when he is shown creating his pig masks with opera music blaring. He has proven to be a very calculated killer, and I have a feeling he has quite the plan in store for more members of the GCPD.It was disappointing to see Jim and Harvey’s relationship
take another hit this episode. The times of them two just being buddy-cops
seems to be in the rearview mirror.
Next week on Gotham:
We didn’t get a glimpse of Bruce at all in this episode.
Next week we get to finally check in on our soon to be dark
knight. Bruce seems to be going off the rails a little bit, spending time with
a new girl at a club and then getting into fist fights. He doesn't look like he is handling what happened between him and Ra's well. Pyg has caused
tensions to rise not only for the GCPD but for Penguin and his men as well. This leads to
a massive standoff between both groups, who appear to be heavily armed.
Unfortunately it also looks like Jim and Harvey’s relationship is heading to a
breaking point next week. What do you know, Jim also managed to
find some sort of grenade launcher – I can’t imagine that not being a good
time!
