In last week’s episode of Gotham, Gordon made an ally in Harvey Dent, and Bruce bonded with Cat after Gordon decided to stash her at Wayne Manor to keep her safe. Meanwhile, Oswald discovered Liza’s true loyalties, and things heated up between Barbara and Montoya after Barbara left Gordon.
In this week’s mid-season finale, “Lovecraft,” Dent’s plan to use Cat to flush out the person behind the Wayne murders backfires, sending Bruce and Cat running for their lives. Meanwhile, Gordon gets reassigned to Arkham after another Gotham citizen winds up dead on his watch. Read on to find out if Gotham delivers the corruption and creepiness we have come to expect.
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Assassins Attack Wayne Manor
The episode opens with a woman approaching Wayne Manor. She quickly kills a random groundskeeper, then rubs his blood all over her face and gathers several of her men to head toward the house. Yet the woman comes to the door alone, claiming to have been in an accident and Alfred helps her inside.
Bruce and Cat are hanging out at Wayne Manor. Cat is teaching Bruce how to walk on the stair railing like it is a balance beam. Things are going well enough until the two get into an argument because Bruce says that Cat is not a nice person. Before they can clear the air, Cat spots the female assassin and the assassin clearly recognizes her.
Alfred realizes something is wrong, so he tells the kids to run while he fights off the woman and her partners. Bruce and Cat escape through the servants’ entrance, but several of their pursuers — the ones Alfred does not kill — are close behind. Alfred gets shot — or at least grazed — during the attack, but he shrugs it off as a scratch so he can start the search for Bruce.
Gordon Goes Down for the Count
Gordon and Bullock show up after the attack on Wayne Manor to find that Bruce and Selina are missing. Alfred is furious that Gordon’s “girl” brought this trouble to his door, and Bullock wants to know why Cat is hanging out at Wayne Manor. Gordon finally lets Bullock in on the fact that Cat is an eyewitness in the Wayne murder case.
Bullock and Gordon get into it over Gordon keeping this from Bullock, but Alfred intervenes and gets them to back down so they can focus on finding the kids. Gordon explains Dent’s plan to trap Lovecraft and says he will work on finding Lovecraft so he can call off the assassins. Gordon tells Bullock to hit the streets and talk to his contacts, and Alfred decides to tag along.
Everyone wonders how the assassins found Cat at Wayne Manor, and Dent eventually admits that he leaked Gordon’s name to a few key sources in order to achieve credibility on the eyewitness story. Gordon is furious because he knows the killers found Cat through him, but Dent tells him they need to work together to find Lovecraft and get him to call off the killers. Gordon and Dent split up to search the condos Lovecraft keeps under his mistress’ name.
Gordon tracks Lovecraft down, but Lovecraft claims he had nothing to do with the assassins. He says the same people gunning for Cat are also after him because he knows too much. Lovecraft tries to show Gordon files he gathered after the Wayne murders — he noticed a run on Wayne Enterprises stock prior to the killings and looked into it since whoever bought the stock was presumably involved in the deaths — but the assassins arrive before Gordon can learn much of anything. Gordon fights off the female assassin while her men chase after Lovecraft. Gordon holds his own for a while, but the woman ultimately gets the upper hand and knocks Gordon out.
When Gordon comes to, Lovecraft has been shot to death and his body has been left in his bathtub. The assassins killed him with Gordon’s gun because Gordon can never catch a break.
Alfred and Bullock Team Up
While Gordon is fighting assassins, Alfred and Bullock head to Fish Mooney’s place because they learned that Cat has done business with one of Fish’s fences. Fish figures out that Cat is the mysterious eyewitness everyone has heard about and wants to know why she should help Harvey find her. When Alfred uses his particular brand of charm to help Fish get in touch with her compassionate side, she gives them a lead on the fence’s location.
I am not overly fond of either Alfred or Bullock, but their brief team-up is a nice change of pace that helps drive the action in this week’s episode.
Bruce and Cat’s Big Adventure
After changing out of his clothes to something that will pass on the streets, Bruce and Cat run into Ivy Pepper. Cat and Ivy are apparently old friends, and Bruce recognizes Ivy as Pepper’s daughter. Bruce and Ivy do not get off to the best start, but Ivy calms down because she realizes that Bruce is not responsible for what happened to her parents. Cat asks Ivy where she can find Clyde the fence and Ivy points her in his direction. Then Cat drags Bruce out of there as quickly as she can because anyone with common sense would be scared of Ivy.
Cat and Bruce go to see Clyde, and Cat hands over several items she swiped from Wayne Manor. Clyde offers her a pitiful amount of money to keep the conversation going until his men arrive. Then he has the kids locked up because he made a deal to turn Cat over to the assassins.
Cat and Bruce do their best to escape from the locked room, but one of the assassins gets to them first. They manage to slip his grasp and are forced to hide from the other assassins. Bruce decides to act as a distraction so Cat can get away, since the assassins are after her, not him. The female assassin tries to get Bruce to give up Cat’s location, but Bruce refuses to help her.
Alfred shows up, the female assassin escapes and Cat is nowhere to be found. While Bruce and Alfred share a much-needed hug, Gordon and Bullock arrest everyone else still breathing.
Gordon’s Punishment
Mayor James is furious over Lovecraft’s death and decides to spin a tale about suicide. He tells the media that Lovecraft took his own life because he was being wrongfully targeted by Gordon, who is then assigned to Arkham Asylum. But while Gordon is thrown under the bus, Dent walks away free and clear because, as Mayor James puts it, he knows how to walk the line. I wonder why the show is taking this approach to Dent’s character. He proved his incompetence by releasing Gordon’s name and almost getting Cat killed, and he proved his shadiness by letting Gordon take the heat for his mistake, all the while claiming to be a good guy. I do not know why Gordon would ever trust Dent again after this mess.
Gordon and Bullock part ways on good terms, and Edward Nygma stops by to give Gordon an awkward goodbye hug. Are you surprised the show is breaking up the Gordon-Bullock partnership so early in the season? Is it odd that the show brought in Nygma for such a brief moment? How long do you think Gordon will be assigned to Arkham?
Other Happenings
— At the end of the episode, Cat drops by Wayne Manor to return the things she stole and have a proper goodbye with Bruce. This proper goodbye includes their first kiss, a sweet but awkward gesture that feels perfect for their relationship.
— Falcone has Oswald brought in to question him about the armory hit. Falcone wants to know how Maroni knew where he kept his money, but Oswald keeps insisting that Maroni had nothing to do with the robbery. Oswald tells Falcone that he has a mole in his organization and that kind of behavior is more suited to someone like Fish than to Maroni. Falcone has a hard time believing anything Oswald says about Fish because of the bad blood between them, so he tells Oswald to find the mole and get him proof of Fish’s betrayal.
— Fish keeps playing Maroni while gathering men to move against him. Because of the hit on his money stash, Falcone is raising the taxes 25% and his people are not impressed. Fish uses this to her advantage, as she tells her right-hand man to approach the other bosses and get them on board with her plan to take Falcone down. Yet, despite this being the mid-season finale, Fish does not make a move against Falcone. Instead, we just get more set-up for their supposed war to come. I like Fish as a villain, but something needs to happen in this mob storyline soon because it is all getting way too repetitive.
What did you think of this week’s mid-season finale of Gotham? Do you like the budding friendship/romance between Bruce and Cat? Did you get a little choked-up during that Alfred-Bruce hug? Are you getting bored by all this build-up to the Fish versus Falcone war? Will you be tuning in when the show returns with new episodes next year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
Gotham returns January 5, 2015 at 8pm on FOX.
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
