Gotham "Scarification" (REVIEW)
written by Omar Castillon (omar_castillon)
Finally we get some context as to what Galavan is up to in Gotham City. Before we get into that though, Penguin needs to retrieve one more artifact and lots of destruction in order to be in Galavan’s good graces. It seems that Penguin is still a little broken up by the fact that he is not really the king of Gotham as he once declared. Galavan does have some heavy strings to pull and after last week, he has influence in GCPD as well with Gordon respecting Galavan. Things do heat up (no pun intended) when Penguin hires some special arsonists for the job.
Six degrees of separation would be the best way to describe how Penguin gets into contact with these special arsonists. He has to convince them through Selina and Butch to go out and perform the deed. It is also weird to note that bad guys in Gotham City like to shop at the most ridiculous store that rivals Sam’s Club and Costco. The Merc is one of the famous underground places to get illegal weapons and I would assume illegal drugs as well. Gordon raids one of Penguin’s money laundering locations earlier leading up to The Merc and a brief yet destructive raid occurs once the strike force come into The Merc. One guy in particular steals a brick of C4 only to be chased down by Gordon and Bullock and then shot down by means of explosion. I still can’t believe that someone on network TV no less blew up graphically in front of Gordon and Bullock. This was one of the biggest highlights of the episode. I’m actually kind of glad Gotham is not pulling any punches when it comes to violence. Then again Galavan did order his sister to gouge out one of Wayne Enterprise’s employee’s eye.
Going back to the Selina/arsonist storyline, it turns out that Selina used to play with the Pike’s (arsonist family) only sister Bridgit (Michelle Veintimilla) until for reasons of her own, she stopped talking to her. Bridgit seems like the shy type at first since her brothers are a bunch of crazy manipulative psychopaths, but it does take her other brother who blew up to take charge on the mission Penguin assigned to the Pikes. It is then that she develops a sort of thrill when she is in contact with fire despite at first hating it. We are then given another villain origin story in the form of Bridgit becoming Firefly! She mistakenly gets into danger with Gordon and Bullock as the Pikes hit one other property that is connected to Wayne Enterprises. Unfortunately one of the forgettable strike force members is killed in action and basically sets up the conflict between GCPD and the Pikes.
The reason for all of the destructive mayhem is for the sole purpose of obtaining a knife that Galavan requested earlier. Penguin wonders what the whole point of the knife was about and is then given a quick history lesson about the five richest families in Gotham City from a couple hundred years ago. Basically Galavan was once Dumas and an ancestor of Theo Galavan was maimed by the Wayne family for having been with Celestine Wayne. The Dumas name was banished by the Wayne family and the Dumas had to regroup on the other side of the Atlantic and had to change their family name to Galavan. Now we finally have some pieces together in order to paint a bigger picture of what is in store for not only Gotham but Bruce Wayne as well.
One weird not to consider in this episode is Gordon, Lee, Kristen and Nygma sharing a nice moment together with fondue. This was one of the nicer moments in an episode full of dark conspiracies and brutal violence. So far this season has had a steady pace in terms of quality which was lacking in the previous season always fluctuating from enjoyable to downright cringe worthy. I’m digging this season quite a bit. Definitely check out this week’s episode.
