Gotham "Mommy's Little Monster" (REVIEW)
written by Omar Castillon (omar_castillon)
Penguin and Galavan finally clash after Butch spills the details of where Penguin’s mother is located. In the previous episode it was already being set up for confrontation but in this week’s episode, things don’t really turn out as clean as it would be for Penguin. Obviously Galavan knew Penguin and his crew was coming but for plot reasons he sort of appears right when Penguin sees his mother. Butch in a sudden twist of fate betrays Penguin after Galavan’s sister discovered the trigger word that would snap him out of having to obey Penguin’s orders. Once again, Penguin is left to fend for himself but not until Galavan does the unthinkable and takes away something Penguin loves; his own mother. It’s not like we, as the audience didn’t see this coming, this was predetermined right when Galavan kidnapped Penguin’s mother to begin with. It was only a matter of time until Galavan finally did the deed or rather giving the order to kill her.
What begins after the events from the beginning is the domino effect of murder and corruption that is Gotham’s bread and butter. It’s strange to see that Galavan finally beat out the other mayoral candidates since there was no mention of voting with the other surviving candidates. So in a sense, Galavan’s plans for Gotham are finally coming to fruition. The problem is that Gordon is becoming a bit more cautious with Galavan and the obvious threat of Penguin retaliating. First though, Penguin has to take care of Butch who escapes and tries to form a gang of his own. This of course doesn’t end well since Penguin has loyal crazy killer friends and Butch’s “allies” sort of squander off. This sets up a pretty awesome gunfight between Gordon, Bullock and Penguin’s henchmen.
In between the gang wars, we also get one of Galavan’s other Gotham ruling seeds in the form of Silver St. Cloud and Bruce Wayne just hanging out and doing whatever puberty crazed rich kids do when Selina crawls into the mansion looking for Bruce. She wants to warn him about Silver being bad news and of course Bruce seems oblivious to this warning since he has a liking to Silver. When Silver suggests all three of them have lunch together, Silver confronts Selina and they have a bit of a tiff. And again, Bruce defends the new love interest when Selina brings up the craziness that is Silver. Silver of course already has a hold on Bruce since he is so smitten by her. Who knows where this will really lead to and if Bruce will see the truth about what Silver’s intentions connecting with Galavan are all about. There is also a brief mention of Selina being slapped by Alfred from a few episodes ago that was pretty funny in the uncomfortable sense.
Back to the Penguin Galavan feud, Penguin has now been marked as a threat by GCPD and that puts Gordon and Bullock in a sticky situation since they finally know the truth about all the arsons and the attempted assassinations of the mayoral candidates. Butch before he escaped his impending doom spilled the beans on Galavan’s plans. Gordon wasn’t too pleased by the results and now has to play along as Penguin plans to kill Galavan at the party celebrating his election. What happens next is by far the most elaborate distraction to ever happen to anyone who is about to get killed. DECOY PENGUINS! Freaking genius on Penguin’s part. They crash in and just start shooting at everyone. It’s cops vs. Penguin henchmen and it is entertaining as hell. What happens afterwards on the other hand is a stand off that puts both Gordon and Bullock into a deeper hole since Gordon confesses the truth about Penguin’s mother’s death. Galavan isn’t pleased.
One more thing to look forward to in this episode is Nygma’s turn to the dark side so to speak. His alter ego presents him with riddles he needs to solve in order to find out the whereabouts of Kristen since she kind of just disappeared. It was a twisted game of treasure hunting as he finds disgusting clues leading up to the discovery of her body. He almost gets caught with the body later on but since he didn’t, he had a sort of rush being almost caught. And that my friend is the Nygma we know as The Riddler. Whether he becomes The Riddler for the rest of the show is up to the writers but that psychotic look was definitely The Riddler in action.
It has been a solid season so far. Not much to complain really since the writers stopped worrying about introducing new characters and slowly building the ones that are present. That and having intriguing plot points that can and will lead to something bigger is the best way to approach this series. I’m just glad it’s not like last season with the criminal of the week formula. Just a few more episodes left until midseason. Let’s see if Gotham keeps the pace going.
