Nygma’s revenge!
What They Say:
The Fearsome Dr. Crane – When Fish reveals one of Cobblepot’s secrets, Maroni decides to test his loyalty; Gordon and Bullock search for a killer who targets those with severe phobias.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While having Gordon over at Arkham was something that could have been interesting, it wasn’t a surprise to see it cut relatively short to get him back at the GCPD, now with a little extra power behind him in order to keep his job since he knows things. There was a decent little murder mystery to work with last time that showed more of the corruption within the ranks of the GCPD and how Gordon is helping to shine a bit of light on it, with others stepping up as well. But for me, the real fun was in watching Fish get out of captivity, re-establish her position a bit and make some forward movement to go after Penguin since she has a whole lot of reason to take him off the board in her path of conquest. She chews scenery in a great way that makes me enjoy all the mobster material a lot more than I expected.
The cold open here goes for something a bit new rather than working with familiar characters as we see Dr. crane “working” with a man that he’s tied to a chair and is hanging it over the side of a building. And he’s attaching a noose to him while checking his heart rate no less. He puts him through a pretty grisly death when you get down to it in quick fashion, making it clear we’ve got our whack job. When the cops check it out in the morning, it has its own little reveals to it with what Nygma finds, but the real story here is Essen warning Bullock to be wary in general because of what Gordon and they all did in arresting Flass. There’s some very connected people out there and having Flass taken off the board for even a little bit means they’ll get things fixed the way they want it.
The show also gives us some time with Fish early on, which is definitely fun, as she puts a call in to Maroni after Penguin tells him that Fish is dead. Maroni has had his reasons to distrust Penguin to be sure, but it’s been largely beneficial for Maroni to have him close by. Maroni’s not the smartest of the mobsters out there, but he’s one that understands how the whole thing works in all its varied ways, so seeing him figuring out how to put the screws to Penguin is definitely enticing. Taking Penguin upstate to an isolated house in the woods, it has Penguin very nervous while Maroni is toying with him about various things that happened in order to get his thoughts out and put it all together as to how Penguin has screwed him over, since he knows he’s working for Falcone all this time.
While we see Fish heading out to sea on board a ship for a bit, Penguin and Maroni’s time is rather predictable in every way as Maroni is toying with him to get Penguin to reveal that he’s actually working for Falcone all this time. The points that they hit come through a little game of secrets, but it’s unfortunate that while the performances are good, we get the obvious with Penguin swiping Maroni’s gun only to find out that it’s loaded with blanks. Penguin’s been due for another beating, so it works out as it pushes him to achieve even more. Maroni has a fun plan for killing him, one that’s old school mobster, as he locks him in a car to be crushed in a compactor since he feels very betrayed by him for obvious reasons. Penguin’s attempts to figure a way out don’t go so well, which is of course nice to see instead of having Maroni have a change of heart right away. Penguin does find a really great way of getting out of it with his cell phne in a way that puts a nice twis ton how this usually goes.
Now that Gordon is getting things back on track in his life a little bit since he’s with the GCPD proper again, he’s found out that Selina is the one that’s been crashing at his place, making for some mildly awkward moments. While Gordon wants to help her out some since he needs her due to the Wayne’s murder, she reveals what she told Bruce about what she didn’t see. That has Gordon heading there to try and make sure that he’s not giving up, but it leads to some complicated moments between the two of them as Bruce is intent on pursuing the case himself and is basically excusing Gordon from it. Not that Gordon will let go, but it’s been months with no leads, so it makes sense that it would go only so far unless something major broke. And there’s been no real hints of it for most of the season so far.
With the various events playing out, we get the ongoing story with what Crane is up to as he goes after another target, one with a phobia involving pigs, and that makes for some cute moments but also some dark moments as he gets kidnapped and put to task. Bullock and Gordon actually manage to save the guy before it turns truly bad, following one hell of a long lead that really doesn’t make sense, but it puts both Bullock and Gordon on different paths. Bullock’s intent on going to the support group that both targets were a part of so he can tell them they caught the perp, but that’s juts because he wants to have dinner and more with one of the women there that he fancies. Gordon wants to do some more detailed research on the body they got from the beginning, but he can’t get Nygma to do it since Essen had to suspend him because he’s been doing things he shouldn’t, such as playing at medical examiner. It’s a little comical in how it all works, played lightly, but I liked that we got both Essen and Gordon admitting that they like Nygma, quirky as hell as he is.
Nygma plays a pretty intense game of revenge with the medical examiner that sets things in a dark direction that reminds us about what Nygma is really like. With that as an unusual subplot, the final act moves towards dealing with Crane as he kidnaps the girl that Bullock’s interested in outright from the meeting that even Bullock’s attending, which sets him even more towards catching him. With Crane intent on working the woman’s fear of pools and drowning, it plays out darkly there as well as she ends up close to death in Bullocks arms at the end. This lets Gordon handle the shoot out with Crane, giving us the main action component of the show, and it works well enough even though Crane manages to get away – and we get a taste of where it’ll go in the future as his son was with him as well, who will be the real Scarecrow someday.
In Summary:
Gotham again has a lot of things in motion, but it continues to feel like the main plot of each episode is the weakest aspect of it. There are things to like with Crane here, but it doesn’t get the time it really deserves to really make an impact or get us into the minds of those involved. The subplots in this episode are what works the best for me, though those are uneven as well in some regards. Maroni and Penguin is spot on and a lot of fun to watch as it plays out as we see how Penguin manages to keep finding a way to survive. Nygma’s storyline gets a little more attention here and he’s another character that survives because of some intense things going on. I’m also interested in seeing how the arc with Thompkins and Gordon is going, but it’s coming across as a bit forced as well, especially in the public display that goes on. With this many episodes into the season so far, it’s pretty clear that this is the style they want to play it as they haven’t really deviated all that much. So it’s a matter of just picking the plots you like and working that and hoping the others manage to come together over time.
Grade: B
