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“Gotham” recap (1.16): A Clown Without Pity

Welcome back to Gotham, the show about a self righteous homeless detective who polices a town fashioned from Tim Burton‘s castoffs.

This episode was heavily marketed as the introduction of the Joker, easily the most iconic villain of the Batman canon. Keep in mind that this is episode 16 of Gotham‘s first season. Gotham is blowing through villains at a furious pace, which makes me wonder what’s going to happen if the show gets renewed. Who will be left? Polka-Dot man? Kite-man? I’m not joking, these are legit Batman villains.

Anyhoozle, we open with Bruce Wayne asleep in front of the fire with a notebook in his lap. Over at Oswald’s, Momma Cobblepot is singing “when you’re smiling” to an almost empty club of confused punks. Fish is ruling the prison and rocking a fierce head wrap.

And guess who else decides to show up? Barbara Keane! Judging by her appearance, I guess she spent the last month tipping back martinis in her parents country home. Apparently wealthy WASPs are not the best sobriety partners.

Barbara finds Selina and Ivy crashing at her place, but instead of being upset that baby vagrants have eaten all her snacks, she plops down beside them to talk shit about Gordon while eating dry cereal with her bare hands (which I just call eating).

Meanwhile, Gordon and Doc Caliente are at the circus which is definitely a normal date for two adult people to be on. They are watching the Flying Graysons (aka Robin’s family) perform when a car full of clowns shows up and starts brawling with the Graysons. It’s a circus rumble!

Gordon stops the fight and shockingly does not get a pie to the face. Missed opportunity, Gotham.

Momma Cobblepot finishes her song, and only her son gives her applause. When a drunk guy boos her, Penguin calmly takes a bottle and beats the shit out of him. Everyone’s a critic.

Gordon interrogates the fighters while Doc tends to their wounds. While he gets nothing, Doc finds out that there is a longstanding family feud between the acrobats (Graysons) and the clowns (the Lloyds), and that the two men were fighting over Lyla the Snake Charmer. Gordon tries to send Doc home, but she’s like “Yeah, like I’m NOT gonna investigate a circus brawl with snake people. Get me some fucking cotton candy and a folding chair bc this is gonna be good.”

They go to the snake charmer’s trailer, where they find her son Jerome. He was upset that his mom has been missing all day, and that the snake is agitated. The Ringmaster tells Gordon that Lyla is probably out whoring it up, as is her wont. Dude, her son is RIGHT there. Gordon has Jerome release the snake and the snake slithers across the campgrounds to Lyla’s dead body stashed in a trunk. Jerome breaks down in tears and the Ringmaster is like, “Whoops, you found her.”

Over at the Dungeon of Despair, Fish Mooney is giving a rousing speech to the prisoners while standing on a dude’s back like it’s a soap box. She wants everyone to band together like a family and take on the prison. Everyone gets on board with her immediately, because nobody steps to Fish Mooney.

Over at the circus crime scene, the Ringmaster tells Gordon that they found Lyla’s body in the field, and they were planning on burying her once they hit the road. He then tells Gordon that if the killer was one of them, they would dole out some swift carnie justice. Sidebar, I watched American Horror Story: Freak Show, so now I basically have a law degree in Carnie Justice. And people say television isn’t educational.

Bullock watches all the circus folk get hauled into the GCPD, and his face is like, “what the cirque du fuck is going on here?” Gordon asks Jerome about his mom, and he says that she was a wonderful mother who had a lot of lovers/sex partners. Gordon wants to know how he feels about it, and Jerome is all sex positive. Way to be enlightened, kid. Apparently Lyla was hooking up with the two guys who started the brawl, so the detectives interview them. Both deny killing Lyla and blame their rival.

We also meet two young star crossed lovers who broke up because of this ongoing feud, which started before World War 1 over a stolen horse. These people can hold a grudge. Also, the girl calls Young Grayson a “flying douchebag,” which might be my new favorite insult.

Fish is meditating when the guards come to retrieve another prisoner. She tells them that she’s the new boss and she wants a word with the Powers That Be. They demand prisoner 57A, but she is willing to bargain for fresh water, blankets, fruit and magazines. They scoff at her demands until she orders her men to beat the prisoner to death, thus rendering his parts useless. The guards are shocked by the stalemate, and Fish kisses the dead prisoner’s body to thank him for his sacrifice.

Back at the station, Doc and Nigma give everyone the forensics rundown; Lyla was beaten and stabbed to death, possibly with an axe. And according to her time of death, both families would have been on stage performing. Gordon sends the carnies home and tells them to stop fighting over a dead horse.

Doc likes it when Gordon acts all tough and invites him to dinner at her place. They are then approached by Cicero, a blind fortune teller and his seeing eye child.

Cicero delivers a message from Lyla from beyond the grave: the servant of the devil lies in the garden of the iron sisters. Gordon is not impressed, but Doc really wants to take the tidbit and run with it. Despite being a woman of science, Doc is all about psychic messages. Her enthusiasm rubs Gordon the wrong way, as his default setting is grumpy old man.

Over at Wayne Manor, Bruce prepares for a meeting with the board of directors of Wayne Enterprises. Alfred begs him not to go, as he fears it will put him in danger, but Bruce is adamant.

Over at Casa Keane, Barbara is modeling different outfits for Selina and Ivy. They agree that if she is going to see Jim, she shouldn’t look like she’s trying too hard. Barbara, don’t take fashion advice from these kids; Selina is wearing goggles as a hat! They also tell her to dress like she’s going sailing, which is pretty good generic white people advice.

Gordon and Doc are having a nice home-cooked meal when Doc suddenly solves Cicero’s riddle. She realizes that he’s talking about the park under Arkham bridge and wants to grab some flashlights and investigate like she’s Spencer Fucking Hastings. Gordon (who is obvs a total Aria) would much rather stay home and have sex, but Doc is undeterred.

So they go off to wander through a hobo-ridden park, which Gordon says is no place for a lady. Doc finally calls him out on his hypocrisy: he claims to want a strong woman, yet he is constantly trying to cut her out of the action. Burn. Before he can reply, Gordon finds a bloody axe with the markings belonging to a defunct Satanist cult.

They bring the evidence to the station, where Gordon tries to send Doc home. She apologizes for hijacking their date and he allows her to stay for the interrogation. Date night is back on!

Gordon has brought Cicero and Jerome into the station to confront them about the axe. He accuses Cicero of covering up the murder, and says that he must be protecting someone. Then Gordon lays it all out: Jerome killed his mother and Cicero covered it up because he is Jerome’s father. Jerome tries to claim that his father was a sea captain, but Gordon tells him they can do the DNA test to prove it.

Jerome starts laughing maniacally and calling his mother a cold hearted whore who wouldn’t stop nagging him. Apparently, you can only listen to your mom bang clowns for so long before you snap like a twig. And thus, we have the birth of the Joker. It’s not the best origin story, but Cameron Monaghan (Shameless) turns in an effectively creepy performance.

After arresting Jerome, Gordon and Doc chill in the locker room. Doc is hardly put off by the evening’s descent into matricide, and finds the whole cop thing thrilling. Gordon calls her an unusual woman, and she’s like, “Obvs you don’t know any women. Most of us have homes and jobs and brains…we’re just like men, but prettier!” They decide to go home and finally bang it out, and start kissing in the locker room. Of course, this is exactly the moment that Barbara shows up in her sexy regatta outfit handpicked by street urchins. She storms out.

Over at Oswald’s, Victor Zsasz shows up to tell Penguin that his club fucking sucks and he needs to do something to turn business around. He brings him Butch Gilzean, who is still alive, but has been tortured into submission by Zsasz. He is now Penguin’s puppet to do with as he pleases. Fish is not gonna like this.

Bruce Wayne gets all dolled up in his tiny suit and goes to confront the Wayne Enterprises board of directors about all their corruption and weapons manufacturing. They assure him they’ll take care of it, and by “take care of it” they mean figuring out how to murder this child.

Back at the precinct, Bullock deduces that Gordon got laid because he smells like lady soap. The star-crossed couple comes to thank Gordon for settling their family’s dispute. Apparently all you need to end a century-long carnie feud is to get yelled at by some doofus. They are now engaged and will give birth to Robin, the Boy Wonder.

In the dungeon, Fish gets her meeting with the big boss, and Schmidt the guard gets to do some time with her prison family.

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