GOTHAM Takes Jim Gordon to a Dark Place

Episode 118 “Everyone Has a Cobblepot”

[Photos: Jessica Miglio/FOX]

Apologies for missing the recap on last week’s episode. Things just got a little tight around here, what with the Power/Rangers wrangling and the FCC rules change and the Supergirl news and the Blade Runner news and Leonard Nimoy’s passing… but in the meantime, you are listening to Heather and Alex discuss Gotham over on the SciFi4Chicks podcast, right?

So, let’s get to this one.

As unbalanced as some people might think this episode was, it’s clearly playing a long game when it comes to certain plot threads. While we (thankfully) didn’t get any Barbara Kean angst this week — and Montoya & Allen are still MIA — we did get a couple of bits of setup for the inevitable confrontation with Alfred’s buddy Reggie.

Not only does Alfred lie to Gordon about his assailant, but he also has Bruce covering as well. It’s through sheer loyalty, of course, and it’s likely to come back to bite them. As they figure out Wayne Enterprises sent Reggie to spy on them, I’m surprised Alfred doesn’t throw in an “I told you so” at his young ward. But he doesn’t (yet), and the confrontation between Alfred and Reggie is either going to be with fisticuffs or tea. One extreme or the other is the only way this will end. Oh, and tears will likely be involved as well.

Plus, we get a glimpse at the complicated relationship between Bruce and Selina. She thinks Bruce is crazy to dig into Reggie’s involvement, but then turns around with an offer to help. “You know how to find me.” And she’s out the door. Very Selina.

Fish Mooney, after scooping out her own eyeball last week, apparently earned a little back because she’s got gumption. This week, she finally meets Dr. Francis Dulmacher, who has given her a new — blue — eye. (Guess a contact lens is cheaper than no-eye CGI…) And even from her hospital bed, she angles for power. Really, she’s got no standing. The best and most logical thing for Dulmacher to do would be to kill her, storm the basement, and pull his man out while accepting the collateral damage of losing a few random donors.  The fact that he’s actually entertaining any notions of working with her means Jada Pinkett Smith has a contract and she has to stay on the show for a while longer.

Dulmacher’s view is that we’re all a collection of parts, and he runs a facility where people discreetly enjoy “part replacement” privileges. And he asks a very telling question: “When do you stop being you and become something else?” Certainly, we have the beginnings of the Dollmaker here. This is the same guy referenced in the “Selina Kyle” episode where kids were being snatched. When they make their deal, it’s hard not to think Dulmacher is perhaps indulging Fish like a cat plays with a mouse before killing it…

Jeffrey Combs got the short end of the stick. Only one episode to be slimy, and then he gets his head CGI’d onto a woman’s body?

And let’s talk about that CGI for a second. Not only was it tremendously terrible in terms of technical execution, but it also feels a little too far-fetched even for Gotham, despite some silly wit’s notion that this is a prequel to the Adam West Batman of 1966. I get that the Dollmaker does this kind of thing, but that kind of radical surgery is only now being talked about in the real world, and we know Gotham is set somewhen in the past because of the technology in evidence. Would Dulmacher even have the means to successfully transplant a head? Assuming he could, would it be too much to ask to have the visual effects actually look better than a fan film made in someone’s garage?  I mean, that was Charles Barkley Turrible right there.

Detective James Gordon is starting to work the system a bit, and I’m not sure I like where this is going.  Upon learning that Detective Arnold Flass has been released with the murder charges dropped, Gordon is fit to be tied. But when he confronts Commissioner Loeb about it, he learns that it was Harvey who rolled over and changed his story.

Turns out, as Harvey explains to Jim, half the guys in the uniform “have a Cobblepot” in their pasts. Each of them faced the moment when they were tested, when they had to (metaphorically speaking) take someone to the end of the pier and put a bullet in that someone’s head. There’s a file on each of them, and Loeb uses that as leverage against most of the GCPD, including his old partner, Detective Griggs.

The only “untouchable” is Harvey Dent, it seems. Brand new to Gotham and squeaky clean, Dent becomes Gordon’s de facto partner in trying to shake down Griggs, but he’s not talking much. Instead, he “hypothetically” sends them to a Chinese restaurant for answers.  Naturally, it’s a trap.

But then there’s Harvey to the rescue. Because despite everything he presents to the world, Harvey Bullock is still a good guy on the inside. And he identifies with Gordon more than he lets on, as he tells the younger detective, “We all have our Cobblepots.” And after the shootout at the Chinese restaurant, Bullock is in for a penny, in for a pound. And they shake down Griggs to find out Falcone is Loeb’s partner in keeping a leash on the GCPD.

Which is the devil in the details this week, because Gordon figures his Cobblepot could actually be able to help them. It’s not a deal Bullock likes, but the Penguin manages to get Gordon to let him have access to the files for brief moments, which Gordon will allow but not for any cops.

The deal gets them out to an old farmhouse Loeb bought twenty years ago — about the same time his wife died under mysterious circumstances — and when the kindly old couple figure out Gordon & Company aren’t really there on Falcone’s say-so, out come the guns, after which Gordon and Bullock (of course they win) go upstairs to find Loeb’s daughter Miriam living locked away in the attic. Turns out she’s the culprit in the death of Mrs. Loeb, and she’s not quite all there. So Loeb has her hidden instead of enduring the scandal and embarrassment of having a family member in Arkham.

This is where Gordon’s path starts to waver a bit for me. I think the show’s overplayed the “righteous do-gooder” too much for it to be that easy for him to start playing the game. He flat out says he doesn’t want Loeb to resign (better the devil you know…), but instead takes his endorsement for president of the police officers’ union, because good ol’ Jim Gordon has some politickin’ to do. And Arnold Flass will be back behind bars. And Gordon gets Harvey’s file out of hock.

So Harvey’s free and clear, but he understands how deals with the devil work. And now Jim’s done two: one with Oswald, one with Loeb. Of course, the balance of control is different in each one, but they could both blow up spectacularly.  And you know they will.

And the most important part: when the show comes back April 13, we’ll see the fallout of Miss Kringle in the 1950’s outfit, choosing Tom the uniformed cop over Ed Nygma, because she knows there are men better than Arnold Flass, and she’s completely oblivious (?) to Nygma’s affections.

Or is she?…

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