Previously: Fish Mooney was kidnapped for 10 minutes and Gordon used some bad guy means for a good guy end.
—
The Fearsome Dr. Crane
Marines: Yes, I’m doing another Gotham recap because we’re real behind and Sweeney is “too busy” to do these recaps. Mmmhmm.
Kidding! I love Sweeney and am totally okay taking one for the team. I also expect an extra round or two of alcohol when I see her face in April. So.
Sweeney: I mean, you already resolved to steal all the wine all the time always because of some other thing that happened in some other recap. I don’t really remember except that you’re gonna steal wine and also I’m tired and now I’m also stalling because fuck this show. But yeah, sure, lots-o-booze, girl. Promise, promise.
Mari: I don’t remember either but commandeering all the wine either, but it feels like something I’d do!
Murder Rooftop. I’m just going to assume that any structure where we start an episode in Gotham is a Murder Structure. Our Murderer of the Week [MotW] is dragging a man who is strapped to a chair and has a black bag over his head. MotW uses a pulley to hitch Dead Man Sitting up and over the edge of the roof, adding a noose around his neck, so he’s precariously perched like so:
MotW takes the black bag off of Dead Man Sitting’s head and shakes him awake, which is real rude in the best of circumstances, and extra rude when you are waking someone up to face their untimely demise. MotW pulls out a stethoscope and listens to Dead Man Sitting’s heartbeat for a second before cutting something free, causing Dead Man Sitting to fall. He stops mid-way, caught and killed by the noose.
LIGHTING CLOUDS. GOTHAM.
Maroni pops open a bottle of champagne as Penguin tells him that Fish is totally, 100% either dead or unwell. I mean, last time Penguin assumed this much, that turned out to be not so true. BUT SURE, PENGUIN. I like your unfailing confidence.
Sweeney: NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY, PENGUIN.
Mari: Maroni thinks this creates some interesting opportunities. Penguin says he’s already claimed Fish’s club, in Maroni’s name. Maroni says that’s cool because “a bird in the hand is nine tenths of the law.” Penguin gives a funny, forced chuckle and widens his eyes a little like “i-di-ot.”
Maroni gets a call at that exact moment from Fish, who rats Penguin out for being a dirty double crosser. Maroni tries to play like he doesn’t believe Fish, but how could he not when Penguin is being all oily and snivelling and weird right in front of him?
After Maroni hangs up, he says he has to go upstate to see a guy about a thing. He invites Penguin to come with him. Penguin does a bad job of pretending like he’s totally cool with going.
Murder Rooftop. Nygma is poking the body when Essen arrives on the scene and asks Bullock for the set-up. Bullock tells her the basics and points out the pulley he assumes the killer used to pull Dead Man Sitting back up onto the roof. Essen wonders why he’d go through the trouble and not just leave the body hanging.
Nygma approaches with a riddle (the more you cut me, the bigger I am) and some relevant evidence (there is a hole on the victim’s body). Nygma says the hole is post-mortem and he’ll have to exam it more at the lab. Essen says that the medical examiner will do the medical examining, thanks so much. Nygma is in charge of forensics and needs to quit it. He smiles tightly and says he understands.
Alex: Another name for the Nygma Burn Book!
Mari: Essen asks where Gordon is. Bullock says he’s doing personal stuff and walks a little closer to the edge of the building. Essen tells Bullock to back away, seeing as how Flass had a lot of friends. Bullock reminds Essen that she was the one who cuffed Flass. She amends that they all need to be careful. Bullock looks around and notices that four cops are literally just standing around this crime scene, glaring at him. Stupid show.
Sweeney: Cop work seems to require very little detecting the shit out of things and a lot of getting your glare on. I can totally glower at people all day. How well do we think this job pays?
Mari: Meh. I can’t imagine that Gotham has a particularly high cost of living.
Clock Tower Apartment. Selina is hanging out, eating cereal out of a box. Gordon enters and Selina tries to slink away but Gordon can tell something is up, mainly thanks to the cheese whiz and crackers left out on the table. He catches her, she’s a brat, she tells him about not being a witness to the Wayne murder and then runs off, out the window.
Also, they mentioned Barbara in this scene and if she’s in this episode, I’m adding a couple of shots to my Drinks Sweeney Owes Me total.
Sweeney: Fair.
Mari: Gordon visits Baby Batman at Wayne Manor and gets a rather cold welcome. Baby Batman is super unimpressed with Gordon’s detective skills, considering in all these terrible episodes months, he’s only managed to find one witness who turned out to be a liar. BB releases Gordon from his promise, saying he’ll do his own detecting, and storms out. Alfred gets in on the sick burn action and says he’ll show Gordon the door.
Maroni wakes Penguin, who fell asleep during the road trip. They head inside to a cabin where they enjoy coffee and sticky looking oatmeal. Maroni gives a big speech about getting away from the city with good friends. Penguin is concerned about the supposed business Maroni came to handle, but Maroni tells him not to worry about that. Instead, Maroni says he’s been worrying about that land he gave Falcone in exchange for Penguin. Or the fact that one of his men got killed with a knife in a gun fight. It’s okay if you don’t remember any of these plot points. Really. It’s really, really okay.
Alex: Phew! I can’t really remember any of this stuff but I’m mostly just sitting here wondering how the hell it’s taken Maroni THIS long to figure out that Penguin is double/triple/quaruple/whatever-crossing him. Literally everything about Penguin screams ‘don’t trust me, ever, seriously’.
Sweeney: I don’t understand why anybody in Gotham makes any of the choices they make, which I guess comes in handy when trying to justify shit like this.
Mari: Maroni says that they each have their talents and then reaches out and grabs Penguin’s hand. His is that he’s “deceptively quick” for a big guy. And by that, I guess he means he’s “deceptively quick after another person calls him and lays the plot points out for him.” Good job, Maroni. You are really good at that.
GCPD. A lady calls out for Bullock. He replies, “that’s my name, don’t wear it out.” I searched for a solid 10 minutes to find a gif of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman saying that same line, with the added, “or else you’ll have to buy me a new one.” All I got was this:
Alex: Another booze gif for the vaults! Hurrah!
Sweeney: A real gem, too. Mari using this gif is the one good thing to come out of this episode.
Mari: Bullock simmers down a bit when he sees the pretty lady. Turns out that Dead Man Sitting had this lady’s number in his pocket. The lady, Scottie, tells Bullock that she was DMS’s sponsor. They were in a support group for phobics. Bullock asks if this is a joke and Scottie tells him not to be an ass about it.
Scottie shares that DMS’s phobia was of heights. This makes Bullock suspicious of the other members of the support group, but Scottie says it is completely anonymous and the only person she knew personally was DMS. Bullock gets distracted by her face.
Some older man is leaving his house when he stops dead in his tracks. Murderer of the Week (okay. Dr. Crane, since the episode title gave it away…) is standing there with a pig.
Alex:
Wrong Dr. Crane? Sorry.
Mari: The man, we’ll call him NO NOT PIGS!, freaks out and tries to head off in the other direction, but some burly dude is there to stop and taser him.
GCPD. Nygma is examining the body. He starts fishing around in the victim’s body and of course, gets caught. The medical examiner walks in with Essen and Nygma’s all, “oh what? My hand in this body? NOTHING TO SEE HERE.”
Essen has no choice but to suspend Nygma.
Alex: What? NO. Doesn’t she realise he’s the only character who I don’t want to stab in the eye?
Sweeney: I mean, probably, since this show’s whole jam is to just keep giving us more and more terrible while sidelining anything that shows a mere glimmer of promise.
Mari: Murder Warehouse. Probably one we’ve seen before. Who knows! Bullock and Gordon are chit-chatting about their respective love lives. Bullock is #TeamInara which endears me to him about 0.1%. Also, he jokes about how broody and growly Gordon would be without a woman. This bro-chat is interrupted by a scream. They remember they are cops and run off in that direction. In a back room, they find a man in a pig mask, NO NOT PIGS! tied to a chair, and three potbelly pigs just wandering around. Pig Mask moves to attack them, and Gordon and Bullock both shoot to kill. Bullock boasts about how his thin lead turned out to be a perfect lead. I wouldn’t boast, Bullock. This is Gotham. Every lead you guys get pays off.
Fish is on a boat. Why do you have to leave Gotham by boat? IDK.
Alex: Shhhh! She’s leaving, don’t ask questions, just go with it. BYE FISH!
Mari: BYE FISH!
Bullock and Gordon report back to Essen. Bullock is totally sure this case is all solved and heads off to tell the phobia support group there is nothing to be scared of. *rimshot*
I’m sorry.
Of course, Gordon thinks the perp is still out there and no one believes him. He wants Nygma to take a look at the hole in the first victim’s body. Essen breaks the news that Nygma has been suspended and Gordon should review the report from the ME. Gordon doesn’t really trust the word of the guy who said that some other guy committed suicide by stabbing himself in the back last episode. It’s okay if you don’t remember last episode either. Truly. I promise.
Essen says she likes Nygma but there isn’t much she can do because there are people you just can’t go after. I feel like we’ve heard this same speech from her at least 17 times, so I’m done recapping it.
File room. Kristen is crying when Nygma walks in. He asks if she’s been crying and she tries to play it off, but Nygma’s all, “BUT I CAN SEE TEARS ON YOUR FACE.” It’s oddly adorable. Sometimes he’s very, very creepy, but this was oddly adorable. Anyway, he explains that he’s been suspended so he came to return a pencil he took from her office. Kristen says he’s weird but she’s sorry that he’s been suspended.
DR. INARA IS THE PRETTIEST FOREVER. Seriously, Morena Baccarin is preternaturally pretty. Sorry. I try not to be so shallow but she’s so damn pretty. (S: IT’S UNREAL AND IMPOSSIBLE TO FOCUS ON ANYTHING ELSE WHEN SHE’S ON SCREEN. Which is good because Gotham.) She’s meeting Gordon, and she’s all dolled up, but he just wants to talk about a case. Her face falls and YOU DESERVE BETTER DR. INARA. She wins extra points, though, because she uses her words and is all, “I put on lipstick for this.” Gordon apologizes because he did want to see her and he claims the case was just a pre-text. Dr. Inara beams (shield your eyes!). She offers to look at Gordon’s case anyway.
Alex: Morena sticks out like a really beautiful sore thumb on this show. Every time she’s on screen it kind of feels like she just got lost on the way to the set of a far superior show with much better actors.
Sweeney: YES. In addition to being preternaturally pretty, she’s also just a much better actor and even throwaway scenes like this one are just weird because it’s like, “You don’t belong here.” That said, I can’t tell if Ben McKenzie’s acting is improved by having someone so talented to play off of her if her acting is just so good it compensates for his weaknesses, but even he seemed to be doing a better job here.
Or, more likely explanation: he wasn’t really acting since all he had to do was be in love with Morena Baccarin which, like, easy.
Mari: Um, super easy.
Gordon gets a call and excuses himself. It’s clearly a very serious thing, so he has to leave this date and take us away from my favorite person of the whole show. SAD. On the way out, Gordon calls Bullock to let him know that NO NOT PIGS! woke up and said he was abducted by two men.
Bullock is walking with Scottie, who tells us she’s terrified of swimming pools. Guessing that’ll be important later. Scottie probes Bullock for his fears and while at first he says that as a cop, the only thing he’s afraid of is decaf coffee, he later admits that he’s scared all the time. Scottie heads into the meeting, but Bullock hangs back. Dr. Crane walks up next to him DUN DUN DUN.
Junk yard. Again, in a scene we’ve seen no less than 17 times, Penguin begs someone for his life. He’s worthless dead, he can double double cross Falcone or whatever. Maroni is just as uninterested as I am. Apart from the fact that this exact thing happens on a weekly basis, scenes like this hold absolutely no tension because, hey, guess what? WE KNOW PENGUIN LIVES. NONE OF THIS REALLY MATTERS LA LA L A LA.
Sweeney: I HATE THIS SO MUCH. I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF WATCHING NOTHING MATTER. THERE IS NO GODDAMNED DRAMATIC TENSION BECAUSE NOTHING EVER MATTERS. THIS IS ALL SO FUCKING STUPID.
Mari: AND REAPEAT-PEAT-PEAT.
Nygma breaks into a locker because even though he was suspended, apparently they just let him walk around the building for as long as he wanted. I’m not surprised to learn that GCPD doesn’t have an HR department.
Support group. Bullock tells the group that he’s afraid of dying, in an alley, bleeding out while some scumbag goes through his pockets and laughs at him. Can’t tell if that’s a reference to the Waynes or some other Batman thing, but it seems significant. Bullock doesn’t want to die alone in an alley. He wants to die in a cozy bead, in the arms of a beautiful woman. He looks significantly at Scottie and she thanks him for sharing.
Dr. Crane goes next and says he’s terribly afraid of failing. He thinks it’s something he inherited from his father and is something he’s passing on to his son. Given the ages, that son is who will later become Scarecrow. Dr. Crane gets very emotional and leaves the support group. Scottie follows after him.
Junk yard. Penguin is in a car in a crusher. He calls Maroni on his cell phone and tries to finagle his way out of this again, but Maroni hangs up on him. Penguin spots the number of the junkyard on a sign out front, so he dials it and conveniently gets the dude who is running the crushing machine. The crushing thing seems to be taking forever. Penguin says he’s Falcone’s right hand man and if he dies, Falcone is going to come after junk yard dude. JYD seems to buy this and stops the machine. Penguin is alive and escapes in one piece.
Bullock realizes that Scottie has been away for a long time. Sure enough, Dr. Crane is loading her up in a sketchy can. Bullock runs out just in time to see Dr. Crane drive away.
GCPD. The ME opens his locker and a bunch of body parts fall out. He picks them up (A: Ew. Why???) just as two cops enter and it looks awful sketchy of the ME.
Gordon catches Essen up on the case, namely on how Dr. Crane is a stupid enough villain to abduct someone IN FRONT OF A COP, so that again, exactly 0 detecting went into identifying him as the culprit. He basically turned himself in. Wait, I already have a gif for this:
Bullock finds out that Scottie almost drowned once and he thinks Dr. Crane took her to that pool. Off the detectives go. The cop who caught the ME with the body parts brings an arm over to Essen.
Dr. Crane has Scottie tied up and on the edge of a pool. Baby Scarecrow comes in and I really, really expected him to be much younger. Dr. Crane gives Baby Scarecrow money for the meter, sends him along, and then pushes Scottie into the pool. She soon stops struggling. Bullock and Gordon walk in and there’s a gun fight. Dr. Crane manages to run away. Gordon gives chase while Bullock jumps into the pool to grab Scottie. He takes the time to cut her binds underwater? Would that really be a thing you would do when someone is passed out underwater? It seems weird. Anyway, he cuts her free, gets her out of the water and performs CPR. Gordon isn’t able to catch Dr. Crane, but Scottie is fine.
Roadside. Penguin is asleep in a leaf pile. He’s woken up by a couple of ladies. They were riding on some sort of church bus. Penguin asks for a ride but looks pretty sick about having to listen to their musical stylings all the way back to Gotham.
Sweeney: That face represents the extreme nihilism I feel while watching this show.
Mari: Dr. Inara shows up at the GCPD with the case file and some information: the killer removed Dead Man Sitting’s adrenal glands. Not sure how she would get that information from a file if the ME hadn’t noted it first, BUT OKAY. Gordon figures Dr. Crane is removing the adrenal glands from the victims when they are most afraid. Dr. Inara says some something or other about a massive amount of cortisol produce at the time of death of these victims. I guess this means that Dr. Crane started the work that Baby Scarecrow will one day finish. Of course.
Gordon tells Dr. Inara about the ME position that just opened up and also invites her out to dinner. He wants to give her a kiss, but says he won’t because he’s on duty and people are watching. Dr. Inara says he has to kiss her on the cheek or else no dinner. At end of of the countdown, Gordon leans full in and gives her a kiss and for real, all the cops are just standing and watching. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?
Nygma smiles when he sees them and walks on. He visits Kristen and tells her he isn’t leaving after all. She’s a little dry toward him, but then reminds him that he owes her a new pencil. Nygma smiles and giggles a bit on the way out.
Fish Boat. She’s napping when she hears a commotion outside. The captain comes in and says he can hide her. Then he gets shot. A man enters Fish’s room and growls at her and then they face off like two bulls?
Sweeney: LOL WUT?
Mari: JUST GO WITH IT! IT’S THE END OF THIS EPISODE.
Here are some tweets from the every faithful #gothamsnark-ers.We’ll see you in the present SOON. KEEP TWEETING!
This episode of Gotham should be be called “main characters awkwardly flirt” it’s making me feel gross. #GothamSnark
— Dutchface (@Dutchface) February 4, 2015
Even 10 year olds are fed up with the GCPD’s incompetence. #gothamsnark — Laura Lillies (@lillypad1985) February 6, 2015
Hey! It’s Kenneth’s blind cousin from 30 Rock! Thank you IMDB. #gothamsnark
— Jessica Smith (@antiscian) February 5, 2015
This is probably the only time I will ever see someone walk menacingly while carrying a teacup pig. LOL #gothamsnark — Ryan (@meatloafbandit) February 4, 2015
Once again this is devoid of all tension because obvious Batman future. #gothamsnark
— Ryan (@meatloafbandit) February 4, 2015
Not only do the detectives have to have all their work done for them, the gangsters have to be told who their traitors are. #GothamSnark — Starman Morrison (@GeekyGeekyWays) February 3, 2015
Wow. I reeeeeally don’t care about the Penguin/Maroni subplot. I feel like it’s about to dissolve into truth or dare. #gothamsnark
— Jessica Smith (@antiscian) February 5, 2015
THE fuck was that ending to Gotham… Fish and the bloke just running at headfirst at each other…other than stupid that is #GothamSnark — Dutchface (@Dutchface) February 4, 2015
Out of all the stupid cliches on this show, I think the bus full of singing church goers is the worst. #GothamSnark
— Starman Morrison (@GeekyGeekyWays) February 3, 2015
Also, I can’t believe Scarecrow is being reduced to following in his father’s footsteps. #GothamSnark — Starman Morrison (@GeekyGeekyWays) February 3, 2015
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a thirty-year-old postgrad living in Scotland. When I'm not writing (which, between my degree and Snark Squad, is almost never) I watch entirely too much TV, and live in constant fear of the day that I run out of things to watch.
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