Previously: The Scarecrow got Scarecrowed, and Fish Mooney staged an implausible prison coup.
—
The Blind Fortune Teller
Alex: We open with a few quick establishing shots of various Gotham residents: Bruce is asleep on the sofa, his murder-investigation notebook open on his lap. Penguin is proudly watching his mother singing on stage in his new club. Fish wakes up on the floor of her prison and claps her hands, giving her fellow captives permission to get up and drink some water.
Clocktower Apartment and OH, GOODIE. Barbara’s back. (M: NOOOOOO.) She arrives home wearing a sexy black dress to find Selina and Ivy camped out in the living room. Selina explains that Jim dropped off his keys last week. Barbara’s just like ‘tevs’ and sits down to share their snacks. Well, I suppose that’s one way to react to finding a couple of random kids squatting in your home.
Gordon and Inara are on a date at the circus. They’re watching the ‘Flying Graysons’, an impressive trapeze act, and canoodling in the audience. (M: Having just seen stupid Barbara makes Inara look EVEN BETTER. IDK how this keeps happening.) After the trapezing, a little clown car drives on stage. A few clowns climb out and start goofing around on stage while the ringmaster chases them around giving them a telling-off. But one of the clowns is a bit more dishevelled than the others, and he gets a scolding from the ringmaster which doesn’t seem like it’s part of the act. The Dishevelled Clown responds by smashing a bottle over one of the Flying Graysons’ heads. A punch-up ensues and soon the whole company is brawling on stage.
Gordon makes his way to the front of the audience and pulls out his badge, yelling ‘GCPD, freeze!’. Ha. As if anyone in this town’s going to care that the cops are there.
Oswald’s. Mama Kappelput is still singing, while everyone except her son looks bemused. I think we’re supposed to think that she’s crap, but she’s actually pretty good. She finishes her song and Penguin jumps up and applauds. A few other audience members reluctantly join in, but some drunk guy at the back starts booing and calling for the ‘old hag’ to get off the stage. Penguin buttons his jacket menacingly, which is apparently totally a thing you can do, and then charges at the guy. We don’t see what happens, but there’s the sound of glass breaking and a few bystanders are covered in a spurt of blood.
CLOUDS GOTHAM CREDITS LIGHTING CLOUDS CREDITS.
At the circus, the brawl has died down and Gordon is interviewing the Dishevelled Clown, asking why he attacked the acrobat. The clown is tight-lipped and simply replies that he doesn’t like him. Gordon can’t get any more information from the acrobat himself either, or from the ringmaster.
Marines: I know we’ve already talked plenty about what a bad cop everyone is, but Jim seems to be particularly bad at interrogating people.
Alex: Probably because they always make him do it in the form of a montage.
Meanwhile, Inara is patching up the wounded while a couple of young circus troupers exchange jibes. Inara asks them what’s going on, and learns that the circus is made up of two feuding families: the Lloyds and the Graysons. The Lloyd girl lets slip that the Dishevelled Clown, a Lloyd, probably attacked the Grayson acrobat because of ‘Lilah’.
Mari: A+ and 1430.
Alex: Why thank you. Remember those halcyon days when Angel was the worst show you guys had to cover? (M: Barely.)
Gordon apologises to Inara for the way their evening went, but she seems to have enjoyed it. He complains that no one will talk to him, but she tells him that people like to talk to doctors and fills him in on what she’s learned. Apparently Lilah is a snake dancer in the side show. He offers to have one of the cops drive Inara home, but she wants to come check out the snake lady with him. They ask the ringmaster to take them to Lilah.
Outside, the ringmaster knocks on a trailer door, and a young red-haired boy answers. His name is Jerome, and he’s Lilah’s son. She hasn’t come home since she left for the library this morning, and he’s worried. The ringmaster assures him that his mum’s fine and just out on one of her ‘sprees’, but Jerome says that she didn’t even take her coat or purse with her. Plus, her snake is worried about her. Gordon agrees that the snake does indeed look agitated. Oh shut up, Jim, what do you know about it? (M: Seriously, the snake is just there. Being a snake.) The ringmaster quietly explains to Gordon that Lilah is a ‘party girl’ who’s prone to coming home with her knickers in her handbag (and that’s not me British-ing his words, it’s what he actually says).
Gordon asks Jerome to let the snake out of its cage. They all follow it as it slithers towards a truck and then slides under a tarp in the back. Gordon dramatically throws back the tarp to reveal a very dead woman lying underneath it. Jerome drops to his knees sobbing as Gordon accusing the ringmaster of knowing she was here all along. The ringmaster admits that he did, but insists that she was already dead when they found her.
Fish’s prison. Fish uses one of her new minions as a soapbox as she gives a speech accompanied by maximum finger-waggle.
She explains that the prisoners are all being used as transplant donors, and they have to do something about it. She promises that if they do exactly as she says, ‘some of’ them will get out alive. She admits that some will die, but says that they’re a ‘family’ now and that it’s better to die fighting alongside your family than alone on your knees.
Mari: The guy below her, you know on his knees, is definitely grumbling.
Alex: Circus. The ringmaster leads Inara, Jim and some random cop extras to the spot where they found Lilah dead. He explains that they were going to give her a proper burial once they got back on the road, and then they were going to find and punish her killer. Gordon has him arrested.
Back at the GCPD, Bullock is all kinds of confused by Gordon leading a bunch of circus performers into the office for questions. Gordon takes Jerome into one of the interrogation rooms and asks him about his mother. Jerome says that she was perfect, except for not being a very good cook. She didn’t have any enemies, and she had a string of lovers but never committed to a boyfriend. He confirms that the two guys who started the fight on stage were both her lovers. Gordon asks how he felt about his mother’s love life, and he says that he was fine with it, because it’s what brought him into this world after all.
Gordon now interrogates the Lloyd clown, who explains that the Grayson acrobat killed Lilah out of jealousy. Meanwhile, Bullock is getting the same story from the acrobat about the clown. Out in the bullpen, the other detective who always seems to get called on any time they need another cop with a speaking part (Alvarez, maybe?) (M: Maybe!) is interviewing the bickering youngsters from earlier. He can’t get much out of them through their squabbling, but they do let slip that they have a romantic history between them. Might-be-Alvarez tells them to cut it out, and they both sulk.
Organ Donor Prison. Fish and the other prisoners sit in silence on the floor, waiting. They hear the guards outside the door and she rallies everyone together. The guards walk in and demand a ‘Prisoner 57A’. A guy with a beard and a bandana slowly raises his hand. He’s about to step forward, but Fish interrupts and politely tells the guard leader that they need to talk.
After the break, the guard tells Fish to step back and shut up. She continues to be super polite, introducing herself and explaining that she’s in charge now. She offers him 57A in exchange for water, blankets, fruit and magazines, saying that if he refuses then 57A will die. The guard looks worried, saying that they need the donors alive. He threatens Fish with a severe beating, so she signals to her men who immediately turn on 57A. He’s quickly beaten to death (RIP 57A) (M: Ain’t nobody know how to crack a neck? Damn.) and Fish repeats her demands to the guard. He threatens to take her to ‘the manager’, and she agrees to go as long as the guard himself stays down here with her new minions. The guards all turn and leave. The prisoners cheer, but Fish bends down and kisses 57A’s body.
GCPD. Essen is all ‘A snake? Seriously?’ Right there with you, girl. Inara and Nygma step into her office and explain that Lilah was killed by a hatchet, at around 3pm the previous day. Conveniently, this is when both of the suspects would have been performing in the matinee. Essen sends them all away to keep investigating.
Gordon tells the rest of the circus troupe that they can go home, but that nobody’s to leave town. He advises them to stop fighting, asking what good the feud is doing them. He joins Inara at his desk and she invites him over to her place for dinner. Just then, a blind man arrives, guided by a young boy. He introduces himself as Paul Cicero, a psychic from the circus sideshow and an old friend of Lilah’s. He has a message from her from ‘the other side’. Gordon is uninterested, but Inara asks to hear it. The message is ‘the serpent of the devil lies in the garden of the iron sisters’. After the psychic leaves, Inara scolds Gordon for being narrow-minded. Gordon asks why, if you were going to send a message from beyond the grave, you’d send a riddle instead of just naming your killer. Fair point.
Wayne Manor. Alfred tells Bruce that his board meeting at Wayne Enterprises is still on for tomorrow, but that he thinks it’s an incredibly bad idea. Bruce tells him that his mind is made up and there’s no use in arguing.
Oswald’s. Penguin is playing ‘Heart and Soul’ on the piano. I didn’t actually know that’s what it was called and had to spend a few minutes googling things like ‘that piano duet that people always play’ and ‘the song Tom Hanks plays on the big piano’ to find out. Not that it matters, because this scene is about 5 seconds long and nothing else happens.
Mari: I often find that while recapping terrible things, a huge portion of time is dedicated to mostly useless Google searches that are 100% more entertaining than the actual episode. It’s probably a coping mechanism.
Alex: Clock Tower apartment. Barbara comes downstairs in a skimpy outfit and twirls for the girls living in her home. They don’t approve, and Selina advises her to dress like she’s going sailing (?).
Inara’s apartment. She and Gordon are sharing a romantic candlelit meal, and he’s impressed by her cooking. Inara suddenly has a brainwave and realises that Cicero the Psychic’s message is referring to the Arkham Bridge, the towers on which are sometimes referred to as Mary and Betty, and which has a park underneath it on the Gotham side. Gordon isn’t convinced, but Inara asks him to put his arrogance to one side because it could help them solve a murder. She insists that they leave right this minute, and I’d admire her enthusiasm if I didn’t think that checking out a Gotham park in the dark seemed like a really terrible idea.
Park in the Dark. Gordon makes a comment about this being no place for a lady, and she calls him out for being a sexist hypocrite. (M: Inara, JUST LEAVE THIS SHOW. YOU ARE TOO GOOD.) Miraculously, they stumble across a blood-stained hatchet which appears to have been thrown from the bridge, and which Gordon just goes ahead and picks up. Aren’t you supposed to be the only competent cop in Gotham, Jim? Why would you do that? The hatchet has ‘THFC’ engraved on the handle, which Gordon recognises as ‘The Hellfire Club’. Apparently it’s a Satanist cult known for committing ritual murders, but they haven’t been active for years. Gordon phones a sergeant and orders some arrests.
GCPD. A random cop tells Gordon that they’ve got two people he asked for in holding, and that neither of them knows the other’s here. Inara tells him to keep in mind that his suspicions could be wrong, but he’s pissed at her for making him go out looking for Satanist hatchets when they could have been having sex instead. She apologises for being ‘too enthusiastic’ and I’m not really sure why, since it was her enthusiasm that helped them find the only clue to the murder. He invites her along to interrogate Cicero with him.
Gordon tells Cicero that they solved his riddle and that he’s now an accessory to murder, because he must have planted the hatchet for them for find. (M: Cicero, your plan was terrible.) He thinks that Cicero’s protecting someone close to him. Gordon signals to the cop standing at the door, who brings Jerome in to join them.
Gordon accuses Jerome of killing his own mother, which he denies. Gordon guesses that he cleaned up in Cicero’s trailer afterwards, and that Cicero told him to scratch the letters on the hatchet before throwing it off the bridge. He goes on to guess that Cicero is in fact Jerome’s father. Jerome and Cicero both protest, with Jerome insisting that his father was a sea-captain. Gordon says that they’ll have a blood test done and can have results in half an hour, which Inara confirms. Cicero finally admits that Gordon is right, and then pretty much exactly this happens:
Mari: IT’S EVERYTHING I WANTED TO SAY. I also have no idea how we got from hatchet to here. Additionally, I’m taking a TV class right now and one of our assignments had to do with picking a scene and analyzing the score. Some dude picked this scene, which meant I had to (politely) reply that he was wrong about everything because this show is awful and the music here is insultingly obviously. It starts going DUN DUN DUN! as soon as this dude starts cackling. Everything about this is a blow to the head and THIS SHOW JUST CANNOT GET IT RIGHT.
Alex: GCPD locker room. Inara is drinking coffee and Gordon comes in to commiserate over their long night and ruined date, but she found it exciting. She suggests that they go home now, and they start making out like teenagers. I guess Gordon changed his mind about the no-kissing-at-work thing. Barbara unfortunately (or maybe not so unfortunately) chooses this moment to walk into the locker room. She storms out, devastated, without either of them seeing her. BYE THEN.
Oswald’s. Penguin gets a visit from Victor Zsasz, who tells him that Falcone’s not happy with how badly the club is doing. He whistles to someone outside, and Butch appears in the doorway. Penguin is terrified and trips over stuff in his hurry to get away, but Zsasz assures him that Butch is harmless now after being ‘worked on’ for a couple of weeks. Butch placidly agrees with everything he says. Zsasz says that Butch will use his knowledge of the club scene to help Penguin, and Penguin reluctantly accepts the offer. He tells Butch to dance, and grins evilly when Butch starts tap dancing for him.
Bruce and Alfred pay a visit to Wayne Enterprises. Bruce sits at the head of the table and thanks the board members for meeting with him to answer his questions about the business. The board members seem to find this awfully cute and tell him to ask away. They’re taken aback, though, when he says that his two main concerns are the underworld involvement in Arkham and the chemical manufacturing at Welzyn.
GCPD. The bickering young circus couple from earlier are showing Gordon an engagement ring, thanking him for resolving the feud between their families. The man says they’ll name their first son after him, although his fiancée isn’t so keen on that idea.
I didn’t actually pick up on the significance of the name ‘Grayson’ until I thought to look it up on a whim a few days later, but it would appear that she’s going to win that argument when she eventually gives birth to a certain young sidekick.
They leave and Bullock shows up to ask Gordon why he looks so happy, correctly guessing that he got laid last night.
Wayne Enterprises. Bruce accuses the board of corruption. A patronising man gently thanks him for his input and apologises for the upset that these ‘shocking stories and rumours’ must have caused him. Bruce insists that they aren’t rumours, and Patronising Man promises to look into them, but reminds Bruce that he has no proof. Bruce says that there are more details he hasn’t shared with them, which he’ll be raising at the next shareholder meeting with a view to legal action. A patronising woman chimes in now, pointing out Bruce’s age. Bruce replies that if he were a grown man, he’s be chairing the board and would ensure that his company was run honestly. He thanks them and leaves with Alfred, while the board look nervous.
Mari: Pretty ballsy! It’d be more ballsy if I didn’t already know this kid survives to be Batman. DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, KID. YOU LIVE.
Alex: Organ donor prison. The guards from earlier are back, and the leader tells Fish that they have a deal: he’ll stay downstairs with the prisoners, while Fish goes upstairs to speak to the manager. I don’t understand why anyone would possible agree to this, but whatever. The guard, whose name is Thomas Schmidt, is welcomed into the prison and invited to join Fish’s ‘family’ for a good time. The prisoners surround him menacingly, as Fish heads upstairs with the guards. THE END.
Well. The whole Joker/circus plot was both dull and ridiculous. However, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually kind of liked Fish’s scenes in this episode! I don’t understand how this whole side-plot relates to a single thing that’s going on elsewhere, and I don’t really expect it to have any relevance long-term, but the Spartacus thing seems to suit her far better than her usual routine of just lounging around her club ordering people to kill/make out with other people. Plus it’s a plot which has lasted more than one episode, and where there’s some genuine mystery as to what’s going on (for me, anyway – maybe those more acquainted with the Batman universe know exactly what’s going on). For once I’m mildly curious about what’s going to happen next, which is highly unusual.
Here’s a selection of tweets from the few troupers still joining in with #gothamsnark. We love you guys.
My father once told me that if you can find a woman who enjoys a circus brawl, you should grab her and never let go. #GothamSnark
— Starman Morrison (@GeekyGeekyWays) February 17, 2015
Jim Gordon just throwing back the tarp there… “oh there could be a body under here and her son is next to me” smooth Jim #GothamSnark
— Dutchface (@Dutchface) February 17, 2015
Oh it took Barbara a whole 2 episodes to stumble back to Gordon’s apartment. #GothamSnark
— Jessica Smith (@antiscian) February 18, 2015
Sometimes I think the casting director is the only person with any sense on #Gotham but then I remember Jada/Fish. #Gothamsnark
— Jessica Babb (@Jessicababb) February 18, 2015
Dr. Inara: a better cop than the entire GCPD #gothamsnark
— Ryan (@meatloafbandit) February 21, 2015
What ….. is even happening?? #GothamSnark
— Jessica Smith (@antiscian) February 18, 2015
The whole “who is imprisoning Fish” side storyline has to be one of the biggest “I don’t care” things of all time. #GothamSnark
— Dutchface (@Dutchface) February 17, 2015
So… I guess we’re never going to see Barbara again? Please? We can hope? #GothamSnark
— Starman Morrison (@GeekyGeekyWays) February 17, 2015
WHAT. Ad for #HTGAWM’s two hour season finale? ALREADY?!? Why couldn’t that be #Gotham? #howtosnark #gothamsnark
— GFM (@girlfrmmars) February 23, 2015
Next time: There’s a new gang in town in Gotham S01 E17 – Red Hood.
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.
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.
Pingback: Gotham S01 E17 – New character danger()