Gotham S03E04 Review: Mayor Cobblepot

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 4: New Day Rising

We wrap up last episode's Mad Hatter arc, which ended with Alice accidentally being killed during the shoot-out that ensured between Mad Hatter's his army of Tweedles and the Gordon-Bullock team. The big plot of the episode is Gordon trying to shake off the constant suicidal drives that Mad Hatter had awakened within him, all the while Mad Hatter has hired an army of Tweedledee/Tweedledum wrestler dudes to help bust his sister out. And, yeah, the incest subtext is all but confirmed here.

There's a bit of an exhaustive moment with Gordon and Leslie, where old wounds get dug up, but I suppose it went as well as it could've, and Gordon ends up closing that particular book by attempting to move on. But I did like how the show at least addressed the character change that Gordon's struggling with, and how Barnes, Bullock and Leslie all take different approaches to try and shake Gordon out of his borderline suicidal emo funk. It's okay for what it did. 

The B-plots had Cobblepot become mayor! Butch tries to bribe everyone, while Nygma wants to help Cobblepot see what he truly wants -- to become mayor and be accepted by the people of Gotham honestly, instead of hedging his bets with bribes and not really knowing how it turned out. It's a sweet moment for both Cobblepot and you cheer for the dude when he wins. It's a very fun little villain relationship, and I liked it. I don't know what else to say about it, to be honest -- a lot of this episode felt like that. Things happen, they aren't bad, but they just happen. 

The Clone Wars is just exhausting, though, mostly because I don't care. Selina figures out that Five isn't really Bruce because of the super-strength and because he knows very little, and some nonsense about a kiss and about finding his own place in the world. Bruce and Alfred catches up, and Five says some banality before going off... but, of course, it's not the end of Evil Bruce Wayne because he gets captured by Catherine of the Court of Owls. Ugh. I don't particularly care for this part of the plot. 

Oh, and Barnes gets hit by Alice's blood. Well, here's hoping Barnes gets to be more relevant other than being the authoritative figure that argues with Gordon and gets shown up because plot armour. It's a dumb development -- simple normal blood in a crime scene usually gets quarantined and cleaned up quickly, and this is like, zombie plague blood or whatever. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Dumfree and Deever Tweed are known as the villains Tweedledum and Tweedledee in the comics, though here the Tweeds are expanded to have five members. Tweedledum and Tweedledee are, of course, two of Mad Hatter's most common henchmen and have been recurring characters throughout Batman's lore.