Gotham S03E18 Review: The Undertaking

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 18: Light the Wick

This episode isn't quite as great as the previous ones. Sure, it works fine as a middle installment to the overarching Heroes Rise sub-season, but otherwise it kind of ruined any sort of credibility that the Court of Owls has for being a properly threatening secret society. There were so many things happening in this episode that it felt scatterbrained, and while it doesn't quite reach the badness of Gotham's weak first season, it's still a noticeable dip in the quality.

The Court's big plan, which seems intent on copying (homaging?) Batman Begins' gas-unleashing trick to cleanse Gotham City, is revealed in this episode, and Gordon, of course, ends up choosing to save the citizens that Kathryn was using as a trial run at the cost of his cover. It's rather monumentally stupid for the Court on so many levels, really, to trust Jim Gordon to become one of them, but also to not have any real contingency plans beyond Talon. It's a little cliched 'kill this innocent man to prove you're evil, mwa ha ha!' secret test of character thing that had no tension whatsoever, because you just know Gordon's going to call for backup.

Though, admittedly, Talon was pretty much owning Gordon in that fight until Penguin arrives with his buddy Firefly, summoned to that location when Gordon switches on his cell phone to inform Penguin about his locations in a fake conversation. As awesome as it is to see Firefly one-shot Talon, it's also speaks to the Court's, well, incompetence.

There was some nice tie-in to the Alice Tetch virus from earlier in this season, as Mad Hatter (still as entertainingly insane as ever) witnesses Barnes get kidnapped from Arkham Asylum for use by the Court, who extracts his blood to use as the basis of the rage gas. Another attempt to tie-in was Hugo Strange, who makes a very, very unexpected but welcome return (B.D. Wong is awesome) after apparently having escaped Fish's clutches off-screen. It makes perfect sense for Strange to be involved, of course, considering that his involvement was how the show hinted at the existence of the Court in the first place, but I found it rather odd to have tied Hugo's role to Fish so closely and dropping it here. I guess the whole plan of Fish with her weird cuttlefish mind-control powers and her army of nameless metahumans are just dropped and replaced with Oswald's Legion of Doom? No big losses there.

There were a lot of questionable sub-plots running throughout this episode, too. Selina's recovery via Ivy's incomprehensible plants ex machina is... acceptable, but weird, and the whole 'Selina gets knocked out' thing seems to just be an excuse to homage Batman Returns. Leslie's insane crusade against proving that Gordon is a sociopath trying to hurt everyone around him is getting tiresome and as stupid as the worst Barbara Kean plotlines before the show retooled her into a far more entertaining psychopathic egomaniac. Though Leslie's barb about how Mario was hurt because he was collateral damage in Mad Hatter's one-man crusade to hurt Jim Gordon is amazingly well-written, so she at least has a fair amount more depth compared to season one Barbara. Bruce continues his Shaolin Monk training with flashbacks and fighting random people, which just seems kind of repetitive at this point.

Oh, and Oswald gets abducted by the Court, and put into a literal giant birdcage next to the Riddler, which seemed absolutely convoluted. No real mention why Firefly nor Freeze did anything. No real mention why the Court didn't kill Oswald right away, because they've been pretty kill-happy. And that's what they did with the Riddler, for all of Kathryn's talk of 'we have use for your talents?'

At least Barnes is back, and I really enjoyed his actor. He's in the service of the Court of Owls, who seems to want to use Barnes (does he have a supervillain codename yet? The Judge? The Executioner?) as a Talon replacement. Which, considering Barnes's big thing is that he wants to purge Gotham of all undesirables... really, really is a bad thing for the Court to even consider.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Court's plan to 'cleanse' Gotham using a gas that amplifies people's rage seems to be a similar trick to what Ra's Al Ghul and Scarecrow were planning to do in Batman Begins, albeit with fear gas, adding to yet another similarity with Batman Begins beyond the Bruce Wayne flashbacks.
• Hugo Strange returns after a season-long absence, being last seen when Fish kidnapped him. Barnes and Mad Hatter, both not being seen after the Mad Hatter arc earlier in this season, also make their return to the fold.
• Poison Ivy treating a fellow female supervillain back to health after she was critically injured happened with Harley Quinn in both the mainstream comics and Batman: TAS, earning Harley's long-lasting friendship and loyalty there.