Gotham S03E21-22 Review: Owls, Freaks, Policemen, Assassins, Gangsters and Butlers

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 21: Destiny Calling; Episode 22: Heavydirtysoul

Hoo, finale! It's technically two episodes, 'Destiny Calling' and 'Heavydirtysoul', but it aired as a two-parter and honestly worked better as a two-hour long mega episode, so I just kinda want to do it all in one go. 

So, yeah, where to begin, really? There's a lot of things that went down in this episode. Of course, the rage virus ends up being solved by Lucius Fox synthesizing an antidote offscreen, which is what everyone expected, but the wrinkle is that you need Hugo Strange to do that, and thanks to Alfred's hilarious interrogation of the poor man last episode (which I neglected to mention, but I have to just note that it's pretty freakin' awesome) Hugo Strange is out in the wind. It's a race between various parties -- Fish, the League and the GCPD -- to get Strange, and we still have the problem of brainwashed Bruce and evil Leslie to contend with.

Oh, and there's also the drama between the Barbara/Butch/Tabitha to settle, as well as Penguin versus Riddler. So yeah, where to start? Let's start there, actually. Penguin versus Riddler. I genuinely don't understand what the showmakers were trying to do, involving Fish in the finale only to quickly kill her off via angry raging Gordon. But while we'll talk about Gordon and the general Hugo Strange plot later, apparently Fish is back for the sole purpose of being killed by Gordon and serving as yet another parental figure to galvanize Penguin's return as the King of Gotham. Which... I'm kind of okay with? I've always been annoying at how Fish stuck around like a bad penny especially after her resurrection last season, but after escaping early this season, she ends up kind of making nice with Penguin, before disappearing for the entirety of the season until last episode's return. I'm not sure just why Penguin is so ready to be subservient to her, and no mention to her cuttlefish take-over-people's-minds power is made so, uh... yeah. Fish is dead.

And that's fine, because Oswald quickly traps Riddler on the back of his car, leading to a very awesome bit of outsmarting each other that both actors sold well. Riddler picks his own lock and takes over Penguin's car, wanting to lead him to the same pier where he once failed to kill Penguin. Oswald's rant when Riddler first took over, that his whole persona is based on the lie that he's killed Penguin, ends up causing Riddler's obsession to resurface, and as in any Riddler story, it's this same obsession and compulsion that ends up biting Riddler in the ass, because Penguin actually expected Riddler to take over, leaving the pin that Riddler used to pick his own lock and giving him a fake gun. Penguin turns Riddler's own gimmick against him, playing Riddler like a puppet on a string and getting him to go on the convoluted, far-reaching plan to fix his failure like he knew Edward would. And in the Penguin-vs-Riddler fight? The Riddler lost soundly, being turned into an ice block by Mr. Freeze...

And, in a clever twist, gets turned into the inspiration for Penguin's Iceberg Lounge. The fact that Penguin wants to keep this sign of his weakness around as a reminder is totally fitting his character, giving their rivalry a clear victor and conclusion while still leaving the door open for Riddler to return in the future, because shit, I do want him back. 

The other villains that get to fight each other and I'll just tick off here is Tabitha, Butch and Barbara. Butch and Tabitha are basically getting even more and more pissed off at just how little Barbara even respects them, and Tabitha, whose weird relationship as dual-lovers with Butch and Barbara has been a constant this season, ends up choosing the side that respects her. Barbara ends up confronting Butch first and shoots him in the head, because Butch is definitely disloyal. And when it comes to Tabitha confronting Barbara in their hideout, honestly if I was a betting man, I'd say Barbara would win. She's the long-running actress and the one whose character is based on a canon character compared to Tabitha's in-name-only adaptation of the Tigress.

But alas, Barbara and Tabitha ends up fighting, and Barbara gets electrocuted to death after a violent scuffle, leaving Tabitha the unexpected victor, and while she's not up to being Gotham's new crime boss (though definitely the next contender to be Penguin's rival next season) she's apparently here to serve a different role. As Catwoman's mentor. And I cannot believe how 'Tabby' has been there right under our noses. A sultry female character dressed in black, with a whip, who isn't afraid of using sexuality as a weapon? Yeah, Tabitha teaching Selina how to use the whip, and Selina being pushed away by Bruce, will definitely end up moulding Selina into something far more evil down the line. 

Oh, and apparently, this isn't the end of Butch, because the surprise reveal  at the end of the episode reveals that he's actually... Solomon Grundy. Okay, then! That's pretty awesome, and Butch's actor does have the physical bulk to play Solomon Grundy and I kind of enjoy his actor too, so why not?

Now, let's talk Bruce.

Again... it's a little convoluted, but the gist of it is that Ra's al Ghul wants someone to be the cleanser of Gotham City, and he's moulding Bruce into some sort of evil Batman to do so, and up until the confrontation in the Lazarus Pit, Bruce seems pretty much enraptured with all the talk of destiny and whatnot. Alfred, of course, isn't going to let his adopted kid get fucked over by this assassin lord, but Bruce's conditioning is apparently so powerful that the kid is willing to run Alfred over with a sword. The sight of a dying Alfred breaks Bruce out of the conditioning, though, and for some reason... Ra's just shrugs it off and lets Bruce use the waters of the Lazarus Pit to stabilize Alfred's mortal wounds?

It's a bit messy, to be sure, but one thing that I'm going to say is that the actors absolutely nailed that scene when Alfred and Bruce were just crying respectively, with Alfred giving Bruce that heartfelt, tear-jerking speech about how he loved the boy the moment he held the little kid in his arms, and while the proceedings of the plot is kind of muddled, it's definitely well-acted as Bruce breaks free from his confusion. The moment when he apologizes and cries in Alfred's embrace in the hospital is a lot of d'aww.

Of course, he pushes Selina away, but after all the Batman Begins stuff that the poor kid's been through this season, well, the idea of being a protector of Gotham City ended up sticking in Bruce's mind, and it's amazing to see him finally don a proto-Batman suit and beat up a random mugger, stopping the exact same kind of crime that took Thomas and Martha Wayne from him. Which is a scene that got me giddy, that's for sure. We'll see if Ra's plan will make sense in the long run, though the casting choice is definitely one I can get behind and his brief scene is definitely impressive.

And now, let's talk Gordon and the main 'rage virus' plotline. So yeah, the big plotline of our supposed main character involves him running around town with Bullock, trying to keep his rage intact, trying to hunt down Hugo Strange and Jervis Tetch to get their plot devices to Lucius to synthesize the antidote, while simultaneously dealing with his crazy ex. And while Jerome's Night of Terror was more 'hint not show', here we have the imagery of Gotham City torn apart by crazy people as shown by the scary old woman who wants her savings back, and then cutting away to a montage of other scenes including the hilarious image of a bunch of girl scouts pursuing a poor man while screaming at him to buy cookies. 

Gordon's run with Bullock was honestly pretty procedural, going from one epic scene to the next. The huge villain-vs-villain shoot-up as they each fight over poor Hugo Strange (the dude just wants to get on the train, and his 'aw come on' expression when Fish Mooney catches up to him is hilarious) is pretty epic, with assassins fighting people with machineguns while Firefly and Mr. Freeze unleash their beam guns at the assassins. We also get the pretty cool bit of Gordon using his super-strength to smash through Freeze's ice wall, rip off a car door, and make a huge dent on the side of the train, which are all pretty cool bits that make the superhero fan in me happy. 

Gordon's brutality reaches a maximum point with him draining the blood from Mad Hatter and just kind of leaving him behind with a duct-taped wound, and later reaching a climax with killing Fish (yay!) and almost killing Bullock. As much as I enjoy Evil Leslie, it is kind of annoying that the ultimate fate of the arc ends up hinging on Gordon trying to cure Leslie, which is why the Oswald/Edward and Bruce/Alfred confrontations felt so much more interesting to talk about. Gordon ends up fighting through the effects of the rage virus because Bullock tells him he's a good cop, and manages to inject both Leslie and himself with the antidote. Leslie ends up leaving the city anyway, likely out of shame, and, well, that's kind of the end of season three.

Overall, I really enjoyed this finale. Yes, while sitting down to review it a fair amount of the plot doesn't make full sense, it's still an engaging run while I watched it. I'm not sure if Gotham will get a season four, although if it doesn't the ending for this season is pretty awesome with Penguin, Selina and Bruce all rising to be one step closer to their future selves. Several show regulars are dead or written out, and the looming threat of just what the fuck Ra's Al Ghul is planning is a nice enough cliffhanger for next season. So, yeah. Flawed but definitely enjoyable to some degree.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Butch Gilzean's birth name is revealed to be Cyrus Gold by the doctors who receive his body. Cyrus Gold is, of course, the original name of the gangster who in the comics would be transformed into the powerful zombie Solomon Grundy.
• Ra's al Ghul makes his first full appearance here, and I honestly don't think he needs an introduction. Leader of the League of Assassins, obsessed with making Bruce Wayne his heir (not at the moment, though) and immortal due to the magical waters of the Lazarus Pit... which appear here to heal Alfred's mortal wounds, but not named specifically.
• Tabitha teaching Selina how to use the whip is, of course, a reference to how Catwoman's signature weapon is the whip.
• With the aid of Mr. Freeze, Penguin makes use of the frozen Riddler as the centerpiece of his club, which he rechristens the Iceberg Lounge, the name of his club in the comics. While hints to the Iceberg Lounge's name has been sprinkled all throughout the last few seasons, this is when the name is finally spoken out loud.
• Bruce saving the family from the mugger dressed up with a ski mask is a reference to how Bruce Wayne's first attempts at being a crimefighter had him basically wear a civilian getup with a ski mask before adopting the bat motif. It also tends to result in less successful attempts with what little Bruce did here. He's even perched on the side of a building!