Gotham, Season 4, Episode 11: Queen Takes Knight
"Queen Takes Knight" is the finale for the 'Dark Knight' half-season of Gotham's fourth season, and it's honestly treating itself like a season of its own, the way that the two halves of the second and third seasons of Gotham do. It's a model that I really wished more TV shows would do, because it makes the mid-season finale an actual status quo shaker as opposed to just a cliffhanger that has to go big even though the narrative might not need it (the CW shows are the biggest offenders of trying to make their mid-season finales far bigger deals than they really are).
So yeah. This episode opens with a bit of a montage of Penguin and Sofia's forces fighting each other, because apparently Sofia Falcone's name does still command a lot of respect throughout the streets. What initially seemed to be a lead-up to a simple gang war to end the season gets caught in a snag when Penguin calls daddy Carmine Falcone to show up to bring Sofia home. Barbara, Tabitha and Selina end up getting somewhat reduced to Sofia's heavies, but Barbara in particular has an amazing time chewing scenery in this episode. (Tabitha has a really weird subplot about her trying to get Grundy to remember that he's Butch that really has no place in this episode with everything else that's more interesting going on).
Falcone tries to bring Sofia home, because she has failed and disgraced the Falcone name -- chiefly for sleeping with Jim Gordon and using too much duplicity and backstabbing as opposed to the honourable mob boss that Don Falcone is. And knowing what we do about Falcone in the first two seasons of Gotham, it's definitely accurate. Unfortunately, a hit squad shows up and kills Falcone and shoots Sofia...
Which leads to the catalyst to the big event. Penguin claims to not have killed Falcone, and that funeral is touching and at the same time really tense because, shit, the audience is definitely geared towards suspecting the Penguin for being behind it. Of course, it's revealed later that Sofia Falcone is behind everything -- including, apparently, being the person that Mr. Zsasz is loyal to throughout the entirety of the season, because Sofia is a Falcone. I'm not sure if Zsasz knew that Sofia killed Carmine, but Zsasz's face of heartbroken-ness when he sees Falcone's dead body... while still looking like an emancipated corpse... that's some really great acting.
We also learn that Sofia is also behind hiring Lazlo Valentin and sending him to terrorize Gotham City as Professor Pyg. It somewhat explains the Pyg's more outlandish antics, although it does take away, somewhat, from the whole 'the police has failed the city' motivations in lieu of that revelation. It's still a neat twist, even if Pyg ends up getting killed off and set up as the fall man for the whole mess. There's the oddity that both Sofia and Bullock insist that every single bad thing that has happened this season -- even the cops that Pyg killed -- are all the direct result of Gordon bringing in Sofia to end the pax penguina... but it's really a bit far-fetched. Still, everything else in the finale really worked for the better in my opinion, so there's that.
The Penguin is also arrested for the alleged murder of Martin -- and since only Zsasz knows where Martin is, and Zsasz is angry for Penguin's seeming murder of Carmine Falcone, Zsasz sets up Penguin to fall and even agrees to testify. Penguin is thrown in jail... and apparently is going to team up with Jerome fucking Valeska, a.k.a. the Joker. Yeah!
The Bruce/Alfred storyline is one that can perhaps be annoying, but I understand where they're going with it. Bruce sending Alfred away is pretty heartbreaking, but it does make sense for Bruce, who's acting out and being a little twat, to push everyone away from him. It's kind of a Batman thing to do, except he's doing it by banging girls and drinking booze as opposed to running around and refusing aid from his sidekicks.
The Grundy subplot and Nygma finally seeing Riddler in hallucinations again are both not that interesting, but it's still well-acted and decent enough to not distract from the finale. Overall, a pretty decent and eventful finale that closes out perhaps one of my favourite seasons of Gotham, and one that promises a far more explosive half-season this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment