Gotham S04E15 Review: The Climax of the Gang Wars over the City of Gotham

Gotham, Season 4, Episode 15: The Sinking Ship, The Grand Applause

So this episode essentially wraps up a lot of the storylines that's been running throughout the fourth season, namely Sofia Falcone. After a neat little cold open where the Riddler single-handedly assists Martin in escaping from his interred capture under Sofia's goons, we jump straight into a pretty funky bit of double-crossing insanity that was the highlight of so many earlier arcs in Gotham. The thing is, everyone wants to murder Sofia -- Lee, Oswald, Riddler, Gordon, Bullock -- and that seems to be the unifying theme. As I mentioned in the previous episode it does seem somewhat similar to the Gotham-against-Gallavan storyline, except Sofia's slightly a bit more... inconsistent character. Actress Crystal Reed tries her best, but sometimes the requirements of the plot-of-the-week really end up painting Sofia as either hyper-competent or too volatile depending on the requirements of the episode, and thus I can't really appreciate her as much as I want to.


The thing that probably doesn't work as well in this episode and could've been run across previous episodes would be the gigantic return of multiple characters. In addition to Oswald, Riddler and Lee teaming up -- and Lee realizing that Riddler's taken over the Ed Nygma body -- we've got Solomon Grundy reverting back to Butch Gilzean (and his brief spat with Riddler). We've also got Gordon and Bullock hunting down Mr. Penn, Oswald's old secretary and actually a mole for both Falcones; we've got the return of the glorious Mr. Zsasz, who brings the Headhunter as a sidekick; we've got Team Oswald recruiting Mr. Freeze; and we've got brief side-plots with Barbara, Tabitha, the ghost of Ra's, Bruce and Selina.

Anyway, after a lot of hot potato in tracking down Mr. Penn by all sides, we get the Riddler captured by Sofia and tortured by the Dentist. Oswald and Lee end up getting Mr. Freeze to do a little trick to deliver a frozen Oswald to Sofia's doorstep... and as Oswald breaks free from his prison with one of Mr. Freeze's devices, he ends up forsaking the revenge against Sofia Falcone to save Riddler from being shot to death at the pier, thus rekindling their old partnership once more -- they both have tried to kill each other before, and now they're buddies again, and it's neat and well done.

Meanwhile, Sofia goes off and gets into a standoff against Gordon and Bullock as they try to recover Mr. Penn from a very weird "baby roleplay" fetish place, and in the ensuing shoot-out, Sofia has Gordon dead to rights but ends up being gunned down in the gut and the head by Lee Thompkins. Yay! Of course, apparently she's SOMEHOW in a goddamn coma. There's only so much disbelief that I can suspend, Gotham! Also not a particularly big fan of how Sofia was really keen on still jumping Gordon's bones even when she's about to kill him. Still, Sofia Falcone is out of the way and indisposed for now, so there's that. Lee gets to become the leader of the Narrows and has gained a mean streak, mangling Sampson's hand...

And most interestingly is the Gordon/Bullock stuff. Gordon is willing to accept his resignation, which you would remember was Bullock's condition for coming out of retirement, but Bullock tells Gordon not to -- he's too much of a celebrity hero and an inspiration to the other policemen that for him to reveal his dirty skeletons would absolutely destroy the GCPD. It's just going to be their dirty secret -- the two of them would know that the other used to be dirty in some way or other, but now they're going to try their best to be good. It's a flawed mindset, but it's a way to acknowledge how Gordon's fucked up before while still allowing him to be the hero of Gotham in a way. It's... it's okay, I guess. It's not the perfect solution, but it's a solution that flawed people like Bullock and Gordon would think up of. And I do like it.

We get some neat Bruce/Selina stuff. And I do like how their apology was a lot quicker compared to the Alfred one before. Their dynamic has been through way too much fraying throughout the past four seasons that Selina just brushing it off as "eh, Bruce, you're a dick with mood swings and I accept that about you, so long as you apologize" is hilarious but so in-character. They understandably don't get a lot of screentime in this episode, but what they got was pretty neat, especially that fun little action scene in the pawn shop.

The story with Tabitha and Butch is... just kinda there. Both actors try their best, but I'm just not really invested in Butch's return to sanity at all. Barbara's just dealing with a lot of headaches and is seeing hallucinations of Ra's al Ghul. Which is neat, even if I genuinely forgot that the whole Ra's al Ghul stuff involved Barbara at all.

Overall, the episode is an okay conclusion to the Sofia storyline, and gave us some really satisfying Penguin/Riddler, Gordon/Bullock and Bruce/Selina moments. Sofia herself had started off strong but ended up really going off the rails near the end of the season and being reduced to a pretty generic villain, but this was an okay exit, I think. It's an episode that definitely could've used a lot of trimming, though it's definitely fun enough to watch and experience. And that's what Gotham's really good for -- happy comic-book-y fun.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The first shot of the episode features one of the goons reading a copy of Detective Comics, the comic-book series that introduces Batman and gave DC comics its name. Obviously, it's not an issue that stars Batman. 
• Mr. Freeze, the Headhunter and the Dentist all make their return after not been seen since the first half of this season.