Gotham, Season 1, Episode 7: Penguin's Umbrella
Well after six relatively average or sub-par episodes, Gotham has finally come into its own. This was a great episode. The Penguin is revealed to be playing everyone along. The end of the episode reveals that the Penguin is, in fact, working for Don Falcone and has made a deal to work his way up the Maroni family so he can destabilize the Maroni family for Falcone, whilst taking down rogue elements allied with Fish's attempted takeover. It's an awesome twist, it makes a lot of Penguin's cryptic plans and all the stuff he's doing seem a lot less of a big mad gambit and more of an actual master plan is going on. It's awesome. The Penguin is definitely my favourite character of the show and he does make it absolutely awesome. Doubly so is Falcone, who probably let Penguin have all this information so that Maroni is drunk on his power.We see that he is manipulating everything... Penguin's reveal is only to orchestrate the next few bits of events, where Falcone forbids any outright assault on the Maroni family though they do retaliate on a gun shipment. Penguin, meanwhile, is just tugging on Maroni's strings, pushing the right buttons (calling Falcone the number one gang) and convincing him to send his men to attack one of Falcone's places... which, as we find out later, is run by Nikolai, who is Fish's partner-in-crime.
Maroni's second-in-command, Frankie, has been suspecting Penguin of playing Maroni and it's pretty obvious that he does, and Penguin delivers this awesome speech about someone's passions being someone's weakness as he reveals that he has bribed Frankie's men and then murders Frankie. It's all very awesome and downright creepy at points. And when you think about it, Falcone and Penguin together made all the profit. They took out Maroni's top henchman, moved Penguin up Maroni's organization, allows Penguin to operate freely, and took out a man who was conspiring to kill Falcone. And on top of it all, as 'compensation', all Falcone has to do is not kill Penguin (which he never intended to do in the first place) while Maroni, thanks to Penguin's advice, gives Falcone a piece of Arkham.
It's all an awesome big master plan and I am quite happy with how it's developed. (Incidentally, I hope the whole Diviner plot in Agents of SHIELD is resolved at least somewhat as elegantly as this one)
Gordon himself is a bit on the run. Falcone has sent out one 'Victor' to kill him, and as it turns out, said Victor is Victor Zsasz, who is a member of Batman's rogues gallery. It's awesome to see that we're not going to just get random serial killers like the Goat and the Balloon Man, and Zsasz is indeed suitable for one of Batman's enemies that could be operating in the scope and timeline of the show. Zsasz is played by the awesome actor who plays the Mist in the Flash, and he looks so much fun just strutting around like the crazy psychopath that he is shooting people and generally being a massive creepy fucker. He's already doing the tally-tattoo thing on his arm. It's only 27 or 28 or something around that, and it's only a couple markings on his arms instead of how it would cover his entire torso and both arms like it would be by the time the actual Batman stories roll around, but it's fine. It is, after all, still quite some time before Bruce Wayne dons the cowl.
Still, Zsasz is a nice addition to the cast member and while I doubt he'll show up every episode, I do hope he shows up quite a bit. It's nice to see Falcone having some muscle of his own that isn't allied to Fish.
Also Zsasz has Funky Town as his ringtone. That was hilarious. Zsasz is a lot of fun. I like him.
Gordon himself is proving a bit suicidal, I have to admit, with his plan of going out in a blaze of glory and bringing in Falcone and Mayor Whatshisface, and after an initial terse moment with Bullock, he later joins up in Gordon's mad crusade. Gordon's attempt to just show up for work and defy all the mob's power ends up with him getting shot a shit-ton of times by Zsasz, which is a nice little sledgehammer to his face, I bet. Though Zsasz just going around shooting everyone does make it more believable why all the cops are so afraid to cross Falcone's family.
Gordon gets saved by Allen and Montoya, however, and after passing on the Wayne murder case to them he and Bullock sort of kidnap the Mayor and head off to arrest Falcone. Thanks to Penguin (as we find out later), however, Falcone has been persuaded to spare Gordon, and we get this awesome moment where Falcone just calmly tells Gordon that Zsasz is with Barbara and has the utmost confidence that neither Gordon nor Bullock can get out of his compound without getting shot anyway. Falcone has everyone in the palm of his hand and seeing Gordon try to fight against this friendly chessmaster of a Don is going to be awesome.
Maroni, meanwhile, is a bit more volatile than Falcone is, basically going all 'I wanna hit them back' and everything. Though to his credit, there really isn't any way he could think that Penguin is working for Falcone. Who would think taking out a dozen of Falcone's man could be beneficial to him? Or that Penguin, after all the death threats and whatnot, would still be an agent of Falcone?
Fish herself is still pretty great, playing the role of 'hateable bitch' pretty awesomely. It's clear that the show doesn't really intend to portray her sympathetically, and she finds herself kind of outplayed by both Falcone and Maroni. I do like that moment where Fish is going on and on about respect and Maroni just tells Penguin to apologize sincerely like he's a kindergarten student. And that pissed-off look that Fish has when it's revealed that Falcone's people who Penguin and Frankie killed were, in fact, Nikolai's faction. Fish really needs to step up her game!
Fish's lieutenant, Butch, gets one of the funniest black comedy scenes in the show by chaining nuns across a street to stop Maroni's gun shipment. And the little scene afterwards the truck drivers are just kind of idiots.
We see a bit of Liza, and I almost forgot she changed her hair colour. She's apparently just hanging out in the Falcone mansion, doing chores and baking cookies and stuff, but according to Fish, Falcone hasn't even touched her. Considering just how brilliant Falcone has been shown in this episode and the fact that he's not just some old coot playing with chickens, I'm sure Falcone knows or at least suspects... but genuinely is interested in Liza because of the mommy similarities and whatnot. I'm curious where this part of the plot will go, though not really that much.
On the side of the angels, we see Allen and Montoya showing up like the cavalry to bail Gordon out of his fight with Zsasz, which is awesome. Montoya also admits how her feelings might've gotten in the way of her judgment, so there's that redeeming feature for her. Still not a big fan of Gotham's version of Montoya, but at least she seems to not be annoying for the forseeable future. Allen gets some more scenes this time around, helping out with Gordon's medical treatment and getting a hilarious scene where Alfred easily holds a sword to his throat right up until Gordon clears things out.
I'm not quite sure what the point of them going to the Wayne Manor is other than to give Bruce and Alfred some screen time. Bruce borders between being a sweet kid-Batman and being a bit annoying thanks to his 'I'm not just a kid'... on one hand, any kid who does that should be smacked over the head. On the other, he's the fucking Batman so he gets a pass. I'm still pretty lukewarm about their presence in the show, which is mostly just being a bit distracting and all.
Essen also gets some extra screentime more than her usual fare, and I do like how she cares enough about Gordon (hint hint) to try and convince him to get out of town, and when all the other policemen get out of the room when Zsasz arrives, Essen kept standing next to Gordon right until the point that Gordon tells her to get out. You go, Essen.
Barbara, meanwhile, gets to be the damsel in distress not once, but twice. Well, happy now that you know all the truth and nearly gotten yourself killed? Hopefully this experience will jar Barbara out of her stupidity. Honesty and love and all that, I get. Her idiocy and general 'I love Jim but I want to dig up all his secrets despite there being a perfectly good reason why he hides them' attitude really needs to go. She gets scared stiff several times when she gets confronted with the mob dudes that Gordon shoots in their apartment, and later on is apparently held hostage by Zsasz and the cookie-baking Liza. She doesn't really do enough to be annoying this time around, though.
Overall? Pretty awesome episode all around.
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