Gotham S1E18 Review: Deal with the Devil

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 18: Everyone Has a Cobblepot

It's a more cop-centric episode this time around, with the main premise of the episode being Gordon going up against the corrupt Commissioner Loeb. It's not a terribly exciting one, but there are some events that happened here regarding character dynamics that I liked. And we get a Gordon/Penguin team-up! I thought that there were a couple of pretty unnecessary filler moments, most notably the point where Gordon and Dent went to investigate the Chinese information network and wasted quite a bit just being chased by knifed Chinese punks before Bullock saves them.

But overall I do like the episode a fair bit. Not as much as the last one, but it was fun stuff. We start off with Gordon teaming up with Harvey Dent (nice to have him back) to hunt down Loeb, who set Flass free by pressuring Bullock to give a false testimony in the case. I do like how the fact that Bullock's more shady self hinted from the first episode gets explored here -- after all, he was ready to shoot Gordon if Gordon didn't shoot Cobblepot. And Bullock himself seems pretty troubled of the things he did by the end of the episode, though like he said, there isn't really a way to get through it without losing his head back then. Regardless, it was a nice little twist even if I don't really see Gordon and Bullock breaking up for too long.

And then Gordon and Bullock kind of ditch Dent and went to the Penguin for help, for a deal with the devil, as it is... with Penguin getting a favour with no-strings-attached from Gordon. Considering Penguin's role in giving Gordon information (via torture) back during the Flass episode, I thought this was a great angle to explore, and indeed while Penguin seems happy to help Gordon, he is also a businessman and I do like their little bargain. Granted for all the buildup to them finding Loeb's stack of files it all came up empty, but the revelation that they found out Loeb's insane daughter is a strange but nice little twist.

We've been led to believe that Loeb is the one responsible for killing his wife and that would be the predictable button for Gordon to push, but no. The one who killed Loeb's wife was his insane daughter, and I do like the unsettling scene with her talking about bird bones and stuff. Future Magpie perhaps? It also does humanize Loeb more in that he's covering up for his crazy daughter, and I do like how Loeb doesn't give up every single file and whatnot. Gordon gets what he wants and more, though -- Flass's trial presumably gets underway again, and Gordon gets Bullock's files from Loeb and a promotion.

Penguin was absolute fun this episode, with him making the conversation with the two housekeepers look hilarious, and the ending scene where he tells the happy married couple that there's only one ticket, causing the wife to kill the husband... and then Penguin cocks the shotgun and kills her because he wasn't even planning to help any of them. I do like this episode and it's a good one for Penguin, once more bringing back his devious psychotic tendencies of murdering people left and right, as well as pulling strings and pushing buttons to gain allies everywhere. Certainly preferable to seeing him fuck up while running a bar.

The B-plot that takes up the most space is, once more, Fish and the Dollmaker. I honestly don't fucking care. Oh, look, Fish got a new blue eye. Oh, look, Dollmaker puts Jeffrey Coombs' character's head on a Frankenstein woman body. Oh, look, Fish is running the underground operation and kind of backstabs her 'family'. I still don't see any point why Dollmaker would spare Fish and not kill her right then and there and seize control of the underground human factory himself other than just for the sheer hell of it. I don't fucking care at all. For all the buildup I really wasn't feeling the Dollmaker.

We get some short scenes with Riddler being a hopeless romantic with Kringle which I honestly don't see the point of either.

We also get some Bruce and Alfred, and while Alfred wants to just heroically pull off those medical tubes and whatnot and go hunt down Reggie, he's in no condition to do so. Apparently Alfred is going to hide Reggie's identity from the police out of a misguided sense of honour, and Selina is offering her services to help Bruce take down whoever did this to Alfred. I don't particularly have much interest in this side of the plot either, really.


Overall the Penguin, Gordon and Bullock stuff were pretty good, with some nice set pieces involving Loeb and his daughter. But all the other distracting stuff kind of bring down the episode a notch or two.