Gotham S05E03 Review: Penguin Our Hero, Knows No Fear-O

Gotham, Season 5, Episode 3: Penguin, Our Hero

An... an interesting episode of Gotham, I think. It's definitely stronger than the previous episode in that I really felt like the events of this episode mattered a lot more instead of just "do a couple of side-quests", but that might just be because of my personal enjoyment of the Penguin more than anything.

The episode opens up with the wacky happenings in Penguinland, with the utterly hilarious choir singing a ridiculous Penguin anthem. "O Penguin, our hero! He knows, no fear-o!" And Penguin is furious at his secretary, Mr. Penn, that apparently a lot of Penguin's subjects are defecting to Jim Gordon because of all the rumours going around that Gordon has founded Haven. And so many of Penguin's organization has defected that during lunch later on, the angry members of the Street Demons gang (who we learn last episode has been killed by someone claiming to be Penguin) attack Penguin, while he lampshades just how stupid it was to kill just a bunch of the gang while leaving around his call card instead of just wiping them all out in one go.

Of course, Penguin being a gigantic dick to everyone ends up with Mr. Penn, his choir, and every single member of his men defecting to Gordon. Including Edward the dog, and everyone talking about Edward the dog "going willingly" is just utterly hilarious. Penguin ends up working with the Street Demons dude that he imprisoned, conscripting it and the other gangs into his army to basically bring back his people from Haven.

Of course, Gordon's men are running out of both food and ammunition, and when the inevitable confrontation happens, Penguin calls Gordon's bluff and the GCPD policemen actually do run out of bullets. Penguin and the Street Demons take over Haven, and... and it's kind of surprising that they don't just kill all the cops or whatever. But during an argument between Penguin and the Street Demons, turns out that when Penguin doesn't actually have anyone actually loyal to him, the Street Demons just end up being utterly done with his shit, and just steal all of his guns. Oh, and Mr. Penn gets shot to death. Poor Mr. Penn. He didn't manage to do much, does he?

Penguin and Gordon find themselves stuck in the same prison cell, but one of the orphans that Gordon befriended earlier in the episode help them escape by slipping them a key. This somehow leads to Gordon managing to free every single GCPD member off-screen, and get enough guns to take down the Street Demons. It's... it's honestly kind of clumsy writing, honestly, and the sheeple, seeing Penguin shooting the Street Demons leader, hail Penguin as their saviour. Really? Like, I get that the whole point of the episode is sort of showing just how unstable the people of Gotham's allegiances are, jumping from Gordon to Penguin very quickly and that hope speeches aren't received as well right after a gang invasion. But I dunno. It's weird.

Oh, we get to see Bullock attempting to get Barbara's help earlier in the episode, and basically the magic word to get Barbara to lend her help is the fact that Penguin is invading. Barbara shows up at the end of the episode wanting to murder Penguin while Gordon tries to stop Barbara from killing Penguin in Haven... but then the entire apartment complex just explodes and gets shot straight to hell, and that is a legitimate plot twist that I wasn't expecting, and actually justifies the abrupt and rapid set-up of Haven as a location last episode. There's so many unknown players in place right now that I don't really want to speculate who's behind this (presumably the same dude that bazooka'd the Wayne helicopter in episode one) but it's definitely a neat plot twist!

Meanwhile, despite her bizarre deus ex plant recovery, Selina basically gets to become a lot more aggressive in this episode, while still maintaining her sanity. I do like that they didn't just go the route of Flash's Killer Frost and have an alternate personality take over, because this way it is Selina actually consciously choosing to do the things she does. Selina and Bruce go off to hunt down Jeremiah with a nice little scene of Selina telling Bruce that she is "not yours to lose", and she's doing this whether he wants to help or not. They go to the Dark Zone, where apparently all of the maniacs live. We get to see some of the victims of the Dark Zone, with a dude that gets "KILL ME" carved into his flesh with some genuinely good prosthetics, and some dude that gets tied up and has a bomb strapped to him before blowing up and sending a shower of nails flying everywhere.

Selina and Bruce fight some of the punks, including one that is based off of the Mutant Leader from that Elseworlds comic the Dark Knight Returns, and Selina is... extremely brutal, continuing to pound and wail on the dude's face even after he gives Jeremiah's location to her. We get Bruce using a grapple line to stop Selina's fist in a pretty cool moment, and Selina at least listens to Bruce at this point.

They investigate the location and find out that Ms. Ecco, Jeremiah's little silent Harley Quinn-esque minion, has apparently became super-crazy and is leading a Cult of Jeremiah. It's definitely a fucked-up scene as she basically has everyone to play in a weird, insane game of Russian Roulette where they shoot others around them in some fucked-up ritual that Selina sort of joins in to try and get to Jeremiah... but she doesn't quite go that far to pull the trigger. And Ecco talks a lot about how their 'salvation' in Jeremiah seem like insanity to normal folk. And... and it is kind of a bizarre, insane cult that Ecco is running, because I genuinely can't see how this makes for good recruits. But I guess what Jeremiah wants are just maniacs.

We learn that Ecco apparently became insane thanks to playing the Russian Roulette game, and the bullet's still rattling in her brain. We get her pulling the gun on her head multiple times and, god, I really didn't pay any attention to Ecco in season four, but her actress really plays insanity really well, huh? Ecco pushes Selina's buttons as they fight, leading to Selina holding a gun at Ecco's head just as Bruce arrives. Bruce intervenes, causing Ecco to escape, and this leads to Selina and Bruce having an argument before Selina goes off on her own to hunt down Jeremiah.

Ultimately, I really, really like the Bruce/Selina stuff. Not so much how we got there because I still think the magic seed is handled poorly, but the character interaction between the two is definitely well-done. And while on paper I did enjoy the plot developments with Penguin and Gordon both trying to appeal to different parts of the sheep-people of Gotham, the execution in this episode is honestly somewhat suspect. It's still a fun enough episode, though.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Ms. Ecco (now called "Mummer", according to interviews) is continuing to grow into the show's version of Harley Quinn. In addition to her attire, she briefly uses the term "puddin", which is pretty much something associated with Harley Quinn.
• The shirtless punk with a funky visor that Selina beats up is visually inspired by the Mutant Leader, one of the villains in the what-if future story The Dark Knight Returns, an award winning graphic novel. His gangster minions also wear the same orange visor that the Mutant gang uses in TDKR.