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The Plot, The Gay, The Ugly | Gotham 111 Recap

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Welcome to the first Gotham recap of the new year! Gotham, also known as the show where the moral code is as existent as Pegasus, the Loch Ness Monster and the jolly green giant.

This week on the show, lead character Jim Gordon starts work at Arkham Asylum but as expect, things do not go to plan.

As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly.

The Plot

When we open on Gotham, old Jimboy is overseeing a musical. It’s all costumes and cheers until the dramatic angel sings, causing another inmate to punch the high notes out of his performance. The world’s worst guard (he even calls the inmates lunatics), Jim gets a new love interest for his troubles; a woman named Dr. Tomkins who he meets as the victim is being treated. There’s some casual flirting and the pummelled angel wakes up and tells them to get a room *yawn*.

It’s not all peachy for the main man though after his usual patrol turns up a dead man. Well, a brain dead man at least as Tomkins determines that the inmate has been administered electro shock therapy, frying his brain and rendering him alive but unable to do anything. Jim wants to call in the GCPD, Dr. Gerry Lang says no and so we’ve now got Jim’s first case of the new year.

The first step of his investigation is finding out just who had the keys which bizarrely, instead of searching the cells Jim decides to…interrogate the mentally insane criminals. Who obviously are in the right of mind for that sort of thing. Alas, even after conversations with child-like axe murderer Helzinger and sociopathic Dr. Gruber, Jim is still stuck for answers. But Jim will need to work fast as our singing angel friend is the latest victim, being reduced to a gibbering, play-reciting mess.
Jim has now got back up though, having called up old pal Harvey Bullock to help him! And he’s a genuine help rather than a lumbering pro-corruption weight for once too, finding out from Lang that Nurse Dorothy is an inmate not a Nurse and has had them all fooled until this very moment. (Nice going, background checks). Jim figures it out about the right time and sets about putting the whole place in lockdown but not before Dorothy has sprinted off and let all of the inmates out of their cells like a maniacal pied piper. She also gets trampled; in the most ridiculous scene in television history but let’s pretend that this is super serious!

So with Dorothy dead, is the mystery over? Of course not and Jim and Dr. Tomkins still need to get the hell out of dodge. It involves some quick thinking and Jim punching an inmate right in the kisser to protect her. Aww, chivalry’s not dead!

Getting out alive (just about), Jim is all ready to celebrate with Harvey and Police Chief Essen when the coroner reveals that Dorothy had electro-shock wounds on her neck too. Wounds, he says, that she couldn’t possibly have given to herself. That means that she was merely another victim and that the real culprit is still on the loose. Not that they get there in time to stop them though as both a guard and Dr. Lang die, with a snapped neck and a total bloodbath respectively. Cut to a shot of Gruber and Helzinger hightailing it out of Arkham in a van.

Less fortunate meanwhile is Ivy, who’s shivering her juvenile tuchus off under a cardboard box. Thank goodness for thieving pal Selina ‘Catwoman’ Kyle who rescues her from the destitution and ‘borrows’ Jim and fiancée Barbara’s pad for a bit. Anything for a friend in need and all that.

We also catch up with Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot for a bit and the limping, suited goon is doing mob boss Maroni’s bidding, talking to fishermen to raise the prices and hand over more of their fish gotten gains to the mafia. Things don’t quite go to plan and he gets a right welt to the face from the police and a lock up in a cell for his efforts. And, when Maroni shows up to let him out, Penguin gets an earful from Maroni too. Better watch your back, boy.

Other mob boss Fish Mooney is planning her own moves. She’s talking big. She wants to take down mob leader Carmine Falcone and split the business up between herself and the two other honchos. There will have to be a new leader and, having come up with all the ideas Mooney puts herself forward, but Jimmy, the senior figure under Falcone, is having none of it and so he will have to be dealt with.

Her plan of action is to send Butch, her right hand man an old friend of Jimmy’s, to go and speak to him. Mooney has concerns that Butch is a turncoat though but he assures her that there’s nothing to be worried about. Does she have a point though? When Butch meets with Jimmy a day later, he offers his friend a hefty sum; a massive chunk of the business. Butch tells him he’ll ‘consider it’ and will get back to him soon. Hmm.

When they meet up again, Butch and Jimmy have a right old heart to heart. When they stole a bunch of meat when they were 14, Butch says that he took a bunch of prime steaks for himself and he’s felt bad for stiffing his friend out of those premium cuts ever since. He’s sorry, Jimmy forgives him, it’s a beautiful showcase of friendship! Until Butch pulls out a gun and puts a bullet in Jimmy’s head. Looks like Mooney has nothing to worry about after all.

The Gay

As for our other favourite Gotham-ians (Gothamites? residents of Gotham, anyway) Renee and Barbara, the two are holed up in Renee’s room. Bringing in some empty prop coffee cups, Renee looks to wake Barbara up the right way! Give her some energy! Or give her something that will shake her out of a pill induced slumber as Barbara is buddied up with her intoxicated demons once more.

Despite kisses and coffee, it’s not all niceties. Renee wants Barbara to call Jim and help her get clean – she and Barbara are toxics together, she says. Renee has been sober for a year, after her initial relationship with Barbara got her into this mess in the first place, so I don’t blame her for saying that. However, it seems disjointed on the show’s part to see make relationship blow up so fast.

She does actually phone Jim though but Ivy, having taken up a spot on their sofa, answers the phone pretending to be romantically involved with Jim (?). It’s weird and Ivy even sounds like a child but Barbara falls for it and tells her to go to hell so it might not be completely done for Barbara and Renee just yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5opRJAsw2hg

The Ugly

Ignoring the oddly shoehorned in romance hints between Jim and Dr. Tomkins, the awkward kiss between Renee and Barbara or the fact that Penguin’s storyline existed once again for no apparent reason, the ugly in this week’s Gotham was actually what was missing.

Specifically, Bruce Wayne and his butler Alfred Pennyworth were missing and the episode wasn’t really lacking because of it. It’ll be interesting to see how their corruption busting plot coexists with Jim’s and if the plot surrounding the young Batman will put me to sleep.

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If only the world was as “open-minded” as us… Alas, matters of sexual identity and equal love, often cause so much friction in the rest of the world. Here, find an open dialogue on the issues facing our LGBT community.

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