Caped Crusades’ Review of Gotham Episode ‘The Mask’

Warning: This article will contain spoilers for the Gotham Episode ‘The Mask’ proceed with caution

It’s time for another Gotham episode review! This week’s episode of Gotham was titled ‘The Mask’ and I know I’ve been saying this often lately but it was the best episode yet! A lot of important things went down in ‘The Mask’ so my recap will be much longer than usual as I don’t want to leave out anything important.

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Gotham started with a pair of well dressed men attempting to kill each other in what looked like an abandoned factory that is set up like an office with desks and office equipment everywhere. As one man is finally successful in killing the other, though not before some serious injury to his hand courtesy of his victim, it becomes clear that someone has been watching them via cameras this whole time. The very next scene of course is Bullock and Gordon arriving on the scene to investigate the murder, and we see that the last episode ‘Penguin’s Umbrella’ has had quite the negative impact on Gordon as he no longer trusts the unis (uniformed police officers) to canvas the area. This is of course because in the last episode when Victor Zasz showed up at the precinct for Gordon, all the other cops in the building, including Captain Sarah Essen, walked out on Gordon and left him to Zasz. While Edward Nygma is examining the body we find out what the serious injury to our murderer was, his victim bit off his thumb.

In the following scene we see our beloved Oswald Cobblepot approach some random rich socialite type on the street and ask for her brooch. He asks for it quite politely but his face gets serious and he grabs her shoulder, the scene cuts away and we don’t know what he did to the socialite but we next see him at Fish Mooney’s club and he is giving her the brooch as a gift. The brooch is a gift of peace, as Cobblepot is of course working for Don Maroni now. The exchange looks to be going quite pleasantly until Fish takes the brooch’s long pin and stabs it through the back of Penguin’s hand, whereupon she tastes the blood left on the pin. She and Penguin angrily discuss his betrayal of her and her anger at his not being killed as she had ordered him.

All this happens before the Gotham opening screen. After the first commercial break Alfred is dropping off Bruce at school and Bruce is trying to debate with him on the merits of being home schooled instead of having to attend this private school. Alfred insists that Bruce needs to be around children his own age and sends him off to school. While Bruce is in school Gordon is interviewing the mother of his murder victim, a good man who had no criminal record whatsoever which is quite impressive in Gotham if you ask me. Bullock and Captain Essen discuss the need to start looking at black market doctors for their suspect as no E.R. has had a man with a missing thumb come in, and discuss Gordon being so angry with his fellow cops who all ran out on him with Zasz and now “treat him as if he has the plague because he reminds them all of what cowards they are” as Bullock describes the situation.

Penguin must have taken the brooch with him when he left Mooney’s because he later gives the brooch to his mother, who freaks out when she sees the damage to his hand that Fish inflicted with the very same brooch he is giving to his mother. They discuss envious people and how to deal with them, and the fact that every person has a secret. Gordon and Bullock pay a visit to a black market doctor to find out more about their suspect. The murderer did visit this doctor and though he didn’t leave a name he dropped a business card for Sionis Investments. If the name Sionis sounds familiar that is because in Batman’s time Roman Sionis of Sionis Industries owns a good chunk of Gotham and is a crime boss better known as Black Mask. Gordon arrests the black market doctor, against Bullock’s advice, which honestly only upsets his fellow cops even further.

The medical examiner catches Edward Nygma performing his own autopsy on the murder victim, and I think it may be one of my favorite scenes as I just love watching Cory Michael Smith play Nygma, it’s almost like he was born to play the role. In fact most of this cast seems like they could have been born to play their roles on Gotham, they play their characters so naturally. The show returns to Bruce and his uncomfortable first day in school, where it is clear that he is already a little ladies man as we see a pair of very cute girls his age walk past him with a “Hi Bruce” and a smile, to which he replies with a nervous “Hi” and a smile. Sadly he is not as popular with his fellow male students as he is set upon by a couple bullies just as the girls pass by. The bullies are led by one Tommy Elliot which is an interesting direction to go with this character as traditionally Tommy Elliot was a childhood friend of Bruce’s. Though admittedly he grows to hate the Wayne’s and he becomes the Batman villain known as Hush.

Fish meets up with her secret weapon and gives her a new task which will require her to drug Don Falcone in order to steal something from him and bring it to Fish. When Gordon and Bullock investigate Sionis Investments they encounter a RIchard Sionis, who may very well be Roman Sionis’ father, and his inspiration to become Black Mask as Richard is obsessed with warriors, wars, and creepy Japanese masks. Richard Sionis can tell that Gordon, unlike himself, is a true killer, in Gordon’s case it was during the war, in Richard’s case he likes to force perspective employees to fight to the death to earn a position in his employ. He also says something that I find very appropriate for Batman, that a mask hides the face but frees the soul, the mask speaks the truth, which we all know is the case when it comes to our beloved dark knight.

Gordon and Bullock are positive that Richard Sionis is responsible for their victim’s murder but of course they cannot prove it just yet. They are right of course, they even find the man with the missing thumb in the men’s room of Sionis Investments. School ends and Tommy and his little group approach Bruce again, and this time Tommy crosses the line when he makes a comment about Martha Wayne to Bruce, who hits him, sadly to little effect. Penguin nabs Fish’s new umbrella boy and tortures him for information about Fish, after all when he held the position he was privy to many of Mooney’s secrets.

Jim and Harvey interrogate their suspect with the missing thumb and find out that the fight that lead to their victim’s death is all part of the hiring process for Sionis Investments. While the perspective employees are not actually supposed to kill each other it does happen from time to time, in fact Edward Nygma tells Captain Essen that there have been four murders committed with office supplies in the last three years. Of course Sionis’ lawyer shows up just in time to prevent the murderer from signing his confession.

Tommy and his goons beat Bruce up a bit and that is when Alfred decides to do something about it.Normally one would expect that a parent or guardian would speak to the school about a matter like this, but that is not who Alfred is, not in this version of Batman’s history at any rate. Instead Alfred gives Bruce the tools to deal with Tommy Elliot himself, in fact he drives young Bruce to the Elliot residence and allows him to beat the snot out of Tommy.

While searching locations that Sionis owns Gordon gets himself grabbed and Sionis sicks three potential employees on him. Bullock meanwhile makes a speech at the precinct about how none of the other cops were there for Gordon and that he needs their help now, Essen agrees to start searching for Gordon who has managed to kill his three assailants and apprehends Sionis when he too attacks Gordon. Cobblepot finally gets Mooney’s secret from her umbrella boy and kills him. It looks like Barbara may be leaving Gordon, Selina shows back up in Jim’s life and Bruce asks Alfred to teach him how to fight. And that is how the episode ends.

All in all it was a very important episode for Gotham, and it seems to me that the show is quickly picking up speed. I don’t know that I have any complaints about this episode, and while some people have complained that Gotham is a little too eager to point out who each character is supposed to be on Gotham, like a ‘look look, here’s the Riddler’ sort of obviousness, it really makes a lot of sense to me. While we die-hard Batman fans would either be able to figure out a character’s identity with a lot less to go on than what Gotham is giving us, and might even enjoy sitting there puzzling “who is this person going to become?” most casual viewers don’t want that. If you aren’t a major Batman fan why would you enjoy spending so much time not knowing what was really going on or who these characters were, if I were not the Batman fan that I am I would not like to spend every episode going “I don’t know who any of these people are, what the hell do they have to do with Batman?” The creators of Gotham need the show to be enjoyable to people who only have a passing knowledge of Batman and all his cast of characters, and that is why the show tries to make every character introduction obvious, though I personally feel that they do a good job at revealing them in such a way that die-hard fans can enjoy the character introductions too.

I am quickly coming to a point where I look forward to Sean Pertwee and David Mazouz’ scenes in Gotham the most as I just absolutely love the relationship that is developing between Bruce and Alfred. Alfred Pennyworth has always been Bruce’s staunchest ally in his fight against crime, despite his desire to see Bruce give up vigilantism to live a normal life, and it is wonderful to finally get a glimpse into that relationship as it was when it was new. Sean Pertwee and David Mazouz have really good on screen chemistry as Alfred and Bruce, and though I once protested at Mazouz’s casting, I now have to admit I’m a very big fan, and it’s also really neat to live tweet Gotham and see all the tweets from the adult members of the cast praising Mazouz for his acting chops.

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