Gotham Review: Five Standout Moments Of Worse Than A Crime
Warning: Spoilers ahead for the Gotham episode Worse Than A Crime
Greetings Gotham fans! Last night’s episode of Gotham, Worse Than A Crime, was the fall finale of the show, which won’t be returning until late February. So that makes this my last Gotham review of 2015! The show has had it’s ups and downs but I find myself anxious for it’s return already!
Next: #1:....Lee Announces Her Pregnancy
Standout Moment No. 1: Lee Announces Her Pregnancy
Lee Thompkins starts out this episode very upset, her boyfriend is missing after having attacked Galavan in the courthouse when all charges against the Mayor of Gotham were dropped. Furthering her unhappiness is a warrant out for Jim’s arrest, declaring him a fugitive from the law. A warrant that Captain Barnes himself, a man who is supposed to see Jim as a son, has put on her boyfriend’s head. Lee goes to the GCPD to confront Barnes about the warrant and to try and locate her missing beau. After her confrontation with Barnes, Thompkins is approached by Nygma who tells her where she can find Gordon in the form of a riddle, thankfully one that is fairly easy to solve. Leslie arrives at Nygma’s apartment to find Gordon gearing up with Penguin and his thugs, getting ready to take on Galavan once more. When it is clear that she won’t be able to dissuade Jim from his current course on her own, Lee tells Jim she is pregnant after suggesting that they get out of town together.
I find this moment to be very intriguing, because it brings up a few questions. My first question, is Lee actually pregnant or did she just claim it in a desperate attempt to get Jim to leave Gotham and all his issues behind. The second question, if she is pregnant, what on Earth is going on!? Does this mean that Batgirl is soon to be on the show, albeit as an infant? How will Jim convince Lee to name their daughter after his ex-fiance, or will the girl we know as Babs Gordon have a different name? Maybe this baby will actually be Jim Gordon’s son Jim Jr. the one who grows up to be a psycho serial killer(this makes even less sense than the Batgirl theory as I thought Barbara being crazy was a very good explanation for her and Jim’s son being a psychopath) . Does this announcement, and her subsequent leaving Gotham without Jim signal the end of their relationship? Will Gordon go back to Barbara for some reason? Will Lee leave Jim to raise their child on his own? and is that why he names her Barbara? Perhaps Lee is out of the picture and he and Barbara get back together and raise the baby together? It’s all pretty crazy and I find myself hoping that Lee only said she was pregnant to get Jim to agree to leave Gotham with her.
Next: #2:....Bruce Saves Silver With A Kiss
Standout Moment No. 2: Bruce Saves Silver With A Kiss
Silver St. Cloud, despite all her faults, can’t bear to watch Bruce Wayne die, so she tries to feign a cold to get out of the ceremony in which her uncle will kill Bruce. Her uncle senses her sentimentality, which he declares to be weakness and orders Silver to trick Bruce into falling in love with her again before he dies. Galavan calls it a test and says he wants Bruce to kiss her goodbye before he dies, otherwise he will either kill her or put her out on the streets. Silver does her best to seduce Bruce, faking an escape attempt to rescue him from her uncle’s clutches, but Bruce isn’t fooled. In the end Silver comes clean and admits why she is doing what she is, and what her uncle expects of her. Bruce being the kind and noble young man that he is, when the time comes and Galavan arrives to take Bruce from his cell, makes a show of telling Silver that he loves her and forgives her, and kisses her goodbye in front of Galavan, in effect saving her life.
Bruce is a very good kind hearted young man, who truly does not deserve all the bad things that have happened in his young life. Call me weird, but I was quite proud of Bruce when he did this, to see that in his mind, just because she had tricked him and caused him pain did not mean she deserved to die. And so, knowing that the power to save her life from her uncle’s wrath was in his hands, Bruce chose to save Silver, proving to her that he really is a good person. This of course, effects Silver profoundly, and now not only can she not bear to watch Bruce’s death, she attempts to prevent it, screaming at the priest not to kill Bruce, just at the right moment it turns out because Father Callahan pauses just long enough for Gordon and company to burst on the scene to rescue Bruce.
Next: #3:....Tabitha Turns on Theo
Standout Moment No. 3: Tabitha Turns On Theo
There’s been a bit of tension between the Galavan siblings since Theo’s arrest and Tabitha’s subsequent hiring of assassins to take out Jim Gordon against her brother’s wishes. The tension builds throughout this episode, starting with Theo’s displeasure at Tabitha letting Alfred get away and her attitude about the whole thing. The major point of contention between them however, is Silver St. Cloud and Theo Galavan’s treatment of her. We have seen how depraved Tabitha Galavan is, and how much she enjoys violence and death, but apparently she draws the line at family, or at least children who are family. Throughout the episode she tells her brother to lay off Silver, and when it becomes clear that he intends to kill Silver for interupting Father Callahan when he is attempting to ritually kill Bruce, Tabitha knocks Theo unconscious and she and Silver take the two parachutes Theo had hidden away and jump out the window leaving him to the mercy of Jim, Penguin, and the others.
Silver clearly has no idea what to make of this development and must be pushed out the window by Tabitha to spur her into action. This moment is significant of course because Tabitha was Theo’s right hand woman, and I think also his part time lover. She did his dirty work for him and seemed to love it quite a bit. The two had a twisted relationship but it did seem that they were very tight and it seemed unlikely that Tabby would betray her brother. In all honesty I thought that if Tabitha turned on Theo it would have to be because he betrayed her, for example had his escape plan been to leave her to the wolves and take off alone, I figured she would retaliate. What I did not see coming was her knocking him out in favor of saving their niece from his wrath, and then kicking him in the head just before declaring that it’s time she looked out for herself and pushing a parachute wearing Silver out the window and jumping after.
Next: #4:....Gordon And Penguin Kill Galavan
Standout Moment No. 4: Gordon And Penguin Kill Galavan
As Gordon and company gather and prepare to storm the castle so to speak, Jim makes it clear that he intends to arrest Galavan and keep Penguin from killing him. He is of course, trying to uphold the law in his own way and stick to his previously held morals. However, when it comes right down to it and he has Galavan in cuffs, Penguin knocks out Captain Barnes and is able to convince Jim that it really is necessary (from their perspective) to kill Galavan. In the end, if Gordon was not afraid that Galavan would manage to get free again, he would have arrested Galavan as he planned and the fall finale would have ended on a very different note. In the second to last scene of the episode, Gordon and Penguin pull up by the water and remove Galavan from the trunk of their car. Gordon allows Penguin to beat on Theo with a baseball bat for awhile, until Galavan is literally begging Jim to kill him. At which point Jim stops Penguin and shoots Galavan at near point blank range.
This is a serious and important moment in the series as it marks a breaking point in Jim Gordon that has been building all season thus far. Gordon has gotten darker and darker over the course of season two and he has not just skirted the line but stepped boldly over it a few times. Poor Leslie Thompkins has watched helplessly as her beloved boyfriend has flirted with his dark desires more times that we can count. But this; killing Theo Galavan with Penguin is where Jim has finally crossed the last boundary, and it seems there is no going back to the good law abiding, man of principles that he once was. Season one Jim Gordon would never have killed Galavan, he wouldn’t have even given it a serious thought, because to season one Gordon to break the law was to become as bad as the criminals he fought.
Next: #5:....Theo Galavan's Body Is Taken To Indian Hill
Standout Moment No.5: Theo Galavan’s Body Is Taken To Indian Hill
After Gordon kills Galavan he leaves Penguin behind to do with the body what he will ( he shoves an umbrella down Galavan’s dead throat) and meets Lee at some undisclosed location. He assures her that it’s over and then asks her to marry him. We don’t see her answer as the scene cuts to a pair of orderlies from the morgue driving into Indian Hill, the same place Firefly was taken, with what we presume is Theo Galavan’s corpse. This presumption is soon confirmed when the mysterious Ms. Peabody unzips the body bag to reveal Galavan’s face with the umbrella coming out of his mouth. It’s clear that this place is running experiments on Gotham’s more interesting criminals, the sorts that no one will miss.
We haven’t seen the last of Theo Galavan, of that we can be certain because his body is taken to the mysterious medical facility no one knows about under the Indian Hill toxic waste dump. A secret medical facility that is apparently being run by Dr. Hugo Strange, and I would not be surprised one bit if there wasn’t a Lazurus pit somewhere in this facility. As a matter of fact I will be very surprised if there isn’t a Lazurus pit to bring Theo Galavan back from the dead. Of course all serious Batman fans (and fans of Arrow, for that matter) know what can happen to a person who is actually dead when they are dipped in the pit. They come back alright, but they tend to come back wrong, so most likely when we next see Theo Galavan he will be a monster.
Well folks, that’s it from me today, but Caped Crusades is doing a round table discussion about the season so far, just as we did last year, so be on the look out for that later this week!