Gotham Review: Five Standout Moments From Into The Woods

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the Gotham episode Into The Woods

Hey, greetings fellow Batman fans! I’ve been gone for awhile letting Caped Crusades’ editor handle writing the reviews for Gotham as I have been recovering from eye surgery but I am back! And I am ready to review this week’s episode of Gotham with you, the episode titled Into The Woods!

Next: #1:....Bruce And Selina Steal From A Thief

Standout Moment No. 1: Bruce And Selina Steal From A Thief

In the opening moments of the episode we see Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne on the roof of a building running from a man they have just stolen from. Selina bumps into something on the roof and drops the loot. She tells Bruce to leave it but he picks up the loot and takes off after her leaping to another roof. The thief chasing them, who is an adult and not in any shape to leap across rooftops stops at the edge of the first roof to scream at them while Bruce and Selina taunt him about what a terrible thief he is and Bruce starts throwing the cash down to the passersby on the street below freaking out both Selina and the man they stole from.

This is an important moment for Bruce for a number of reasons, like the leap from one roof to another. We saw Bruce make a similar jump in the middle of the first season but back then he was nervous and hesitated and almost didn’t make the landing. This time however he leaps with no hesitation at all that we can see and that shows he is making more progress in his physical training. Batman would easily make that kind of jump without thinking much about it. I also thought this moment was important because playing the criminal has often been part of Bruce’s training to become the Batman (not that he knows he will be the Batman someday). For example, in Batman Begins Bruce acted as a criminal in order to study criminals and even wound up in prison where he enjoyed beating the tar out of every idiot who tried to attack him. You may remember the scene where they take him away to solitary for protection, not for his own but for the other inmates’ protection.

Next: #2:....Nygma Reveals Himself To Gordon

Standout Moment No. 2: Nygma Reveals Himself To Gordon

In order to clear his name of the murder of a fellow officer Gordon gets his hands on a tape Internal Affairs made of the anonymous call made to them to frame him in the first place. Gordon goes to Edward Nygma for help cleaning up the tape knowing that Nygma knows his way around forensics and audio, and hoping that Nygma is friend enough to believe Jim when he says he is innocent. Now Jim has never before suspected Ed of any wrong doings but he quickly becomes suspicious of Ed’s strange behavior and when pressed Nygma reveals his hand. He was however, somehow prepared for this, though how he could have possibly known Gordon would show up at his apartment is beyond me, and he had rigged Gordon’s chair up ahead of time and is shocks the man unconscious. Nygma drags Gordon’s unconscious body out to his car so he can bury Gordon in the woods like his girlfriend Ms. Kringle, but Gordon wakes up and runs away, though not before Nygma shoots him in the leg and chases him around a run down building for awhile.

This moment obviously stands out because Nygma has been fairly careful about hiding his true nature from Gordon and the rest of the GCPD. It’s also an important step on the road toward becoming The Riddler, because he could have kept playing dumb but when backed into a corner he couldn’t help but reveal himself. That has actually often been the Riddler’s downfall when facing off with Batman, his arrogance and his confidence lead him to giving himself away because he just can’t help but taunt Batman with his ‘superior’ intelligence.

Next: #3:....Nygma Gets Caught

Standout Moment No. 3: Nygma Gets Caught
Gordon schemes with Bruce, Alfred, and Selina to get Nygma to lead him to Kristen Kringle’s body and Selina shows up at the GCPD loudly demanding the reward for finding Jim Gordon, feeding Nygma false information leading to him thinking that Gordon would find Kristen’s body and prompting him to dig her up to attempt to move her. In trying to move Kringle’s body Nygma leads not only Gordon but Bullock and Captain Barnes and a whole team of police right to her and he finally gets caught.

This moment is an extremely important one as it is the first time Edward Nygma is caught by the police and winds up in Arkham Asylum. Of course with Hugo Strange in charge of Arkham he may be out of Arkham again by the season finale. It also proves just how blind the GCPD can be, there was a killer in their midst and they had no idea that the quirky Edward Nygma is really a monster. It also had the added benefit of clearing Jim Gordon’s name and allowing him to go back to his life and freeing him to be reinstated as a detective after he solves the Wayne murders.

Next: #4:....Penguin Snaps And Kills Step Family

Standout Moment No. 4: Penguin Snaps And Kills Step Family

Penguin’s long lost father died at the end of the last episode because he drank the poisoned sherry that was meant for his son. After his father’s funeral Oswald begs his stepmother to allow him to stay with her and her children in his father’s home, and due to his currently passive nature and some idiocy on her part, Grace Van Dahl makes Cobblepot her personal Cinderella. We saw previously through the nightmares that Penguin was having that Hugo Strange’s conditioning was starting to break and it was clear at some point that Oswald would once again be the murderous Penguin we’ve come to know. His fraying grip on sanity snaps completely when he discovers the sherry decanter with the poison in it and Oswald gets his revenge on his evil step family and it is positively Shakespearean. In a scene right out of Titus Andronicus, he feeds Charles and Sasha Van Dahl to their mother Grace just as Titus did to the queen of the Goth come empress of Rome because the queen knew that her sons had raped his daughter, cut out her tongue and cut off her hands and framing her own brothers for the act.

It’s possible that had Elijah Van Dahl lived Oswald would have fought to stay kind and good when his conditioning broke because he was really starting to love his father and Elijah was a kind and loving man who took him in when he had nowhere to turn. Unfortunately there was no hope of the conditioning holding after Oswald discovered the decanter and realized that the three people he thought were his family, despite Grace having turned him into Cinderella, had murdered his kindly and ailing father. The three definitely deserved to have something bad happen to them but I’m not sure being turned into a gruesome scene out of one of the bloodiest Shakespeare plays was it.

Next: #5:....Bruce Chooses Between Selina and His Father's Work

Standout Moment No. 5: Bruce Chooses Between Selina and His Father’s Work

Near the end of the episode Alfred reveals to Bruce that Lucius Fox has finally finished repairing Thomas Wayne’s computer, and Bruce wants to immediately see what is on the computer. Bruce would happily trust Selina with whatever secrets are to be found on the computer but by bringing her into the know on their work against Wayne Enterprises they would be putting Selina’s life in danger and Alfred will not allow that. He tells Bruce that he cannot have both and that he must choose between Selina and furthering his father’s work and Bruce makes the difficult decision to focus on finding out what his father knew about the corruption in Wayne Enterprises.

This has long been a problem that Bruce has run into, trying wanting a personal life and wanting to continue fighting crime. Traditionally it was adult Bruce who came to the conclusion that he had to choose between the woman he loved or fighting crime. In this case however it was Alfred who told him to make the choice, and I can’t say I blame Alfred for wanting to protect Selina but he should have pushed Bruce toward choosing Selina (in my opinion). Bruce never thought he could balance his life and so most of the time (I’d say about 98% of the time) he chooses fighting crime, because on the rare occasions he tries to give up being Batman to have a life with the woman he loves, something tragic usually happens to her. In making this choice over and over again Bruce has broken a lot of hearts but it is his own that suffers the most, no matter which choice he makes given that if he chooses the girl she usually dies or turns against him.

Well that’s all I’ve got for you this week folks but make sure you follow us on Twitter so you can chat with us as we live tweet next week’s episode of Gotham and look for my review just a day or two later!