Gotham Review: Five Standout Moments From Anything For You

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Gotham episode Anything For You

This week’s episode of Gotham, Anything For You is a very well thought out episode, with a most appropriate title, as the episode is filled with little moments of various characters doing what they can for the benefit of another character. There are the more obvious moments in the show, which I will discuss in some of my slides, and smaller moments for Bruce and Selina, Gordon and Valerie Vale, and even Tabitha and Butch Gilzean. I won’t be going into detail about these moments but if you watch the episode I’m sure you’ll notice them if you keep the title of the episode in mind while you watch.

Next: #1. Red Hood Gang Returns

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Standout Moment No. 1: The Red Hood Gang Returns

Anything For You opens with a montage of Oswald Cobblepot making appearances as the new mayor of Gotham, and shows the quiet on-going struggle of Butch and Nygma for the prime spot at Penguin’s side, with Nygma always coming out the winner. Three minutes into the episode and Cobblepot is dedicating a statue of his mother and swearing by her that Gotham is safe once more now that he is mayor. Just as he is saying this a black van screeches to a halt behind the crowd attending the dedication and out pours a gang of men in red hoods with Tommy guns. It seems that these men are copying the notorious red hood gang that plagued Gotham in season two. They can’t be the same men as all of the original red hood members were killed, either betrayed by their fellows or in a shoot out with the police. The gang declares that no one in Gotham is safe with them around, and specifically target the statue of Gertrude Kapelput, beheading it, before running off.

The red hood gang was pretty big news in Gotham for an episode or two so the appearance of a copy cat gang is worth talking about. This scene is also important as it sets up the next three slideshow worthy moments that we will be discussing in this review.

Next: #2. Butch Turns On The Red Hood Gang

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Standout Moment No. 2: Butch Turns On The Red Hood Gang

We learn fairly early on in the episode that Butch was the one behind the Red Hood gang. He obviously does not want Penguin to learn of his involvement with them so when Nygma figures out where the gang is hold up and Cobblepot calls Butch to join them in, Butch arrives at the gang’s hideout first to encourage them to leave. When his goons refuse to vacate the area before their payday Butch guns them all down before Nygma and Penguin can come in and realize he is running the red hood gang. Butch’s original plan was to have the gang hold up Cobblepot’s gala at the Sirens, where he would have likely killed them anyway, making a big show of protecting Penguin. He even says just before he kills them, something along the lines of “Well, guess it was gonna happen sooner or later”.

From the moment I saw the Red Hood gang in this episode I immediately suspected that Butch Gilzean had hired them, after being replaced as Penguin’s right hand man by Edward Nygma. And as it turns out I was right. Butch hired the new Red Hood gang to harass Gotham and especially Penguin so that he could play the hero and bring them down for Oswald, proving that he is worthy of his old place as Penguin’s right hand man.

I felt that this moment was important because it is very closely linked with our first standout moment and with the next two slides to come. It also shows how desperate Butch is to please Penguin and get back the relationship they had before Nygma interfered. That he would go to so much trouble to set up everything with the red hood gang and then to kill five or six men to cover up that he hired them in the first place.

Next: #3. Nygma Tricks Butch Into Betraying Penguin

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Standout Moment No. 3: Nygma Tricks Butch Into Betraying Penguin

We all know Edward Nygma is very intelligent, and he’s always solving puzzles and the like. So it comes as no surprise that he suspected something fishy with Butch and the red hood gang the moment he and Penguin arrived to find Butch proudly declaring that he had taken care of them for Penguin. Nygma keeps investigating after the police have called it a day and low and behold he finds evidence that leads him back to Butch. Instead of immediately telling Penguin of Butch’s betrayal however, Nygma concocts a Riddler worthy scheme to force Butch into revealing what he had done in front of Penguin and all of the guests at the Sirens.

Nygma tries to convince Butch to help him kill Penguin, and when Butch refuses Nygma reveals that he has turned Victor Zsaz against Penguin and that Zsaz is holding Tabitha Galavan hostage. Butch and Tabitha were a couple in the last season and although she has moved on to Barbara Kean, Butch still has strong feelings for her. (As a matter of fact, Butch’s feelings for her and his close ties with Penguin were all that was keeping Tabitha safe from Penguin, who wants her dead for stabbing his mother in the back with a knife.) Butch reluctantly agrees to put on a red hood and interrupt Penguin’s speech to kill him. When he does attempt to kill Penguin we find that the gun is loaded with blanks and all along Nygma meant for Butch to fail. Penguin is shocked and horrified to see that someone so close to him, someone he thought he could trust would betray him this way and calls for Butch’s arrest.

This is a huge moment for Gotham, Butch and Penguin have been through a lot together, and honestly given everything Penguin has done to Butch in the past, between the brainwashing, making him shoot Fish Mooney, and cutting off his hand so he could spy on Theo Galavan for Penguin, I’m really surprised that they were still working together so well at the beginning of this season. Ultimately this is going to have quite the impact on the criminal element of Gotham, though Penguin had the top position in that world, many of the men under him only served him out of loyalty to Butch. With Butch turning to Tabitha and Barbara (two ladies who don’t get on well with Penguin), a divide in the criminal community seems inevitable.

Next: #4. The Nygma/Cobblepot Bromance Grows

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Standout Moment No. 4: The Nygma/Cobblepot Bromance Grows

So after everything that happened at The Sirens with Butch, we see Nygma and Penguin back at Penguin’s mansion, and Penguin is taking care of Nygma after Butch nearly kills him for setting him up. Penguin brings Nygma a cup of ginger tea with honey, which was his mother’s remedy for a sore throat. Nygma then explains that the reason he didn’t tell Cobblepot about his plan to force Butch into revealing his betrayal was so that Penguin’s shock and hurt at the betrayal would be genuine in front of his guests. We are led to infer that this means that the people of Gotham would have assumed that Penguin was really behind the Red Hood gang, since Butch worked for Penguin. Oswald is grateful but still concerned that Edward put his own life at risk for this plan, and reassures him that Oswald had saved him once again. It’s a very intense moment for their friendship as Nygma lets Penguin know that he would do anything for the other man and the two hug each other.

Probably the best thing about Gotham is the show’s portrayal of the various relationships among all the characters. There are several relationships on this show that I just love to watch, and the friendship between Oswald Cobblepot and Edward Nygma is one of them. They are both extremely clever criminals though their intelligence takes different forms, and neither of them has ever been very popular or had many friends so they make quite the pair. I see this relationship being an important piece of the story Gotham is telling throughout this season, so it was important to discuss this big moment when their friendship deepens. You can really tell that these two have had few true friends in their lives, as they are so earnest and passionate about this friendship that I genuinely thought that Ed and Oswald were going to kiss when Nygma said ” I hope you know, Oswald, that I would do anything for you. You can always count on me”.

Next: #5. Alice Tetch's Blood Begins To Affect Barnes

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Standout Moment No. 5: Alice Tetch’s Blood Begins To Affect Barnes

This last scene isn’t very long but it’s important so I wanted to make sure I included it. When Tabitha hijacks the ambulance carrying Butch and his police escort to the hospital, a cop runs into Captain Barnes’ office to alert him of Butch’s escape. For the second time this episode Barnes is preoccupied looking at photos from the Alice Tetch crime scene, and when he jumps up to grab the phone to call mayor Cobblepot he does it without thinking and doesn’t use his crutch. just as he is about to pick up the phone he realizes what he has done, and we see him go all red eyed with veins popping out all over his face again, just like when Alice’s blood first lands in his eye. He can clearly feel the blood strengthening him as he whispers an intense “yes!” as his face changes temporarily.

We here at Caped Crusades recently posted an article about Michael Chiklis talking about how Barnes is going to start pushing back, that his follow the letter of the law attitude is going to be changing in the next episodes, and we can assume that this is in part due to the poison of Alice Tetch’s blood in his system. Our editor has a theory that the infection in Barnes’ blood will eventually turn him into Solomon Grundy and honestly after seeing this moment when the poison changes his face and has made him stronger it isn’t hard to see where that idea came from.

No matter what the Gotham creative team is planning to do with Barnes in his infected state, it is sure to have a big impact on all the characters of the show, especially those we think of as good guys, like Bullock and Gordon.

Well that’s our review for this week Batman fans, I hope you liked it. I’ll be back next week to review the next episode of Gotham, and before that we will be live tweeting as we watch the episode. So follow us on twitter and join the conversation next Monday!