Gotham: Top 5 Moments From Ghosts
Our top 5 moments from Gotham Season 3, Episode 12, “Ghosts”
Gotham returned with one hell of a set-up for the next two episodes before going on yet another lengthy break. Plans were set in motion, conspiracies started to unfurl, and faces from the dark past surfaced again. Here are the 5 moments we thought really stood out in “Ghosts”
Next: #5. You're The Virus, Jim
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#5.You’re The Virus Jim
Jim Gordon murdered Mario Falcone. Sure, he might have been infected with a seemingly incurable virus that was slowly turning him mad, and if he wasn’t going to kill Leslie right at the moment, it would have happened soon after. But Jim Gordon, an experienced cop, army veteran, and I’m pretty sure a trained sharpshooter, killed Mario Falcone. Jim promised to Mario’s father, the retired but still extremely connected and powerful former mob boss Carmine Falcone, that he would bring in Mario alive. This causes a huge rift between the former allies obviously, but also cuts a huge rift between Jim & Leslie as well.
Leslie knows that Mario was infected, but believes he could have been cured. Jim may have been cleared in the eyes of the law, but to Leslie he’s not just a jilted ex, he’s a “virus” that causes death and destruction to anyone close to him. Looking at the past seasons of Gotham, there’s pretty compelling evidence for that. This leads to Leslie okaying Carmine to send his favorite professional hitman, Zsasz, after Gordon. And once Zsasz goes after a target, they are as good as dead. Of course being one of the principal characters on the show, Jim wasn’t going to die, but somebody close to him could have, or even Zsasz for that matter. Jim has proven pretty handy at taking down everything from assassins to actual super villains.
Next: #4. Jim & Harvey Discover The Cult Of Jerome
GOTHAM: L-R: Donal Logue and Ben McKenzie in the “Mad City: Ghosts” episode of GOTHAM airing Monday, Jan. 16 (8:00-9:01 PM ET/PT) on FOX. Cr: Jeff Neumann/FOX.
#4. Jim & Harvey Discover The Cult Of Jerome
We’ve known that Jerome is coming back since at least November, Gotham has been advertising that fact. But Jim Gordon, Harvey Bullock and the rest of the city don’t know that, so it was probably very surprsing and disturbing to find out that Jerome has a whole cult devoted to him and his psychotic beliefs about anarchy. To the point where they have an easy to remember motto.
Of course a crazy underground cult is one thing. The leader of the cult, Dwight, is fully intent on reviving Jerome so he can bring back his particular brand of insanity to Gotham. Jim & Harvey think Dwight might actually have a decent chance of succeeding, since his last place of employment was Indian Hill, a facility that not only brought people back to life, but in the process some of them got some pretty dangerous powers. When Jerome does come back, will he have special abilities? He was extremely dangerous before, but special powers would bring it to a whole new level.
And the question lingers of Jerome is really just the Joker in all but name at this point on the show and will eventually become the clown prince of crime we are familiar with. Why not? The origin of Joker beyond falling in a vat of chemicals that turned his hair green and his skin chalky white is a mystery. Even the Joker says he’s retold his story so many times he has no idea what the truth is anymore. What would make this less valid than any other? And it’s not like DC is adapting any of this as official canon, it’s more of a loose adaptation at this point, which is fine by me.
Next: #3. The Box
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#3. The Box
Selina’s mom, who until the previous episode you might have thought was dead, miraculously popped back into Selina’s life just in time to save Bruce, Selina & Alfred from Talon, the Court of Owls highly trained assassin (yeah. Gotham has a lot of those). But Selina doesn’t trust her mom suddenly jumping back into her life (and judging her for having a billionaire boyfriend, by the way) and who could blame her? Her mom was a criminal, on the run, and abandoned her daughter at an orphanage because frankly she was a burden and never came back into her life until now. It at best seems super opportunistic.
Maria tries to explain her side to her daughter, but Selina isn’t having any of it and wants her mom out of her life as soon as possible. Maria gives up on trying to reconnect with her daughter, but delivers a box to Bruce and Alfred to give to Selina. Bruce convinces her to stick around, mentioning how much he’d give to have any more time with his parents, and says he’ll deliver the box to Selina and try to convince her to give her mom a chance.
It turns out the box is full of mementos that Maria kept to remind her of her time with her daughter, and that’s pretty much enough for Selina Kyle to forgive her mother. And Selina, Maria, Bruce & Alfred are all together and almost acting like one happy family. You know that won’t last long, though…
Next: #2. Don't Trust The Birthday Boy
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#2.Don’t Trust The Birthday Boy
Ok, I have to give the show’s writers a ton of credit here. I was hoping that the ghost of Oswald’s father was actually part of a far more elaborate scheme by Nygma in his goal to utterly destroy the Mayor of Gotham, but I didn’t think the show would go for that angle.
If you watched the episode however, that is exactly what it was. And while it’s missing clever riddles (though those may come further down the line), this certainly seems like a scheme more than worthy of someone of Edward Nygma’s intellect and ruthless cunning. Also bringing back Clayface, who has really seemed to master his powers now, was a good callback to a character I thought they were more or less done with after season 2.
Truthfully he could’ve ended everything right there. The mayor just snapped and murdered his acting chief of staff, literally nothing would’ve kept Oswald out of prison. But by hiding the body and cleaning up the scene, now Oswald has no idea what is real and what isn’t, and it’s only going to get worst.
I’d almost feel sorry for him. You know, if he wasn’t a murdering lunatic who was too lazy to come up with something more clever than cutting the brakes to get his competition out of the way.
Next: #1. You Still Love James Gordon
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#1. You Still Love James Gordon
So, Jim & Zsasz have manged to not kill each other yet, despite various attempts to do so throughout the episode. In the meantime, Leslie wants Jim dead because she is sure he killed a man who could have been cured. To verify this she goes to see former GCPD Captain and current Arkham Asylum resident Nathaniel Barnes. Barnes is infected with the same virus and it has taken over him completely. Barnes thinks the virus “freed” him, and when he’s out on the streets again (which c’mon, it’s Arkham, that might happen any day now) he will continue to act as judge, jury and executioner on the entire city of Gotham.
This makes Leslie realize she was wrong to want Jim dead and she asks Carmine to call off the hit. Carmine does, but we are made aware this isn’t the last of this issue between Falcone and Gordon, and makes Leslie realize that deep down, yes she still loves Jim. This also leads to a hilarious moment where Carmine comes by to tell Zsasz the contract is canceled and Zsasz is just like “ok”, and stops trying to kill Jim and walks off like he just punched out at regular day job.
But getting back to Barnes for a second. Leslie reasoning that because Barnes is nuts, she should call off the hit on Jim is bad reasoning. Barnes is infected. It stands to reason that if a cure is found, he’ll be given it and be fine. Maybe they are supposed to be showing in that moment that Barnes naming Jim as one of his first targets when he gets out that Leslie realizes she doesn’t really want him to die, but that’s not the way the scene read frankly. So does that mean in a few episodes Jim & Lee will be back together again? I seriously doubt it, but who knows…
And there are our top 5 moments from the “Ghosts” episode of Gotham. Can’t wait to see what happens this Monday! Let us know what you thought about the episode in the comments!