Gotham season 4, episode 11 review: Queen Takes Knight

Recap and review of episode 11 of season 4 of Gotham titled “Queen Takes Knight”.

Barbara, Tabitha, and Selina break into the Iceberg Lounge looking for Penguin. Gordon and his team are following Pyg’s tracks, but he’s stolen another face making his trail go cold. Gordon puts a pin on Pyg as he turns his attention to Penguin and Sophia. Penguin still has the cunning edge when we find out that he called Falcone to drag Sophia home by her ear (figuratively speaking).

After a night of wild partying, Bruce gets woken up by cold water courtesy of Alfred. Gordon goes to Sophia’s house to look for her and gets Falcone, instead. Falcone tells Gordon how he’s taking his daughter home and how Gordon is ruining Gotham. Sophia exits the mansion wearing her “daddy’s-spoiled-girl” pants as she plants a kiss on Gordon’s lips to spite her father. The day turns ugly when an unmarked van rains bullets on the Falcone’s.

At Falcone’s funeral, Gordon gets criticized for not arresting Penguin as everyone believes he’s responsible for the shooting. Harvey shows up at the funeral to advise Gordon to finish what he started with Penguin. Zsasz seems upset to see Falcone gone and might be plotting revenge. Gordon wheels Sophia away, and when he refuses to release her to Penguin, war for Gotham begins.

As the war between the GCPD and Penguin’s gangs fire up the streets, Alfred and Bruce square off on a battle of their own. Bruce engages Alfred into a fist fight, Alfred doges all his punches. The fight ends after Alfred lands a punch square on Bruce’s face. Bruce storms off without a word. It isn’t until later on that he returns with legal papers removing Alfred as his legal guardian and fires him.

Gordon is trying to push Penguin into a corner in order to arrest him, but the phone call he gets might be what he needs to arrest him. Gordon and some GCPD officers show up at the Iceberg Lounge to arrest Penguin for the murder of Martin. Zsasz testifies against Penguin as he’s cuffed and escorted to the GCPD. With Penguin behind bars, Sophia begins her rise as the queen of the underground world.

Now under new management, Barbara plans on redecorating the Iceberg Lounge. Tabitha gets ready to kidnap her boyfriend. After being lured away by the music playing his song, Grundy wakes up in a warehouse tied to a chair. Tabitha believes that by beating Grundy over the head, he’ll regain memories of his former life as Butch. After many tries, Tabitha gives up but walks away before Butch comes back.

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Meanwhile, Nygma is fighting his Riddler persona in a mirror. It’s revealed that Nygma is falling in love with Lee. This is going to end badly as Lee is most likely still in love with Gordon. Heartbreak seems to be what sends Nygma over the edge. A bit repetitive? Maybe.

With Penguin behind bars, things are looking pretty good for Gordon. Later that night, he pays Sophia a visit to tell her to stand down from becoming the new crime lord. When Pyg appears, we find out the extent of Sophia’s plan and how she’s manipulated Gordon to get what she wants. She even went as far as to kill her own father. After killing Pyg, Sophia blackmails Gordon with the truth if he stands in her way.

The episode ends with Penguin throwing a fit in his cage in Arkham Asylum. To our surprise and delight, his neighbor offers to help him: Jerome.

Final Thoughts:

Quite honestly, Bruce fighting with Alfred is just heartbreaking especially when he killed him last season thanks to Ra’s Al Ghul. It seems that young Bruce had a lot to learn about controlling his emotions before he becomes the broody Dark Knight. His behavior in the last couple of episodes was that of a spoiled brat. With Jerome’s return, this should be what snaps Bruce out of his self-destruction.

I am very excited to see Jerome’s return to Gotham. A little ode to Pennywise when Jerome and Penguin are bent down talking through the vent on the cell floor. As we watch clips of future episodes and the joker card is thrown around, it’s hard believing that Jerome isn’t the origins story of our beloved Batman villain. The writers of Gotham keep insisting that Jerome is a homage to Joker. If this is true, we can expect that we won’t be seeing a Harley Quinn origin story anytime soon.

Now that Barbara knows about Gordon and Sophia, it will be interesting to see if she toys with Gordon. Remember that Barbara knows that Lee is in the Narrows while Gordon believes that she left Gotham. I wonder if sleeping with Gordon changes Barbara’s partnership with Sophia. Barbara is the crazy ex-girlfriend who could play a part in Sophia’s downfall.

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The writers of Gotham gave us so many twists and surprises in tonight’s episode. Jerome returning was the highlight especially because Cameron Monaghan brings chills to Gotham fans everywhere. “Queen Takes Knight” was a great mid-season finale and I’m grading it 4/5. The countdown to the spring return of Gotham begins!