Please note: this is a recap — which means spoilers! Don’t read if you don’t want to know things.
Professor Hugo Strange has gone completely off the rails when it comes to his human experiments on Gotham. Not only has he brought back Fish Mooney from the dead, he accidentally gave her some scary new powers that pretty much guarantee that the old mob boss is going to get out of Arkham and set the streets of Gotham ablaze in revenge for her death last season. Plus, Strange just made sure the Jim Gordon’s life is going to be a living hell going forward. Let’s recap the madness from “Wrath of the Villains: A Legion of Horribles!”
So despite getting trapped in a room in Indian Hill with her former best friend Bridgit Pike, Selina didn’t die by fire. Turns out she used her cat-like reflexes to dodge Firefly’s blasts—while Firefly kept spouting on and on about how she was receiving a blessing from the Goddess of fire—until she managed to knock her old friend out. She tried to use Bridgit’s flamethrower to find a way out, but it didn’t work, and then… Firefly woke up. While holding each other at flame-point, Selina managed to get Bridgit to start to remember her old life, but she still wanted to hurt Selina, so Selina lit her on fire. Only this time, the flames didn’t hurt her at all. So it was on to Plan B: pretend to be the “fire goddess’ servant” instead, and it seemed to work! Selina will live to see another day.
At the GCPD, watching acting-Captain Bullock conduct a press conference about Theo Galavan/Azrael’s death was truly a beautiful sight to behold. Can we make this new promotion permanent? But his hands were still tied about Hugo Strange, so Gordon took it upon himself to take down the shady scientist. When Bruce realized Selina was in trouble in Arkham, he found Gordon to get help. While pow-wowing with Gordon, Alfred, and Luscious Fox, they realized Strange’s secret lab must be close to Arkham since Strange is seen there everyday—and Fox had technology that could help them discover where the secret entrance in Arkham is so they could save Selina. Bruce would have to act as Fox’s cover to distract Strange while Fox and Gordon snuck inside Arkham. Alfred had to stay behind because of the injuries he incurred while fighting Azrael, and he was not happy about that.
Down in Indian Hill, Strange and Peabody were having troubles with all their reanimated subjects. None of them retained the memories from their past life; They didn’t even remember their own names. Strange chalked it up to the trauma of coming back to life, but Peabody knew if they couldn’t bring someone back with their original memories, their employers would shut them down. So it was time to move on to subject 13: Fish Mooney! He used cuttlefish DNA spliced with human DNA while sending enough electricity through Mooney’s brain to energize a bolt of lightning—and it worked!
Strange tried to plant a war goddess identity in Mooney, but much to his surprise, she not only retained her memories of her name, but also her spicy personality. Fish Mooney lives! Strange and Peabody couldn’t figure out why she was the first and only subject to remember who she was before her death, but they didn’t care so long as it worked.
What they didn’t know, however, is that by splicing her with cuttlefish DNA she gained the ability to control others through touch. Not a great development! But they had to pause just then, as Bruce arrived with Fox. Strange acted like a grieving friend of his father’s (gross), and Bruce asked him to have a sit down with him while Fox toured the facility as an “informal inspection,” guided by Peabody. Gordon, who had stowed away in their trunk, snuck in to conduct his own, off-the-books tour while dressed as a guard. Fox found the entrance to Indian Hill, and marked it for Gordon to find for himself.
In their incredibly tense conversation, Strange all but admitted to having Thomas and Martha Wayne killed because Thomas didn’t agree with his ideals, and Strange implored Bruce to “turn back now” before he made the same mistakes as his father. But then he tried to claim that it was Thomas who orphaned Bruce—not him—because of the choices he made. Dang, this dude is one slippery snake. Bruce held his own, though, and said he’d fight and die for his beliefs like his father did.
And so Strange had Bruce and Fox captured, and although Strange admitted to Peabody he liked Bruce because he reminded him of Thomas, his employer (the White Lady) wasn’t happy with his results. That is, until he revealed his success with Fish Mooney. She then told him to move all his work to the facility they had upstate and destroy Indian Hill with an explosive device to throw Bruce and the GCPD off their tails and continue to figure out how to bring back the dead with their memories and minds intact.
Alfred, meanwhile, began to worry about how long the Arkham mission was taking, so he went straight to Bullock who assembled a GCPD strike team to save their guys. But that’s to be continued …
Because we’ve got to talk about cannibals. Since Nygma’s new cellmate was one of those aforementioned people eaters (with razor sharp teeth to boot), he was more than willing to help Strange defeat Gordon in exchange for his safety. He tried to convince Peabody of that fact, so Strange decided to let him “have a go” at it. When Bruce and Fox were contained in a cell of their own in Indian Hill, Nygma was given free reign over the loudspeaker to talk with them to try and figure out how much they knew about Indian Hill and who they told. Gordon, however, was forced to have his head strapped into one of Strange’s torture-device-looking machines and a solution was poured in. Strange then brought in another one of his subjects and did the same thing to him, and the solution allowed the reanimated corpse to take on Gordon’s face. After a few tries, he even got Gordon’s gravelly voice done perfectly. This can’t be good. Not good at all.
What did you think of tonight’s tense, action-packed episode of Gotham? Tweet me your thoughts at @SydneyBucksbaum!
Images: Fox
Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.
