Warning: the following recap contains major spoilers from Monday’s episode of Gotham, “Mad City: Red Queen.” It is a recap, after all! Don’t say we didn’t warn you …

After the madness of last week’s Gotham, our suspicions about Jim Gordon’s choice to tell the Mad Hatter to kill his ex Lee instead of his new girlfriend Valerie Vale were proven right. He did intend to save Lee over Valerie, and knew that Jervis would do the opposite of what he said. And we weren’t the only ones to figure that out: literally everyone else in Gordon’s life suspected that as well. In fact, the only person who didn’t know that was Jervis himself. This time, Gordon outsmarted the Mad Hatter. But in this week’s episode, “Mad City: Red Queen,” the Hatter proved himself to be a formidable foe once more. Let’s get to recapping, shall we?

The hour opened by revealing Valerie’s fate after her shooting in the stomach: she’s okay! But she knew exactly what the rest of us did—Gordon told Jervis to kill Lee because he knew that Valerie would get shot instead. She knew Gordon still loved Lee, and that meant her relationship with Gordon was over. It was fun while it lasted though! And Lee knew that same truth about Gordon’s choice as well, and told her fiancé Mario that Gordon actually saved her life that day. He wasn’t happy about how Gordon put her in danger to begin with, and Gordon even tried to deny his true intentions when he spoke with Lee at the hospital! We all, including Lee, knew he was lying through his teeth. Good effort, buddy.

To make matters worse, Jervis was still in the wind, and now he got his hands on a deadly psychedelic virus plus his dead sister Alice’s poisonous blood with the intent on mixing the two and releasing it on Gotham. He literally stole her body from the GCPD morgue, hung it upside down with heaters blasting and drained the last drops of blood from her corpse. So. Gross. He then infected Gordon with the virus, and he hallucinated … Babs?! Amazing: she was his hallucination spirit guide! He went through many situations in his head until he was forced to face his demons and confront who he truly is, which is an officer of the law, no matter how hard he tried to deny that fact. Thankfully, Mario found Gordon unconscious in the basement of the hospital, and successfully revived him before the virus could kill him.

Meanwhile, the best story arc on Gotham kept unfolding in the most complicated way. Nygma and his new love interest Kristen Kringle Isabella spent 12 hours talking since they met each other in the wine store, and they were both enamored of each other. Nygma didn’t even realize that he stood up Penguin, who had planned an entire dinner to confess his feelings for Nygma. Ouch. And to add insult to injury, Nygma then invited Isabella to the Mayor’s mansion for a dinner date. To be fair, Nygma had no idea his best friend felt any kind of romantic feelings towards him, but man did I feel for Penguin in that moment. No one deserves to be in that situation.

However, for all of Nygma’s intelligence, he seemed to think to Isabella just shared a “passing resemblance” to Kristen, and it’s the universe’s way of telling him he has a second shot at love. Come on, man. You can’t be that thick, can you? Penguin – and the rest of us – know better, but let’s see how this plays out. Of course, Penguin couldn’t just sit back and let a relationship between Isabella and Nygma happen. He had to meddle. He met Isabella and informed her all about Nygma’s past in Arkham, and his old girlfriend Kristen. She was quite understandably shaken by their interaction, and we all know this is going to blow up in Penguin’s face, but he was pretty proud of himself in the moment.

Love was clearly in the air this week, since Bruce was also hit by the love bug. He finally had his date with Selina, and he spent all day cooking and baking and preparing – and making sure that Alfred would make himself scarce when his date arrived at Wayne Manor. Selina was just a tad late, but she did show up, much to Alfred’s surprise! Bruce wasn’t a fan of her standing him up though, and wanted her to take their relationship seriously. But she told him that whatever their thing was, it was weird for her. When he told her it was weird for him too, they lightened the mood. Could this be the one relationship to actually take off?

Back to Jervis’ plan: he intended to release his deadly virus at the Gotham Founder’s Dinner since all the most important people in the city would be there. Barnes, still suffering the side effects of his blood poisoning, figured that out and sent all the GCPD units to the event to try and stop him. Before Jervis could dose the party, Catherine, the representative from the Court of Owls, introduced herself to Penguin and let him know they’d be contacting him very soon. Penguin and the Court of Owls, working together?! That’s a horrible, scary combination that can lead to nothing good.

Jervis attacked the dinner shortly after that, and right before he could make everyone drink the tainted wine, Barnes and the GCPD showed up and arrested him. Perfect timing! As of now, Jervis and the Tweeds are safely locked up in Arkham, Barnes is updating his will because he knows his blood poisoning is getting worse (though he still hasn’t told anyone about it), and Gordon decided to rejoin the GCPD after his hallucinations made him realize his father lived his life defending justice, and so he would too.

Later that night, Isabella confronted Nygma about his past actions, killing Kristen, etc. and for some reason, she still decided to go on a date with him and move forward with their relationship. She’s totally crazy, right? Or is seeking revenge on him for what he did to Kristen, because she’s her doppelganger? Either way, there’s no way she’s actually sincere about Nygma. And once again, poor Penguin: he walked in on the two of them kissing. So awkward.

And one final twist of the night: the head of the Court of Owls has some kind of connection to Gordon’s dad! Or he could be Gordon’s dad? Unclear, but what is known is that he was wearing the same ring that Gordon’s dad used to wear while he was talking with Catherine about keeping an eye on Penguin. Suspicious …

What did you think of this week’s Gotham? Tweet me your thoughts at @SydneyBucksbaum!

Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox. 

Images: Fox