We open on Jim, Bullock, and a few other cops pulling up to the Crane house where Boscomi said Grady and Crane would be, only to find it deserted and all of the fear toxin drained out of the chemical set (I misidentified the place where Crane was being forced to mix more toxin as an apartment; it was actually the house's kitchen). After finding the asylum uniform that confirms Crane was there, Jim sees an odd-looking scarecrow out in the field and they go to investigate. Turns out it's Grady, alive and intact but still under the spell of the toxin, and he fearfully tells them that Scarecrow is coming. Of all the things they could use as a cold open for a Scarecrow, this is a particularly flat and uninspired one. Certainly bodes well for the episode!
After the title card, we find Bruce behind bars at the GCPD, explaining his arrest to Alfred. Jim walks up, they lie that he fell through the skylight while looking for Selina, and Jim seems to realize something's amiss but unlocks the cell and lets him go free anyway. TA-DA! So that whole cliffhanger was a pointless charade that impacts nothing! I'm shocked, positively shocked, I tell you! This show has
neeeeeeeever pulled worthless cliffhangers out of its diseased rectum before!
Cut to Arkham (I think?! I'm completely unsure of whether this is a different mental institution that just happens to also look like a horrible prison, or if all of the sets in Arkham have been drastically redesigned to the point of unrecognizability), where Weird Pointless Asshole Warden is hastily burning some files presumably related to Crane when the man himself shows up, armed with his fear gas sprayer and a scythe. His costume looks considerably dumber when it's taken out of the shadows of the prior episode's cliffhanger, but it could be much worse. After realizing it's Crane under the getup, the warden makes a bafflingly delivered plea for him to just walk away and not take revenge, but Crane starts rambling in a particularly unimpressive way about his treatment at the asylum, all the while waffling in between "yeah, I'm Jonathan Crane and I'm cured" and "Jonathan Crane is dead, I'm the Scarecrow" in a manner that speaks more to script inconsistencies than an intentional psychological divide. The warden then tries to go for his gun and gets a mouthful of fear gas, and he sees... the same thing everyone has ever seen, just a rippling screen effect and some zooms in on Scarecrow's mask. Lame.
... Or not. Well, still pretty lame, but not in such a stock way. After a very brief scene where Lucius gets suspicious of Bruce in the same way as Jim, we return to this scene to see the warden hallucinating a sinister, twitching entity walking into the room as Scarecrow monologues about confronting his lifelong fears... and it's, of course, a clown. Not even a particularly creepy one, despite the mouth stretching and other effects that are supposed to make us feel his fear. Scarecrow urges him to fight, so he grabs his gun and shoots the clown, which is predictably revealed to be a security guard as he runs out, gunning down dozens of other patients and guards while hallucinating them as a mob of attempted disturbing clowns that only upset me because they remind me that
American Horror Story: Cult is a thing. I don't care enough to question how he fires off about nine shots in one hallway from a six-shot revolver without reloading. While he's off doing this, Scarecrow goes to a room with a couple of growling patients on beds and makes a speech about how they'll be his army, and how he wants to... get revenge on Jim. BECAUSE WHAT ELSE COULD WE
POSSIBLY WANT FROM THESE VILLAINS OTHER THAN THE SAME STORY RECYCLED OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER?
Actually, you know what? Let me go back through the episode listings and get a rough count as to how many times the villain has been motivated solely by hatred for Jim. (I also plan on doing a count for the times when the goal was "kill Bruce", and numerous other recycled plot points, eventually.)
Accounting for my skimming over the summaries (which could make the total higher already), and counting this one, it's about...
25 times. Which means that out of 68 episodes so far, a little over a third of them have revolved in some way around a tension-free struggle to kill or otherwise permanently harm Jim in place of any other interesting motivations and schemes. And this is primarily outside of the first season, as the villains only started caring about him en masse during and after the Galavan arc -- once I count the times Bruce's life has been pointlessly threatened, the number will be even more staggering. This is horrendous. This is a horrendous way to write a long-form television series. Fuck you to pieces, Bruno Heller.
But I digress. Back to the GCPD, where Penguin strolls in and demands to know where Crane is. Jim can't answer him, so a petty little fight happens in front of the gathered press and the crime license issue gets dragged out solely to reheat the same moral conflicts and dick-measuring that happens whenever these two are in the same room. It's all very dull despite Robin Lord Taylor's best hammy efforts, but eventually he gives Jim the ultimatum to catch Scarecrow within 24 hours or admit that he's wrong about the license system... which doesn't quite track as an ultimatum, but fine. Fine. Fine.
But instead of a relief from the boredom, we cut to Selina and Tabitha walking toward a mysterious building in the middle of the night, both realizing that someone left little cards with "An Opportunity Awaits" in flowery lettering on their doors.
*quietly prays it's not who I think it is*They walk inside, and... "Thank you for coming, ladies."
*why have I been forsaken so*On comes the light... camera turns... and there stands Barbara Kean, this time with bleached white hair in a bob cut. Two episodes after her supposed death. Looking not even
slightly hurt despite me distinctly remembering her skin SMOKING AND SIZZLING, because of course, how could she really be hurt at all? Heller treats his babies nicely.
And there's not even an explanation for how she survived the electrocution -- just a catty reply that Tabby should've checked her pulse because "it's Gotham" and the writers want to make extra sure you're aware that there are no stakes and nothing will ever matter. She also says what happened to her is a "long story", which... NO IT ISN'T. IT CAN'T BE. YOU WERE ELECTROCUTED IN AN APARTMENT A FEW BLOCKS AWAY AND YOU EITHER MIRACULOUSLY SURVIVED OR RA'S PISSED HIS LAZARUS JUICE ALL OVER YOU FOR SOME GODFORSAKEN FUCKING REASON. Seriously. As I said when it happened, I'm not an idiot and I knew she would be brought back very quickly to appease Heller and the legions of trash fans (who, in a break from writing this, I've already seen are calling her return "divine"), but come up with a reason for it, eh? Penguin surviving a few gunshots I can just barely accept because a critical part of his character has been about surviving and adapting, Jerome's resurrection was bullshit nonsense but led to a really fun mini-arc, that Indian Hill shit that plagued the second season was STUPID AND THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE but it was a
reason. This is a cop-out spun by a fraud. And it will never be anything but.
........
Anyway, Tabby walks up to try and kill her again, but predictably stands down after Erin Richards flatly monologues about being sorry and not being in her right mind at the time. So they're trying to push "regretful slightly sane ally" Barbara AGAIN, just like they did in Season 2 after her
first stupid bullshit survival -- oh Christ on a bike, it's just this again. It's all repeating again and she's no doubt going to descend back into her supposedly abandoned screeching #lolrandom hellbeast persona because
that's what the people who watch this show because they think it's great television want to see. After this, Barb proposes that they all work together and that this mysterious fancy building is theirs now, and when Tabby shoots down the idea of another club, Barb steps up to a lever and pulls it... and all of the walls flip around dramatically to reveal dozens of guns and munitions. Zuh?! Okay, we'll just move right on from explaining where Barb got THESE too, so she can reveal that she wants to set up an arms trafficking business with the two of them to capitalize on Penguin's crime license system. Tabby refuses because Butch was the love of her life or something, and Barb asks Selina to talk to her after she storms out.
I hate this.
I hate this all so virulently and passionately I want to scream.
When this scene finally ends, we come to the Safest Manor on Earth, where Bruce is suiting up again and Alfred gets pissy at him for putting his life on the line when he's not ready. Bruce gets pissy in turn and leaves. End scene.
Meanwhile at the GCPD, Jim and Bullock have gotten word of the riot Scarecrow engineered at "the asylum" (am I crazy? Am I actually fucking forgetting something about another asylum or Arkham shutting down again during the Court of Owls thing or... zuh?!), and tries to order reinforcements to come with him. Big surprise: none of the cops are willing to come with him. Equally big surprise: this causes Jim to lob out some more Gordonisms about duty and corruption and how everyone here loves the city as much as he does. Um, Jim, a few things. 1) When has
any cop on this show done their job competently or willingly? 2) WHY do you insist on loving and protecting and seeing the good in a city that has had literally nothing but evil and stupidity leaking out of its bloated corpses from the get-go, and the police station is so poorly run that a massacre happens there every other Monday? Regardless, he gets pissy when one of them talks about how much safer it is to be a cop now with Penguin's license system, and he tries to leave with Bullock -- only for Bullock to stand still and refuse the call. The brief argument they have is actually decent, mostly down to Donal Logue's generally reliable performance outmatching Ben McKenzie's frustrated shouting, and after he's told that he'll have to go alone because Bullock won't get pulled in, Jim does indeed storm off alone.
To a riot.
Engineered by a supervillain whose father he killed.
Brilliant as always, Jimothy.
Jim arrives to find the asylum in bloody shambles, littered with bodies and burning wheelchairs, and right on cue a stringy-haired woman screams and crab-walks through a hall behind him like a genuine
Ju-On scare attempt. Scarecrow takes notice of him on the security cameras and vows revenge, opening the gates to let the out-of-control patients in, while Jim encounters the rabid warden and manages to steal a shotgun from him, only to discover that it's out of ammo as he's cornered against the only locked gate. How does our valiant "hero" get out of this one? He... punches a few away without much effort and sends the rest scattering with a few warning shots from his pistol without getting a scratch on him. Riveting. Scarecrow allows him to move forward and promises that they'll have some fun or something, and here I'm forced to confront the fact that this is a
reeeeally boring and entirely unthreatening Scarecrow. Jerome's youth works because Cameron Monaghan imbues his Joker with plenty of hilarious teenage smarm and arrogance, but when you do Scarecrow, you need someone whose voice has the capacity for either deep gravitas, muted sociopathy, or balls-to-the-wall insanity. Charlie Tahan is trying, but his voice is just too high and the modulation isn't sufficient to make him sound like a threat. It's a real letdown after so much buildup. But what else is new?
Back to
Baaaaaaaaaaaarbaaaaaaaaaaaaraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Penguin, Ivy, and Zsasz stroll in to admire the new business, which is just pretense for Penguin to threaten her into obeying his crime license and weapon tax policies while Zsasz poses with various weapons and Ivy... kind of stands around uselessly. Question: if Penguin wanted to threaten the notoriously slippery and backstabbing Barbara into following his rules, wouldn't that
magic plant-based mind control perfume Ivy plucked out of her ass last season be beyond helpful? But no, he shuts her up when she tries to talk so that she can pout again and foreshadow some kind of inevitable mistreatment-induced rebellion (and probably supervillain transformation, even though we
just did that) that relies on Penguin's characterization going all screwy. And now that I think about it, the hell happened to Freeze and Firefly, whom we last saw in his employ as the biggest weapons in his war against Barb and Tabby? Oh, fuck it, they were terrible anyway. And speaking of terrible, Barbara has dialogue in this scene. Basically, she insinuates that she might not follow his rules when she officially starts her business up, and he in turn threatens that Zsasz will visit her if she doesn't, which seems like a pretty serious threat given that neither she nor her business partners are any match for a machine gun ambush. But Barbs will be Barbs, and she's impervious to any harm, so it doesn't matter.
Oh yeah, and they're trying to make her source of weapons and funding a mystery, but no answer could possibly justify it or make it satisfying so I don't care. It's either Ra's as part of his big plan to destroy Gotham and test Bruce, Falcone because he doesn't like Penguin being unchallenged on top, or a twice-resurrected Fish because God is dead and this show is a burning effigy of my hopes and dreams. I don't care. Just bring on Butch as Solomon Grundy already, you cowards.
Jim manages to make it to the warden's office, presumably having left a trail of dead or injured victims behind him, only to ONCE AGAIN FAIL TO PERCEIVE AN AMBUSH and get knocked out and held at scythe-point by Scarecrow. The crazy young man unmasks himself and rambles about how Jim killed his father just for trying to help people, and then sprays some fear gas in Jim's face and asks him what he'll have to confront. So... we're just doing the "Jim gets drugged and hallucinates to confront his demons" bit
again, as if that didn't face-fuck Jervis Tetch's gimmick into the asphalt last season. As Jim looks around in terror, Scarecrow threatens that he might face one of his many victims... and he suddenly finds himself walking into a room to see Lee in a bathtub, in her lingerie, with her wrists slit, because what else could it have been. Lee says
exactly the same things as all of their conflicts last season, about how Jim destroys everything he touches and they were supposed to be a family and such and such and such and this is all just recycled conflict over and over and over and over and over. As Lee dies, Scarecrow offers him a razor he can slice his wrists with to join her, and he starts to do so only to break out of the hallucination by convincing himself that Lee still loves him even though he's an absolute monster. Really? REALLY?!
Anyway, with his newfound heroic resolve he finds Scarecrow again and disarms him, but fails to talk him down and he runs away. But...
really.We rejoin Bruce shadowing some random generic thugs and sneaking into the building they're apparently robbing, only to find them waiting in ambush to capture him. They unmask him and share some generic laughing thug dialogue about him being a kid and possibly recognizing his face, but then Bruce makes his escape by tricking one into shooting another and then fending them off with an aerosol flamethrower and grappling out of the window. Right as he hits the ground, he somehow gets held at gunpoint by the lead thug, whom I guess has mastered the power of teleportation, but of course he gets knocked out from behind by Alfred. All in all, a dull, predictable, and mostly useless scene that was only included for some Babby Batman teases.
Nothing much happens in the next scene, except Ivy wants to join the trio of Selina, Tabby, and Barbara. Because of course all of the most obnoxious and mishandled female characters would be gathered together in a neat little clusterfuck out of nowhere.
Rejoining our stalwart Jimbo, he storms into the cafeteria where Scarecrow is commanding a few dozen patients to kill him. Jim beats the shit out of quite a few innocent victims before finding a convenient fire extinguisher that sprays water into a few of their faces, conveniently curing them and restoring them to the "slack-jawed mumbling" phase that all mental patients obviously default to. Jim, realizing that a cold splash of water is all that's needed to counteract a concentrated dose of aerosolized fear, quickly activates the sprinkler system and removes the threat as Scarecrow leaves; however, one big guy remains unaffected, speaking in caveman grunts and manhandling Jim until he cold-cocks him with the empty extinguisher. I would like to point out that Scarecrow once again has his mask and scythe, despite abandoning both on the floor in the previous scene. I'd just... like to make that clear.
Back to Safest Manor (TM), where a pissy argument between pissy Bruce and pissy Alfred is interrupted by a decidedly not pissy Lucius at the door. In he comes with a large case, which he sets on the counter and opens up to reveal... TA-DA! The Batsuit, basically! A prototype body armor Wayne Enterprises happened to be working on! Lucius pretends that he'll just need it for rock climbing, but they all know the truth and it instantly resolves the argument. HEY REMEMBER WHEN BRUNO HELLER SAID THAT
COSTUMED SUPERHEROES ARE STUPID AND UNFIT FOR HIS GRIPPING DRAMA 'CAUSE I CERTAINLY DO
Back to
BARB, who is swiftly joined by Tabitha and Selina. Barb asks in her new horrible monotone voice whether she's ready to reconsider, and Tabby answers that she'll trust Barb if she lets her take her hand, since Butch got his hand cut off by Penguin and she got her hand very briefly cut off by Nygma. Barb accepts the terms and lays her hand out for Tabby, only for the cleaver to be brought down right above her hand because
NOTHING WHATSOEVER CAN HAPPEN TO HELLER'S DEAR SWEET BABY. Tabby now magically trusts her and agrees to work for her. End scene, thank Christ.
Back at the GCPD, Penguin is upset that Jim failed to catch Scarecrow and uses him as an example to other cops, asking them how tired they are of the villains escaping time after time and the GCPD itself getting attacked. Note: just because you lampshade your flaws, writers, it does not mean those flaws are any less gaping or excusable (though I'm sure there are some out there now who believe the constant repetition was brilliant buildup to this). After offering to triple the wage of any cop who comes to work for him, he leaves with his posse, prompting Jim to lob a few more Gordonisms only for Bullock to confront him, cool him off, and offer to buy him a drink for trying. The thing is... Penguin is 100% in the right. Sure, he's doing an abhorrent thing for selfish reasons, but this abhorrent thing is the only model that has ever worked in Gotham to both preserve the lives of cops, cut down on the crime rate by a significant percentage, and get some funding going toward rebuilding what's being destroyed. Penguin is by all rights the hero here, and Jim is trying to stop it and revert things back to how they were for... reasons? I don't know. Because the show has insisted on always showing Gotham as an unbelievably shitty place to live from the beginning, this is the first measure of improvement we're shown, yet we're expected to want Jim to stop it because of setup the show never bothered to do. Fuck off with this. Oswald Cobblepot 2020!
Now it's back to Ivy as the episode winds down, and... HOLY SHIT RETCON TIME. We're told out of nowhere that Ivy got her magic plant-based perfume from a Chinese back alley drugstore of some kind, even though this
explicitly goes against what she said about concocting it with various plant combinations and I'm certain we saw her make a batch at some point. But no, even more of her intelligence and independence -- even the part that's unearned and never made sense -- is stripped away as she blows more in the store owner's face and demands to know where the -- and I quote -- "ancient mystical potions from shamans all around the world" he's rumored to have are kept. After being directed to them and warned that they'll rewrite her DNA somehow, she starts downing them one by one, taking ones that increase her strength and stuff before stopping as she chokes and her facial structure starts to rearrange in awful CGI. And now she's Poison Ivy, because fuck you!
1) Is Ivy getting recast again? Please tell me she's getting recast again.
2) For the fucking love of all that is good in the world,
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU JUST DID! THIS IS JUST FIREFLY AND SCARECROW AND NUMEROUS OTHER MISTREATMENT-INDUCED SUPERVILLAIN TRANSFORMATIONS OVER AND OVER AGAIN! YOU FUCKS DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO WAIT A HALF-SEASON! THIS IS THE NEXT FUCKING EPISODE AFTER SCARECROW!*distant screaming into a pillow*
And it's... it's
even lazier! Come the fuck on, a newly introduced magical potion store we've never heard of just gets retconned into existence so she can be the character she was meant to be? No actual buildup, no advancement in intelligence, no plant tinkering of her own design. Just magic potions.
HOW WAS THIS APPROVED.
No, no, no, no, you know what? Fuck it, fuck it, I don't care, let's just finish the episode so I can move on.
With about three minutes to go, we spend a minute and a half in the bar with Jim and Bullock, who are unsure of what they should be doing when Penguin's strategy is working so well and rallying all of the other cops to his side. When Bullock mentions that they'd need an army to take Penguin on and that he misses the days when Falcone ruled the city with an honorable iron fist (I mean, remember all of the street shootings that went on daily, the rampant subversion and backstabbing in his wildly unstable ranks, and how oblivious he was to Fish setting him up with that spy whom he choked out when he found out she was a spy? Yeah, me neither), Jim gets the bright idea to contact Falcone for help. Bullock reminds him that he killed his son, but Jim is adamant that only Falcone's army -- I'm not quite sure how he still has one, given that he gave up control of Gotham altogether and we've only seen him running small operations with remaining connections since then, but this show has had a somewhat loose grasp on what "army" means before -- is the only thing that can stand in Penguin's way. Hooray, another mob war. Hooray.
And who could've guessed what the final scene would be the moment Lucius showed up? Yes, Bruce is running along the rooftops
again, showing off the new body armor that looks slightly less like the Batsuit when it's out of the case but is still clearly supposed to echo it. Alfred tells him to try on the mask that came with it, and he pops on a
much more recognizable one that seems to really just be a slightly smaller version of Christian Bale's cowl in the Nolan movies. Except it looks pretty stupid and now Bruce looks more like a bargain bin Daredevil than anything else. But the camera once again pans out slowly and the orchestral score once again creams its jeans because BATMAN YOU GUYS OMG YOU'VE WAITED SO LONG FOR SOMETHING YOU TOTALLY COULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN IN THOUSANDS OF OTHER MOVIES, SHOWS, GAMES, AND OTHER MEDIA! BATMAAAAAAAAN AAAAAAAAAH AAAAAAAAAH ugh.
Last but not least, no Scarecrow stinger, huh? So is he going to be a recurring enemy throughout the season -- which I guess would be fine, even though I've grown tired of his bag of tricks already -- or is he being set up as the new half-season villain in a blatant repeat of Tetch from the first half of Season 3, which would kill me? Who knows, who cares. On with the show.