Jim Gordon wastes no time getting back to work in this week’s episode of Gotham. See what kind of trouble Jim got into in Josh’s recap of Season 1 Episode 13, titled Welcome Back, Jim Gordon! Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts about the episode.
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Episode Recap of Gotham, Season 1 Episode 13: Welcome Back, Jim Gordon
On this week’s episode of Gotham, Jim is right back in the thick of things. But before that, we see Fish in some deep trouble. She has been taken to pay for her sins. She is to be tortured into giving an apology for what she did to Falcone. Bob is the “top guy” for the job.
Bob gets to work, but Fish remains pretty stout. Meanwhile, Butch is taken to another place to be “put down”. For being such a big guy, he is pretty stealthy though, and manages to take out both of his captors.
Butch makes it to Fish’s new place, and rescues her. Bob, on the other hand, has his face punched in. That brings us to Cobblepot. Fish really wants to take him down. It turns out that Cobblepot is right where Fish can find him–her old club, expecting to inherit it. Fish greets Cobblepot at the club, after he had shown his mother the new business. Fish is about to beat Cobblepot’s head in, when Zsasz shows up. Fish and Butch have to make a run for it, and Butch saves Fish by getting her through a window while he holds off Zsasz. Butch is shot, but still alive.
But back to Jim, he and Harvey have a case. They meet Detective Flass, who works narcotics. Flass says the victim involved must have been the result of a deal gone bad. Flass and Harvey leave the scene, but Gordon finds some drugs in a hidden shoe compartment. Harvey seems to have a witness to the crime though, Mr. Winkler. He seems to be an honest guy and agrees to head to the precinct for a talk.
This turns out to be a mistake in the end. A mysterious figure somehow is able to get to Winkler, and he is murdered. Jim and company find the next victim, and it seems the security cameras were turned off. Jim seems to think that a cop might be involved, which doesn’t make the Captain or Harvey happy.
Typical Jim wants to move forward checking into cops, but he is given a warning by the Captain–no big move without her approval. He starts talking to the cops, but they are keeping quiet. Harvey gives him a little help though. Jim hunts down a cop named Delaware, and finds drugs in his trunk. Gordon takes him into custody. Unfortunately, things don’t go Jim’s way, as Flass tells him and the captain that Delaware was a part of a undercover investigation. The Captain turns the case over to Internal Affairs.
Harvey decides to tell Gordon that some of the narcotics cops are taking over drug operations, and they are protected by high level people. This doesn’t faze Jim though, and he heads to a stash house that Jim gives him. Unfortunately, Jim and Harvey get a beat down, and Delaware was able to get himself in the clear with a little shady legal work.
Back at the precinct, Winkler’s murder was somehow ruled a suicide. Jim is frustrated that he isn’t getting help. The Captain insists he drop this case. Jim decides he needs some help on the case–and not from a cop. He turns to Cobblepot (before Fish chases him down), and asks Cobblepot for some help in loosening this case up. Jim insists no harming people though. Cobblepot agrees, because they are friends of course.
So Cobblepot’s henchman pays a visit to Delaware, and threatens his wife to get him to talk. He then delivers the evidence to Gordon–the ice pick murder weapon along with a taped confession. Jim then confronts Flass to make the arrest. Gordon pleads his case to the precinct to see who will help him with the arrest. The Captain comes forward and handles the arrest herself.
After leaving work, Delaware approaches Gordon asking him to back off, so that his wife and family are safe. He seems terrified, and Gordon realizes that Delaware is scared of whatever Cobblepot’s man did.
As for the young Batman, he and Alfred search for Selina. They don’t find her, but do find Ivy. Bruce asks her to give Selina a message. She agrees for a fee of $20. Selina finally shows up at Wayne Manor. Bruce gives her a gift–a snowglobe. She seems to like it. But she gets spooked for some reason when Bruce says he needs to leave town for a while, and he offers to let her stay in his house. She then tells Bruce that she never saw his parent’s killer’s face, and doesn’t seem to want anything to do with Bruce any longer.
A while later, Alfred finds Bruce distraught. He tries to get him to “man up”, and Bruce assures Alfred that he will find new leads to his parents’ murderers.
Finally, at the Gotham Docks, Harvey helps Fish escape. She is leaving town, then when the time is right, will come back and take care of Cobblepot. Fish asks Harvey to find Butch. They then share a kiss, and she leaves.
Josh’s Thoughts: Gotham, Season 1 Episode 13: Welcome Back, Jim Gordon
This was a pretty good episode of Gotham, I thought. It certainly has a bit of hypocrisy to it though. Jim uses deceptive and unethical strategies to ironically take down another cop doing the very same thing. This whole situation then turns into “A means to an end” argument, which is always hard to pick a side on. It is also a slippery slope. Sure, this one worked out well, but what else would Jim do to get the “bad guys”? I think Jim realizes this himself, and will likely not be on the receiving end of favors from Cobblepot.
It was interesting having some crooked cops in the fray this episode. GCPD is known for its corruption in the comics and various other media, so it is nice that it has been brought up again. What is also interesting is how far up the chain this corruption goes, which seems to be all the way to the Commissioner. Eventually, Gordon will be taking that job I imagine.
I am curious to know why Fish would be so dumb to try to enact her revenge so soon. You would think she would know better and let things cool down. Even Butch says so, but he is a loyal guy, even risking his own life to save Fish. I am curious to know how long Fish will be gone.
As for Selina, I don’t really understand her deal. I guess maybe she was insulted by Bruce’s comments about their difference of living conditions? I do wonder if she is telling the truth about not seeing the murderer. It would seem like she did see the killer though, as when the season began, she seemed to have a good vantage point.
So far, I am still enjoying the show. I am looking forward to next week, as it seems we might see Cobblepot in a little more hot water again.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 13 of Gotham: Welcome Back, Jim Gordon
I am continuing to like Gotham, and this episode is no exception. We’ve been hearing about the Gotham police being corrupt, but haven’t really seen too much of that, at least not to the point that we would care a lot about it. But in this episode, we got to see just how far that corruption goes – to the point that a cop would murder a nice, innocent witness in order to protect himself. Not only that, but that the rest of the police force didn’t seem to care when they found out that Flass killed the witness. It makes you wonder just how far this corruption goes. It’s possible that they’re all guilty of something, and that’s why no one wanted to step up and “cast the first stone,” so to speak, lest they be judged as well. I’m glad that at least the Captain had Gordon’s back, and didn’t leave him hanging.
In any case, I liked how the audience was made to feel just as frustrated as Gordon was with the situation, or that’s how I felt anyway. I mean, we saw this nice old man get killed in the police station after talking with his wife, and then somehow his stab in the back gets ruled a suicide?? Whaaat? There would have to be a lot of corruption to uphold that conclusion! We also got to see Gordon’s despair at discovering that his help from Cobblepot didn’t really go as planned, and that someone feared for his family’s lives because of it. I felt a little bad for Gordon, but really, how long can he go on trusting Cobblepot?
It doesn’t look like Josh mentioned the encounter between Ed Nygma and Kris Kringle in his recap, where Ed gives her a greeting card, and then Flass gets ahold of it and reads it to everyone. We can see that Kris feels bad about everyone making fun of Ed, so much that she even went to him to apologize – but not bad enough to actually want to be friends with him, much less have a romantic relationship with him. She pretty much just thinks he’s weird. I’m wondering what the point of bringing her into the storyline is. Will her continued rejections be the reason that Ed eventually become the Riddler? That’s the only thing I can think of.
Speaking of romantic relationships, was anyone else surprised to hear that Harvey Bullock had a “thing” for Fish Mooney? I don’t feel like it’s been mentioned before, and I never got that vibe. So when Gordon said that, it felt really random. Did they just randomly decide to introduce that notion during this episode and hope that the audience didn’t question it? And then at the end when Harvey and Fish kissed, it was like, oh okay, I guess they’re really playing up this angle. Is it just so that the show will have an excuse for Harvey to stay in touch with Fish while she’s out of town? Oh, and as for yet another romantic relationship, what happened with Gordon and Dr. Thompkins?? They just had that steamy makeout session in the men’s locker room last episode, and now this episode there’s nothing? Weird. Hopefully we see more of Dr. Thompkins next episode.
Scenes from Gotham, Season 1 Episode 14: The Fearsome Dr. Crane
Here are scenes from the next episode of Gotham, titled The Fearsome Dr. Crane:
