Check out Violet’s recap of the season finale of Gotham, titled All Happy Families Are Alike, where the war rages pm between Falcone and Maroni, and Fish Mooney returns and joins that war! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts about the episode!
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Episode Recap of Gotham, Season 1 Episode 22: All Happy Families Are Alike
This episode of Gotham begins with Fish Mooney arriving on the shores of Gotham via a large rowboat. The first person she comes across is Selina Kyle.
Two weeks later, the Falcone/Maroni war rages on. Bruce Wayne continues to search for his father’s secrets. Bruce recalls that his father would lock himself in the study and play classical music. Bruce concludes that the secret must be in that room, so he and Alfred tear the room apart looking for it.
Falcone goes to the docks to check out some chickens and gets attacked by Maroni’s guys. He jumps out of the way just as the car he was in explodes.
At the police station, Jim sees Dr. Thompkins giving Barbara her last checkup. Dr. Thompkins recommends that Barbara get some trauma counseling. She agrees, but only if Dr. Thompkins is her counselor, and they do it at Barbara’s place. Dr. Thompkins reluctantly agrees.
Harvey tells Jim that Falcone has just been hit, and that Falcone is now in the hospital. He also tells Jim that City Hall and the big wigs okayed the hit, and have switched their support to Maroni.
Falcone wakes up in a hospital room, restrained to a gurney. Cobblepot and Butch pay him a visit, and Cobblepot breaks the news that it was him that started this war. Falcone asks him why, and Cobblepot says it’s nothing personal, he just wants to take Falcone’s place and become the King of Gotham. Just as Cobblepot is about to slice Falcone’s throat, Gordon enters the room and says they’re both under arrest for attempted murder.
Gordon handcuffs Cobblepot and Butch to the radiator, then releases Falcone from his restraints. Gordon confirms with Falcone that he can take back control of the city. Gordon then calls Harvey to let him know what’s going on, and to ask for help. He thinks that with Maroni running the city, it’ll be anarchy.
Gordon plans to take Falcone to a safe house because he’s the least worst option. Cobblepot insists that Jim take him and Butch too, and reminds Jim that he owes him a favor. Just then, Commissioner Loeb shows up with Maroni’s guys, and orders Jim to leave. He refuses. The Commissioner gets out of the way, then gunfire breaks out. Jim shoots back, and manages to avoid getting shot. Harvey shows up to help. They steal an ambulance and take Falcone, Cobblepot, and Butch with them, continuing to dodge gunfire from Maroni and his men.
Falcone directs them to go to an empty warehouse, that he says nobody knows about. However, Selina Kyle greets them, along with Fish Mooney and her new crew.
Fish gets Maroni on the phone, and says that she has something he wants. Falcone, Jim, Harvey, and Penguin are restrained from above by the wrists. Falcone says they didn’t find his knife, which is hidden in his sock. Selina comes over to talk to Jim, and he asks for help, but she refuses. Fish walks over and tells them that she just talked to Maroni, who agreed to give her back all her territories in exchange for Falcone’s head. She also tells Penguin that he will die a slow, painful death for what he did to Butch.
Meanwhile, Dr. Thompkins provides counseling to Barbara at Barbara’s place. Barbara says that Jim has a bad temper, and asks Dr. Thompkins if Jim has ever hit her. She also reveals that she knows Dr. Thompkins and Jim are dating.
Maroni shows up at the warehouse and warmly greets Fish. Cobblepot pleads with Fish to keep Falcone alive, saying that as soon as Falcone is dead, Maroni has no use for her and will kill her, since she is a rival. However, Maroni says he’s wrong, and says that she’s not a rival, she’s an “underboss.” Fish doesn’t agree with that assessment, and takes offense at Maroni calling her “Babes.” Fish tells Maroni that they are partners. He agrees, saying that he’s #1 and she’s #2. He continues to call her “Babes,” and Fish responds by shooting Maroni in the head. Fighting breaks out, and Gordon, Falcone, and Harvey take the opportunity to free themselves, then run away.
Dr. Thompkins continues to try to get Barbara to talk about what happened to her.
Falcone says he’s done with this business, and has a place down South that he wants to go to. They hide in a shipping container, but Selina and a few other of Fish’s crew quickly find them and bring them back into the warehouse. Falcone congratulates Fish on being the new Queen of Gotham, and tells her he’s retiring. Just then, Cobblepot fires a machine gun and goes looking for Fish. Gordon, Falcone, and Harvey get into a car and drive away.
Barbara confesses that it was her, not the Ogre, who killed her parents. Dr. Thompkins realizes that she is in danger and runs to the bathroom, as Barbara grabs a kitchen knife. Dr. Thompkins breaks the mirror and grabs a shard while Barbara breaks through the bathroom door. She gets through, and they fight. Dr. Thompkins finally gets the upper hand and is able to knock Barbara out. Just then, Jim, Falcone, and Harvey enter Barbara’s apartment, and Dr. Thompkins tells Jim that Barbara went crazy.
Cobblepot goes looking for Fish on the roof, and they fight. Butch shows up, confused as to whether he should shoot Cobblepot or Fish. Butch shoots Fish, then shoots Cobblepot. He goes to Fish and apologizes. She tells him it’s not his fault, she knows they messed with his head. Cobblepot comes up behind Butch and hits him in the head, knocking him out. Cobblepot runs at her and tosses her over the side of the building, into the water below. Then he stands on the ledge yelling, “I’m the King of Gotham!”
Miss Kringle confronts Ed Nygma about the note that Officer Dougherty left for her. She has noticed that the first letter of every line spells out “Nygma.” He tries to play it off as a coincidence, but she still seems suspicious as she walks away. Alone again, Ed begins maniacally laughing to himself, and yelling at himself for leaving a clue, and seems to be going crazy.
Out on the balcony at Barbara’s place, Falcone tells Jim that he won’t change his mind about leaving, saying that Gotham needs a strong lawman, not a criminal like himself. He tells Jim that man is him. Falcone gives Jim a knife that had belonged to Jim’s father, who gave it to him a long time ago. Jim is surprised to hear that his father and Falcone were that close. Falcone says that the point of the story was that Jim’s father was the most honest man he ever knew, but he carried a knife.
In the final scene, Bruce figures out where a secret remote is hidden. He pushes the button, which triggers classical music to begin playing, and causes the fireplace to move backwards, exposing a passageway. There’s a staircase that looks like it leads down to a cave… a bat cave?!
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 22 of Gotham: All Happy Families Are Alike
After enjoying the Ogre multi-episode arc, it was a little difficult to move on to this episode and get into a storyline that I knew would only last for one episode, considering that it’s the season finale. As I suspected, I wasn’t all that impressed with this episode. It felt very odd to have Jim team up with not only Falcone, but Cobblepot and Butch as well. I mean, I guess it was the lesser of two evils, between them and Maroni’s guys, but still.
It also felt forced how they keep trying to bring Selina Kyle into storylines. She just happens to be standing there and is the first person Fish Mooney comes across when she comes ashore? Right. Speaking of Fish, her gut wound from being shot while flying away in the helicopter didn’t seem to bother her any. It was a nice surprise to see her shoot Maroni in the head. Did not see that one coming, even though you could see that she was pissed at him. Anyway, now Cobblepot has thrown Fish into the ocean, presumably killing her (though we don’t actually have confirmation of her death, so theoretically she could show back up at any time), and Falcone is retiring, which makes Cobblepot the “King of Gotham.” So I guess it’ll be very Penguin-esque next season.
As for Barbara, she has definitely gone off the deep end. We know from the comic books that Barbara and Jim eventually get married, but I’m not sure how that’s going to happen after her confession that she killed her parents, and now that she’s tried to kill Dr. Thompkins. Is it possible that the writers would re-write that detail? After all, they’ve sure taken a bunch of liberties in other areas! I really like Dr. Thompkins, and hope they keep her around.
Overall, I’m not all that excited about Season 2 of Gotham, though I am willing to continue watching it to see how it goes. If they do more multi-episode arcs like they did with the Ogre, I might be more interested. Oh, one thing I am curious about is seeing the Bat Cave!
Josh’s Thoughts: Gotham, Season 1 Episode 22: All Happy Families Are Alike
I guess one big thing you learn from this finale is that Fish doesn’t take lip from anyone. She decided to take Maroni down over how he treated her, despite having seemingly reached an agreement. But in the end, she lost, given her state of being splattered over the concrete below. You would have thought she would have kept a better eye on the slippery Penguin so that she would be able to keep the upperhand, but I guess not.
I am not really understanding the character of Falcone in this episode. I guess I have a hard time siding with a guy who has no problem killing–literally killing–the competition, and breaking the law in general to achieve his ends. For him to now come and spout to Jim that Gotham needs a law man as a leader makes very little sense given that Falcone had little respect for the law himself.
This sort of really sums up my feeling on Gotham in that I did not find the characters particularly entertaining, nor very believable. I say this a lot in my reviews for TV shows and movies–I have to believe the reasons the characters take their actions. If I can’t, I lose interest pretty quickly. That is a big problem with Gotham for me. I will probably check out season 2, but I am not too hopeful for it.
Scenes from Season 2 of Gotham
Here are scenes from Season 2 of Gotham:
You know, when I was growing up, in the 70s, the old kitschy Batman series was in daily reruns. So, when I watch Gotham, I occasionally flashback to Batman & the room spins a little, lol. As much as I sometimes want to throw something at the TV during Gotham, it beats Batman! (Although, as a 10 year old, I loved Batman!)