Gotham S02E17 “Into The Woods” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 10pm
Writer: Rebecca Perry Cutter
Director: Oz Scott

Essential Events:

• MEANWHILE, WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME!
• Bruce and Selina flee from a thief they’ve just stolen from. They escape, Bruce redistributes his wealth and Selina yells at him. He explains that this isn’t crime from him but research.
• MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE GCPD!
• Barnes corners Harv and demands to know where Jim is. Harv swears up and down that he doesn’t know. Barnes knows for a fact he’s lying but lets him go. As he does, Harv again swears he doesn’t know.
• MEANWHILE, AT HARV’S HOUSE WHERE JIM IS HIDING!
• Bless you Harvey. The two cops do actual cop stuff to try and figure out who framed Jim. They eventually realise that Internal Affairs may have a secret record of the call that supposedly came from Officer Pinkney. All they have to do is break in.
• So, of course, instead of Harv, the officer in good standing, going in, Jim breaks in. After being slipped a key from Harv’s occasional Internal Affairs hook-up. Jim retrieves the tape, then on the way home, fights crime. Seriously, actually fights crime. He’s immediately apprehended by the GCPD and runs off.
• MEANWHILE, AT THE ESCAPED DARK SHADOWS PLOT
• Penguin attends his dad’s funeral and is thrown out of the house by his family. He begs to stay and his “mother” agrees to keep him on as a butler. Which will clearly go well.
• MEANWHILE, AT ARKHAM!
• Barbara is in therapy confessing all. And genuinely remorseful. Miss Peabody is sceptical. Strange however has plans for Barbara…
• MEANWHILE, ON THE MEAN STREETS NEAR A STARBUCKS
• Harv meets Jim in the car. Where he’s been hiding. They play the tape and Harv reveals that there’s a 10 grand reward for Jim. He also, charmingly admits if it was 20 grand he might turn Jim in himself.
• They play the tape and realise the voice is distorted. Jim goes looking for someone to clean it up and leaves, thanking Harv and telling him to stop helping while he still can.
• MEANWHILE, BACK AT ED’S FLAT

• Jim goes to Ed for help and Ed is in a just SPECTACULAR COAT. He talks Ed down and asks him to clean up the tape. Ed’s poker face is… actually surprisingly good. He agrees to “help” and claims nothing can be done with the tape. Ed plays for time, making tea and pumping Gordon for information. He’s doing great until Jim refers to the killer as a ‘psychopath’. Ed, clearly angry about this, begins to push back and Jim finally smells a rat until Ed claims Jim couldn’t possibly have killed Galavan. They listen to the tape again and this time the bird noise in the background is revealed to be a cuckoo clock.
• The cuckoo clock in Ed’s apartment.
• Ed can’t resist a riddle just before the clock strikes. Jim holds him at gunpoint and Ed incapacitates him with a chair wired to the mains.
• Ed drags him outside but Jim escapes. Ed wounds him and pursues him into one of the abandoned factories that are on every street corner in Gotham.
• Ed stalks him and confesses to Miss Kringle’s murder.
• MEANWHILE, AT ZOO STATION!
• Bruce fixes Selina’s jacket while cooking them dinner. (They are having tinned spaghetti. We choose to believe it’s actually “’oops” as Gene Hunt would put it.)
• Jim, injured and semi-conscious, appears. Bruce helps him into Selina’s actually pretty sweet hideout and Jim passes out.
• MEANWHILE, AT I DREAM OF COBBLEPOT!
• Oswald finds the decanter that contained the poison that killed his dad and starts to suspect. For very little reason, he tests the poisoned booze on the dog. After the family mess with him some more, he realises the dog’s died and starts to laugh maniacally. And yes this stuff is pretty awful.
• MEANWHILE, AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR!
• Bruce, again, is the smartest person in the show. He calls Alfred, and they take Jim back to Wayne Manor to rest up. Alfred and Jim discuss Jim’s situation. Alfred, who is the second smartest person in the show, lays it all out for Jim and asks him how he’s going to get out of it. Jim, it turns out, has a plan.
• Along with the kids, they figure out that Ed was burying Kringle’s body in the woods when he first met Penguin. He needs proof, specifically the body and while Bruce volunteers, Jim points out they need someone Barnes knows will betray Jim…

• MEANWHILE, AT ARKHAM!
• Barbara is released, despite Miss Peabody’s misgivings.
• MEANWHILE, AT THE GCPD!
• Selina swans in, asking for the reward. She tells Barnes everything and Captain Macho plays hard to get. Finally, Selina “admits” he was heading out to see the Penguin because, “he knows where the body’s buried”. Ed, in the background, freaks OUT.
• So much so in fact that when he grabs some alone time, the Riddler persona screams at him in a mirror. Ed figures out the odds are NOT in his favour and goes out to dig up the body.
• Jim follows him out and Ed pulls a gun on him. Jim admits he tricked Ed and Ed, in one of the best moments he’s had, applauds him.
• Jim asks how this happened and Ed explains this is who he really is. Jim refuses to believe that and Ed cooks off. He claims Jim can’t believe that because it would make him incompetent. Ed offers one last riddle as a “farewell” to which the answer is of course death and is about to execute Jim.
• At which point the entire GCPD appears to arrest Ed. He tries to talk his way out of it and runs, getting caught very easily.
• MEANWHILE, AT THE ENTIRELY SUPERFLUOUS TO THIS EPISODE PLOT!
• Penguin serves Grace her own children as a roast. The Full Cartman. I only wish I was joking.
• MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE GCPD
• Barnes apologises to Jim, kind of. Which is basically a handshake and lots of bromance. Jim surprises him by refusing to come back to work straight away. Barnes, in his single sweet moment this season, gives Lee’s number to Jim.
• Jim refuses to take it until he solves the Wayne murder. Barnes bargains him into taking both.
• MEANWHILE, BACK AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR

• Bruce is reading a magazine and reassures Alfred that nothing that happened is his fault. Alfred casually tells him that Bruce’s dad’s computer is now fixed. Alfred demands Bruce keep it from Selina for surprising reasons; he trusts Selina and no longer trusts Bruce’s parents’ information to not put her in danger. He then blots his copy book a touch by telling Bruce it’s either Selina or the work.
• Selina interrupts them and Bruce tells her he’s not going back. He blots his copybook by not telling Sabrina the truth. Angst ensues.
• FINALLY, AT ARKHAM ASYLUM!
• Ed settles into his new home.
• FINALLY, AT DEAR GOD WHY ARE WE BACK HERE AGAIN?!
• Penguin “salutes” Grace’s brutally murdered form.
• FINALLY, AT SELINA’S PAD!
• She throws the jacket Bruce repaired away.
• FINALLY, AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR
• Alfred and Bruce fire up the bat computer!
• FINALLY AT JIM’S PLACE!
• Jim calls Lee and is interrupted by a knock at the door. It’s BARBARA.

Review:

We’ll say this for Gotham: the show’s definitely solving its pacing issues. The “Fugitive Jerkface” plot is resolved an episode after it began and it’s actually pretty great. Even better, the often rickety and seemingly teased-out Riddler plot closes down hard here and it gives both Ben Mackenzie and Cory Michael Smith a ton to do.

This feels like a house-cleaning episode and a very good one at that. As well as Jim being cleared and Ed in prison we’ve also got a refocusing on the promise Jim made to Bruce way back in the early episodes. That in turn suggests that Jim’s had a moment of clarity and is leaving prison newly focused and newly together.

Which of course means we go, “NOOOOOO!” when Barbara shows up, but still…

The main plot here really is very good. Jim and Harv do actual police work that actually pays off. Bruce, Selina and Alfred all make meaningful contributions and the whole thing feels like a very satisfying payoff to a plot that often wasn’t that at all.

It’s a shame, then, that there are a couple of bum notes. Well, one bum note and one cannibalistic one. The gag involving Harv’s Internal Affairs bootie call falls so flat it never takes off and the Penguin plot is just… mystifying. This goes all the way out of gothic into grand guignol. The performances are too broad to be straight but the plot itself is too horrible to be absurd. It’s lumpily paced, does none of the cast involved any favours and feels like the exact plate spinning Gotham keeps trying to get away from but never quite does.

It’s a real shame as the rest of the episode is so good those elements really stand out. There’s real progress, a real sense of the characters and the city changing and growing. Here’s hoping that continues through into the resolution of the Wayne Murders.

The Good:

• “…I saved enough for burgers!” Carefree sort-of criminal Bruce is lovely. We’ll rather miss him.

• “I’d clap but I have your gun in my hand.” Cory Michael Smith NAILS it this episode, especially in this final confrontation with Jim. He’s spiky and enraged and so far gone he can’t even see it.
• “Turns out staring into the cold dead eyes of the man that killed your parents doesn’t bring the right amount of closure.” Some excellent Alfred material this episode, especially this line.
• “You can’t unfry an egg, as my dear old mum used to say. So, why don’t you leave Master Bruce’s situation alone and we discuss yours.” And this one. This is the Alfred the show needs AND deserves.

The Bad:

• The stuff with Bullock’s IA hook up is straight-up unpleasant. She’s a normal-sized woman who likes sex but somehow Bullock sleeping with her is presented as “taking one from the team”. WAY too bro’, Gotham. WAY too bro’.

• The Penguin plot being in this episode really does play like filler. It contributes nothing to the overall plot and we’ve seen Gotham do this before. Plus, again, this is straight-up nasty. Dog Poisoning, stealth cannibalism and triple murder all in one episode is way past “a bit much” and well into “Jesus, drink less coffee” territory.
• Please don’t bring Barbara back just to really screw her up. Again.

The Random:

• Melinda Clarke, who played Grace, is another OC alumni. While Ben Mackenzie played the lead, Ryan, she played Julie Cooper. She also had a number of excellent appearances on CSI as Lady Heather.
• Shot of the week is more scene of the week. The Ed/Jim/GCPD face-off is really well shot.

Review by Alasdair Stuart