Gotham S02E21 “A Legion of Horribles” REVIEW

Gotham S02E21 “A Legion of Horribles” REVIEW

0 comments 📅09 June 2016, 12:08

Gotham S02E21 “A Legion of Horribles” REVIEW

Gotham_2x21_6

stars 3.5
Airing in the UK on Channel 5, Mondays, 10pm
Writer:
Jordan Harper
Director: Rob Bailey

Essential Plot Points:

  • Firefly is pursuing Selina around the test rig. She’s also…kind of cheesy now in a way that Bridget wasn’t before. The new suit looks great, though. Selina, brilliantly, waits for her to go full supervillain monologue then punches her out.

• Firefly stalks Selina

  • MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE PIGEON LOFT FROM GHOST DOG!
  • Bruce is met by Ivy. Remember her? Bruce realises Selina’s in trouble and goes to rescue her.

• Bruce

  • MEANWHILE, AT HARV’S SURPRISING CAREER DEVELOPMENT!
  • Harv is giving a press statement about the Azrael incident. It’s going surprisingly well.
  • Harv escapes back to his office to find a suave-looking Jim who advocates going at Strange again. Harv can’t but vigilante now, but Jerkface can! Especially when Bruce tells him Strange has Selina.

• Jim

  • MEANWHILE, AT… WE HAVE NO CLUE
  • A lady watches the news report. She picks up the phone and in a deeply odd voice tells the person on the other end that Strange is losing control and the Court has to be gathered. The camera focuses on the Owl mask on her desk… OH DESAR LORD! COURT OF OWLS FOR NEXT SEASON! THAT WILL FIT SO WELL!
  • MEANWHILE, AT ARKHAM!
  • Strange is putting a victim through a big weird machine that may as well say “SCIENCE THING” on the side. The test subject wakes up and screams as he pulls at his face and it just keeps stretching. CLAYFACE CONFIRMED.

• Clayface

  • Strange and Peabody leave to discuss being evil. Strange has activated seven subjects (read: reanimated them) and Peabody is convinced that their employers will shut them down. Strange on the other hand has been given a supervillain Lego set and he is JUST getting started. He focuses on Subject 13.
  • It’s Fish Mooney.
  • MEANWHILE BACK AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR
  • Alfred verbally kicks the hell out of Bruce over throwing Selina under the vast Asylum sized bus. Alfred actually tells him he’s “bang out of order”; we love Alfred.
  • Alfred, Bruce, Jim and Lucius discuss the best way to get in. Lucius, because he’s great, of course has a solution. He developed a miniature Geiger counter and he’s pretty sure that Strange is using plutonium isotopes to mutate the subjects. If he gets in, he can find traces of it.
  • Alfred is NOT happy. Lucius has more of a plan. A plan that will get Jim inside too…

• Lucius

  • MEANWHILE, AT THE MUTATEOTRON 5000!
  • Hey Fish! She looks good for being dead and is now resurrected.
  • Nearby Peabody is interrogating Ed by locking him in a cell with a cannibalistic inmate. Ed talks for his life and, to the surprise of everyone, including Peabody, it seems to work.
  • MEANWHILE, AT STATELY WAYNE MANOR!
  • Alfred reluctantly says goodbye to Bruce as he heads in to rescue Selina. In yet another lovely Alfred/Bruce moment he explains that Bruce is not the boy his father left behind. He’s essentially become his father’s son in the very best way. Bruce strops off a bit but Cockneyman is resolute.
  • BACK AT THE MUTATEOTRON 5000
  • Fish apparently stopped off at the X-Men: Apocalypse boutique on the way to consciousness. She seems comatose until Strange tries to name her Andraste.
    We’ll come back to that.
  • To his amazement, she tells him her name is FISH! She’s got her memories. She’s got her personality. She’s got a bodysuit. Fish is BACK.
  • Strange and Peabody put her in containment and dork out about what’s different about her. They also agree on giving Ed a “go” at taking down Jim Gordon.
  • Lucius and Bruce arrive and are met by Strange. Strange spars verbally with Bruce but the baby Bat is ice cool. They agree to let Peabody accompany Lucius while Bruce and Doctor Chinstrap chat. They go inside and Fox sneaks Jim, in uniform as a guard, in.
  • In Strange’s office, Strange serves Bruce tea and tries to find out why he’s really there. Again, Bruce is Garrus Vakarian level smooth.
  • Nearby, in a frankly horrifying corridor, Lucius’s Geiger counter THAT BEEPS starts going off. He sells Peabody, just, on it being an air quality monitor. Lucius finds the trapdoor to Indian Hill and spends an easy minute marking it as the Geiger counter goes crazy.

• World's loudest geiger counter

  • In the office, Strange finally gets through to Bruce by basically stabbing him with the verbal knife, “I MURDERED YOUR PARENTS”. Intriguingly, he pleads with Bruce to stop pursuing the investigation and implies heavily that because Thomas did not that’s what got him killed. Bruce faces him down, is very much his father’s son and Strange, almost sadly, gives the order. Guard Jerkface, Lucius and Bruce are all taken,
  • MEANWHILE, BACK IN CASA DEL FIREFLY!
  • Selina is using Firefly’s flamethrower to try and melt the door down. She doesn’t see Firefly wake up and spot the spare rig she has…
  • MEANWHILE, IN FISH’S CELL!
    Fish still has stilettos on. She is basically the only person on Earth who could rock that look. Fish gets her hand on a guard and inadvertently discovers that she definitely has abilities of some kind, seeming to take control of him…
  • MEANWHILE, IN STRANGE’S OFFICE
  • Strange and Peabody examine their prisoners. Strange is genuinely sad about events and Peabody is not. She wants them dead, Soon.
  • And then the Court of Owls show up.
  • On a videophone.

• Owl Lady

  • They are not happy in the slightest. It turns out they want immortality and that’s why they’ve been sponsoring Strange. When he tells them he’s managed to bring someone back with their mind and memories intact, they order him to take everyone to the other facility and destroy Indian Hill.
  • At Fish’s cell, the guard brings her the grilled cheese sandwich she asked for. Fish, it seems, can control people…

• Fish's sandwich

  • MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE FIREFLY CAVE!
    Selina somehow doesn’t hear Bridget walk over to a table, and strap the new flamethrower on. They face off (duelling flamethrowers!) fighting Firefly with fire proves pointless.
  • Selina, because she’s clever, surrenders and volunteers to be Bridget’s servant. Bridget, convinced she’s the Goddess of Fire by Strange, buys it.

• Selina v Bridget

  • MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE GCPD!
  • Alfred comes to see Bullock and asks him to tool up. Harv is SUPER cool with this. The GCPD, loaded for bear, roll out.
  • MEANWHILE, BACK AT ARKHAM!
  • Lucius is put in Bruce’s cell. Bruce apologises to him for getting them killed and Lucius gives Bruce the second pep talk of the episode. This one seems to take. Edward comes over the tannoy and Bruce demands to know where Jim is. Ed laughs and says Jim has his own problems…

• Death Room

  • MEANWHILE, AT JIM’S PROBLEMS!
  • Jim is tied down and a weird helmet placed on his head.
  • MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE ED SHOW!
  • Ed explains he’s there to find out what they know. If they don’t tell him what he needs, they’ll be gassed. Lucius recognises Ed’s voice and Ed gives them five minutes to tell him what they know before they die.

• Ed

  • MEANWHILE BACK AT JIM’S PROBLEMS!
  • Strange introduces Jim to Basil, an actor, the gentleman we met at the top of the episode. They put the weird helmet on him. CLAYFACE VERY CONFIRMED
  • MEANWHILE, AT THE GODDESS OF FIRE!
  • Bridget, with Selina as her loyal retainer, gets ready to bust out.
  • MEANWHILE, AT FISH!
  • She realises she has more power than she thinks.
  • MEANWHILE, AT JIM’S PROBLEMS!
    Basil has Jim’s face! Evil Jim time!

Review:

Home stretch! Everyone off to Arkham!

Again, Gotham benefits massively from a single focus. There are four plots (Bruce’s team, Ed, Peabody and Strange’s work, Selina) all in one place this week and it helps the episode so much. Not only through focus but because Bailey shoots Arkham like the colossal horror labyrinth it should be.

But the real reason this episode works is the focus on Bruce. David Mazouz, and Benedict Wong, do season best work here and the conversation the two have is gripping. Mazouz is very slowly letting the cold, calculating element of Bruce we’ve seen this season slip. What’s underneath it is a pit of black rage that even Vigilante Jerkface would look at and go, “Calm down a bit, huh kid?” The bittersweet moment with Alfred is especially good; the world’s best cockney hardman realising while he’s Bruce’s Guardian, Thomas is still the biggest influence on him.

Gotham_2x21_1 2

DB Wong takes the episode though. For a full season Strange has been a purring chinstrap-bearded murder cat and here he’s given much needed and strangely poignant dimensions. He hated killing his friend. He hates the thought of killing his friend’s son. That’s a major change from the body count fan he’s been in previous episode and it’s one that Wong absolutely lands. You feel sorry for him, just a little.

There’s a lot of fun to be had elsewhere this episode too and it’s great to see Clayface make his official Gotham debut. What’s particularly interesting, though, is how this season is being wound down and setting the next season up as it goes. The Court Of Owls make perfect sense as Strange’s backers and in putting them in place the show gives everything he’s done context. Suddenly, after episodes of apparently random craziness there’s a plan here and it’s one that’s going to drive at least next season if not further. That’s impressive from any show. With Gotham, compared to how it started the season, that’s amazing.

Rounded out with some great dialogue and a gleeful pace this is another fun episode. And next week, Jim v Jim! Jerkfaceageddon! See you then.

The Good:

  • “How long are you acting Captain?”
    “Until literally the second someone else wants the job.” Every line Harv has this week is gold but this is the winner.
  • “Who killed Galavan?”
    “Which time?” Although this comes close.
  • “I’ll return momentarily to tell you who you are.” Strange has a great episode this week especially his scenes with Bruce and this moment.
  • “Then he wouldn’t have been the man he was.”
    “True. But he wouldn’t be dead either.” OUCH!
  • “It seems you are your father’s son. I want you to know how greatly I respect that.” This whole scene is great. Strange is genuinely sad about what he has to do.
  • “While we could send in an assault of a pudgy middle aged Irish detective and a recently stabbed Englishman I think the acting captain of the GCPD could do a little better.” CAPTAIN HARV TO THE RESCUE!
  • Lucius has a GREAT car.
  • Alfred actually says ‘Bang out of order.’
  • DRAGON AGE REFERENCE! When Strange tries to tell Fish she’s Andraste, it’s possible he’s talking about the Icenic War Goddess invoked by Boudica. But let’s face it it’s at least as likely he’s talking about the prophet who founded the Chantry in Dragon: Age Inquisiton.

The Bad:

  • 
Bridget is a touch cheesy now. But at least we know why, given her programming.
  • Really, REALLY? Lucius invented a pocket Geiger counter that didn’t have a Vibrate function?
  • Oh hi Ivy! Bye Ivy!

The Random:

  • The original Clayface, Basil Karlo, was originally an actor driven mad when a movie he was in was going to be re-made. He turned to a life of crime, because Twitter hadn’t been invented then. He first appeared in Detective Comics #40 in June 1940.
  • The Court of Owls were first introduced in 2011 in the second issue of Scott Snyder’s pretty astounding long-form run on Batman. An ancient Gotham conspiracy who have controlled the city for countless decades they’re intensely violent, almost entirely secret and utterly merciless. They’re serious foes for Batman, so introducing them in the pre-Batman years definitely raises the stakes. Also, their assassins, the Talons, are highly trained soldiers who we suspect will go right next to Azrael on Bruce’s, “Vigilante stuff?” Pinterest board.
  • Shot of the week probably has to be this. ClayJim! Or is it JimFace?

• Evil Jim

No Comments

No Comments Yet!

You can be first one to write a comment

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.