GOTHAM: Penguin's Umbrella

Love Conquers All !

This week's episode is a bit twisty turny. Not a lot of good cop, bad cop crime solving, however it did bring the heat on Jim Gordon after Falcone realizes Penguin is still alive terroizing the city. In typical Falcone fashion, he has another man do his dirty work for him. This man is named Victor Zsasz who is a Batman character (serial killer) who prefers to use a blade, and then carves a tally mark on his body after each kill. Zsasz believes that life is pointless, and that he's freeing his victims from a meaningless existence by killing them. When this character came on screen tonight I was hoping he would live to see another episode and that happened indeed. Finally, a villain that doesn't die at the end.



Last week, Oswald Cobblepot revealed that he’s still alive, and this week, predictably, all hell breaks loose in Gotham. Harvey Bullock feels betrayed, Don Falcone realizes he’s been duped, and Fish Mooney sees blood. Everybody, it seems, wants Jim Gordon and Penguin dead, and no one in the Gotham Police Department has the balls to stand up to Don Falcone’s assassin when he shows up at Police Headquarters looking for Gordon’s head.  Gordon manages to buy himself a little time and gets his girlfriend Barbara out of town, but quickly winds up in the crosshairs between the Maroni and Falcone gangs. Penguin, meanwhile, manages to slither out of danger by playing up his value to Don Maroni.  When Falcone’s gang hijacks a truck full of cash from Maroni’s men, Penguin manages to manipulate Maroni into hitting back hard and killing everyone at Falcone’s drug warehouse (including Fish Mooney’s Russian-mob boyfriend.)

Meanwhile, Gordon hatches a bold plan to arrest the Mayor and Falcone for conspiracy in the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne, and nearly gets away with it. But Barbara foolishly returned to Gotham to plead for her boyfriend’s life, and Falcone holds her hostage to force Gordon to give up his plan. Throughout all this, Don Falcone has been acting oddly; as Fish Mooney observes, it’s almost like he knows something no one else knows.  At the end of the episode, we learn what that is: Falcone flipped Penguin into being his snitch, and Penguin let Falcone know that Fish and her Russian lover were plotting a takeover. When all the dust has cleared, Don Falcone remains in charge of the city, his biggest rival has been eliminated, and Don Maroni’s none the wiser that his right hand man is actually working for his arch enemy.



There’s one short scene where Gordon stops at Wayne Manor to say goodbye in case Falcone’s men get him, and again David Mazouz impresses as  the young Bruce Wayne. Even Sean Pertwee’s non-traditional Alfred Pennyworth is starting to grow on me. So with Oswald Penguin Cobblepot embedded with the Maroni mob (but secretly working for Don Falcone,) the stage is set for more mischief. Meanwhile, it’s all about real estate and land deals and whatever’s happening at Arkham Asylum, and that’s where we’ll be headed next week.