Sunday, May 3, 2015

Gotham Recap: The Anvil Or the Hammer

It’s time again for another Gotham recap! This time we’ll be taking a look at the third and final episode featuring the Ogre. Let’s get started!

We’d like to remind readers that Gotham contains adult content and viewer discretion is advised. Content/trigger warning for abuse and violence. Spoilers ahead.


The morning after their first night together, Barbara announces she is leaving the Ogre’s apartment. She downplays their relationship, stating it was never serious. When he asks her to stay, telling her his feelings for her are real, she doesn’t believe he’s being truthful with her. He admits he hasn’t been truthful with her, but not in the way she thinks. The Ogre admits that, at first, he was planning to kill her, but now he believes she’s “the one”. Terrified, Barbara tries to escape the apartment, only to find the door locked.

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The Ogre hangs her by her wrists and leaves her to think for awhile in his torture room. He says she’s the one, and she’ll realize this eventually.

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When Barbara sees photos of all the girls he’s killed, she faints. When she wakes up, the Ogre decides to prove his love to her by demanding she tell him who to kill. If she doesn’t give him the name of someone to kill, he will kill her instead. Finally, Barbara gives in and whispers the name of her parents.

Meanwhile, at the station, Lee is trying to get Jim to take better care of himself. Obsessed with protecting Barbara, he won’t take his eyes off the case to eat or sleep. She tries to get him to stop blaming himself for Barbara going missing, but he won’t have it, and she backs down.

Harvey brings in a man off the street, Jake, who is rumored to have seen the Ogre. When Jake demands a bribe for information, Jim turns ugly.

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Frightened, Jake gives Jim the information he wants. He tells Jim he worked as a barman at the Foxglove where the Ogre was a regular. The Foxglove being a very exclusive sex club that changes location each night, Jim will have to find someone in the know to get access. Jim goes to Oswald and demands the location and an invitation to the sex club immediately.

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Oswald is reluctant to grant Jim’s request, as the club makes his associates a lot of money; and since Jim already owes him a favor, their relationship is starting to feel a bit one-sided. At this, Jim once again becomes violent, this time grabbing Oswald by the collar and threatening to shoot Butch. Oswald gives in.

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Jim gives the invitation to Harvey, tells him to go to the club undercover, bust them on something, and that will give the GCPD an excuse to come question people — hopefully finding out something about the Ogre in the process. At first, Harvey is excited to go, thinking he’s going to have a good time. But when he gets to the club itself, he finds it far more disturbing than he expected, and finally announces himself in the name of the GCPD when he sees the “entertainment” hired for the night.

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Jim comes and talks to one of the prostitutes, who says she knew the Ogre. She says he went by the name Jason. Years ago, before he became a killer, he kidnapped and beat her and then let her go. Jim asks if there’s anything she can remember that might help them find him. She remembers outside his apartment window, she could see they were in midtown, and there was a neon sign across the street. All she could read of the sign was “oyal”. Jim and Harvey realize this was probably the Gotham Royal Hotel.

When Jim and Harvey get to the Ogre’s apartment, they find it empty. The phone rings, and Jim answers it to find the Ogre on the other line. The Ogre says he knows the detectives are there because they tripped the alarm. He tells Jim that Barbara doesn’t need his protection, and hangs up. Based on background noises during the phone call, Jim and Harvey realize the Ogre and Barbara are headed toward the home of Barbara’s parents.

At Barbara’s parents house, the Ogre kills Mr. and Mrs. Kean as Barbara looks on, blissful and trance-like. When Jim and Harvey finally arrive, Barbara casually greets Jim, and acts as if everything is fine, wondering why he’s there.

The Ogre pushes Harvey down the stairs, then attacks Jim. When Jim pulls out his gun, the Ogre puts a knife to Barbara’s throat and threatens to kill her if he doesn’t put the gun down. Barbara tells Jim to leave them alone.


As soon as Harvey is back on his feet, he distracts the Ogre, allowing Jim to finally shoot the serial killer. As the Ogre falls dead, the knife cuts Barbara’s throat. Jim helps stop the bleeding until Barbara can get medical help.

Once back at the station, Jim apologizes to Lee for not letting her comfort him.

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She admits her reasons for comforting him were actually selfish — that she was afraid if something happened to Barbara, Jim would get so wrapped up in blaming himself he might forget about her. Jim tells Lee he loves her and not Barbara, and always wants to protect her first.

A package from Cat arrives for Bruce at the Wayne Manor, containing the key to Bunderslaw’s safe. Under the guise of taking a tour, Bruce gets into Wayne Enterprises and sneaks away to Bunderslaw’s office. He finds the safe and opens it, only to find it empty. Not only that, Bunderslaw himself is standing behind him.

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Bunderslaw says he’s been expecting Bruce ever since Cat borrowed his key at the Wayne Ball. He condescendingly offers the boy a cookie, to make him feel like a child. Bruce accuses him of hiring Reggie to kill Alfred. Bunderslaw admits he did hire Reggie, but only to get information, not to harm anyone. He also readily admits that the company is involved in criminal activity, and says he told the board Bruce is a special case and would need “the talk” early. When Bruce asks what he means by this, Bunderslaw says Bruce is doing exactly what his father did and his father before him — investigating the secret goings-on of the company, coming in with his findings, demanding justice. As soon as they reach a certain age, each heir to Wayne Enterprises gets “the talk” about what really goes on at the company, and each heir accepts it. Bruce’s father accepted it. Bruce’s grandfather accepted it. And now, Bunderslaw says, Bruce has the chance to accept it, and be given the opportunity to live a blessed life, the life his parents wanted for him.

At that moment, junior officer Lucius Fox comes in to the office, saying the tour guide is looking for Bruce, and Bunderslaw allows Bruce to go with him. When they’re out of Bunderslaw’s hearing, Lucius takes Bruce aside and tells him to keep a straight face as there are cameras watching.

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Alfred goes to identify Reggie’s body. He says it makes no sense that his friend would accidentally fall out of a window since, back in the day, substance abuse never impaired his senses. Bruce admits to Alfred that he and Cat went looking for Reggie, got the information out of him about who sent him, and that Cat pushed him out the window when he threatened to tell on them to Bunderslaw. He also tells Alfred he went to Wayne Enterprises and got caught looking in Bunderslaw’s safe. He was told that his father and grandfather knew about the illegal things the company does and chose to stay quiet about it. Alfred tells him his father was a good man. Bruce says even good men have secrets. He takes a photo of his father and adds it to his board of suspects.

Eddie comes to work with a suspiciously large suitcase.

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The suitcase is filled with the cut up body parts of Tom Dougherty, the man he murdered. Eddie is bringing them to the station to find a way to dispose of the parts, so no one finds out what happened.

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Kristen comes in while Eddie is working on the parts, She assumes they belong to another murder victim Eddie was assigned to work on, and Eddie plays along.

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She asks him if he’s seen Tom Dougherty lately, as he didn’t show up for their date, or for work that day. Eddie says he hasn’t and that he needs to get back to work. He realizes he will need to do something to stop people from wondering where Tom has gone.

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Eddie writes a letter as Tom Dougherty, explaining that he’s going out of town, and telling Kristen to have fun without him. Kristen reads over the letter, angry. Though, there’s something about the letter she hasn’t noticed yet.

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Now that Connor has agreed to help Oswald kill Maroni, Oswald gives him his final instructions. He tells Connor that Maroni will be at Oswald's newly acquired bar that night, celebrating the release of his friend Tommy Bones. He also tells Connor to give Maroni the following message before he shoots him: “Falcone says it wasn‘t easy to decide to kill you”. Oswald then tells Butch to hide guns in the bar where the killing is to take place, as Connor requests.

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When the time comes, Connor gives Maroni the message; but when he tries to shoot Maroni with the hidden guns, all the guns jam. Angry, Maroni says he’s coming for Falcone, kills Connor, and sends his severed head in a box to Falcone.

When Butch tells Oswald the bad news, that the plan backfired and Connor was killed instead of Maroni, Oswald doesn’t look worried at all. Connor being killed, it turns out, was all part of the plan. The real purpose of the whole thing was to give Maroni the message, so he’d think Falcone is targeting him.

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Each believing themselves targeted by the other, Falcone and Maroni declare vengeance on each other. A full-scale mob war is finally declared.

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Final Thoughts:

Though not as awesome as last week’s episode (which is to be expected), this episode was pretty interesting. I thought the Ogre was a great villain while he lasted. Barbara was very chilling in this episode. The way Stockholm Syndrome set in so fast, and so extreme that she would order a hit on her own parents, makes me wonder where they’ll go with her character next. I’m interested to find out how she’ll deal with what she’s been through and what she’s done.

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Come to think of it, everyone was unusually creepy in this episode. Jim became so desperate, he was ready and willing to resort to violence multiple times. Oswald set up one of his own men to be murdered. And even Eddie showed a more bloodthirsty side as he stood somewhat gloatingly over the remains of his first (accidental) murder victim.

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 I loved meeting Lucius Fox, and hope we’ll get to see a lot more of him next season.

I also have to say I am actually growing to like Lee. Her love of life, thirst for adventure, and devotion to Jim are slowly endearing her to me.

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What’s to Come:

As the next episode is the season finale, we can be sure we’re in for something explosive. We’ll finally get to see what subplots are resolved this season, and which ones (if any) will carry over to next season. I’m sure we’ll get to see what “big favor” Jim owes Oswald. We’ll watch Barbara and Lee meet each other for the first time. We may get to see Bruce discover the Batcave. And it looks like Kristen finds the “NYGMA” acrostic in the letter Eddie wrote as Tom Dougherty.


Although I’m sure Eddie wants to pass it off as a divine sign they’re meant to be together, I can’t help wondering if this will lead Kristen to the truth about Tom’s murder. And if she finds that out, then what will happen to her? Is it possible that events will lead Eddie to kill her too?

Some sneak peeks I’ve had the pleasure to see hint that Cat and Fish may have teamed up in some way. At any rate, they are both rocking some intense new looks.



I'm also interested to see if Butch will remain on Oswald's side to the end, or if he will return his loyalty to Fish.

Speaking of Fish, while the two Dons, Falcone and Maroni, do each other in, she’ll be arriving to take over as queen of Gotham. However, there’s still one other person she’ll have to contend with, who is intent on making himself king.

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What I’ve seen of their final battle looks like a pretty intense rooftop chase. Actor of Oswald, Robin Lord Taylor, dropped a hint concerning the outcome, saying its ending is somewhat vague and open for interpretation. And although Jada Pinkett Smith said she will not be returning as Fish for Season Two, the showrunners recently stated that, on Gotham, anything can happen. This could mean a variety of things. Fish could be changed beyond recognition so that she’s played by a different actress next season. What I find most likely, though, is that Fish will “die” in the rooftop scene — or, at least, people will assume she did — but in reality, she’ll have found some way to survive whatever befalls her, and come back to endanger Oswald’s victory at a later date. Possibly Season Three, or guest appearances during Season Two.

However, to see if I’m correct, or if the Gotham showrunners will find some other way to surprise us, we’ll have to wait for the finale itself, this Monday night on Fox!

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