Gotham S1E11: Rogues’ Gallery
Original Airdate: January 5, 2015
Recap by Sarabeth Pollock
Welcome to 2015, Gothamites, and welcome to the midseason premiere of Gotham!
We start out tonight at Arkham Asylum. The inmates are staging a play. The inmates are taking their parts seriously while Jim Gordon and the other inmates watch from the audience. The nurse turns on music so that a mousy inmate wearing feathered wings can sing a song. While he sings, Jim reflects. We see Selina crawl out from under a building. Bullock is sitting at his desk taking a nip from his flask. Barbara is in bed with Montoya, and there are pills on the nightstand. Meanwhile, back at Arkham, the Frogman has decided that the song needs to end as the notes get higher and higher. He rushes the stage and pulls the singing angel off, punching him repeatedly. Jim pries him away from the other man and a riot breaks out.
The broken angel is taken to the infirmary and Gordon is chewed out by his new boss, Director Lang. The nurse tries to stand up for Gordon, suggesting a return to comedies from now on, but Lang insists that Gordon failed in his duty to maintain order. Clearly, Lang is out to get Gordon. Lang tells Gordon that if there are any more incidents, he’ll pull him from duty and Gordon will sink even farther.
Gordon dozes as he waits for the doctor to arrive. When she does, she gets to work on the inmate. Gordon snaps to attention when he sees how attractive the doctor it. She insists that the inmate is fine, and she asks how Gordon is doing. She recognizes him as the “famous” detective, and introduces herself as Dr. Leslie Tomkins. She’s assigned to the female ward but helps out on occasion. Leslie says the female inmates think he’s handsome and brave. She commends him for not quitting when he’s facing so much adversity. Gordon is taken aback by her openness, and she apologizes. The inmate tells them to get a room because he’s trying to sleep.
Back in the alley, Selina crawls out from her hiding place. She hears someone coughing and finds Ivy tucked away in a box. Ivy is really sick. Selina insists that Ivy come with her, but Ivy says she’s fine. She refuses to see a doctor. As she stands up, Ivy starts to collapse. Selina gathers her up and takes her to Gordon’s apartment. Selina climbs in through the balcony and lets Ivy inside. From the amount of dust on everything, no one has been there in a while. She tells Ivy to rest on the couch while she finds a blanket.
At the docks, Penguin and his men approach the laborers and ask if they have considered his proposition. Penguin wants to raise prices, but the men say that Maroni already raised the rates. “Inflation is a bitch,” Penguin shrugs. A police car pulls up and Penguin laughs, saying that they own the wharf patrols. The cops approach Penguin and one of them knocks Penguin out cold.
Gordon is patrolling the halls when he comes upon Frogman’s cell. The Frogman is unresponsive, so he goes inside and sees that someone has burned his temples, as if from an electroshock therapy session. He’s a vegetable. He taps Frogman’s shoulder, and the man falls to the ground.
Leslie explains to Gordon that the wounds are caused by electrodes. Someone put metal needles into his head and fried his brain. Lang hurries in and observes that another inmate has been injured under his watch. Gordon says that they rushed the opening of Arkham and don’t have the staff to keep watch over everything. Lang says they’re making do with what they have. So long as Frogman is breathing on his own, he’s fine. He tells Leslie to keep him comfortable while he tells Gordon to find out how this happened. Gordon asks Leslie what they’re looking for. Someone needs to know what they’re doing, and they also need door keys.
Gordon questions Steven because he’s the most defensive of the five guards. Eventually Steven admits that he lost his keys in the inmate fight, and that he doesn’t know where his set went. This gives Gordon a start, at least.
Fish Mooney talks to the other members of Falcone’s syndicate and wonders, hypothetically, what would happen if Falcone was out of the picture. He would love something to get Falcone out of the way. The man says that he’d be in charge, clearly, because of the pecking order. Of course, Fish plans to be the last one standing. She thinks the family needs fresh thinking. The men exchange looks with Butch, who looks on uncomfortably.
Gordon conducts interviews inmates. Gruber, the director of the play, is channeling his inner-Hannibal Lector and he tells “Jim” that he didn’t take the keys. Gordon goes through interview after interview, meeting most of the wing’s finest inmates. They range from psychotic to violent and everywhere in between. Poor soul Aaron doesn’t know how to lie, and the nurse defends him even though he killed his whole family with an ax. “I said I was sorry,” Aaron says.
Selina sits atop the building, balancing on the railing. A fire is burning. She has made herself at home.
Fish tells Butch that Saviano is the problem. Butch says that he and Saviano go way back, and that inwardly he knows Fish will be the best candidate. He just won’t admit it to her face. She asks if Butch is turning on her, and he insists that he isn’t. “A girl gets insecure every once in a while.”
Back at Arkham, the winged angel is getting a dose of shock therapy. He screams as the voltage is turned way up. Gordon dozes in the lounge when he hears a noise. He goes into the hallway to find the angel hitting his head against the gate. Gordon spins him around to see that he’s been shocked. The angel recites his lines over again.
Leslie examines the angel, Royston. Somehow he can walk and talk and recite his lines. He received the same treatment as Frogman but he isn’t as damaged. Gordon advises her to stay in the female ward for a while, because things are going to get tense. He thinks the missing keys are a misdirection, and that they need to focus on the staff. She asks why she isn’t considered a suspect, and he says she isn’t the type. Later, Gordon tells Lang that he thinks the culprit is a staff member. Lang scoffs, not surprisingly, and tells Gordon he isn’t authorized to conduct an investigation. Lang thinks that Gordon is trying to force Lang to call the police, but Gordon already called them.
Montoya arrives with coffee as Barbara hides her phone. She has Barbara’s favorite coffee for her. Montoya thinks they have made a mistake. They’re toxic together; Barbara has been drinking and doing drugs. Montoya wants her to call Jim but she won’t.
Bullock arrives in the hospital ward and studies the burn marks on Frogman. Royston quotes some more Shakespeare and Bullock digs it. Gordon and Lang arrive, and Bullock breezes past Lang and plants a kiss on Gordon’s head, taking a good look at him. He has words for Director-Doctor Lang, who is furious at the police intrusion. Bullock says that Frogman’s condition is the result of an assault, and from Lang’s actions he suspects that Lang wants to keep it quiet. In fact, Lang is a doctor, so he could be the culprit. He decides that Lang needs to go downtown for a chat, and that this is now a GCPD investigation. Bullock orders Gordon to search staff records while they’re gone. The duo exchange salutes.
Butch meets Saviano at the docks. They lean against the hood of the car and they reminisce about their childhoods. Butch says that he told Fish that he should talk to him to change his mind. Saviano trusts Butch and he tells him that Fish has a good plan but it won’t work. He makes Butch an offer to come over to his side. Butch wants some time to consider it.
When Bullock returns to the station, Penguin sees him from his holding cell and calls him over. Bullock leaves Lang momentarily and goes to talk to him. Penguin says there has been a misunderstanding, and that a simple call to Maroni will fix everything. Bullock smiles and says that he likes sitting at his desk watching Penguin in the cell. It’s like a bonsai tree. Penguin’s henchman asks what a bonsai tree is. Penguin hits his head against the bars. Poor Penguin.
Fish approaches Butch back at her club and asks about the meeting. Butch says that Saviano is stubborn, but he’s working on it. Give it time. Fish agrees to give him time. “I’m optimistic,” Butch says.
Bullock tells Lang to explain the electroshock therapy procedure. Lang says that it’s like mind control, but they haven’t been able to run tests on it. It would take a skilled surgeon to do it, and Lang is no surgeon. Bullock knows that Lang is hiding something, which Lang admits, but he is too afraid of authority to tell him. Lang tells Bullock that it has nothing to do with the case, though.
The nurse brings Gordon some coffee as he pours over Arkham blueprints. He asks her about the basement, but she says that it’s been closed off for years due to unsafe chemicals. Gordon asks her to take him there.
Bullock is still pressing Lang for information. He asks which of the staff Lang would be a culprit. Lang says that his staff has been together for years. A troubled look passes over him. Bullock doesn’t miss it.
As Gordon and Nurse Dorothy head to the basement, they run into Leslie. Dorothy positions herself next to Leslie as Gordon explains that they’re going to the basement and that she should go home. Leslie hesitates, which gives Dorothy time to push her into Gordon and run away. Gordon tells Leslie to find a guard and then he gets a call from Bullock saying that Dorothy Duncan is another inmate.
Dorothy runs down the hall with her set of keys and enters the restricted area. She unlocks the doors and releases all of the inmates. Gruber, however, stays in his cell. She sees Leslie in the hall and calls out to her, and then she and a herd of inmates give chase.
Gordon hears Leslie scream and he runs after her. Dorothy is leading the herd when she trips. The herd tramples her, leaving her dead on the floor. Leslie runs into a locked gate, but Gordon catches up to her and holds off the herd while she unlocks the gate. Gordon orders the men to stop, and for a moment his firm command works, but when the gate opens, they charge at him. Gordon and Leslie make it past the gate in the nick of time.
Ivy reminds Selina that she’s vegan. The phone rings and it’s Barbara. Ivy pretends to be a friend of Jim’s, which sends Barbara into a rage. She throws the phone against the wall while Ivy laughs impishly.
Gordon, Bullock and Essen dissect the case. Dorothy Duncan was sent to the original Arkham for poisoning five kids when she was young. They suspect that she stayed in the basement when Arkham closed and she was hiding there ever since. Essen congratulates Gordon on another win, but Gordon knows his boss won’t see it that way. Bullock says that they have to get him back, but Essen’s hands are tied. She offers them a drink instead.
Maroni arrives at the station and Penguin hurries to greet him. As it turns out, Maroni put Penguin there on purpose. It’s hubris, Maroni says. He’s upset that Penguin tried to raise taxes on the fishermen without asking permission. The fishermen risk their lives for them. You don’t attack the fishermen. Maroni wanted to teach Penguin a lesson. Penguin, he says, is a good monkey, but he’s still a monkey. And Maroni is the zookeeper.
While Essen and company celebrate, the coroner comes in and says that Dorothy had the same burns on her head. Clearly she didn’t perform the procedure on herself, so that means the culprit is still out there.
Back at Arkham, Aaron approaches the guard station where Steven is reading a magazine. He takes out a set of keys and opens the door while Steven tries to keep the door closed. Gentle Aaron holds Steven to the wall by the throat and snaps his neck. Gruber approaches and studies Aaron’s handiwork. Aaron has the same burn marks, but Gruber says that he’s his best creation yet. Lang walks out of his office and sees the men standing there with Steven’s body crumpled on the ground. Uh oh.
When Gordon and Bullock arrive, Lang is on the ground. He’s not dead, though. He manages to tell Gordon that Gruber was the perpetrator. He has a note in his hand from Gruber. The letter is addressed to Gordon. He says he had to run, but he hopes to see him around in the future.
Gordon returns home and calls out for Barbara. He sees the dirty dishes next to the couch and thinks that she has returned home to him.
Butch sits in the car listening to the music of his childhood. Saviano pulls up next to him and Butch gets into the car with him. Butch agrees to the terms but he wants to apologize for not equally distributing the meat they stole when they were fourteen. Saviano accepts the apology, and Butch shoots him in the head.
That’s all part of the game.
It looks like we have to wait two weeks for the next episode of Gotham, but that will be two weeks’ worth the wait. This show keeps getting better and better!
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