Gotham
Season 1, Episode 10
“Lovecraft”
Rating: A-
Gotham’s mid-season finale spends a lot of time with Bruce and Selina. Selina is still staying at Wayne Manor, and last week Harvey Dent leaked information about her seeing the murder of the Wayne’s to his main suspect, Dick Lovecraft. This has the expected results, and three assassins soon arrive at Wayne Manor to kill Selina. Thankfully, Alfred is on the ball tonight. What follows is one of Gotham’s best episodes to date, though that isn’t a big surprise. Finales always go big, lest everyone forgets about the show over the holidays.
With Gordon busy tracking down Lovecraft, it’s up to Harvey Bullock and Alfred Pennyworth to track down the kids. Alfred gets a lot of really great, badass moments in this episode. He even charms his way into Fish Mooney’s good graces after humiliating her bodyguard, all while spouting beautifully phrased anecdotes and soliloquies.
Meanwhile, Selina is busy showing Bruce Wayne the ugly underbelly of Gotham. We finally see Ivy again, and get her absence explained away by some story about being adopted upstate. She’s dirty, twitchy, and generally off-putting. Her clothes bright green, and garish in a way that invokes Tim Burton. Considering Burton’s own history with the Batman, I thought that was a nifty little reference to put in.
After they encounter Ivy, Selina takes Bruce to meet her fence, and tries to sell off some of the things she had pilfered from Wayne Manor. The guy only offers $50 for a pile of goodies, and Bruce has a bit of a freak out, telling him the real value of a couple of the items. Unfortunately, they were never going to get any money, because the assassins have long since paid for them to betray Selina and take her captive, and Bruce as well.
I think I’m supposed to infer that the three assassins hired by some mystery person to kill Selina, Lovecraft are from the League of Assassins. The way the lead assassin carries herself, the pleasure she takes in a good fight… That lines up very well with what I know about Ra’s Al Ghul. The League has always been a guarantee in the world of Gotham, because Bruce receives most of his training from Ra’s, and Talia Al Ghul is his baby mama. However, this pretty much confirms that Gotham doesn’t have a connection to Arrow or The Flash over on CW, and likely has no relation to Constantine on NBC. DC’s interconnected world is being reserved for the movies, I suppose.
In the end, Gordon takes the blame for the death of Lovecraft, and is fired from the GCPD and reassigned to Arkham Asylum. This doesn’t bode well, but I’m looking forward to getting to see the newly opened Arkham Asylum is all of it’s H.P. Lovecraft inspired glory. We are done for a good little while though. I’ll see you guys in a couple of months!
Stuff And Things
– “Screw you, orphan! Climb the damn bridge on your own”
– “Clive the Fence”? Ugh, terrible Nicknames in old Gotham.
– I can tell that Ivy is supposed to be creepy, but she’s also a child actor, so it doesn’t come out all that well.
– “Did you kill my father? Or make my mother slit her wrists? No. And what about you? How are you doing?” At least Ivy is polite. Poor little girl is super broken though.
– “Sir! I protest!” Shouldn’t that be “I object!” Mr. Prosecutor?
