Gotham Recap with Spoilers: A Bitter Pill to Swallow

We start with some notable graffiti, with a smile and “HAHAHA” written over it – ominous. The Gotham Gazette gets delivered to a newsstand and the headline is Mayor Galavan Arrested. Tabitha Galavan walks by the stand, quite non chalant for someone in so much presumable trouble, and walks into a bar. A little early for that.

She orders a “High Smith Royale” and gives the guy a huge wad of cash. He opens a secret doorway, and she goes into the back, where there’s gambling and people in elaborate outfits. A stern looking woman hangs up a phone when Tabby sits down. Tabby says she needs someone killed and is looking to hire someone because she “had an accident and her aim is off.” Surprise! It’s Jim Gordon she wants dead. (not a surprise)

Gordon meanwhile is visiting Barbara in the hospital, and the diagnosis is grim, with the doctor saying he doesn’t know if she’ll ever wake up. She’s being transferred to the medical wing at Arkham.

Penguin wakes up with Nygma leaning over him in a building somewhere. Nygma sedates him and tells him to rest up for a big night ahead of them.

GCPD: Gordon and Lee have a chat, it’s flirty and jovial about her snoring, but Gordon’s being very gruff about it all. When he told Lee he stopped by Gotham General to check on Barbara, she’s not happy. She’s worried, not jealous. “She’s the devil!” She’s concerned that Jim is finding ways to give into his dark side. He kisses her on the cheek and promises they’ll talk more later.

Wayne Manor, Bruce and Silver have a chat. She’s still trying to manipulate him, and he says he doesn’t believe what they’re saying about dear old uncle Theo. Hopefully he’s manipulating her back… Alfred comes in, surprised to see her. “In light of recent events I suggest you leave immediately.” he and Bruce argue about that a bit. She gives him a hotel key while hugging him and leaves. Bruce is upset with Alfred for kicking her out. “My guess is there was nothing in that envelope, it was just a ruse to get you to sell your company.” Alfred tells it like it is, that she’s no friend to Bruce, but he doesn’t get it. Oh, what pretty eyes do to a young boy’s mind. We’ve been there, Bruce.

Galavan tower, someone busts into the elevator just as Jim gets into it. He’s chatty, says he’s a piano tuner. And there we go – he starts strangling Jim with a piano wire garrotte. They fight in the elevator, all the while Barnes and some cops are taking pictures in the Galavans’ office. It’s a brutal elevator fight, and Jim takes the would-be assassin down. He drags him into the office and the phone rings. He picks up, breathing heavy, and the stern woman isn’t happy.

She offers the job to anyone who’ll take it. “Jim Gordon doesn’t see the sun rise.”

Penguin wakes up again – ah, it’s Nygma’s apartment. He reintroduces himself to Penguin and tells him he’s trying to nurse him back to health a bit. Ed’s wearing a green sweater over a green dotted shirt. Love it. He tells Penguin that he’s stuck there until he recovers. “Do you believe in fate?” Nygma asks. He tells him, “recently I’ve been going through a change – I started murdering people.” Penguin’s laughing at him only having killed 3 people so far. Nygma explains he needs advice. “These murders changed me. Like the butterfly, I’ve come to realize that I cannot be a caterpillar once again. I was hoping you could guide me on this new path.” Penguin’s not in a good place, with his “empire in ruins” and his mother dead. He goes to leave and collapses.

Back in the Galavans’ office, Jim wakes up the assassin and asks him who sent him. He hangs him out the window and Barnes walks in, yells at him to stand down. “Are you losing it, Gordon? Has that church incident changed your mind?” On the surveillance feed there are lots of new assassins coming up to the office. The piano tuner says “if the first guy doesn’t succeed, keep sending men until the job is done. None of you is making it out of here alive,” and laughs ominously.

More units are on their way, but they’ll have to hold out. Barnes, a uniform named Parks, and Gordon get ready – and someone comes in from behind them and upstairs. He slitsl the forensics investegator’s throat and more come blasting in with an explosion. Parks takes one out, and Barnes and Jim each fight one. Barnes takes his down. Jim takes his down, and the original Piano Tuner has Parks by the neck. Jim shoots him in the head. Dang!

Jim doesn’t want to leave as the office is still the best bet for evidence against Galavan, but Barnes wants to go. Luckily, they find something under a painting. One of the assassins gets up and stabs Barnes – it’s a punctured femoral artery. Uh-oh.

Back at Nygma’s place, he has a man tied to a chair – Mr. Leonard, who worked for Galavan before he was arrested. He’s a gift for Penguin. “I thought it might be nice to get some retribution for your mother’s death. It might cheer you up a little.” Penguin hobbles over with a knife and drops it to the floor. “I’m done. I need some rest, and then I’m leaving Gotham forever,” he says, and climbs back into bed. Nygma drags Leonard away.

In another place, we see a pair of legs burning, and a man cuts off someone chained to a chair’s ear. “Why just smell the fear on your victim when you can taste it, right?” He’s about to put it in his mouth but a phone call stops him. It’s Flamingo! He gets a call from the stern woman. She hires him, despite the fact that he eats people and was kicked out of their little club.

At Galavan’s office, Jim tourniquets Barnes’ leg and gives him some whisky to sip on. Jim opens up, “Barbara accused me of having a monster inside me. Lee seems to agree. There was a moment, when I had a shotgun on Barbara, she was taunting me to pull the trigger. If Galavan’s people hadn’t busted in, I don’t know.” Barnes offers up a story about his time in the military. He killed a prisoner – an unarmed kid. “Blew his head off.” He had nightmares for years. “At the right moment, a man might do anything, any man. There’s no line, just the law that separates us from the animals.”

Wayne Manor: Bruce comes to talk to Alfred and tells him he’s right, “pursuing Galavan on my own is too risky. The best course of action is to call Detective Gordon in the morning.” Alfred tells him he’s right, and that he sent the taxi away, and shows him the hotel key, now in his possession. SNAP.

At Nygma’s apartment, he plays a song on a record while also playing it with a keyboard, and offers a riddle to Penguin: I can bring tears to your eyes and resurrect the dead. I form in an instant and last a lifetime: what am I? (A Memory). Penguin guessed it, for the record. He tells Nygma his mother used to sing the song to him at bedtime, while she encouraged him not to listen to the other children. “That’s all I have left now, memories. And they’re like daggers in my heart.” Nygma says “Not forever. When I look at these (Kringle’s glasses) I don’t feel sadness anymore, I feel gratitude, and do you know why?” Penguin tries to leave. “Love is our most crippling weakness. We are better off unencumbered. Your mother is dead because of your weakness. But what you need to realize is that your weakness was her.” That woke Penguin up. “Now she’s gone and I have nothing left.” Nygma says that makes him a man that can’t be betrayed and answers to no one but himself. “A free man.” Yipe.

Backup arrives at Galavan Tower, and Flamingo promptly kills them. He calls Gordon and tells him that he’s going to eat his friends then kill and eat him. Yum. Hope you’re not watching dinner during this episode. Jim decides to go down to meet him head on.

He ignores a call from Lee in the elevator, and walks outside. Dead cops all over, and Flamingo trips him with a chain. Time for a fight, must’ve been a tough episode for Ben McKenzie! The two bust each other up quite a bit. Jim seems to get the upper hand pretty quickly, though, and starts just pounding on him – Flamingo starts laughing, and that pisses Jim off. He grabs a gun and puts it in his mouth. Jim screams and doesn’t do it. He says “You have the right to remain silent” and more backup arrives.

Things are wrapping up – Jim tells Parks she did good. Flamingo stares him down from the back of a patrol car. Creepy.

Nygma’s place, he and Penguin seem to be getting drunk while singing that old song. He kept Galavan’s lackey just in case. Oh man, these two are creepy murdery bastards together.

Wayne Manor, Bruce goes to get dressed in secret, about to sneak out the window – and Selina is there. “I’m saving your ass from making a big mistake. Silver’s bad news. This time I have proof.” Oh snap.

GCPD, Flamingo lurches over like he’s sick, and before anyone can do anything, he leaps up and latches onto Parks’ neck with his teeth. It’s awful.

Jim tells Lee in her apartment, “I almost crossed the line tonight, it scared me a little.” “Welcome to my world.” She asks him to just tell her the truth, and he promises. They kiss and the phone rings. She picks it up – and gets the news about Officer Parks. Jim reacts with silence.

Blackgate Penitentiary – Theo is meeting with Tabitha. He’s pissed that she sent hitmen after Gordon “after I explicitly told you not to do anything.” He says “everything is ready, the brothers’ arrival is imminent.” He tells her that if she “endangers that for us again, I will cut your throat.”

Sure enough on the docks, a bunch of hooded men arrive and meet the dark priest Galavan had met with. A security officer tells them the docks are closed, and they all stab him and walk away.

And that’s all she wrote this week! Next week: Galavan released? Penguin returns to the scene? Order of St. Dumas roaming Gotham City!!!