Gotham Recap with Spoilers: Prisoners

After last week’s shocker of an ending (and month time jump), we start with Jim Gordon in Blackgate Penitentiary. We see him go through a day. Slop, chores, exercise, sleep, only to repeat it the next day, and the next, all breaking him down slowly but surely. A wintry day is shown as well – not sure exactly how much time has progressed.

One day, he’s told to step out of line, and the warden comes to address him, “Several weeks (there we go, several weeks!) with no incidence, Gordon, I’m impressed. Word was, you were a troublemaker.” He’s no longer going to be kept in protective custody – he’s going to F wing, in general population, which the warden seems very excited about. “You’ll see a lot of familiar faces over in F wing, many of whom you arrested yourself.” Of course, everyone DOES think he’s a cop killer. “Ex-Commissioner Loeb says hi,” the Warden says. The only way out of F wing is “parole or a body bag. And nobody gets parole.”

Over at The Penguin’s new family home, he sits with the Van Dahl family. They tell the story of “ghosts” that remain in the home, and then how Elijah met his wife – it turns out the other two children are his step children, they were hers before marriage. “You’re my only true blood relative, Oswald,” he says, and Oswald’s step-sister shatters her glass in her hand.

Detective Bullock is desperate to help Jim. A frustrating phone call gets nowhere, and Bullock talks to Ed about Jim’s innocence. Ed just smiles.

Elijah and Oswald sit and talk about how the Van Dahl fortune was amassed. His family were premium tailors in Gotham City, but his mother held him back from “the temptations of the city” after Elijah’s father had died. As they talk, Van Dahl’s wife listens in. She comes in with Elijah’s medicine – oh man… Yup, indeed, after she leaves the room, she starts replacing his heart medication with mints.

Back at Blackgate, now in F wing, “The World’s End,” Gordon stands and observes. He sees several prisoners passing around a sheet of paper, and he’s told he has a visitor. Another prisoner is being sent back to “the hole” where the Warden is sending him. “I want the boy scout dead by week’s end,” the Warden tells another prisoner.

Bullock is Gordon’s visitor – He’s talking to Dent to re-open the case, and looking for Penguin. When Gordon asks for an update on Lee, Bullock says, “Lee lost the baby, Jim. I’m so sorry.” Wow, really late-term for her to lose it – sounds like she’s probably just hiding it. “She moved down south, no one’s heard from her since. Don’t let this beat you.” Harvey promises to get Jim out of there, and tells him not to give up hope.

Jim comes back inside, and the prisoner the Warden was talking to confronts him. He takes his picture of Lee, and sucker punches him. Jim doesn’t fight back – and someone else tries to step in, prompting the inmates to all beat the hell out of both of them. The guard that had taken Jim to see Harvey comes in and stops the fight and sends the troublemaker, Inmate Weaver “to the hole.” He sends the two injured to the infirmary.

Oswald wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare full of memories of all he’d done in his previous, more psychotic, life. He catches his father sleep-walking, and helps him back to bed – where he apparently sleeps alone. Elijah tells Oswald he has “a hole in my heart, getting bigger – I think my demons are feeding on it.” Oswald starts to open up about his criminal past, that he even killed people. “Our life together started when we met in that cemetery, nothing else concerns me.”

Jim and his cohort, Peter “Puck” have a chat in the infirmary. “You’re a true hero. Two winters ago, my little sister was abducted by child snatchers, and you saved her,” Puck tells him. Puck stole a car to impress a girl and got six years for it. “Steep,” Jim said. The Warden comes in and sends them back to their cells, and taunts Jim about losing his child. Yowza.

At the Van Dahl house, his family comes in and tells Elijah that Oswald is a “notorious criminal.” “We could’ve all been raped and murdered in our beds,” she says. “To be fair, I never raped anybody,” he replies. Elijah defends him – yeah, they are gold diggers for sure. Mommy dearest and her two children discuss “plan B” – which is apparently the girl.

Indeed, Oswald wakes up with her sitting on his bed, talking and looking seductively. “There isn’t a little bit of Penguin left? A little bad boy?” She opens her robe and shows her lingerie. “We could do great things, you and me. We could squeeze my mom and brother out.” He rebuffs her advances. “Should I try?” her brother says when she reports in. “No, I don’t think he’s faking, I think he’s simple.”

The sympathetic guard comes to tell Gordon that Weaver’s coming out of the hole – indeed, he comes out with the Warden. Two a-hole guards hold Gordon back while Puck gets beaten to a pulp. The Warden looks on smugly, and the one good guard in the place tries to hold Jim back, “let it go, don’t extend your sentence.”

Bullock has a chat about Jim, “I’m asking for your help. I got no one else to turn to,” he says. Holy crap, he’s talking to Carmine Falcone!

Oswald and Elijah stand in his private tailoring room, where Elijah is fitting him for a custom suit. Elijah begins to cough and collapses as Oswald calls for help.

Jim’s doing laundry, and the good guard comes to tell him it’d be good for him to visit Puck in the infirmary, and brings him in. Jim wakes up Puck to encourage him. He gets encouragement back, “Don’t give up hope. I feel your sadness, I do, but you gotta choose life, you know?” Jim tries again to warn the kid away. The guard warns Jim that “tonight’s movie night” – where for some reason they’re going to put all the inmates in one room with the lights off, because that is a thing that could ever happen in a prison.

Elijah is not well. He now has an infection, and he’s not going to make it, the doctor says. “It’s time for him to get his affairs in order.” Elijah tries to reassure Oswald, but tells his wife “perhaps I should speak with my lawyer, dear. So much has changed in these past few weeks.” Yeah, she ain’t having that.

Movie night in the prison. They’re starting with a nice old Looney Tunes cartoon – WB tie-in and all. The guard forces Jim to sit down.

Indeed, Elijah’s new family is upset about the possibility of changing the will so that Oswald gets anything, let alone everything. They gon’ try to kill him.

While the inmates watch a musical, the good guard tries to watch over what’s happening, while Weaver sneaks up on Jim with a shiv in hand. Another inmate gets to Jim first, saying, “Stay down! You’re dead, you understand? You’re dead, pig.” stabbing him several times, leaving him with a pool of blood – yeah, it’s all being faked, pretty obviously. Good guard goes to Jim’s body and says “We’re gonna need a body bag.”

Good Guard and Bullock sneak him out – they used fake blood and a retractable knife. They convince him to go, but Gordon says he needs “one more favor,” and he goes back to get Puck. The Warden tries to re-apprehend (or rather, murder the hell out of him), but good guard comes back and saves him once more.

Grace brings some alcohol for Oswald to have while he sits with his father. Elijah tells Oswald, “my father was never physically ill – he was plagued by deep melancholy, thoughts of violence. Many in his family were plagued by the same affliction.” Elijah’s father killed himself, and Elijah tries to tell Oswald “never give into the pain as he did. You are loved, and you are not alone.” Elijah decides he wants a drink, and swallows down what Grace brought for Oswald. “I want you to have it all, my son, this house and all that’s in it. Keep it as it is – a piece of history, our history, Gotham’s history. First thing tomorrow, I’ll have my lawyers draw it up.” Grace runs in as Elijah is dying. She has her son knock over the alcohol so it spills out and they can’t test it, knowing there’s some sort of acid or poison in it. Yeah, he’s dead.

Bullock brings Puck and Gordon in the ambulance out to a bridge. Falcone “made this whole thing happen.” Falcone gives him the option to leave the country or arrange a safe place in Gotham. “I wanna go find Lee. To do that, I have to clear my name. To do that, i have to go back to Gotham.” Yeah, you do, Jim. Yeah, you do. Harvey encourages him, “You’re a fighter, Jim. You got knocked down – do you stay down or do you get back up?” Jim asks Puck for his opinion – but the kid has died. Well, there’s that last little motivational push Jim needed. Time to take the city back. And that’s the end of the episode.