Gotham Recap With Spoilers: Knock, Knock

mayor and hitting him with whips. He runs into a wall and passes out. The girls are bored, and [...]

By Russ Burlingame

(Photo: WBTV)

The episode opens on Galavan lecturing the mayor, whom he has hostage. The mayor has a box on his head, and Galavan threatens to stick a poisonous spider in the box if he doesn't call his secretary and tell her he'll provide written instructions for what to do next.

Galavan opens the box, indicates that there isn't any spider, but he'll make the mayor suffer if he doesn't listen to him. Monsters are coming, he says, to cleanse the city in blood and fire.

At the Gotham Gazette, the editor lectures his staff on getting better headlines, and as he does so, a number of bodies fall from the roof and are visible in the windows behind him.

It's the Arkham escapees. They're on the roof dropping people into the streets. Their victims have been wrapped up in straitjackets and spraypainted in red with the word "Maniax." There's a "spare," and they put an exclamation point on him before tossing him down, too. Jerome laughs.

Back at the police department, the newly-minted Commissioner Essen recaps the events of last week's episode and the Maniax attack. She hands off to Gordon, who describes who the escapees are, then hands out assignments.

At his home, Galavan congratulates the Maniax. He wants them to make the city scared, so that they can offer salvation.

Galvan tells the group that they have to learn to present themselves with style so that they can properly instill fear. Jerome earns himself a spokesperson role by hooking into his circus barker experience, and using his laugh.

Tabitha and Barbara come in, chasing the (still boxed) mayor and hitting him with whips. He runs into a wall and passes out. The girls are bored, and Galavan asks Barbara about James Gordon.

In the cave, Bruce is about to turn on the computer so that he can learn his father's secrets. Alfred is worried that whatever Bruce learns might be too much for a child. When Bruce ignores him and starts the computer, Alfre starts smashing it with a hammer. Alfred says that there are liters of blood here, a bullet proof vest, and weapons. He never would have brought Bruce into the cave if he'd known what was here. He's trying to keep him safe. Bruce freaks out and fires him, because that's apparently a thing ten-year-olds can do to their legal guardians in the world of this show.

At Galavan's, Jerome and Robert Greenwood (another of the Maniax) get into an argument over a sword they both want to play with from Galavan's armory. Jerome takes up a chainsaw to go after Greenwood, when Galavan comes in to break it up. The pair have a pissing contest to determine who will lead the Maniax. Galavan loads a revolver with a single bullet and tells them to play Russian Roulette for it. Jerome lets Greenwood go first, and then pulls the trigger on himself three times in a row, handing the gun back to Greenwood, only to have Galavan decide proactively that Jerome is the boss.

At Bullock's bar, Gordon is there to try and recruit Harvey back to the police. Scottie, his girlfriend, comes to tell Gordon Bullock cannot come back to work and to leave Harvey alone. Harvey agrees with her, telling Gordon to go, which he does. Bullock does, however, give Jim a lead on how to find the Maniax. He suggests Gordon should look into where the victims came from, and Jim finds out that they were all dockworkers, and that the Maniax have stolen a refueling truck from the docks. He has a brief buck-up speech with the Commissioner, ending with their resolution that it will be a new day at the GCPD, and leaves to chase the lead.

At Wayne Manor, Alfred packs up and leaves. There's a fruitless attempt at tension for a plot point we know will be resolved in about twenty minutes.

In the city, the Maniax stalk down a school bus full of cheerleaders while sitting in their refueling truck. They give chase as it passes.

In the record department at the GCPD, Nygma starts to ask Kristin Kringle a question, but loses nerve halfway through and peppers her with trivia instead of asking her out. After she leaves, he has an argument with himself about it.

Back in the city, the refueling truck heads off the school bus, and the Maniax pour out with guns to take it hostage. After handcuffing the cheerleaders to their bus seats, Jerome terrorizes them while the others prep a hose, which they then use to soak the kids and the interior of the bus. They try to set it on fire, but the lighter doesn't work. When one of the other Maniax offers Jerome a replacement, Gordon and a pair of other cops pull up. Using the school bus for cover, Jerome manages to make his escape while Arnold Dobkins (the other guy with a lighter) stays near the bus trying to light the fuel. His lighter, too, has issues though and he's ultimately punched out by Gordon. He drops the (now-flaming) lighter and Gordon drives the bus away, saving the kids but letting the Maniax get away. He takes Dobkins into custody, asking him who broke him out, but before he can answer, Tabitha takes him out from a distance with a sniper rifle.

Eight minutes or so since the failed attempt at tension, Bruce follows Alfred to the train station and rehires him, on the condition that Alfred fix the computer he broke. Alfred tells him that what he's doing is for grown-ups, and Bruce isn't ready, so Bruce tells him to make him ready. Alfred says yes, but Bruce has to do what he says without exceptions.

At the coroner's office, Lee tells the audience what they already knew about the sniper rifle, then Essen and Gordon leave.

At a bar, Alfred orders a drink and then introduces himself to Lucius Fox, buying him a drink and asking for his help fixing the computer. He tells a story about killing a friend who let him down during his days in the military, saying that he needs to know he's trustworthy and that he'll kill him if he's not. Lucius says he has only the best intentions for Bruce Wayne.

At the police department, Gordon takes a phone call: it's Barbara. While she talks at him, he sees her out of the corner of his eye and gives chase. While he's outside, he's knocked out briefly and the other Maniax and a handful of other bad guys head into the police department dressed as cops and open fire, killing almost everyone there. Jerome caps the ordeal by killing Essen on camera. Before she dies, she tells Jerome that soon, he'll be dead and no one will ever remember his name. He shoots Arnold for stepping on one of his lines, leaving only Aaron/Amygdala, Jerome and Barbara alive by the time the episode is over.

Gordon enters the police department, bloodied and battered from a run-in with Aaron in the alley, and finds nearly everyone dead. Nigh had saved Kristin and Lee had hidden under a corpse. Jim finds Essen and she has darkly ironic last words, so that her death can motivate Jim for the rest of the season.

In the cave, Lucius is helping Bruce fix the computer. Bruce asks if Thomas told Lucius everything, and Lucius says no. Thomas was a private man and he doesn't even know what's on the computer — although he can fix it, given time. Bruce thanks him, and Lucius says he loved Thomas, and regrets that he never told him so, and that he didn't help him more.

Alfred runs to the cave to tell Bruce what happened at the police department and the pair run there, entering an active crime scene with no difficulty and apologizing to Gordon for chastising him last episode. Bruce hugs Gordon, who enters Essen's office. Bullock, now wearing his suit and hat again, follows Gordon in, brandishing a badge — who gave him that badge? Who knows. He says Scottie will understand (or she won't) and the exposition news network comes on to show Jerome preening for the camera and telling the public that they're all prisoners of sanity. He encourages people to be free like the Maniax, and says "you ain't seen nothing yet."

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