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‘Gotham: Rise of the Villains’ Recap ‘Damned if you Do’

After the inaugural
season of
Gotham left us with Bruce and Alfred finding what can
only turn out to
be the infamous
“Bat Cave” and Penguin seizing control of the criminal
underground I was
anxious to see what they could do
for Season 2: “Rise of the
Villains”. It starts out with a flash forward to
one month after the Season 1

finale chaos. Penguin is exercising his ability to execute a defector in
front
of his minions. Gordon has
been busted back to beat cop and creepy villainous
Barbara Kean is being
escorted to her new home, Arkham
Asylum.

After the
musical montage of “let’s see what the characters
have been up to” the
episode
settles in nicely. We see a man (that is having a horrible hair day- or

maybe he isn’t) being given a glow in
the dark liquid. Surely this can’t be good
for him as he refers to the
mystery distributer as “Master”.
Later, same bad
hair guy, who now calls himself Zaardon, is seen causing a
traffic jam involving
one very
disgruntled traffic cop, Jim Gordon. The altercation causes Gordon to
bitch
slap his overly slovenly(and
late)relief officer which then leads to
Gordon being fired by Commissioner
Loeb (who, by the way, dressed in
drag
alongside Tom Hanks in the 80’s classic Bosom Buddies- you’re

welcome). Gordon’s parting words to
Loeb “I will break you”.

We get the
feeling that he really means it.
Gordon. Is. Pissed. So pissed
that he eats
crow, or shall we say penguin, and calls in a favor from our
favorite Cobblepot.
(This is
after his ex
partner now bartender, Harvey, advises him against it
but a
young Bruce Wayne drops
some
knowledge with “Sometimes the right way is
also the ugly way” -very
deep for a 12 year old). The
favor pays off and one
headless bodyguard later, Loeb resigns and appoints
Sarah Essen to Commissioner

who then promotes Gordon back to Detective.

Photo courtesy of

FOX

Cut to Arkham Asylum. Barbara
is settling into her
new digs and the male crazies
couldn’t be happier about
it. Enter Jerome. (A very smily ginger that
vaguely reminds us of a character

that we love from the comics) He attempts to bond with Barbara over the fact

that they both are in for
killing their parents, or in Jerome’s case, “Mom
anyhow”. Jerome promises
her “things” if she joins his
group of misfits led by
Richard Sionis, a wealthy financial guy who killed
25 people “just for

fun”.

Barbara quickly sees the benefit and says she needs a telephone
and
I doubt that this phone
is going to be used to order pizzas…Just put it this
way… the voicemail
she leaves “I hope you die
screaming, bitch”. After a lunch
time pow wow enter our old pal Zaardon. He
starts ranting about how he is
the
“Soul Scorcher” blah blah blah. The other inmates pay no attention to
him until
he seemingly chokes,
falls and emits a noxious gas that causes all of the other
inmates to pass
out. Now we know what the glow in
the dark crazy juice was for.
The inmates wake up in the house of Theo
Galavan who basically tells them he is

creating an army of villains and he wants them to

sign up. All but Sionis
are
game and he is quickly
executed by Theo’s violent, yet sexy sister,
Tabitha.

Now we know
these are the Villains that are
supposed to rise in
Season 2 and that Theo Galavan is their leader. The
newly appointed Detective
Gordon
clearly has his work cut out for him.

Photo
courtesy of

FOX

The episode wraps up nicely with
Bruce Wayne and Alfred
playing with explosives. After several failed
attempts at the keypad entry way,

Bruce decides that explosives are the only answer. Alfred steps in and helps

make a bomb (something tells
me Alfred is not your run of the mill butler) and
entry is gained. Once
inside, Bruce discovers a letter from
his father stating
that the truth does not lie in happiness and Bruce must
make a choice as to
which one
he wants. It’s obvious that the senior Mr. Wayne did not know this
advice
would be given to a pre-pubescent
Bruce. You can see the “bat wheels”
turning and we get a pretty good glimpse
of what is to come this season.
I’m not
sure he could fill out the bat suit just yet but I look forward to
witnessing
this
journey.


Photo courtesy of
FOX

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