Gotham “The Fear Reaper”

So, the Penguin can just walk into a police station and have a press conference…while people are well aware that he’s a crime lord selling licenses to crooks?  Or are they not aware of that last part?  I am a wee bit confused.

Eh, par for the course for Gotham.

The Penguin and Gordon are going to war…over public opinion in the city.  About the only person Gordon seems able to arrest is Bruce, and he gets out with an excuse that he was looking for Selina.

That…is actually a good lie, truth be told.  Did I just add a “truth be told” at the end of a statement that said something was a good lie?  Man, I may need to get out more…or less.  I don’t know.

Regardless, Penguin challenges Jim to bring in the new “Scarecrow,” who gassed the opening of the Iceberg Lounge, before midnight or…well, something.  Gordon doesn’t quite agree, but he and Bullock know it’s Jonathan Crane after checking out Stately Crane Farmhouse and finding a freaked out guy inside a scarecrow.  So, that means it may be time to go check in on Arkham Asylum.  Or maybe check twice.  The first trip yielded nothing.  The second should because the Scarecrow went back there with his plan to make fear go away forever, just as his father intended.

I’ve been covering Gotham for a while now, so let me add here that I don’t remember if I said this before about Crane’s old man, but here goes:  fear is not a bad thing.  Fear reminds us to be careful and avoid danger.  Yes, irrational fear is something, but not everyone has debilitating terror over clowns.  I mean, the Warden for Arkham didn’t have that until after Scarecrow gassed him because somehow he can make an army for himself by gassing inmates and having terrified mental hospital patients…do his bidding?  Really?  How does that work?

Well, Gordon will find out, though he’ll be alone because the other cops opted not to go, even Harvey.  From there, Gordon gets gassed but somehow beats the fear of Lee committing suicide, and Crane egging him along to join her and…wait, can Crane see Gordon’s fears?  And simple water will cancel the effects?  Not much of a chemical.  I mean, Ivy is hitting some real weird stuff at the end of the episode when Tabitha rejects Ivy’s offer for help.  Ivy says she hates the Penguin because…wait, she does?  Maybe she doesn’t like holding press conferences in what is apparently the city’s only precinct house.

Nevertheless, the feat toxin has an obvious weakness, and Gordon fails the Penguin’s test, but he wasn’t trying anyway.  Plus, Bullock did have a point:  he wasn’t going with Gordon because he knew it wasn’t going to work without more help.  Maybe Jim should ask Falcone because if you want to displace a crime lord, you should totally go ask a completely different crime lord.

By the by, I seem to recall that one of the major complaints about Venom in Spider-Man 3 was that, as scary as the character potentially looked, it was a lot less scary when Topher Grace’s voice came out of his mouth.  I feel kinda the same way about this Scarecrow.  He actually looks pretty good, but the voice is not all that intimidating, and I saw that kid on Ozark first, so draw your own conclusions.

In other news, Lucius gives Bruce a new suit to fight crime in, and the series once again seemed to forget that Barbara is not a criminal mastermind.  So, how and where she got all those weapons she’s dealing now with Tabitha, Selina, and that pageboy haircut, I am sure it won’t be too long before we find out she’s not really doing what she’s set out to do.

But hey…still no more virus!