Gotham “The Sinking Ship The Grand Applause”

Once again, someone tried to bring order to the freaks of Gotham City.

And once again, the freaks showed why that is a really bad idea.

While I am still unsure why exactly the Penguin went to Arkham, he didn’t stay there long.  Now that Ed is full-on Riddler again and Oswold apparently forgot he thinks “Riddler” is a stupid name, it isn’t long before Ed manages to both find and “rescue” Martin and help Penguin break out of Arkham, all around the same time Sofia has Victor Zsasz and his apparently not-dead-but-still-stupid buddy Headhunter go kill the Penguin.

I seem to recall when Victor was a highly competent hit man.  This episode?  Not so much.  He keeps breaking for lunch whenever obstacles he used to blow through got in his way.  Maybe his heart’s not in it anymore.

Regardless, Sofia has been threatening the Penguin and the people of the Narrows for too long!  “Too long” means, like, one full episode.  So, it’s up to Lee, Ed, and Oswold to bring her down for good.

Oh sure, Gordon is trying too, but Gordon is kinda boring.  He’ll witness all this, but ultimately, he doesn’t stop Sofia.

Neither does Ed since he goes to find Grundy, only for Grundy to remember he’s A) Butch and B) not Ed’s friend.  Ed ends up getting delivered to Barbara and Tabitha.  That means he’s off to see Sofia, the wonderfully awful wizard of pain.  Or that dentist that interrogates people.  Ed, apparently, is made of sterner stuff since he never cracks.  Just as well.  He had the plan to sneak Oswold into Sofia’s den inside a block of ice, courtesy of Victor Fries.

Always nice to see Fries.

Of less importance is Bruce and Selina making up again, but that’s literally all I am going to say about that.

Regardless, Sofia does go down.  She gets the drop on Gordon, but then Lee puts a bullet in her head, right between the eyes.  Oswold went off to rescue Ed from the docks, the place where everyone is taken to die but no one ever does.  And somehow, Sofia is “in a coma”.  What is it with this show putting people shot between the eyes into comas?  That happened to Butch too.  That sort of injury seems a lot more…fatal from where I’m sitting.

It’s probably so they can just bring her back later.  I don’t know if they do or not.  I would be fine either way.  The more ordinary criminal types on this show are less interesting, and that doesn’t even get into the fact that Gordon and Bullock had to go find the missing Arthur Penn at some where resort where the guests dress and act like literal babies.  I hope Gotham wasn’t kink shaming or something.

Wait, this is only episode fifteen.  Did a master criminal go down that easy? And why is Alexander Siddig’s name still in the opening credits?

Oh, Barbara can see him.  Ra’s al-Ghul lives.

You know, if it turns out Ra’s only used her because she is not a criminal mastermind, I might forgive this series for quite a bit.