[Header Image: Jaime Murray as Theresa Walker | Fox]
Most of this episode followed the fallout from the reveal that Eduardo and his boss Walker were controlling Ed and were involved in blowing up Haven. We pick up immediately after the previous episode with Jim running away and Ed coming after him. Luckily, after hiding out in an ambulance, Jim uses a defibrillator to shock Ed which fries the chip in his brain. This gives them a chance to meet with Barbara and, later, Bruce, Alfred, and Lucius in order to figure out a plan of what to do next, however, things aren’t so simple.
Firstly, we have a showdown at Sirens. Barbara, Ed, and Jim are discussing the idea of working together when Eduardo and his people show up. I loved watching Ed pretend to still be under their control. Everything was over exaggerated and very entertaining.
After that, the trio escape and meet up with Bruce, Alfred, and Lucius where they do manage to remove the chip. A little later in the episode, we discover that the government was going to help Gotham but Walker had Ed blow up Haven to show that the city was overrun by criminals and not worth helping. After they remove the chip from Ed’s head they discover that it contains audio files of the orders given to him while he was under control. Although they don’t know for sure if there’s evidence of Walker giving the order, they decide to send the files to Bruce’s contacts on the mainland. Before they can get too far Eduardo calls, revealing that he has found Lee and wants to exchange her for the chip.
Before I get too into this, can I just say, Lee! I’m so happy to finally see her again. I knew she was in this season and I was fairly confident it wasn’t just going to be for one episode but I was getting anxious waiting for her to show up. However, that being said, her introduction to this season leads to a lot and there’s still a lot to explore with her.
The group do come up with a plan to use the chip and get Lee back. On the one hand, we have Jim going to meet with Eduardo. It ends up being three soldiers against Jim but he manages to coax Eduardo into a fight with no guns. All of this fighting gives us the reveal that Walker definitely gave the order to blow up Haven and why, it gives us a tiny bit of backstory on why Eduardo is working with/for Walker, and results in the first steps of Eduardo becoming Bane as he is impaled on a metal rod. I really liked that toward the end of the episode we got to see him with the mask on and hear a glimpse of the voice. It was a nice teaser and I’m hyped to see the finished look.
While all of this fighting is going on, Ed enters the GCPD with a bomb. He gives the soldiers a complicated question and the answer is the code to stop the bomb. They only have 2 minutes and Ed is wearing a suit that will protect him from the blast. It was nice to see him be so theatrical as well as the way he quitely celebrated when the plan worked. However, it was also hilarious that Harvey worked out the answer in about a minute. Of course, if he had known that Ed was there as a distraction he wouldn’t have done but the little exchanges between Ed and Harvey were just great this episode and I’ve missed them interacting.
The third element in their plan involves Bruce climbing onto the roof and using the antenna to transmit the files on the chip. While he’s doing that, Lucius, Barbara, and Alfred are preparing to throw canisters into the fans so that gas will feed into the GCPD and knock the soldiers out. I actually loved the simplicity of their plan and how we got to see Ed utilise his villain status, reputation for being theatrical, and his love of riddles and problem solving, as well as getting to see Bruce use his ability to fight. With it being the final season and each episode getting closer and closer to Batman, it’s also interesting and entertaining to see Bruce’s skills put into action.
The plan does end up working, even with minor hiccups, but there’s one final reveal. We discover throughout the episode that Lee has no memory of the last three months. It’s soon revealed that she was also implanted with a chip which is activated by Walker. I’m actually curious to know what happened over the three months. Was she like Ed in the sense that she had moments of being herself and simply couldn’t remember her blackout? Or was she activated more often? And, if she ever was given orders, what were they? I’m guessing that even if the shock didn’t completely knock her chip out, it’ll get removed as soon as possible but hopefully, we get to see more of what has been going on with her over the past three months especially considering this episode really brushed over it.
During the Gotham season 5 movie trailer, there are short clips of Lee and Barbara at a hospital (with Lee seemingly treating patients). We haven’t seen this yet so unless it was cut, we can assume it’s after Lee gets back to her old self. In this episode, she was understandably scared and very vulnerable which was different to how we saw her last season so I’m curious to see how we get back to more of a middle ground. Considering we haven’t seen much of her, I’m hoping that there’s a lot more focus on her in the upcoming episodes.
While all of this is going on, Oswald finds a thief (Magpie) in his underground bunker stealing a diamond. After she escapes, he tracks down Selina and enlists her help in tracking Magpie down. From this episode, we know that Oswald is hoarding valuables because he plans to go to the mainland where all of those things are still worth something. I quite liked her as a temporary villain. She was so obviously there just to push the plot forward but she was a ton of fun and didn’t necessarily have to die. She could have gotten away which would give the audience the idea that she could come back but the writers don’t necessarily have to include her in any more episodes. Regardless, her scenes were entertaining even if only for one episode.
The other thing that happened was right at the end when Alfred is kidnapped. He goes back to his and Bruce’s apartment to get some things when Jeremiah knocks him out and takes him. We find then that it’s the big day and from the promo of next week’s episode, we know that Jeremiah is about to reveal his clones of Martha and Thomas Wayne.
Some other things:
- Barbara being pregnant is finally confirmed and I’m so interested to see how things progress from here.
- The fact that Barbara has fancy guns hidden in her bar? Iconic.
- I loved the way it was filmed when Jim was being chased right at the start of the episode.
- Jaime Murray may not have had much screen time but I’m already obsessed and happy to see her on my screen again.
- I feel like I just have to mention Harvey answering that question again because it was amazing.
- Ed’s speech changing as Lucius removed the chip as well as Barbara and Alfred being amused by it.
wonderoes 