GOTHAM Review: Mommy’s Little Monster

Warning: this review contains spoilers

In this episode we hit the ground running! Penguin knows where to find his mother and is willing to save her at all cost. Of course right as he’s about to open the cell Galavan shows up to stop him. We also learn that Butch is free of Penguin’s control and was helping Galavan trap Penguin. This was an expected twist, but it did fit the narrative of the story.
With Penguin begging for his mother to be released, Galavan kills her right in front of him. This was a bit of a surprise, Galavan showed no interest in taking Penguin’s offer, but with him becoming Mayor he doesn’t need Penguin anymore. Butch admits he didn’t expect Galavan to go through with it, this leads to an all out war between Penguin and Galavan. This show seems to have found its stride. The tension between Galavan and Penguin is one of the most entertaining things from this season.

So Jim finally knows that Galavan is the one behind the fires and assignation attempts. I admit I was pleasantly surprised that Jim found out about Galavan this early. Most shows keep the protagonist in the dark until the midseason finale, in fact this entire episode felt like a midseason finale.
With Penguin attacking Galavan at his inauguration, Jim discovering that Galavan is the puppet master, and Selina telling Bruce that silver is a “two-faced slut” (I loved that line). This all has me excited to see what happens next week, as we inch closer to midseason.

With everything going on between Penguin, Gordon and Galavan it is easy to forget about Edward Nigma. After what happened last week with Ms. Kringle I was wondering what the next step would be, and of course they hint at him becoming the Riddler. With dark Ed (yes,we’re calling him dark Ed) using riddles to help Nigma find Ms. Kringle’s body, you know that he will soon become the Riddler. This whole plot was interesting, with dark Ed playing mind games on Nigma. It did raise the question (pun intended), how could Edward hide her body and not know about it? I understand he has a split personality, but how can you pick her up, put her in the car, drive to the police station, and not know about it?
Aside from that Nigma’s transformation was done well. The scene between Ed and Leslie was great, having him enjoy the rush of lying was an interesting way to go about it.
The one thing that seemed out of place was the ending. He’s willing to dump Ms. Kringle just like that? It felt a little rushed, but it wasn’t an episode killer.

Galavan has Silver trying to get close to Bruce, close enough so they can take him out.The fact that Galavan wants to kill a child for something his ancestors did shows just how crazy he is. With Selina unexpectedly showing up at the Manor this leads to an awkward moment between Bruce, Silver, and Selina. The reason Selina went to Wayne Manor was to talk to Bruce about what happened to Bridget, but this was swept under the rug quickly. Having Silver threaten Selina was unintentionally funny, I just could not take her seriously. This leads to Selina calling silver out on her charade. Bruce doesn’t listen to Selina when she tries to warn him about Silver, leading to him kicking her out of the Manor. The evil smirk Silver gave Selina makes you hate her even more.
This was probably the most uninteresting part of the episode, but it was needed. Having Bruce reject Selina for Silver was going to happen sooner rather than later. We all know that this will all blow up in his face later on.

Overall this was my favorite episode of the season. Galavan is a very intriguing villain, even though I think his motives are petty. I wonder how Jim is going to stop the Mayor, Galavan has all of the power, so this is an uphill battle for Gordon. I believe a team-up between Gordon and Penguin is obvious, but will that be enough? The task force is dropping like flies, so he’s even more out numbered. Also, I don’t miss Jerome, and I’m happy about it. Killing him off helped tone down the crazy, and it makes the show much more enjoyable.