#bruce: stalking my homeless son

[danny-chase]

ngl i just find it so funny that after the whole Ric situation DC was like “wait shit this makes Bruce look like a terrible father” so they were like “but wait actually Bruce was watching over Ric the whole time 🥺” but like... that makes Bruce so much worse because he would just watch Ric sleep in his car and self medicate with alcohol and break into people’s homes to have a place to see and was like “yeah this is fine, i don’t need to intervene”

#i think about that sometimes #some guy at dc: i can fix this #*proceeds to make it worse* #tim: hey bruce whatcha doing #bruce: stalking my homeless son #tim: *spits out water*

[weebsinstash]

I mean if you wanted to write a prequel or a sequel to Doubts.... I wouldn't complain.... 🥺👉👈

I'm definitely tempted to like, write a prequel for the sake of smut and drama 🤔 as for a sequel, i could see that maybe showing Reader's struggles during pregnancy and as a new mom and also having to deal with Bruce's unique... affections. Seriously, just the breakage of the bond of trust would sting for ages, knowing that while you considered him a friend and a partner, that he was just constantly watching and stalking and monitoring you

I can also see how Bruce would turn Damien into his little spy, teaching him to snitch on you. "Papa, Mama was trying to open the windows earlier." And his father is so proud, little Damien thinks he's doing a good deed. After all, his father wouldn't lie to him would he? Little Damien just thinks he's helping protect you, when really, he's become your tiny little prison guard, and the worst part is, you love him, he's your son. You can't just leave him with his father, and there's no way in Hell Bruce would let you take his child, or escape yourself

There's also another idea I've been having where Reader is poor and needing work and winds up getting mixed up in a series of unfortunate events where they keep bumping into Batman and the caped crusader essentially adopts you after you become homeless and alone. Imagine having a friend tell you "yeah I've got this easy job you can help with, its just a little security, it's super easy" but when you get there, you're in some shady warehouse and given a gun and told to shoot anyone on sight. You're by yourself when the dark knight himself descends from the rafters and you're just suddenly sobbing because, oh no, if he's here, then that means something bad is happening, and now you're involved, and suddenly the caped crusader has to pause his mission to console you because you're just SOBBING about "I didn't know, I didn't know, i don't even know how to use this gun, oh my god I'm gonna go to jail"

and of course he lets you go. It's obvious you aren't a criminal. He tells you to go on your way, that he's not there to arrest you or hurt you, to get out of there before Gotham PD shows up, and you're just so grateful as you scramble out of there in tears. And months later, he bumps into you again, huddled under a dilapidated bridge in the pouring freezing rain with nowhere left to go because your family was murdered in some Joker-related incident and now you're all alone and borderline starving to death. And you know the Batman; he do be loving to adopt people on hard times and expand his little found family...

#pregnancy tw #yandere stuff #sinprompts

[redjaybathood]

I'm aware that I am the only one who writes bruce willis, but. Now, when posts are not showing up in tags, here's a small unfinished outline from my drafts.

Like: Willis/Bruce. Ship name: Two disaster fathers. It's a mouthful and totally underwrites the amount of shit Jason as a kid went through. As well as makes out Bruce a shittier parent when he was originally (I am telling you, this boy has a few years of good/decent parenting in him before you are not his child but a problem; he's the best with kids who are not related to him and without any expectations he has to care for them long-term). But I can't think of a better one yet.

So Willis, huh? After escaping from the island where prisoners got experimented on, having new dashing looks and no identity, Willis Todd arrives in Gotham just in time for adoption of a young orphaned Tim Drake (both parents, stepmother, and an uncle met a violent death in a span of two years) by certain Bruce Wayne (richer than god), also adoptive father of Dick Grayson (parents dead in a mob hit), Jason Todd (deceased), and Cassandra Cain (no Intel on her; no birth records, no info about parents, though her face sure looks familiar).

It's after Chemo bombed Bludhaven, meaning: after Red Hood fought and perished in a fight with Black Mask, who is in critical condition himself, his empire all but in ruins, no trusted leitenants anymore to take over the business.

So Willis Todd takes over as Red Hood, citing using a double during his fight with Sionis. Nobody seen Hood's face, voice and figure is kinda similar.

Besides stealing cars for Penguin (Willis didn't have a working relationship with Two-Face in this AU, if you catch my drift; though the stuff with Dent is pre-Catherine), Willis was also a conman. So it works.

And as for civilian identity, he uses a new name (not sure which yet), and his story is that he is a car collector/restorationist.

And he befriends Bruce Wayne, on account of participating in the same charities for homeless children and being interested in rare old models.

It's a long con. He piques Bruce's interested with something from the forties, a car that his father's father drove (maybe exactly that car), offers to help him buy it from a known dealer, work on them. Brucie is like - you're too kind but I have people for that. Willis is like: no, but it would be so much more meaningful if you did it with your own hands; i promise no car from that time period is all that complicated; it would probably mean so much to your father if he was alive - I know I planned to leave my son something like that. Bruce: oh, you have kids as well? Willis: had. But hey, it reminds me (clumsily switches topic), you have a teenager yourself! Perfect father-son bonding activity. Brucie: okay, maybe, but I really don't know anything about cars (keeping cover), how about you help me to start with it?

Gotcha.

The car arrives. Willis arrives with it. Tim and Bruce meet him, Tim is hella suspicious. Willis eyes him like: this kid has a 50/50 chance of ending up dead. Should I... Do something? But Tim is also a teenager who hired an actor to play his uncle (which Willis uncovered by this time) and he might be conning Bruce (which could mean an ally or a blackmail target) or he might have been stalked by Bruce who killed all his parental figures before Tim was like - I give up, fine, adopt me, creepy billionaire who got a previously adopted kid killed in a very violent and mysterious circumstances.

Alfred is Alfred which in Willis's eyes means he's either in on it or gets paid enough not to care.

But okay, cars, and Willis is certainly knows his stuff, and he is very careful in managing the conversation while Tim is with them. So Tim doesn't see anything really suspicious and becomes bored and okay, maybe the dude's name is not real and his money is if suspicious origin but the only thing he really does is teach Bruce about old cars. That's it, by the third weekend, Tim is out on YJ business or some such.

And by the time three or four months went by and the project is over, Willis is Bruce's best buddy - the man needs friends who are not in vigilante/hero business, okay? Every single one Batfam member does. Willis it for Bruce. Even if Bruce, by nature, cannot be a trustful person, he needs to unwind somehow when there's no imminent danger. He had civilian girlfriends, this is basically the same thing.

And then they just hang out, talking, drinking, shooting pool... Dancing... Kissing... So it turned into "the same thing", period.

So they have heart to heart after drinking one night, where Willis tells him a very heartfelt and tragic story about his kid disappearance, that he was found dead in a couple of years later and it wasn't pretty, and that Willis blames himself because he wasn't a good father or husband, he had inhereted a lot of toxic shit about being the man of the family from his Da, and he was focused on making money - in a dangerous and destructive ways, which helped his son none - rather than just making sure his son knew he loved him. That he tried to raise his son better man than he had been, but his ideas of better were skewed and contrary to each other (like, be independent but listen to my every word; don't fight and get in trouble but don't be a fucking pushover - without explaining exactly how etc), and also, he held his son to the same standards he held himself which wasn't fair: he was a grown man and his son was a child. Basically, he loved his son and would do anything for him except being a good father. But what he hates himself the most for, is not being there when his kid died. Not saving him.

And a lot of the stuff he says resonates with Bruce.

So he opens up about Jason in response. And Willis is like - no, man, you don't have to. But Bruce: I want to. I talked about this maybe twice. One with my friend, one with a social worker before I was allowed to adopt Tim. Both times were for a reason, not because I wanted to. And now I think I want to.

And he is like - Willis is maybe a shittier father than me, he won't judge me. (On subconscious level). So he says everything he can. (Oh, and the moment Willis finds out about Sheila - priceless; Bruce omits anything about Batman, Robin and Joker though).

But then he talks about how he knows where he went wrong with Jason and he would have wanted to mend relationship with him but now it's not possible because now Jason is back and asks for impossible...

Willis: I am sorry what???

Bruce: ...

He realizes that he might have had a little too much to drink. But he doubles down:

So. Funny story, turns out my middle child hated me so much, after he got roughed up, he faked his own death and got into some sketchy stuff, arms dealing, drugs. And basically, he wants me to kill the person who roughed him up.

#bruce wayne #willis todd #bruce/willis

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Samantha and her girlfriend watch Gotham Season 3! :D

And in this weeks episode!

Bruce Wayne gets dating advice from Human Disaster Jim Gordon!

Human Disaster Jim Gordon takes up stalking!

And the ongoing Mayor Penguin plotline brings us political intrigue, backstabbing and buffoonery that makes The Death of Stalin look like a sombre and serious drama

So after a recap during which we Notice A Thing

My Girlfriend: WAIT

How…did Alice impale herself on that sunk of metal from the angle she fell?

IT’S BENT THE WRONG WAY

Me: …..

Holy frick it legitimately is

My Girlfriend: She’d have landed on the blunt part of it and just…bounced off

Me: I mean she’d probably still be dead but she wouldn’t have died LIKE THAT

Our episode hilariously begins with Penguin riding in a motorcade celebrating his election as the cities mayor as what sounds like an upbeat and jaunty version of his theme music plays…

Me: Does THIS much fanfare usually accompany a mayoral election?

My Girlfriend: This is Oswald Cobblepott

Are you really saying that you doubt he’d be as Extra as humanly possible

Me: FAIR POINT

He probably rented all this with his own money

My Girlfriend: hell I’m pretty sure that isn’t even the soundtrack we’re hearing

He’s actually got his theme music playing out of those speakers accompanying him wherever he goes

We then see him helping out a soup kitchen, feeding the homeless

Me: Fun fact: He’s actually feeding the homeless TO the homeless there

My Girlfriend: It’s his controversial plan for how to slash the cities homelessness figures

And we then see him cutting the ribbon on…a school bus?

Me: It’s made entirely out of non-flammable materials

So no cheerleaders will be set on fire in this one

My Girlfriend: Why is he cutting the ribbon on a school bus?

Me: I think he’s legitimately just finding excuses for photo oppurtunities at this point

My Girlfriend: Next weeks headline: Mayor Cobblepott invites press, public, to dedication of new Brothel

With the Mayoral Montage over, we cut to Penguin’s Old Weird House where he’s asking a statue of his mother if he’s “A good boy”

My Girlfriend: Did we start watching Bates Motel by accident?

Me: He’s changed his ways Rebecca…he’s not even going to swat that fly…

Nygma chooses this point to enter the room

“I hope I’m not interrupting”

Me: “Oh, I see your talking to that six foot statue of your dead mother again

I’LL COME BACK LATER”

My Girlfriend: Nygma doesn’t know what he’s just walked in on he just knows he doesn’t want to see any more

“Oh Ed

You never met my mother

Wasn’t she beautiful?”

“……..

A fine figure of a woman”

Me: “STOP OBJECTIFYING HER”

My Girlfriend: Edward just wants to know what the right thing to say is that will make this awkward moment end

Me: “Do you want me to leave you and your Statue Mom alone for a bit Oswald?”

Oswald talks about how his mom was the only one who was “Always there” for him

Me: ALWAYS

When he went to work

When he ate dinner

When he took a bath

When he went to bed…

My Girlfriend: PLEASE STOP AT ONCE

Edward tells Penguin that he thinks that his mother WOULD be proud of him

My Girlfriend: What mother WOULDN’T be proud of a son like this

Me: He’s murdered countless innocent people and he has a dead woman’s head mounted on his coffee table

My Girlfriend: SON OF THE YEAR

Edward talks about how the people of Gotham love Edward

Me: The people of Gotham are stupid like that

My Girlfriend: NOT the best judges of character

And adds that the gangs of Gotham fear him

My Girlfriend: That’s more understandable

Me: Especially after the whole umbrella thing he did to Galavan

And talks about how all the rich and powerful of Gotham will soon be gathering to celebrate his victory, asking what more anyone could ask for

Me: I don’t know…maybe to NOT lead a life of murder and theft?

My Girlfriend: Jeez, ask for the moon Samantha…

Me: I’m just saying, if we ever have a son I’d kind of like him to achieve success and fame WITHOUT having to murder anyone

Penguin however notes that the one thing he’s missing is “Someone to share it with” before blowing a kiss at the statue…

Me: Edward looks about as uncomfortable as we feel right now

My Girlfriend: He has walked in on Oswald doing TERRIBLE THINGS with that statue

Me: Things he cannot unsee

Things that chill his blood

We cut to the next day where….

NO JOKE

Oswald is dedicating the Creepy Statue of his mother as a public landmark

Me: America

Where any weird shit gets a statue dedicated to it

My Girlfriend: “I’ve gathered you all here to announce that every building in Gotham is now required by law to have a statue of my mother outside of it”

Me: “Failure to do so will be met with the PENALTY OF DEATH”

Oswald talks about his mother, declaring how she was an immigrant to the country

Me: “But please god don’t judge them all by her example”

My Girlfriend: Immigrants in America have it hard enough right now Oswald, without being associated with people like you

Oswald talks about how hard life was for her but that “When she was by my side, I felt loved”

Me: A little TOO loved at times

My Girlfriend: “When she was by my side I felt loved!

And some other feelings that were weird and deeply confusing to me”

Oswald talks about how he has “Rid Gotham of its villainous monsters”

Me: Except for the one they all just elected Mayor

My Girlfriend: Or the one he appointed chief of staff

However just as Penguin talks about how he Gotham will be safe now who should appear but our old pals The Red Hood Gang!

Who start shooting the place up

Me: OH NO THE IRONY

My Girlfriend: It’s like they had a copy of his speech and were waiting on that as their entrance line

Me: They couldn’t start their brief and hastily thrown together reign of terror until they had the perfect moment to make their dramatic entrance

The gang proceed to…shoot the statue?

My Girlfriend: So they have the entire government of the city in their crosshairs

And they decide instead

To shoot a statue

Me: Haven’t they watched Blink?

You can’t kill a statue

And then in DRAMATIC SLOW MOTION one of them proceeds to knock the statues head off as Oswald makes the Best Reaction Face

My Girlfriend: …..

He’s going to kill them all isn’t he

Me: THEY ARE ALL GOING TO DIE

“You will pay for this!

DEARLY!”

Me: “HOW DARE YOU KILL MY STONE MOTHER”

My Girlfriend: Shooting the public is one thing but shooting his moms statue?

Me: UNFORGIVABLE

As the gangs leader tells Oswald not to “lose his head”

My Girlfriend: Oh, you comedian

The gang departs under cover of a smoke bomb because…sure okay?

Me: So…what did that achieve?

My Girlfriend: I legitimately do not understand what the point of ANY of that was

Me: They showed up with assault rifles and explosives…just to vandalise a statue

Is ANYONE in Gotham capable of being normal for five seconds?

As if to answer our question we check in with the Human Disaster that is James Gordon after the title card, where Valerie Vale is telling him that she can’t come over

My Girlfriend: Wait, these two are still together?

Me: It’s like this show just…WANTS to make us unhappy

My Girlfriend: Why is it that every otherwise intelligent woman in Gotham apparently loses the ability to make good life choices the second they lay eyes on this man

Me: He’s like a disease

Vale says that if she did come over that would make it “Three nights in a row”

Me: That’s three more nights than I’d be willing to spend with James Gordon

My Girlfriend: She’s given him three chances to actually give her an orgasm and he’s failed each time

She also reveals that she’s having dinner with someone but assures Jim it’s not a date

He grumps into the next room saying it’s none of his business

Me: That’s right, it’s not

My Girlfriend: Especially as he spends ALL HIS FREE TIME visiting his two ex-girlfriends

Me: Jim is the last person on the planet who can judge

Vale asks whatever actually happened to Tecth…

Me: “He just sort of…ran away

End of story”

My Girlfriend: Because since when has CATCHING CRIMINALS been the job of the police in this city?

Valerie says she heard a rumour that there’s “Something strange” about Alice’s blood

Me: Heard a rumour WHERE?

My Girlfriend: The city is buzzing with talk of Alice Tetch and her Magic Rage Blood

Me: THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE

Gordon asks if Valerie likes “this” referring to the two of them hooking up which she says she does

Me: “God knows why but I do”

My Girlfriend: She can’t get enough of this sad pointless terrible relationship with an emotionally unhealthy weirdo with anger management issues

Me: IT DRIVES HER WILD

Gordon asks why Valerie is asking about this and she says that it’s because she wants to know

Me: “Right, that makes sense”

My Girlfriend: “It was kind of pointless to ask you that question when the answer is so obvious I’m sorry”

Gordon asks if she’s asking for herself or as a reporter

Me: If it’s the latter, why is the Gotham Gazette running stories about Poison Murder Blood

My Girlfriend: If it’s the former…just why?

Me: No good answer here

Valerie Vale counters that she doesn’t just stop being a reporter when they’re together and points out that when Jim was a cop he didn’t just stop being one when he came home

Gordon replies that maybe that was his problem

Me: He had a LOT of problems but that wasn’t one of them

My Girlfriend: The fact that both the character and the show seem to think that Gordon is just the epitome of what a Good Cop should be is both deeply depressing and deeply worrying

“The guy I’m having dinner with is the haematologist in charge of studying Alice Tetch’s blood”

My Girlfriend: The sad part is that it’s still the best date she’s had in months

“I’m free after 10:00 if you want to call!

Thanks for the coffee”

Me: Though he’s going to have to REALLY spoil her to compete with a date with a haematologist

My Girlfriend: Those guys are WILD

So as Valerie storms off, we cut to where Barnes is staring at pictures of Alice’s body, her death certificate and…a picture of the Mad Hatter doing a Spooky Pose

My Girlfriend: “I don’t know why I thought looking at these would improve my mood”

Me: “Oh no they’ve just made everything worse!”

My Girlfriend: Who even TOOK that picture of Tetch it looks like a fuckin promo shot…

Bullock comes in to tell Barnes that they’ve found the truck the Red Hood Gang used to attack the Penguin’s press conference and also found one of the Red Hoods, which leads Barnes to declare that he “Thought those idiots were dead”

Bullock replies that he thinks they’re “Copying the look”

My Girlfriend: Barnes seems genuinely perplexed that more than one specific gathering of people might wear a very generic item of clothing

Me: What, TWO groups of criminals both wearing red hoods over their heads?!

HOW CAN SUCH A THING BE

My Girlfriend: Have either of these two Sherlock’s considered that perhaps they just put red hoods over their heads because it’s a convenient way to hide their faces?

Which most people commiting felonies DO try to do

Me: Though they could be forgiven for not realising that since none of the other criminals in Gotham bother to do this

My Girlfriend: Maybe they’re perplexed by the concept of criminals not wanting everyone to be able to recognise their faces

Bullock notes that the original Red Hood gang were bank robbers but the new one “Has a beef” with Penguin

Me: LIKE EVERYONE SHOULD

My Girlfriend: That narrows down the suspect list to well over half the city

Barnes puts Harvey in charge of this investigation…

Me: “I want my best man on this case

Unfortunately he’s off sick so it’ll have to be you”

My Girlfriend: Bullock will find the perps if he has to check every brothel, bar, speak easy, strip club, blue collar drinking den and house of ill repute in the entire city

Me: What if they’re not in a place that sells booze or sex?

My Girlfriend: Then god help us all

However he is interrupted by the arrival of…Edward Nygma!

Who announces HE’LL be in charge of this investigation!

Me: Who wants to tell him that this isn’t what a chief of staff does

My Girlfriend: Even the “People” in Trump’s administration know that this isn’t what a chief of staff does

No joke, the precinct literally goes silent

My Girlfriend: I thought this was the GCPD but apparently it’s actually the slaughtered lamb

Me: They don’t like your type around here Edward

My Girlfriend: And by “your type” we mean “The type who murdered half a dozen people”

Edward announces that he’s glad to be back and he’s missed everyone

Me: “It’s so nice to see you all again

Seems like only yesterday I was killing one of your fellow officers with a crowbar

And pinning it on Jim Gordon”

My Girlfriend: Where DOES the time go

Me: He can’t understand why they aren’t excited to see him

Edward greets Harvey noting he’s “Still a stranger to a haircut and a shave I see”

My Girlfriend: And he sees that your still just…AWFUL

Just awful

Me: Insulting Harvey Bullock’s troll like demeanour is OUR job Nygma

You go…be a chief of staff

Go staff some chiefs

Nygma declares that because he’s going to be their liason and that he’ll want access to all the reports and his old forensics lab

Me: You’d think he’d be sick of being around dead bodies by now

My Girlfriend: Didn’t you tell me he’s friends with a zombie next season?

I’m starting to think he’s got a fetish

Me: HE IS PROBLEMATIC

Barnes is having none of this nonsense and calls Nygma a “Cop killer who should be in the loony bin”

Me: YEP

My Girlfriend: Once again, Barnes is the most sensible character on the whole show

Me: Everyone would be better off if they just actually LISTENED to him

However Nygma threatens Barnes with losing his job saying that if he doesn’t help him then the Penguin will appoint a police commissioner who will fire him

My Girlfriend: He just blackmailed a man in front of dozens of witnesses

ALL OF THEM COPS

Me: I’d say there’s no way this situation doesn’t end with Riddler fired and the Penguin impeached from office but you know

Then Donald Trump happened

My Girlfriend: And we all realised what an absolute shitshow American politics really is

Barnes grumps off with a remark about how “Every dog has its day”

My Girlfriend: How dare he compare dogs to Edward Nygma

Me: DOGGOS ARE PURE SOULS

Bullock asks if Penguin is “Hiding under his desk”

However Nygma claims he’s “Meeting with constituents”

Me: And we cut to…

Penguin talking to the decapitated head of his moms statue

While a bunch of mobsters look on

My Girlfriend: OUTSTANDING

Me: I love Barbara in the corner there just downing a martini

I’d need to drink right now too

My Girlfriend: No one seems to be sure if this was even in the script

“Is he MEANT to be talking to a chunk of statue?

Line?”

Me: That’s real alcohol in her glass, she needs it to get through this scene

Penguin says that his mother was “A saint whose only desire was to love me”

Me: I really don’t want to hear any more about his moms desires

My Girlfriend: NONE of us want to hear more about his moms desires

Penguin brings up how his mother was “Rewarded” for her kindness with “A knife in the back” giving a sharp look at Butch

Me: “Oh sure, bring THAT up again”

My Girlfriend: Oswald really knows how to hold a grudge

But he also says that his mothers memory is being desecrated

Me: How dare people disrespect the woman whose weird quasi-incestuous relationship with her son turned him into a serial killer

My Girlfriend: FOR SHAME

One of the mobsters is disbelieving that Penguin has gathered them together for this suggesting he just glue his moms head back on…he proceeds to smack the mobsters head against the statue

My Girlfriend: That’s a rather tame reaction for Oswald, maybe the anger management counselling is working

Me: Back in season two he probably would have beat the guy to death with the statue

My Girlfriend: YOU’VE CHANGED OSWALD

Penguin declares that the Red Hood Gang has challenged his authority

My Girlfriend: I hate myself but right now all I can think of is South Park

Me: “Oh no!

Nothing’s worse than Penguin with authority!”

My Girlfriend: Don’t make it worse

Oswald says that he’s going to be celebrating his election, with Barbara chiming in that he’s going to be celebrating it at her club “The Sirens”

Adding that none of the assembled goons are invited

Me: “You people will lower the tone of the establishment”

My Girlfriend: It has a very exclusive guest list

And none of them are bisexual stereotypes, weird sister fucking hypnotists in top hats or Penguin Men

Me: None of them even have a gimmick or a supervillain nickname!

Penguin barks that he wants the Red Hood gang’s leader’s head on a spike before the end of the night and yells at his goons to go find them

Me: “If he’s not dead by the time I’ve drank that open bar dry god help you all”

My Girlfriend: I can’t help but feel like this “Putting your enemies heads on spikes” policy might hurt his chances of re-election

Me: In Gotham?

It’ll probably secure him another two terms in office at least

Over with the Red Hood Gang they’re drinking and playing cards

Me: If only they had some cigars so they could complete their Generic Criminal Thug Image

My Girlfriend: Where are they meant to be hiding out?

Me: It’s one of Gotham’s hundreds of disused warehouses

They talk about how they’re waiting for a mysterious “boss” to arrive

And speak of the devil here he is! And…it’s Butch!

Me: WHAT A SHOCKING TWIST

That everyone saw coming

My Girlfriend: The recap at the start of the episode took pains to remind us that Butch and Penguin had a falling out

Are we meant to be surprised he’s the one plotting against him?

Me: Butch took being replaced by EDWARD NYGMA of all people about as well as anyone would

We cut over to Jim’s Filthy Den of Squalor where who should be knocking at his door but…Bruce Wayne!

Me: “Seriously how do all these people know where I live”

My Girlfriend: Jim’s starting to worry that at some point Alfred had him microchipped

Me: Would not come as a huge shock if they had

Jim invites Bruce in and he makes A Face at Jim’s home

My Girlfriend: “My god…this must be how POOR PEOPLE live”

Me: “Time to go slumming!”

Jim offers Bruce a drink, hastily adding that he definitely meant water

Me: yes, please do not get the actual child drunk

My Girlfriend: We’d appreciate it if you didn’t

He says that he’s meant to come see Bruce since he heard that he was back in the city

Me: But he’s been very busy, fighting bat-creatures, getting hypnotised and somehow convincing a woman far too good for him to have disappointing sex

My Girlfriend: He’s been busy doing some serious thinking

Sorry

I meant to say “Busy doing some serious DRINKING”

Bruce says that he’s heard Jim was a private investigator now and that he wants to hire him

My Girlfriend: WHERE did he hear this?

Is he reading a Wikipedia summary of the episodes so far?

Me: It’s on Jim’s Myspace page

Jim assumes that Bruce is here about his investigations into corruption at Wayne Enterprises but Bruce says he’s put that aside, with Jim questioning why the sudden change in heart

My Girlfriend: “It’s not because a woman in an owl mask threatened to have me killed!”

Me: “So don’t go thinking THAT”

My Girlfriend: “Because that would be ridiculous”

But no Bruce just says that he felt he had to move on and that he can’t go forward with his life if he keeps obsessing about the past

Me: Because if there’s a comic book character who you NEVER think of as being obsessed with the traumas of his past and unable to move on

It’s Bruce Wayne

My Girlfriend: Good old Emotionally Healthy Bruce Wayne

Never one to fixate on his parents deaths

Or let it control his life

Me: This show has a keen insight into his character

Jim says he thinks it’s wise that Bruce is moving on and asks what it is he wants, with Bruce revealing that he’s here to ask Jim to look into the disappearance of Ivy

Me: Has he considered just filing a missing persons?

My Girlfriend: He had to choose between the washed up alcoholic murderer

And the entire GCPD

He made his choice

Me: When you put it like that, hard to say if he made the WRONG one really

Jim is surprised as he didn’t think Bruce and Ivy were close and Bruce explains that he’s doing it for Selina, saying that Ivy is a friend of hers

Me: “A Friend”

My Girlfriend: A live in Gal Pal

Me: A close platonic bestie

Jim agrees to help and notes that he thinks it’s “Chivalrous” that Bruce is doing this for Selina

Me: TAKE THAT FEDORA OFF YOU WRETCHED CREATURE

My Girlfriend: Jim Gordon is about to go into a long rant about how Nice Guys like Bruce never get the girl

Me: M’aster Bruce

My Girlfriend: NO

Jim asks how long Bruce and Selina have been a couple and Bruce gets Adorably Flustered insisting that they are just friends

Me: Sure

Like how Selina and Ivy are just friends

My Girlfriend: JUST CHUMS

Back at the GCPD, Nygma has arrived in the forensics lab, greeting Lucius Fox with a cheerful “Mr Fox

Just the man I’ve been wanting to see”

Me: “Mr Nygma

Just the man I hoped never to see again”

My Girlfriend: The Riddler seems genuinely confused that the people he attempted to murder aren’t happy to see him again

Lucius brings up the whole “Poison gas” thing but Riddler says that “To be fair that gas was a sleeping agent

And I was not in the best place in my life”

My Girlfriend: As apologies go, that’s right up there with Kevin Spacey’s

Me: “I’m super sorried I abducted and threatened you and a small child

But I’ve grown a lot as a person

And I really feel bad about it”

My Girlfriend: As long as the Riddler feels kind of sorry I guess that makes it okay

Lucius warns Riddler that if he threatens him or Bruce that he’ll kill him but Riddler says that Fox is “Not a man of violence”

Me: He’s about the only one on this show who isn’t

My Girlfriend: Give it time

I’ve no doubt that will change

Me: Murder is the go to way to solve every problem on this show…so probably

Lucius sort-of-threatens that if he WAS a violent man he’d have put a toxin on the lab equipment to poison Riddler but all this prompts him to do is say he’d have used a different one

Me: Riddler is appalled that Lucius would use such an amateurish method of murder to do him in

My Girlfriend: He is a Poison Snob

“You’re insane”

“WAS insane

I have a certificate”

Me: He got it framed and everything!

My Girlfriend: Well that calms any fears I might have had

Riddler wants to know about the Red Hood gang and Lucius invites him to take a look at what he’s found under the microscope

Me: “Hmmmmm

You just said you’d poison me by putting a toxin on a piece of lab equipment

So

I see NO DANGER AT ALL in touching this with my bare hands”

My Girlfriend: The Riddler knows that the writers can’t kill him off until Bruce becomes Batman

Me: I wouldn’t put too much faith in that

I mean has this show bothered to adhere to the comics continuity in ANY OTHER WAY since it started?

The Riddler isn’t poisoned but he is intrigued and there is some Forensics Technobabble about what Lucius found on the van they recovered

My Girlfriend: I’m glad that Edward seems to have learned something from all that because we sure as hell didn’t

Over with Bruce, he and Jim are talking to Bullock who says that they’ve heard nothing about Ivy Pepper in recent weeks

Me: “And looking for missing children isn’t really a priority for us”

My Girlfriend: They are busy with REAL police work

Like tracking down the Heinous Villains who knocked the head off a statue

Me: Tracking down the MONSTERS who damaged a public monument to a serial killers mother is MUCH more important than locating a missing child!

However Bullock does reveal that they did have one odd report come in that might be related and just…picks up Ivy’s sweater that’s just kind of…there

Me: Sure is handy that he had it right there when they came in

My Girlfriend: You’d think that would be in an evidence bag or something

But no sure, just pick it up with your bare hands Bullock

Me: Invite Jim and Bruce to touch it too, in fact let the whole precinct get their finger prints on it

Bullock explains that it’s what was apparently left behind in the home of a construction worker who was “Knocked out” by a redhead who robbed him

Me: Huh…I guess that Ivy DIDN’T kill that guy?

My Girlfriend: That or this is a different man and she’s been just going to the homes of random men and robbing them

Me: Which is entirely believable for this show

Bullock brings up how the guy claims that the woman who knocked him out was in her twenties and Bruce theorises he lied because he didn’t want to admit to being with a young girl

My Girlfriend: Do you ever wonder if Bruce yearns to have a conversation NORMAL children might have

Not

Talking to corrupt cops about sex offenders?

Me: “The only other explanation is that the show artificially aged the character up so it could uncomfortably sexualise her

And not even Gotham could be THAT creepy, right?”

Jim and Bullock don’t agree with Bruce’s theory, noting that the guy wouldn’t have reported the robbery at all if that were the case and a downhearted Bruce agrees that it couldn’t have been Ivy but Jim ponders why she’d have Ivy’s sweater

Me: So many explanations

SO FEW GOOD ONES

My Girlfriend: And yet none of them as bad as what’s actually happening

Before they can further ponder a solution to this Sweater Mystery none other than Leslie Thompkins comes over, happily greeting Bruce

My Girlfriend: “Oh thank god, a small child is here

Maybe now I’ll be able to have an intelligent conversation in this place”

Me: The depressing reality is that this actual fifteen year old is probably the most mature person Leslie knows in her life

After the two swap some pleasantries, Leslie asks if she can speak with Jim privately and the two…walk about ten feet away

Me: “This is far enough right?

None of the many people walking around near us will hear our conversation up here”

My Girlfriend: a busy police department is the perfect place to discuss sensitive and private matters with someone

She explains that soon her engagement will be published in the Gotham Gazette

My Girlfriend: “And I’ve come to ask that you please make sure no murderous gimps storm the church with shotguns”

Me: She’d like a restraining order of at least five hundred yards against Barbara while she’s at it

My Girlfriend: And if she sees her buying or wearing a wedding dress any time near the date she’s shooting to kill

But no, actually Leslie says that it means that Mario’s family name will be in the paper

“You mean Falcone” notes Jim

Me: “And you shouldn’t find it at all creepy that I’ve apparently been investigating who your dating”

My Girlfriend: I don’t know why Leslie looks surprised that he knows

Does she NOT just assume that Jim is spending every free hour of his day stalking her on Facebook

Me: When he’s not calling, saying nothing and then hanging up that is

Jim however assures Leslie that while he’s surprised that she’s marrying the son of Carmine Falcone that it’s none of his business and he’s happy for her

My Girlfriend: What a surprisingly mature and level headed way for him to react!

WHAT A SHAME IT WON’T LAST

Me: Don’t get too used to this side of Jim Leslie, you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment if you do

Leslie has a rather…odd reaction to this and just kind of…walks off

Me: She seems DISSAPOINTED that Jim isn’t horrified or upset by this news

My Girlfriend: “Fine

Ruin my big dramatic announcement

See if I care”

Leslie heads to her lab but on the way who should she bump into but…Edward Nygma!

Lurking in the darkness and being Creepy

My Girlfriend: “How long have you been standing there”

Me: He’s been waiting HOURS for someone he knows to walk by so he could dramatically call their name from the shadows

My Girlfriend: He even broke the bulb in that hallway to make himself appear more sinister

Me: He considered using a flashlight to light his face from underneath but decided that would be too much

Edward tries to creep at Leslie and she responds…by punching him right in the face

My Girlfriend: Have I mentioned that Leslie Thompkins is my favourite character?

Me: So far she’s the only one to have the correct reaction to seeing Edward Nygma

My Girlfriend: HIT HIM AGAIN

Riddler tries to threaten her and she laughs it off, noting that her fiancé’s father is Carmine Falcone and that she could have Riddler “Disappeared” with a single word to him

My Girlfriend: Suddenly Riddler begins to wonder if threatening the daughter in law of a powerful mafia don was a good idea

Me: “You misunderstood me!

When I said “You shouldn’t have done that” what I meant was “Thank you so much!

And you look lovely today!””

My Girlfriend: Edward needs to watch his mouth or he’s going to find out the answer to the riddle of which part of him ends up being ground up into hamburger meat and which parts float to the surface of Gotham’s river in a few months time  

So while Leslie leaves Edward to wonder which of his kneecaps are going to be broken first, we cut over to Barbara and Tabitha’s club, where Tabitha is grumping about having to host Penguin’s party

My Girlfriend: “Seriously babe

We are going to get the WORST Yelp reviews”

Me: Barbara just can’t understand why Tabitha is reluctant to host a party for a man who frequently threatens to murder her

My Girlfriend: I’m sure he’ll be in a good mood

It’s not like anything happened earlier that day to REMIND him of his mothers brutal death

Barbara however says that it’s good for the club

Me: “Our last act turned out to be a serial murderer, we really need something to get people through the door”

My Girlfriend: Tetch didn’t just run off with his sister he also ran off with their deposit

Me: And they’re not getting EITHER back

Barbara also says that if they find the Red Hood Gang they can ask Penguin for a favour, like getting him to promise not to murder Tabitha

Me: Your babe is looking out for you here Tabitha, like a good girlfriend should

My Girlfriend: I mean flowers or champagne or more traditional

But a promise from a penguin man that he won’t murder you is a pretty good gift too

Tabitha notes that “It would be nice not to watch my ass all the time” and no word of a lie, Barbara actually checks her ass out and smirks at that moment

My Girlfriend: She can’t understand why anyone WOULDN’T want to watch that ass all the time

Me: I’m disappointed though, Barbara had the perfect chance to say “That’s MY job” and she missed it!

My Girlfriend: This is why the fan theory about her being Gotham’s version of Harley can’t be true

Harley would never miss out on a smutty gay pun

Tabitha opens a fridge in the clubs kitchen and out falls…a half frozen dude!

Me: The health inspector is going to have to write them up for that one

My Girlfriend: They’re storing him next to the vegetables and fruit, that’s a clear violation

Tabitha says that Frozen Man is apparently called “The Ballistic Bomber”

Me: he’s the Ballistic Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight

My Girlfriend: YEAH BABY

She goes on to say that a contact of hers at The Merc spotted him buying smoke bombs…

Me: I’d almost forgotten The Merc

Gotham’s Evil Criminal Shopping Mall

My Girlfriend: I’d TRIED to forget the Merc existed because every time I think about it my brain breaks

Me: It’s a black market that’s LITERALLY a market it’s amazing

My Girlfriend: It’s like if Wal-Mart purchased the Deep Web

Tabitha tosses one of the smoke bombs to Barbara who notes they are “Groovy” before asking if he’ll talk

Tabitha is pretty sure he will but thinks he might need to de-frost first

Me: “As soon as he’s actually able to speak I’m sure he’ll be pretty eager to NOT be put back in the fridge”

My Girlfriend: Is it weird that I found that whole scene kind of cute?

Me: It is not at all weird because Tabitha and Barbara are for reals the best part of this whole show

My Girlfriend: if the show could just realise that it would be better off

Me: it needs to grasp that we don’t want to see Jim Gordon grumping his way through his miserable life, we want to see Barbara and Tabitha being weird and cute and hella gay

Over with the Red Hood Gang what are they doing?

Well no word of a lie, they are SETTING FIRE TO THE SCHOOLBUS that Penguin bought for one of Gotham’s schools

While forcing the kids to watch

My Girlfriend: “Okay boys when we’re done here let’s go kick some puppies and mug the elderly”

Me: At least they didn’t set the schoolbus on fire with the kids inside

My Girlfriend: Of course not

If they did Rutger Hauer would come kill them with a shotgun

And it turns out they’re also forcing a nun and a priest to watch all this too

My Girlfriend: Oh Gotham

It never does anything by halves

Me: The writers are very worried they haven’t made it clear enough to us that these characters are the Bad Guys

And as the Red Hood gang saunter off with the nun and the kids they put a grenade in the priests hands…AND HE EXPLODES

Me: Well then

THAT HAPPENED

My Girlfriend: It’s not every day you see a primetime TV show have a gang murder a priest with a live grenade

Me: One would hope

My Girlfriend: And the whole gang is just…okay with this course of action?

Me: He’s a catholic priest Rebecca working at a school

They’re chalking this up as their good deed for the day

We cut to where the gang are reporting their Villainy to Butch, who reacts with amazement at the fact they exploded a priest

Me: “I’ve got a robot hand and I work for a man with a death umbrella

And that’s still one of the worst things anyone’s ever told me”

My Girlfriend: They didn’t kill the kids did they?

Me: Normally I’d assume not but we just saw a priest get grenade-ed…who even knows what this show is going to do next

The gang say they don’t understand why they don’t just kill Penguin if Butch wants to get back at him

Me: Because he’s a main character

My Girlfriend: Most of you don’t even have a first or last name

You wouldn’t stand a chance

Me: Your just episodic villains, you can’t take down a major antagonist

Butch explains that he’s got them some Fancy Suits so they will “Blend in” at Penguin’s party that night

My Girlfriend: Of course

Just put these filthy unwashed street thugs in tuxedos and they will magically blend in with the richest and most powerful people in Gotham

Me: Butch is convinced that Cinderella is a documentary and that if you put a nice outfit on someone it magically transforms their entire look

My Girlfriend: “Yes Red Hood Gang

You SHALL go to the ball!”

Me: Does that make Butch their Fairy Godfather?

My Girlfriend: …..

Are you proud of that pun because you shouldn’t be

However when the gang asks if they kill Penguin at the ball Butch angrily insists NO ONE is to kill Penguin….which is the moment Tabitha and Barbara choose to saunter in, with Tabitha noting they should because otherwise Penguin is going to kill them

Me: Well that’s one reason to kill Penguin yes

ONE OF MANY

My Girlfriend: Why DOESN’T Butch want to kill Penguin?

Me: Because the plot says that he doesn’t want to this week

My Girlfriend: Oh good, as long as there’s a sensible reason

And as Tabitha Whip Strangles someone to death Barbara tells Butch that they need to have a little “Heart to heart”…while pulling a pin out of a grenade as a warning

My Girlfriend: She does realise now that if she drops that it’s going to go off in five seconds

Me: What is it with the villains in this episode and grenades?

My Girlfriend: It’s like Tabitha said, the Merc has a sale on right now

Me: They are not just a cute couple, they’re also Savvy Consumers

While that conversational train wreck goes down, we cut to where Jim and Bruce are grabbing some lunch, with Bruce noting that Jim didn’t have to buy it for him

Me: Oh that’s nice, the literal billionaire let the man who lives in a shoebox buy him lunch

My Girlfriend: Look every dollar Jim Gordon spends on food is a dollar he DOESN’T spend on hard liquor

Bruce is saving his life

Bruce asks if Jim misses being a cop and he admits he does sometimes…

Me: he has fond memories of the time all his coworkers left him to be shot to death by a skinhead assassin

My Girlfriend: Or the time a man he’d worked with and trusted for over a year framed him for multiple homicide and got him put in Blackgate

Me: Or the time he was abducted and beaten half to death by the cities OTHER supervillain mayor that it elected

My Girlfriend: The good old days

Bruce suggests that being a cop gave Jim a sense of mission but Jim says that having a mission isn’t everything

My Girlfriend: it’s like the show is talking about it’s own complete mess of a narrative arc here

Me: “Having a strong story arc and consistent characterisation isn’t everything Bruce”

He also suggests that Bruce talk to Selina and tell her how he feels with Bruce asking if that “Ever works?”

Me: ……

?????

Yes?

Telling a woman you have feelings for her…is how you start a relationship

My Girlfriend: Straight people are WILD

What do they actually do if they DON’T talk about their feelings?

Me: From what I’ve seen?

Argue, mostly

My Girlfriend: I really do wonder if my parents are outliers

Bruce asks Jim if he’s taking his own advice

Me: Even the actual child knows that Jim Gordon is the LAST person in the world to get relationship advice from

My Girlfriend: “How are your ex girlfriends Jim?

You know

The one who just got out of the asylum for the criminally insane

And the one whose marrying the son of a mob boss”

Jim says that “That ship has sailed” but Bruce says he didn’t mean Leslie but rather the woman he’s seeing now which Jim reacts to with shock

My Girlfriend: How does EVERYONE know EVERY ASPECT of this mans life?!

Me: He’s really regretting signing up for Facebook

Bruce claims that he noticed a lipstick mark on a coffee cup in Jim Gordon’s home

Me: Apparently the role of Bruce Wayne is now being played by Sherlock Holmes

My Girlfriend: The truth is he just saw that Jim changed his status from “Single” to “It’s Complicated”

“You’ve become quite the detective”

Me: “Perhaps one day you’ll have a Comic about being a Detective in which you star”

My Girlfriend: He might even be the worlds GREATEST detective one day

Bruce and Jim share A Bonding Moment about their romantic troubles

My Girlfriend: Do you think Jim ever wishes that he maybe had someone other than a fifteen year old child to talk about his problems with?

Me: The sad fact is that fifteen year old child is the most level headed and emotionally mature person Jim’s ever met

Bruce admits that sometimes he wishes he had “A sign” but Jim says that life doesn’t work like that

Me: “It’s not like an animal is going to come crashing dramatically through your window one night to tell you what you should do with your life”

My Girlfriend: Because that would be LUDICROUS

On the TV a reporter is talking about Penguin’s party but notes they’re worried that the Red Hood Gang might “put a damper on the festivities”

Me: Sooooo…the news doesn’t consider them blowing up a priest newsworthy?

My Girlfriend: They’re focusing on the IMPORTANT matters first Samantha

Like whether the gang might spoil a high class society function with their impropriety

Me: “In lighter news, another Gotham resident was brutally murdered earlier today!”

Bruce notes that he’s meant to go to the Penguin’s party as part of his “Re-engagement with being a Wayne”

My Girlfriend: I’d say I’m shocked that Alfred Pennyworth is okay with Bruce going to a drinking den owned by two supervillains to attend a party being hosted by a serial murderer and mob kingpin and a man who abducted and threatened to murder him with poison gas

Except this is Gotham

And this is Alfred Pennyworth

And I’m no longer shocked by anything that man does in this show

Me: Don’t worry Rebecca he’s not an idiot

He’s giving Bruce a gun just in case

My Girlfriend: Giving him a shooter in case some of those well dodgy geezers start a bit of bother

Me: “Things could get very naughty my old son

There’s a good chance things could go a bit pear shaped!”

Jim tells Bruce to give Penguin his best…

My Girlfriend: Again, everyone is VERY CALM about the fact an underworld boss is now running the city

Me: They’ve all just kind of gotten used to Penguin being there at this point

Over with Penguin, he’s ranting and raving about how the Red Hood Gang think that because he’s mayor he has to play by “Different rules” but that he’ll prove them wrong

My Girlfriend: They foolishly believe that they live in a world where a public political figure like a mayor might face serious legal repurcussions for brutally murdering his enemies

Me: Little do the fools realise they actually live in an episode of Gotham

My Girlfriend: This city elected a man who the news ACCURATELY DESCRIBED as a gangland kingpin

And they still think that Penguin cares if people know he’s a criminal

Riddler briefly theorises that maybe it was actually about the statue, not Penguin, but then rejects that theory

Me: “Maybe the gang just has a hatred of masonry”

My Girlfriend: Wouldn’t be the most ridiculous motive we’ve seen on this show

Edward also notes that Oswald is splashing wine all over the place

“Oh dear…”

Me: “I see your on your third bottle of the past hour…”

My Girlfriend: “oh good your drinking again

That’s always delightful”

Edward starts to clean Oswald’s clothes with some table salt and then something strikes him and he utters a riddle

“AGAIN with the riddles?”

Me: RUDE

My Girlfriend: He doesn’t go “Again with the umbrellas” to you Oswald

Me: Have some respect for his craft

The answer to the riddle is “Salt” and Riddler rattles off some Salt Trivia…ending with the reveal that he knows where the Red Hood Gang is hiding

Me: I can’t believe that trivia about washing detergent is legitimately a crucial plot point in this episode

My Girlfriend: Really?

I guessed that would be the key to this whole thing AGES ago

Me: Lying is wrong Rebecca

So over with the Very Salty Leader of the Red Hood Gang, Butch is still being held captive as Barbara and Tabitha debate whether to turn him over to Penguin

Barbara is all for it but Tabitha points out that Penguin will gut him like a fish

Me: Since when has Tabitha cared about that?

My Girlfriend: Don’t you remember all those romantic moments she and Butch shared during the five seconds they were dating?

Me: NO

My Girlfriend: Right that’s because they never happened

But she’s just imagining what if they DID

Barbara is having none of it though saying it’s either his life or Tabitha will always have to fear Penguin’s vengeance

Me: Awwwwww

She wants to protect her gf

My Girlfriend: I’d trade away the lives of a million cliché Italian gangsters to keep you safe

Me: …..

I’ve thought about it and I’ve decided that’s very sweet

Tabitha wants to know what all this was about and Butch reveals that he was going to take the Red Hood Gang down at Penguin’s party to make himself look good

My Girlfriend: Wasn’t that literally the plot of an episode of Archer?

Me: Further proof that Gotham is a sitcom: like all American sitcoms it is stealing the plots of other sitcoms

“All this so you could play the hero?”

My Girlfriend: I REALLY don’t think saving Oswald Cobblepott makes you a hero

Me: It doesn’t even make you chaotic neutral

Butch gets Enraged about how since Riddler started hanging around “Penguin treats me like I’m nothing”

My Girlfriend: As opposed to the amazing way he treated Butch BEFORE all this

Me: Has he just…FORGOTTEN how he got that robot hand?

My Girlfriend: Here’s a reminder Butch, it involved your BFF Oswald and a meat cleaver

Me: it’s like no one in this show can remember anything that happened more than five minutes ago

Barbara points out that since she and Tabitha figured this out it won’t take long for Edward and Oswald to as well

Me: Butch hasn’t got anything to worry about

I mean unless the Riddler somehow connects table salt to something they found in the gangs van

And makes a wild deductive leap

My Girlfriend: And there’s no way that will happen!

Barbara says that she’ll leave the decision up to Tabitha

Me: She respects her independence

My Girlfriend: They are still the healthiest couple on the whole show

Butch promises that if he gets back in Penguin’s good books he’ll protect Tabitha

My Girlfriend: because it’s so easy to reason with Oswald

Me: Oswald Cobblepott is a man who ALWAYS listens to reason

Then ignores it and kills everyone anyway

Tabitha however says that Butch will owe her one and that one day she’ll collect

Me: She wants his word

She wants his word as an evil criminal lowlife!

My Girlfriend: YOU HAVE TO PINKY SWEAR ON THIS BUTCH

However at that moment a call comes through for Butch…which is none other than the Penguin, telling him they’ve tracked the gang to a detergent factory!

Me: “OH GOD YOU FOUND THEM

I mean

OH GOOD YOU FOUND THEM”

My Girlfriend: “I’ll be right there I just have to burn some evidence first”

We cut to the detergent factory where Butch rushes in, declaring that he’s “Breaking up the band”

My Girlfriend: “SCREW YOU MAN

WE JOINED FOR THE MUSIC”

Me: “You’ve changed Butch

Ever since you signed on with that major label

It’s like you’ve lost you SOUL”

My Girlfriend: But they know just how to get it back

With a benefit concert to save the Gotham Youth Centre!

The gang aren’t willing to leave until they get their payday and Butch hears cars pulling in…and peeks out a doorway to see Penguin and co approaching!

Me: Okay HOW did the Penguin not see that?

My Girlfriend: He was directly in his eyeline there

Me: This is why you should have gone to spec savers Oswald

Butch grabs a tommy gun and declares that it “Was going to have to happen sooner or later”

Me: “I wonder what he meant by that”

My Girlfriend: “I’m sure we shouldn’t read anything troubling into it”

Me: “Or into the fact he’s acting fidgety while gripping a machine gun”

And so Butch proceeds to machine gun the entire gang to death because of course he does

Me: You know

Until I saw him with a tommy gun it never really hit me

But Butch is literally just every Gangster Stereotype rolled into one isn’t he?

My Girlfriend: He might as well change his name to Fat Tony and be done with it

Me: If the Spiderman films ever put Hammerhead in there, this is the actor to cast

Penguin arrives in the room to find them all dead and Butch happily declares that he “Got them for you”

Me: “And you shouldn’t find it at all suspicious that I got here before you or that I killed them all before they could talk and say why they were doing this”

My Girlfriend: “Don’t worry Penguin, I got rid of all the witnesses

I mean enemies

ENEMIES”

Penguin looks pretty impressed but one of the gang starts to point a gun…only for Butch to kill him too

And Penguin looks even MORE impressed

Me: “This display of brutal thuggery has won me over

Maybe you SHOULD be working for me”

My Girlfriend: He’s proud of you Butch

You shot a bunch of un-armed men to death

And then bragged about it

Me: GOOD SHOW

We cut to a press conference that Penguin is holding where he declares that “Justice and order” have been restored and that the Red Hood Gang is no more

Me: Is….

Is he legitimately holding a press conference to announce that the wanted felon he employs just machine gunned a punch of people to death in cold blood?

My Girlfriend: Nothing screams “Justice and order” like government sanctioned gangland executions!

And Penguin legitimately goes on to say that yes, Butch killed the whole gang

Me: OH MY GOD HE REALLY IS HOLDING A PRESS CONFERENCE TO BRAG ABOUT ORDERING A MOB HIT

One reporter asks if Butch’s life was ever in danger and Butch gives A Look at Penguin and says that if he’d hesitated he would have been a goner

Me: HA HA

WORDPLAY

My Girlfriend: “I feel very pleased that someone has been blamed…rightly I am sure…for all of what has transpired”

Me: They killed one person and defaced a statue

Clearly that totally justifies a mass execution for the entire gang, delivered by one man with no witnesses, no trial and no evidence that any of them were even the Red Hood Gang besides a couple of masks

My Girlfriend: yes seriously, how has Cobblepott proved that the people they killed were even the wrongdoers?

Were the police involved?

IN ANY OF THIS?

Me: I think by this point it’s pretty clear Gotham doesn’t actually have a legal system

Over at the crime scene, Bullock is telling the officers they can all go home and the case is closed

Me: “A member of the Gotham mobs just murdered four of the cities citizens with an unlicensed firearm

Nothing for the police to do here people, let’s go get some cake”

My Girlfriend: The tireless dedication of the American lawman

A sight to behold

Me: Bullock would investigate further but you know, the bars close soon

Bullock also tells Nygma that even “Before you went crazy” that he never liked him

Me: Whaaaaat

But he was such a likable person!

My Girlfriend: The way he spent all his time around dead bodies

Or stalking a clearly uninterested woman

What wasn’t there to like?

Nygma however isn’t satisfied with the official version of events and notes that it looks like the gang just stood there waiting for Butch to kill them

Me: Nygma just isn’t buying this Magic Gunman version of events

My Girlfriend: He suspects there may have been another shooter, hiding behind the member of the gang who was a weed dealer

“Grassy Noel” to his friends

Bullock suggests that maybe the gang wasn’t afraid of Butch and didn’t view him as a threat which Riddler finds unlikely

Me: I hate to agree with Nygma but….

Seriously Bullock

Who DOESN’T view a tommy gun wielding mob boss with a robot murder hand as a threat?

My Girlfriend: Butch just looks so cuddly and friendly, they were lulled into a false sense of security

Bullock tells Edward to drop it and that he doesn’t really care about some dead crooks before leaving but Nygma isn’t letting it be

Me: Okay really now

Why is it that the ONLY PERSON who is actually trying to solve a murder is the convicted serial murderer?

My Girlfriend: Maybe Dexter and Hannibal were right

The only people who can actually catch criminals are serial killers

Me: I don’t think law enforcement should test that theory

Edward investigates further and finds…the suits that Butch had got for the gang!

My Girlfriend: “PERFIDY!”

Me: “FORMAL WEAR!

Very out of place in such rustic surroundings”

My Girlfriend: “Why would a gang of toughs who clearly snubbed their nose at such finery own such expensive jackets”

Me: “There’s only one explanation…they were commiting these crimes to start an all male criminal glee choir!”

My Girlfriend: Butch narrowly prevented a terrible Ryan Murphy show

Over at the GCPD, two of its employees who actually do their jobs are conversing, as Barnes comes down to see Leslie, noting that she’s “Burning the midnight oil”

Me: I have to say if I ran the GCPD, by this point I’d be very worried about one of my pathologists spending their nights alone with the cadavers

My Girlfriend: In a normal police station it’s worrying, in Gotham it’s a supervillain origin waiting to happen

Leslie says she should probably apologise for punching Nygma in the jaw

Me: Why would anyone say sorry for that?

My Girlfriend: Few would and even fewer would mean it

Barnes however says that it’s the first that he’s heard of it

Me: “it’s almost like someone threatened him with brutal mob reprisals”

And congratulates Leslie with a “Well done”

My Girlfriend: :)

I actually really like Barnes?

The show doesn’t seem to want us to but I do

Me: Barnes is the actual nicest and most wholesome male character on this whole show

All he wants is for his officers to be honest and do their jobs right

These should not be negative traits

My Girlfriend: But he won’t let Gordon Break The Rules because he is a Cool Action Hero though Samantha

Me: THE FIEND

Barnes asks about Alice Tetch’s blood and Leslie reveals that she just happened to get the results back just recently!

Me: HOW CONVENIENT!

My Girlfriend: “I have the latest results from Professor Exposition and Plot Contrivance Labs

He says the results suggest…we may be dealing with a filler arc”

Me: “OH DEAR GOD NO”

Leslie tells Barnes that they tested the blood on rats and that two of them were showing “Enhanced strength and stamina”

Me: “He just wrote the words “Rat Hulk!!!” over and over again on the clipboard actually”

My Girlfriend: “I’m starting to think we shouldn’t have had the blood tested at county”

Barnes notes that getting superpowers doesn’t sound too bad but Leslie then adds that the test ended when one of the rats killed the other two

Me: See, why did you have to go and ruin it like that

My Girlfriend: Barnes was looking forward to fighting crime with his new super strength until you told him that

Leslie goes on to add that the rat chewed through the cages to get at the others

My Girlfriend: I thought Alice’s blood just made people act on repressed emotions?

Me: Clearly that rat was suppressing a LOT of anger

My Girlfriend: if only it had talked to someone about its problems

Me: Well it had started getting addicted to fancy cheese again and had built up QUITE a debt

Plus its entire family was killed by stray cats

Barnes asks why one of the rats was effected and not the others but Leslie admits that they’re still not sure

Me: “Hey just as a hypothetical, how would it affect a PERSON?”

My Girlfriend: “Say, a bald, middle aged person”

Me: “Whose maybe employed as a police captain?”

My Girlfriend: “JUST AS A HYPOTEHTICAL”

Leslie says that they’re still running tests and Barnes tells her to keep him updated

Me: “For totally not personal reasons that have nothing to do with me”

My Girlfriend: “Did I mention that I definitely DIDN’T get any of the blood on me?”                                  

He also tells Leslie not to work TOO late and she asks if he’s going to Oswald’s party and he replies that he “Lost” his invitation

Me: He has these things called MORALS

So he doesn’t attend parties thrown by serial killers

My Girlfriend: The rest of the cast are mystified by this idea

At Oswald’s party, things are in full swing and there are even Haunting Ice Sculptures of Oswald’s head

Me: THOSE THINGS ARE DOIN ME A FEAR

My Girlfriend: No Doge Speak!

Me: THEY ARE HECKING ME UP

My Girlfriend: (Thwaps me with a pillow) N O

Tabitha spots Butch and reminds him that he owes her for the whole “Not letting him be horribly murdered” thing

Me: I sure hope owing a homicidal sadist a favour doesn’t come back to haunt him!

My Girlfriend: What are the chances!

And we see Bruce and Alfred arrive, with Bruce grumpily wanting to know how long they have to be here

My Girlfriend: “until something happens to bloody well further the plot you daft git”

Me: Now wait here while Alfred goes to try and find some eel pie or blood pudding

Alfred says that Bruce needs to be seen and also needs to smile

My Girlfriend: Why don’t you just ask him to tap dance on a head of a pin

Me: Have we seen Bruce smile…ONCE?

In like

The space of two seasons?

Bruce asks if their lives now are “Fake smiles and mingling” and says that he misses “The old days”

Me: He yearns for the good old days

When he was blowing up parts of his mansion with home made explosive

My Girlfriend: Getting abducted by cults of Murder Monks and nearly sacrificed in satanic rituals

Me: And being taken to underworld knife fights and watching his parental guardian get beaten half to death by racist stereotypes

Alfred notes that he misses the old days as well

Me: “Remember that time I got chased into the city garbage dump by assasins with a knife in my shoulder?

BETTER DAYS”

My Girlfriend: Alfred hasn’t been shot at or concussed in nearly a week!

He just doesn’t understand the world anymore

Penguin greets the two noting that he’s glad they made it and insists they call him Oswald not “Mr Mayor”

Me: “We’re all friends here

God knows why but we are”

My Girlfriend: Weird, horrible terrible friends

Bruce also takes the time to thank Penguin for saving their lives from the previous mayor

My Girlfriend: I wonder if

As he thanks the current crimelord mayor for saving his life from the previous zombie supervillain mayor

That Bruce starts to wonder if perhaps his life is a little bit ODD

Me: I’m kind of dreading who Gotham is going to elect next, given that they’ve managed to vote in TWO supervillains in a row

My Girlfriend: At this point you kind of feel like they’re getting what they deserve

Oswald insists it was nothing but Alfred chimes in that it was a stroke of luck that Oswald showed up with the bAZoOkA (Actually how he pronounces it)

My Girlfriend: Sean Pertwee sounds like he cracked up halfway through reading this line and is trying to suppress the laughter

Me: Show me an actor who says they could say this dialogue with a straight face and I’ll show you a liar

Alfred adds that the gardener was picking bits of Galavan up for ages afterwards however

Me: This isn’t appropriate cocktail party conversation Alfred

My Girlfriend: Wait, the mansion has other staff?

How the hell do Alfred and Bruce explain…ANYTHING that goes on there

Me: One day that gardener is going to write the most explosive Tell All Book that’s ever been published

My Girlfriend: Your assuming that Alfred won’t murder him first

Bruce notes that after all that now Penguin is mayor and Oswald just cheerfully notes that life has a way of working out like that

Me: “I blew Galavan up with a bazooka

NOW I’M THE MAYOR”

My Girlfriend: “I don’t think that’s how it works”

Bruce however cuts this mess of a conversation short as he has just spotted Selina and says that he’s seen “A sign”

Me: I’m kind of saddened that “The Sign” wasn’t Selina crashing through one of the Wayne Manor windows honestly

My Girlfriend: “Yes…I understand now

I must date a Cat

Woman”

Alfred tells Penguin that he’s going to get himself a drink…

Me: I’d need booze to get through this party as well

My Girlfriend: But would you really eat or drink anything THIS man served up?

Me: GOOD POINT

And we cut over to where Selina is pickpocketing the guests only to be grabbed by…Adult! Ivy

Who greets her in a familiar way

Me: Hmmmmmmmmm

My Girlfriend: Oh god this is not getting any less uncomfortable

Me: It has not started creeping me out any less, no

Ivy notes that she never realised “How short” Selina was and after some confused reactions from Selina decides not to tell her who she is noting that this is “Too much fun”

Me: Why is she suddenly being horrible to Selina?

My Girlfriend: Selina cared about you Ivy and now your being mean to her

For no reason

WHY

Me: I DON’T LIKE THIS

Ivy waves Selina off with a “go along little kitty…go steal some wallets”

Me: Do the Gotham writers know that not all women have to be rude and awful to each other?

My Girlfriend: WHAAAAAAT

Don’t be silly of course we do

Oh and she also happily accepts a drink from some Pervy Old Guy so yay….

Me: (Distressed cat noises)

My Girlfriend: SO

FUCKIN

CREEPY

Me: Mentally she is still her old self….

Everything about this is Weird and Gross

My Girlfriend:  If their goal was to make our skin crawl with these scenes they’ve succeeded

We move on to a Marginally More Wholesome Scene as we see Butch lurking around only to be waylaid by Riddler who says he has a surprise for him, giving him a striped box

“What’s in the box?”

Me: “WHAT’S IN THE BOX!?!?!

WHAT’S IN THE BOX!?!?”

My Girlfriend: Luckily it’s too large to contain a human head

Me: You say that…

But no thankfully it doesn’t, rather it contains a “Pocket square” which Butch says he doesn’t need as he already has one…and Nygma claims that it’s very similar to Butch’s own

My Girlfriend: Not even season four of Sherlock strained credibility like this

Me: First he works out where the gang is hiding from table salt, now a bit of fabric has helped him figure out Butch’s whole scheme

Nygma says that both Butch’s suit and the Red Hood gangs suits were made by the same tailor

Me: So basically, Butch’s whole plan has been rumbled because he had HIS OWN FRICKING TAILOR make the suits for the Secret Criminal Gang he was running

My Girlfriend: All of this could have been avoided if he’d just bought off the rack

Me: FOILED BY HIS OWN EXPENSIVE TASTES

Nygma goes on to explain that he spoke to Mr Fuji the tailor and that a large man with a metal hand bought ALL the suits

My Girlfriend: So he not only bought them from his tailor, HE BOUGHT THEM IN PERSON

Me: Because it’s not like he has a very distinctive appearance or anything

My Girlfriend: Noooooo not at all

Butch starts to strangle Nygma, saying that he should just kill him right then and there

Me: RIDDLER DID NOT THINK THIS THROUGH

My Girlfriend: You’d think after being in three seasons of this show he’d know that none of its villains have any problem with straight up murdering people in front of a TON of witnesses

Me: You know what these people are like by now Edward

However Riddler has an offer for Butch…the two of them kill Penguin together!

Me: I totally buy that this is legitimate and not just a test of loyalty or a trick

My Girlfriend: I AM COMPLETELY FOOLED BY THIS

Riddler insists that he’s just been waiting for the moment he could bump Penguin off, and asks Butch if he’d like to run Gotham with him

Me: I sincerely doubt that Butch would like to do anything with you, Riddler

My Girlfriend: He might be a mobster with a metal hand but you…YOU creep him out

Me: YOU CREEP EVERYBODY OUT

Butch is sceptical at the idea of them teaming up but Riddler tells him that he has shown “Far more cunning” than he thought he had

Me: “You’re not nearly as stupid as you look

Or sound

Or our best testing indicates”

My Girlfriend: Riddler finds you much more tolerable than he previously thought he would Butch

Me: it’s the best compliment you’ll get from him

Riddler suggests that Butch put on one of the red hoods, kill Penguin and he’ll help him escape and that tomorrow they will divide up the city between them

Me: “This definitely isn’t a trap by the way”

My Girlfriend: Whaaaaat

A trap?

Who could possibly think such a thing

Me: And if this is for real, it won’t look at all weird that the dead mayors chief of staff helped the murderer escape

My Girlfriend: Does the chief of staff even take over the mayors duties if he dies?

Me: I would say not but even if we’re right and they don’t, I think it’s clear at this point that Gotham’s electoral system is a mess

Butch expresses shock that Riddler would turn on Penguin “After all he’s done for you”

My Girlfriend: It’s almost like Edward Nygma was a BAD PERSON or something

Me: Butch is starting to suspect that this serial killer is not of upstanding moral character

Butch however rejects Nygma’s offer!

Me: I’m sure we’re supposed to be touched at his loyalty to Penguin except I’m not sure WHAT Oswald is supposed to have done to EARN it

My Girlfriend: he brainwashed him, chopped off his hand and then fired him from his job, all while threatening to murder the woman he’s smitten with

Me: WHAT A GREAT GUY

Nygma says that he has ANOTHER surprise for Butch and takes him into the kitchen where our old Creepy Pal Mr Zsasz is lurking, with Butch in shock that Zsasz is working with Nygma

Me: A hired gun betraying their employer?

I’M SHOOK

My Girlfriend: He betrayed the Red Hood Gang less than a day ago

Why is betrayal now morally unconscionable to him?

And it turns out that Zsasz has also taken Tabitha hostage to force Butch to help them kill Penguin

My Girlfriend: Remember when Tabitha was a bad ass and a competent fighter?

The writers apparently don’t

Me: The idea that the Tigress we saw in season two could seriously be kidnapped by this reject from the second Matrix film and his stooges is the most ridiculous thing in this episode so far

And that’s REALLY saying something

The episode cuts over to where Selina is staring at where Pervy Old Guy is still creeping on Ivy

Me: yeeeaaaah that’s not getting any less creepy

My Girlfriend: Oh good, this is still happening…

But Selina’s Suspicious Staring is interrupted by Bruce coming over to try and Awkward Banter with her…Selina asks if he knows who that woman is and Bruce says he doesn’t

Me: “She definitely doesn’t even vaguely resemble a slightly older version of a pre-existing character”

My Girlfriend: Do the Gotham writers realise that your entire appearance doesn’t Completely Transmogrify when you get older?

Bruce says there’s something he wants to talk to Selina about and she agrees as long as it’s quick

Me: “Let’s get this over with I have a lot more Crime to do”

My Girlfriend: She has no time for your attempts at this thing humans call emotion Bruce

She needs to pickpocket

The two head off with Selina casting one last look at Ivy who is staring at her in turn

Me: “I could swear she’s somehow going to be important to the plot”

My Girlfriend: Selina has apparently become a Jedi when we weren’t looking

And can just magically sense that there’s something going on there

We briefly check back in with Butch whose still in shock that Zsasz would turn on Penguin

Me: Because he seems SO TRUSTWORTHY and decent

My Girlfriend: Next he’s going to find that Babyeater Brown and Peter the Puppykicker are also dishonourable and villainous

Me: HIS WHOLE WORLD HAS BEEN SHAKEN UP

Zsasz makes it clear that if he doesn’t kill Penguin, Zsasz will kill Tabitha

My Girlfriend: because Tabitha is just SO HELPLESS

Me: I am SO BEYOND PISSED that they’ve turned her into a fucking damsel in distress this episode

Down on the stage, Barbara is welcoming everyone to the club, and declaring that tonights party is for the “Honourable” Mayor Cobblepott

Me: BLATANT LIES DETECTED

My Girlfriend: How DID she manage to say that without bursting into laughter?

Me: “The honourable mayor Cobblepott, who you may remember as the leader of that lynch mob from a few weeks ago”

Barbara describes Penguin as their “Saviour” and the “Captain of their city”

Me: I think the Titanic had a better captain than this

My Girlfriend: Much like that ship, all semblance of coherent plotting and narrative is sinking without trace this season

Penguin prepares to take the stage but Riddler stops him for a moment. Penguin asks what he’s been doing and Edward says he’s just been “Tying up loose ends”

Me: “Well that sounds perfectly innocent”

My Girlfriend: Definitely nothing he should concern himself about

He wishes Penguin luck and Oswald takes to the stage, declaring that tonights party isn’t about celebrating HIS victory

My Girlfriend: I really think it is

But rather he says, a celebrating of GOTHAM’S victory

Me: I really think it isn’t

But before his nonsense speech can go further, gunshots ring out!

And Butch, wearing one of the Red Hood Gang Masks, steps forward, gun aimed at Penguin!

Me: MY GOD

Who could this man, who is Butch’s exact height and build, wearing Butch’s suit, speaking with Butch’s voice and with Butch’s Robot Hand be?

My Girlfriend: IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO GUESS WHO COULD BE UNDERNEATH THAT CLOTH MASK THAT WE LAST SAW BUTCH HOLDING

Me: PENGUIN IS WELL AND TRULY BAMBOOZLED

My Girlfriend: Not even Batman could solve THIS mystery!

Edward grabs Penguin keeping him from fleeing

My Girlfriend: Oh sure just publically try and assist in the murder of the mayor

Me: In this city they’ll probably nominate him to be their congressman for that

Butch utters a mournful “I’m sorry boss”

And Penguin is FLOORED that it’s Butch behind the mask

Me: “MY GOD

THAT MAN WHO LOOKS AND SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE BUTCH

IS BUTCH!?!?”

My Girlfriend: Penguin hasn’t been this shocked since he went to see Star Wars

And found out that it was a film about a War taking place in the Stars

Me: Every time Penguin goes to see the latest Spiderman reboot, he is STUNNED at what happens to Uncle Ben in it

My Girlfriend: He walked out of the screening of Iron Man going “Wait a minute…TONY STARK is IRON MAN?!

IMPOSSIBLE”

BUT IT TURNS OUT THE BULLETS ARE BLANKS!

And Butch himself is also shot with…blanks?

Me: Wait, did they shoot him with real bullets or blanks?

If it was the former how is he not dead

If it’s the latter…WHY

My Girlfriend: They shot him in  the…soul?

I guess?

Edward declares that now they have the real leader of the Red Hood Gang caught “Red….handed…”

Me: RED HOODED

My Girlfriend: You are not allowed to say things anymore

And Edward yanks off the hood to reveal…Butch!

Me: MY GOD

IT WAS BUTCH ALL ALONG

My Girlfriend: THIS IS A SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT

Me: I love how Penguin seems surprised ALL OVER AGAIN

Oswald

YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS

My Girlfriend: Why is the CROWD gasping?

Me: “MY GOD!

IT’S SOME GUY IN A SUIT!”

Edward chides Butch as being an idiot for thinking he’d give him REAL bullets

My Girlfriend: Edward could have given Kingpin’s right hand man some handy tips

Me: TOO SOON

And no word of a lie, Penguin genuinely screams at Butch that he’s going to kill him for this

Me: Well done Oswald, you just threatened to murder a man with a room full of dozens of witnesses all around you

My Girlfriend: HOW IS HE NOT IN JAIL

Legitimately asking

HOW

Me: Your guess is as good as mine at this point

Back in the kitchens, Tabitha notes to one of her kidnappers that they’re “Missing all the fun” and he creepily threatens her

Me: EW

My Girlfriend: Oh good, this episode was really missing something without any rape threats in it

But Tabitha notes that the kidnappers are imbeciles for taking her hostage in her own place…and proceeds to slit the Creepy Guys throat

Me: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

My Girlfriend: NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT

Me: FUCK THEM UP

The other imbecile kidnapper tries to stop her escaping and she proceeds to kick his ass too

Me: I guess these guys just REALLY wanted to die tonight

My Girlfriend: It’s the janitors I feel sorry for

Me: They’re going to have a LOT of work getting this kitchen able to pass a health inspection

Back with Penguin, he genuinely screams the words “AFTER ALL I’VE DONE FOR YOU” at Butch

Me: “AFTER I BRAINWASHED YOU AND CUT OFF ONE OF YOUR HANDS

THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME”

My Girlfriend: HE PAID YOU WELL ABOVE MINIMUM WAGE BUTCH

AND THIS IS THE THANKS HE GETS?!

Butch angrily declares that he “Used to be somebody” in this town

Me: ….

Not really?

My Girlfriend: He’s just been a leg breaking thug for whoever was the seasons main villain

Me: He went from being Fish’s henchman to Oswald’s henchman to Galavan’s henchman to Oswald’s henchman all over again

My Girlfriend: Not really a somebody

Penguin is having none of this either and declares that he’s “Shocked” by all this

Me: He is APPALLED that one of the criminals he employs has been committing crimes!

My Girlfriend: next he’s going to find out that one of his hired murderers has been murdering people

But he declares that he wants it known he will prosecute ANYONE who harms Gotham

My Girlfriend: Apart from the serial killer who you had released from Arkham and gave a staff job to

Me: Or the mob hitman you literally have standing RIGHT THERE in front of everyone

Things get even more ridiculous as Tabitha enters the room, knifing a guy to death

Me: Barbara looks genuinely delighted at how this party is going

My Girlfriend: Well she wanted something that would get people talking about the club….

No one’s ever going to forget THIS

Zsasz gets knock out and Butch charges the stage and starts trying to murder Edward right in front of everyone

Me: “MY GOD

THAT MAN IS KILLING SOMEONE RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES!”

My Girlfriend: “LET’S JUST STAND HERE AND WATCH THEM!”

Me: “Trying to intervene or call the cops would just be foolish!”

Barbara’s thoughts on all this?

“BEST

PARTY

EVER”

Me: This is why she’s not allowed to organise parties more often

My Girlfriend: Tabitha would like to be consulted about what she has in mind for their anniversary

Oswald grabs a champagne bottle from Barbara and smashes Butch over the head with it knocking HIM out

My Girlfriend: A LOT of people are getting concussed in this episode

Me: Explains a lot about how they behave in future episodes really

My Girlfriend: “I may have given him brain damage

Fortunately no one will be able to tell”

Barbara holds Tabitha back from going to help….

Me: So…whose side are they on?

My Girlfriend: I think they don’t know anymore than we do

And Penguin drops to his knees beside Edward, sobbing as it looks like he might be dead

Me: “WHY DO ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG!?”

My Girlfriend: “TAKE ME

TAAAAKEEEE MEEEEEEEEEE”

But Edward is alive!

And Penguin reacts with joy and they share quite a lingering look

Me: NOW KISS

Back outside, Bruce and Selina are about to have that talk…

Me: “Sure hope we’re not missing anything crucial to the plot while we’re out here”

My Girlfriend: “I’m sure the party inside will be completely uneventful”

Me: “Your right, what could possibly happen in there that might matter”

Bruce starts by saying that he hired Gordon to look for Ivy and that he found a redhead who had her sweater…but wasn’t her

“Saying it out loud it doesn’t sound that impressive”

Me: “Maybe I shouldn’t have lead with that”

My Girlfriend: “I’m not really sure why I even brought that up”

Selina gets grumpy with him, while also declaring that she’s sure he’s the real Bruce…because no one else “Could be this boring”

Me: :(

There’s no need to be mean Selina

My Girlfriend: Your doing your mom face again, kitten

Me: Well

There’s no need to be so rude and cruel

Bruce says that there’s more he wants to say

Me: “I apologise for how long it’s taking me to say it

We have to pad this scene out”

My Girlfriend: “this episode is in danger of under-running, I need to put as many dramatic pauses into my dialogue as I can”

Bruce talks about how long he and Selina have been friends

Me: Weird damaged friends

My Girlfriend: They could really start a club

And as Selina tells him to get to the point he blurts out that he likes her as more than a friend

Selina gives him A Look

Me: “You like me?

No boys like me!

ARE YOU WEARING A WIRE?!”

My Girlfriend: Legitimately what seems to be going through her head here

Selina asks Bruce how many girls he’s dated and he admits that he hasn’t dated anyone

Me: So are we just forgetting that Silver St Cloud existed?

My Girlfriend: I’d really LIKE to forget that Silver St Cloud existed

Me: GOOD POINT

Let us never speak of her again

Selina suggests that maybe Bruce only thinks he likes because she’s “the only girl you know”

Me: This episode is making it depressingly clear how little Selina likes herself….

My Girlfriend: We can’t adopt her Samantha

She lives in America

And she is fictional

Me: SHE IS SMOL AND SAD AND I DON’T LIKE IT

Bruce says that he and Selina are the same

Me: “We’re both deeply weird people who are wonder going to run around dressed as animals and beat people up”

My Girlfriend: “WE WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER”

Me: “Where else are we going to find a soulmate

Except possibly at a convention for extremely violent furries”

Selina says they’re not alike and Bruce insists that his money doesn’t matter

She angrily tells him to try living without it

My Girlfriend: Hard to fault her on that one

Me: Seriously Bruce

Constantly telling a HOMELESS ORPHAN who has to constantly steal just to barely survive that “Money doesn’t matter” is not a good way to go about wooing her

My Girlfriend: It is NOT doing you any favours

Bruce however insists that Selina HAS to be able to see that there’s something between them

Me: “IT’S IN THE COMICS AND EVERYTHING”

My Girlfriend: “You will go along with this canon mandated romance and you will like it”

Selina however tells Bruce that rule one is to NEVER tell her what to do

And then they kiss

Bruce says that he’s confused and if this means Selina DOES have feelings for him. Her response?

Just to say that it’s good that he’s confused

Me: WELL THAT WAS A LOT OF HELP SELINA

My Girlfriend: This is the LAST time that Bruce ever takes advice on love from Jim Gordon

Me: HE’S EVEN LESS CLEAR WHAT THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS NOW THAN HE WAS BEFORE

My Girlfriend: “Are we dating now?

WHAT IS HAPPENING”

And we cut from this to…Valerie Vale, out with the haematologist?

Me: Oh good

This is what we wanted to know more about

My Girlfriend: Not the aftermath of the Red Hood Nonsense

Not WHAT exactly is going on with Selina and Bruce

No

How is Valerie Vale’s Not Date with a nameless blood expert going

Me: PULSE POUNDING STUFF

Valerie says that she got all dressed up and put on lipstick and so asks to know what’s going on with Alice Tetch’s blood

Me: Is this…REALLY how investigative reporting works?

My Girlfriend: Oh I’m sure this is totally how all Real Journalists get their Big Scoops

The haematologist says that he could lose his job and asks what Valerie is willing to…DO…to get that information

My Girlfriend: THE IMMORAL LECHERY OF HEMATOLOGISTS

Me: Only someone who makes their living studying blood could be such a Base Pervert

My Girlfriend: It is a profession occupied only by the sick and predatory

Valerie suggests that he just nod if one of the things she guesses about Alice Tetch’s blood is correct

Me: Okay how does she NOT notice that this guy is a creep

My Girlfriend: Maybe she’s just desperately trying to ignore it

However Creepy Hematologist gets less and less subtle in his creeping on her and the penny drops

My Girlfriend: “Everything I’ve heard about haematologists is true”

Me: “Yours is a career path that only deviants and monsters undertake!”

But who should show up at that moment but…

Jim Gordon?!?!

My Girlfriend: Okay

How the FUCK did he know where they were

Me: HAS HE BEEN FOLLOWING HER

FOR HOW LONG

Gordon Menacingly Sits at the table, ordering some whiskey and a “Pineapple juice to go” for Creepy Hematologist

Me: NO REALLY HOW DID YOU KNOW WHERE SHE WAS

My Girlfriend: There is no explanation for this that ISN’T creepy

Me: I know the writers clearly intended this to be Nice Guy Jim Gordon saving Valerie from a pervs crude come ons

But all I’m left wondering is how long he’s been stalking her

My Girlfriend: Jim’s beaten up every maitre de in Gotham until he found the one who had Valerie’s restaurant booking

Creepy Hematologist decides to leave…

Me: Jim will hunt him down and beat him to death later

My Girlfriend: In this case I’m not that saddened about it

Me: INDEED

And Valerie asks just what exactly he’s doing…Jim says he was just passing by and saw her there

Me: UH HUH

My Girlfriend: “I was just passing by on my way back from lurking in the bushes outside your house”

Valerie however doesn’t believe this for a second and says that Jim tracked her down there

Me: WHY IS SHE OKAY WITH THIS

In what world

Would ANYONE be okay with this

My Girlfriend: He’s an alcoholic straight white male who owns a gun, has a history of violence and got kicked off the most corrupt police force on the planet

How is this

Not raising EVERY RED FLAG IMAGINABLE

Me: She’d be safer finding a date through Craigslist than she would going out with him

Valerie insists that she could have got what she wanted without “Compromising my honour”

Me: Who talks like that?

My Girlfriend: Some nice internalised slut shaming there

Jim however says that Valerie doesn’t have to talk to Creepy Hematologists because he’ll tell her what she wants to know

My Girlfriend: “Okay

For starters, tell me how the hell you tracked me to this restaurant”

Me: “Anything except that”

But he says that Valerie will have to buy him dinner first

Me: YOU CHEAP BASTARD

My Girlfriend: Jim Gordon is a gold digger

We cut over to Penguin’s Weird Old House, where he’s adorably doting on Edward

Me: Awwwwwwwww

My Girlfriend: How are these two so cute?

Me: They really shouldn’t be

But they are

Oswald explains the drink he’s brought is ginger tea with honey, saying that it was his mothers go-to remedy for a sore throat

Me: “Whenever someone tried to strangle me to death, this is what she’d give me”

My Girlfriend: “It happened fairly frequently

I was an unpopular child”

Oswald wants to know why Edward didn’t tell him what he was doing

Me: “Because I wanted to fool the audience”

My Girlfriend: “I apologise for executing such a clumsy and contrived plot twist”

Edward insists that Oswald’s shock at finding out it was Butch had to be genuine and because it was, he’s once again “The cities hero”

Me: Who heroically threatened to murder a man

Before bashing his brains in with a champagne bottle

My Girlfriend: SUCH NOBILITY

SUCH HONOUR

Oswald however worriedly notes that Edward was almost killed but he says that Oswald saved him “again”

Me: Seriously, everything about this is like…a million times more adorable than the nonsense with Jim Gordon, Nice Guy Stalker

My Girlfriend: The two supervillains have genuinely got a healthier and more loving romance building here than the shows “hero” has had at ANY point

Edward tells Oswald that he would do ANYTHING for him and that he can always count on him

Me: (Singing) “I’d kill anyone

For you dear

Anyone

Yes I’d kill anyone

For yoooouuuuu”

And the two hug and Oswald legitimately looks like he does not even know what to do with these Actual Human Emotions and it is WEIRDLY ADORABLE

My Girlfriend: NO REALLY HOW IS THIS SO CUTE

Me: I never thought that I’d want to hug Oswald Cobblepott but he is legitimately adorable here

My Girlfriend: he looks like he doesn’t know how to deal with having emotions that aren’t to do with revenge or murder

Me: If only this plot was going to end wholesomely, with Edward and Oswald giving up murder and just settling down and being Weird Ex-Supervillain Husbands

My Girlfriend: It’s not though, is it

Me: No one’s allowed to be happy on Gotham Rebecca

EVER

We briefly cut over to Barbara club where Tigress is suited up in her black leather

“Need a hand, kitten?”

Me: AHHHHHH

THEY HAVE THE SAME PET NAME

AS YOU DO FOR ME

My Girlfriend: From the way Barbara is Gayzing at Tabitha in that get up

I think she’d very much like to give her a hand

Me: Or a fist, anyway

And we see that Butch is in an ambulance being taken…somewhere and then cut to Tabitha, on a motorbike, speaking to thin air that she’s coming to save him

Me: Okay so first of all, Tabitha in black leather on a motorbike: YES

My Girlfriend: SO MUCH YES

Me: Second of all: WHY

Is she bothering to try and rescue Butch?

My Girlfriend: because even though she’s got a loving relationship with a gorgeous woman

She still have to have her entire life revolve entirely around a man

Me: OF COURSE

Can’t just have two women be together with no need for a man in their lives at all

My Girlfriend: IT IS NOT ALLOWED

We then cut over to the GCPD where Some Guy is telling Barnes that the ambulance that was carrying Butch was just hijacked!

“DAMN IT!”

Me: “I WOULD HAVE REALLY LIKED TO HAVE SEEN THAT”

My Girlfriend: “YEAH

It probably would have been a very exciting action sequence”

Me: “But probably also very  expensive to do on a network TV show budget”

My Girlfriend: “Oh yes

Extremely expensive”

Some Guy leaves and Barnes says he’ll call the mayor, going for the phone…and realising that he’s STANDING UP

Without his crutch!

Me: “MY GOD

BEING ANGRY HEALS THE INJURED”

My Girlfriend: Why did he stand up, to pick up a phone that’s right there on his desk?

Me: Because they needed to do that reveal

And his face does A Thing as he goes “OH YES” in a…really worrying tone of voice

My Girlfriend: PLS STOP THAT

Me: U ARE DOIN US A CONCERN

My Girlfriend: I told you no doge speak damn it

Me: HE’S GIVING ME A REAL BAD SPOOK

My Girlfriend: I’ll get the pillow again

So before this scene can get any weirder, we go to check in on…our old buddy Jervis Tetch!

Whose abducted a woman and dressed her in the famous “Alice” dress

My Girlfriend: OH GOOD HE’S BACK

I thought this episode was short on Creepy

Me: Between this and Oswald’s Statue Mom, this episode might as well be called The One with So Much Incest Subtext

My Girlfriend: WHY exactly is he obsessed with Alice in Wonderland here?

I mean yes his sister was named Alice but…lots of people are related to an Alice

They don’t dress them up like a storybook character and hold mad tea parties

Me: Why is Ivy obsessed with plants?

Why is Oswald fixated on Umbrellas?

Why the frick is Edward so commited to his Riddle Motif?

NEVER EXPLAINED

My Girlfriend: For a show that’s meant to be about the origins of these characters it’s done a really REALLY bad job at actually explaining why they are the way they are

Jervis creeps around the woman he’s dressed up (And let’s not even get into how damn unsettling that is) and talks about how “They” killed her

She brings up the point that she’s NOT dead…

And Jervis proceeds to slit her throat

My Girlfriend: She walked right into that one

Me: If only she’d not given him such an obvious set up line

Jervis proceeds to gibber away about how those who took Alice from him will face his revenge…as we see him write Jim Gordon’s name on a place card with the dead woman’s blood

Me: USE A PEN, JERVIS

My Girlfriend: The irony is that this is one of the few deaths on this show that CAN’T be blamed on Jim Gordon

Me: Seriously…in what world does Jervis think anyone other than HIMSELF was to blame for Alice’s death?

My Girlfriend: Are you really expecting a man who dresses like the Mad Hatter to have a rational and unbiased view of reality?

And our episode comes to an end!

Me: Nice of Gotham to manage to fit in one pointless murder of a female character before the episodes close there

My Girlfriend: They almost went a whole forty five minutes without killing off any women or minorities

Me: YOU HAD US WORRIED THERE GOTHAM

My Girlfriend: Thank goodness they put in this Very Necessary Scene

Me: So what did we learn this week?

My Girlfriend: JIM GORDON SHOULD NOT GIVE DATING ADVICE

Me: Jim Gordon is the LAST PERSON to give ANY SORT OF ADVICE

My Girlfriend: EVER

Me: We learned that in Gotham you can only be queer if you are a villain

My Girlfriend: We learned that Hematologists are depraved individuals who only want one thing

Me: This wasn’t something we learned but we WERE reminded that Gotham is a city where everyone is Totally Fine with the cities government officials committing cold blooded murder

My Girlfriend: Because who WOULDN’T be fine with that?

Me: Oh and we learned that apparently an entire police force in a major metropolitan area cannot solve a crime but one homicidal weirdo with a riddle obsession can work everything out from the flimsiet of clues

My Girlfriend: Edward Nygma will soon star in his own spin off detective series

#Gotham #DC #Batman #Comics #Samantha and her girlfriend watch Gotham

[dwarven-beard-spores]

Batman Reversal AU

Courtesy of my friend Knives, who has given me permission to post it here.

Bruce Wayne is the serious, hardworking head of the philanthropic and beloved Wayne Enterprises. An orphan since his early teens, Bruce has attempted to make up for his parents’ senseless murder by trying to keep kids out of juvie and improving Gotham’s mental health care and school systems, and working to reduce income inequality. Together with Commissioner James Gordon he tries to prevent crime by reducing the likelihood that it will ever occur, and they are making substantial strides together. 

But his snarky but caring butler Alfred Pennyworth, under his Quintessential British Gentleman exterior, was terribly scarred by the tragedy he saw in young Bruce’s life and the destruction it wrought in his young charge mentally. Clearly if all his wealth and power couldn’t protect him, Alfred reasons, Master Bruce’s well-meaning reforms won’t help the next kid on the business end of a gun.

Wealth, courtesy, and a kind attitude don’t matter when your enemies respect nothing but fear and pain.

So, drawing on his old Royal Marines training and with the help of genius R&D engineer Lucius Foxx (who respects Pennyworth’s crusade but is not heart and soul into it) Pennyworth becomes The Batman, a creature on par with an urban Slenderman among the criminal underworld. Owls were briefly considered for the near-total silence of their flight and the fucking deadliness of their swoop, but Pennyworth went with bats eventually because they nest in flocks in the underhives of Gotham and are a common sight to criminals that they are coming home. 

Pennyworth does not want them to feel at home anywhere.

Using state-of-the-art technology and a shitton of physical ability for a man in his sixties, The Batman says hidden in the dark, prowling for criminals from rooftops and under sewer grates. He could strike anywhere, at any time. (See the “Unsettling Batman” post for what I’m going for here.) 

He visibly stalks people for blocks at a time before striking, throws people from rooftop to rooftop. He swoops down and carries them off to drop them into nonlethal places, sometimes with their stolen loot still in hand. He crawls on walls and emits “screams” of sound just within the audible range to terrify and disorient opponents. His voice is electronically modulated so that not even analyzing equipment can deduce his voiceprint. 

He seeks to first and foremost break criminals’ morale; no matter how good punching them might feel, it’s no good for anyone’s knuckles, and certainly not an old man’s. In combat, he is always reflective and polite. He invariably chooses to save victims rather than pursue the guilty, reasoning that if he deprives criminals of prey there will be no crime left to commit. Finally, the legends whisper that he is unusually protective of poor or homeless children….

Now imagine:

Bruce and Gordon have been in a pointless decades-long crusade against this vigilante Batman, and he is the last blight on the city. The mobs have packed up and gone to Metropolis (rumor has it they’re funded by and up-and-coming corporate raider named Lex Luthor) and petty crime is obsolete in the new clean, safe Gotham. There is no more need for the Batman, although he can occasionally be seen allowing traffic cameras to glimpse blurs of motion, more like the suggestion of motion after the creature has already passed through, to remind people.

And after decades, Bruce and Gordon have finally begun to wonder if they aren’t facing something genuinely supernatural. Alfred looks tired when he brings Bruce dinner, then Bruce is surprised to see him sit down nearby at one of the other chairs. He is shocked when Alfred kindly announces, “Master Bruce, I am old, and neither you nor this city need me any longer. I have decided to retire.” He reaches into his apron and pulls out a pair of Batcuffs. “Master Bruce, I am the Batman.”

And then he handcuffs himself to the chair.

Imagine Bruce’s reaction. 

His shock, betrayal, confusion, heartbreak. 

Gratitude? Anger? Somewhere deep down, understanding? 

And then they have the old conversation you see in every Batman movie ever. 

Why do you have to be Batman, why can’t you just be your normal self, why can’t you let go of this pain, why can’t you be the hero Gotham deserves instead of the one it needs?

Except the script is flipped. Bruce is dark and broody, but shocked and naive and perhaps a little offended, asking Alfred these questions, thinking back to his parents’ murder, and Alfred is gentle, polite, and informative, but full of a deep anger and hurt that will never fully go away. 

Does Bruce turn him in? Does he just fire him and they never meet again? Does Bruce have a family of his own now? How will they be affected if this goes public? And let’s say his young son Tim is listening on the staircase…

#batman #alfred pennyworth #bruce wayne #alfred #batman au #the batman #dc #dc comics #kadet speaking