•Penguin's idea of what makes a club fun is putting his aging mother on stage.
•He killed SO MANY PEOPLE so his mom could do Karaoke. Also the immigrant dream.
•Why is Gotham's nightlife scene all ironic hipster punks. "Yeah bro let's like, spike our hair and watch this old lady cover the standards."
•That said, the costume and makeup design for the extras in this scene is absolutely spectacular. Hands up if you want to shop Gotham's wardrobe trailer.
•We're giving the first-ever Gotham Recap Sassy Extra Award to the waiter over Penguin's shoulder, who KNOWS what's about to happen to that heckler and is like "Gurl, you fucked up."
•Barbara is not only rich (welcome back, Babs!), she is "fuck it, two homeless children broke into my apartment, let's give them peanut butter" rich. Life goals.
•Jim is so disappointed that his circus visit ended in a clown fight. Look at his face, he's devastated. Clowns bring joy, not pain :( :( :(
•But bless Jim for giving us the moment at which the circus, yes the whole circus, is under arrest.
•Lee is so enthusiastic about the circus murder, I wish I was that enthusiastic about anything but no, I'm "dead inside" and "not Morena Baccarin."
•"I should end our date early to go find this other woman, who dances with snakes." - Jim, who does not deserve his girlfriend.
•ENTER: the Jerome-Joker. The Jeroker?
•"Your mom's a slut, son, we all know it." Sir, you paint your mustache on with eyeliner. Check your lipstick before you come for anyone's private life.
•Jim wants to let the snake out. Let. the. snake. out. snake out. f̗̼͉͙̳̹̖͍̺̟̿͗̀̀͆̈́͐̇̚͝ǫ̘̟͙̯̯̘̭̩̞͋̑͊̈̀͑͌̄͂͠l̛̲͖̘͍̰͍͎͙͊̏̾̈́͌̔̓̀͘͜ͅl̜̙̤̹̪̖̳̫͈̣̅̈́̃̂̈́̿̈́̚̕͝ở̘̼̬̙̦̘̬̪͔͉̂͐̔͌̓͐̑̿w̤̺͍̭̜͈̳͖͇̰͌̅͒̾̔́̋̓̄̅ ̮̫͍̬̲͓͔̳͆̍̂̀̒̋̏̆̋̓ͅͅț̨̡̡̘̻̬̩̮̺́͆͌͊͂̌͘̕͝͝h̢̛̺͎̪͍͚̭͕̮̆͛́̑̈́̃̐̚̕ͅe̛̥̭͖͖̲̰̲͕̟̘͛͆̌͒̔̈́̎͘̕ ̧͕̜̟̫̗̱͈͚̼̉͋̎̓̏̈̊̈́͆͑s̹̘̖͕̣̲̻̭̟͖̋̅͛̅̃̐͌̚͝͠ñ̢̢̗͓̣̞̮͔͎͖͂̀̈͐̽̀͐̔̕ä̡̧̻͔̪̖̲̭͚͓́̽̌̄͊͋̾̚̚͝ķ̜̘͔̝̣̟̩̈́͐̓̍͑̊͊̈́͝͝ͅͅẻ̛̝̗̥͍̺̳̖̰͖̪͑́̋̑̐̚̚͝
•OK SO. Fish is standing on a man right now, which if I'm not messing up my African history is a shoutout to Queen Nzinga of Ndongo. This lady was a badass, much like Fish Mooney, and when she was called to speak for her people in front of the Portuguese emissary she wasn't given a chair to sit on. Nzinga wasn't about to let some dudebro tell her she wasn't equal with him though, so according to legend she had her servant get down on all fours and conducted her meeting sitting on his back. Like a BOSS. This has been African history throwback time with the Gotham recappers. As you were.
•Funny how an entire circus invading Gotham PD is only the fourth weirdest thing we've seen happen in the station so far this season. (top three: entire building becomes electric because science, sex worker turns into calcium jello, skinhead + girl band tell everyone to leave and go HAM on Jim Gordon)
•"Sex is a healthy human activity," says Jerome, who will one day brainwash a doctor into becoming his gun-toting sexpuppet.
•"I'm the new shot-caller," says Fish. Congratulations ma'am, you are now the King of the Rats. In space. She's in space, right, that's the only explanation for this.
•Fish kisses the dead guy on the forehead, which we're previously seen Penguin do to his victims. Is he emulating her? Huh.
•Captain Reyes is ten-thousand percent done with Jim Gordon. She goes home every night, put a pack of frozen peas on her stress headache, and tells her family all the shit he did that day. "I swear to God, he let a snake loose and arrested the circus. I'm not making this up."
•Lee Thompson is pretty punk rock. She's down for anything. Psychics, murder, who cares? This is Gotham. She's genre-savvy, for sure.
•We say this every time but please stop letting Bruce do things. He's a small boy, so gentle, so traumatized. He has poor decision-making skills and is only just beginning his bat-puberty. Give him time. He is 12.
•The scene with Barbara trying on outfits for Ivy and Selina is great, but it gets better when you realize that this is Poison Ivy and Catwoman making sure that, at some point in the future, Batgirl happens.
•They're going to rue this day for the rest of their lives. "Why didn't we let her pick the blue fringe?" they'll whine while running from Batgirl across some rooftop, "this never would have happened if we let her pick that damn blue fringe." (point of clarification: Barbara is semi-destined to marry Jim and become Batgirl's mother)
•Jim and Lee are on another date that ends abruptly because of crime, and Jim is starting to get antsy about it.
•Lee also just called Jim out on never wanting his girlfriends to leave their apartments. See, genre-savvy!
•The Hellfire Club on the hatchet is likely a shoutout to Sleepy Hollow, which is pretty cool. I see you, Fox writers.
•New drinking game rule: drink every time Jim awkwardly avoids saying the word "sex."
•Jerome says that his father was a "sea captain." A captain of the sea. What was his ship? The S.S. Ocean.
•"Your mother was a cruel woman," says Cicero. Not unlike...the sea.
•IT'S JOKER TIME!
•Life Hack: If you don't want your son to be a psychopath who grows up to become the Clown Prince of Crime, don't ask him to do the dishes while banging circus performers in the next room. Coming soon to BuzzFeed DIY.
•Is Joker really mad about his mother's sex life? Like dye-your-hair-green, kill-everyone, and mangle-your-face-mad? This is why America needs comprehensive sex education!
•Lee also calls Jim out on him not knowing many women. Since this was a Harvey-lite episode, it's safe to say that Lee is us. We are Lee.
•"VERONICA NO," Betty/Barbara seeing Jim kissing a brunette.
•Nothing on this show could have prepared me for the abject horror that is Victor Zsasz's laugh. Oh my god. They ended the sequence on his laugh, cut to commercial, and BROUGHT THE SHOW BACK on his laugh I'm going insane.
•"I worked on him in my basement for a couple of weeks." OK stop. Let's think about this for a second. We now know that Victor has some kind of torture dungeon where he psychologically breaks people until they bend unquestionably to his will. Question: is that how he uh, "makes" his henchwomen? They do everything he says, to the point of not ever talking, getting shot, murdering people, and also they dress to match him. That's creepy. More than creepy.
•Does that mean that Victor also styles his henchwomen though, because that's hilarious. "Come on babes, we're going to go kill some shit, I already picked out your outfits for when we show up together — seriously trust me this is gonna look so fucking cool."
•"If we have a son, we'll name him Gordon," says Robin's future dad, while Robin's mom seems to think that's a terrible idea and proceeds to name their son Dick. Kay.
•Wayne Enterprises is getting their ass handed to them by a little boy and I take back everything I said about not letting Bruce out of the house.
•Back on track, Butch better be faking this brainwashing thing because I NEED him to have Fish's back. Team Butch!
•Final point: Fish is in space jail but managed to find a scarf to keep her weave on point. That's true power, and also somebody on the Gotham costume team knows what to do with black hair. Doesn't get much better than that.
Violent clowns? Bruce acting like a boss? GRAYSONS? I can't wait another second to check out the—
Until then — keep punching that clown!
