Gotham 5x8 : Nothing's Shocking review

Be warned there will be *SPOILERS* involved in this review. With that being said let's get into it.

Y'know there is times that I absolutely adore Gotham. Not only for how creative and original it can get but for it's characters. On the other hand there is times where it really pushes the source material so far and so strangely that it gets on my nerves. This episode unfortunately does the later. Beginning at the Sirens club we see 2 men enter the club only to be greeted by Barbara who tells them that they better have some good intel for her or they can go drink elsewhere. They give her some intel and she agrees for them to get a drink..between them. Inside the two guys are greeted by another man who we learn is an old friend of theirs named Dick's. What I didn't expect however was how not seconds later Dick's knifes them both before running off leaving them for dead. Barbara calls Jim & Gordon soon after and Harvey identifies both men. They are both cops and after getting info on someone named Dick's Barbara informs Harvey. Turns out Dick's was Harvey's old partner when he was first starting to become a cop. Now? well he's been paralyzed and wheelchair bound for the last number of years. Gordon and Bullock go pay him a visit and it looks like he's about to skip town which raises their suspicions. A knock on the door soon follows and it's Dick's?? or is it? as Gordon goes for the person he pulls it's face off. Back at the GCPD Bullock mentions Basil being the culprit which is an obvious nod to Basil Karlo aka Clayface. But it's not him. It's a new character introduced to Gotham. Jane Doe. A former patient of Indian Hill who can transform and adapt into people much like a chameleon can change and shed it's skin. Complete with a white mask she has been the one pretending to be Dick's and who killed the two cops at the beginning of the episode. It's later revealed that she's doing all this because of an old case involving Harvey, Dick's and the other 2 cops she killed at the beginning. Back at the GCPD and after being captured Jane Doe whose real name is Jane Cartwright gets interviewed by Gordon and says maybe he ought to look at Harvey's background. Jane breaks confinement and after transforming into Harvey takes Dick's into one of the back rooms and murders him by choking him out. There really is murder everywhere in this episode.

But the real highlight of the episode? well that would be the return of Mr Penn who brings a little friend with him. The dummy Scarface. Complete with comic like accuracy the duo show up as Penguin and Riddler are arguing over the building of their submarine. Riddler seems to be doing all the work while Penguin just scoffs off. Oswald gets a major shock however as Arthur Penn walks into the room with a briefcase. Inside the case of course if Scarface and the dummy comes to life with the help of Arthur. Penguin keeps calling him Arnold by mistake which I assume is a nod to the original Ventriloquist Arnold Wesker. Mr Penn tells him what happened after he got shot earlier in the season. He says he woke up in the GCPD morgue stiched himself back together as best as he could and ended up in a magic shop. This is where he found the Scarface dummy and he helped him see what Penguin did to him. Penguin made Mr Penn the dummy giving him many tasks with little rewards. Penn pulls out a gun and shoots one of Penguin's goon's who had been helping him and Ed with the submarine plans. He turns the gun on Penguin and says he can go but Ed can stay as he's the real brains. So what's Scarface's real goal you might ask? well he wants to be the boss of Gotham and along with Mr Penn wants all of Penguin's treasure that he has locked away below City Hall. Penguin manages to outsmart the duo however and while struggling on the ground turns the gun on Scarface before blowing his wooden head off. Mr Penn overcome with a giant sense of relief welcomes what has just happened but is too shot in the head by none other than The Riddler who tells Penguin that he was a madman that needed to be killed. I really did love the interaction between Scarface, Ed, and Penguin. Mr Penn was the perfect version of this show's Ventriloquist. The downside however is that Scarface was completely destroyed by the gunshot. Which means he will probably never interact with Batman in the future. I know this is me nitpicking but it's just so silly. Now of course Scarface can be remade but I just hate it when Gotham does things like this. Bringing in such cool and interesting characters only to either kill them off right away or do very little with like Mr Freeze, Firefly and others. And what's even more frustrating is that the same thing happens two times in this episode. Two villains get erased in the episode that we first meet them. Yes I know there's a lot less time this season with only 12 episodes but I'd much rather they didn't introduce these characters and focus on what they have rather than doing stuff like this. The characters deserve better and we as an audience deserve better overall.

The episode ends with Harvey going to see Jane Doe to finish things once and for all. He goes to her old home and the two talk. She removes her mask to reveal her face which I expected to be all disfigured but it's not. She says this doesn't end until one of them is dead and just as she says the word dead she gets shot by Harvey in the stomach falling onto a nearby bed. Back at the GCPD Harvey tells Jim everything and while Jim can't give him forgiveness he says he's content with him just knowing what he done in the past and what happened because of his actions. So by the sounds of it you're probably thinking this episode isn't all that bad right? well you'd be highly wrong in my opinion. Not only did it feature murder at every corner, we were introduced to villains 2 that are Batman's future foes in Scarface and Jane Doe and one who I can once again only assume is Killer Croc who appears in the sewers after Alfred and Bruce go to investigate. I appreciate that he was still very much human but he looked more like a zombie more than anything else. The episode overall just didn't suffice and felt rushed, didn't flow well at all and offered nothing in terms of the narrative going forward. After 2 previous excellent weeks Gotham's quality declines once more. With not long to go now I hope we get a fine ending to this show because it deserves that at the very least. 

★★