TV - Gotham Season 1, Episode 7

Steve Taylor-Bryant takes another delve into the criminal underbelly of Gotham City with this week’s episode, Penguin's Umbrella...

With the revelation last week that Harvey Cobblepot was indeed alive, you just knew that Jim Gordon was going to have a very bad day! It's not just Gordon though, blood pressure is rising across the city, none more so than Fish Mooney, who is livid and wants to torture the Penguin. Gordon escapes a beating from Bullock and returns home to find Mooney's henchmen threatening Barbara. He shoots one henchman and escapes the other, convincing Barbara to leave Gotham whilst he carries out his plan. He returns to the GCPD determined to continue as a Detective and, much to the Captain's amazement, decides he is going to arrest the Mayor and Don Carmine Falcone. Falcone though has sent a henchman of his own to bring in Gordon and face off between Jim and Victor Zsasz. Gordon is wounded in a shootout and rescued from certain death by the MCU Detectives that started all this, Montoya and Allen, who take him to the University Laboratory to be patched up as hospital would be too risky.

After talking to Bruce Wayne and Alfred and introducing Montoya and Allen as the cops worth trusting, Gordon teams up with a reluctant Bullock again, who thinks they are mad but is in for the ride and the Mayor is arrested.

Meanwhile Falcone wants Penguin back but Don Sal Moroni doesn’t want to give up his secret weapon. Falcone has Moroni's gun running operation held up and revenge is planned, with Penguin heading up a team to take down a Falcone drug den. During the fire fight Nikolai is killed, one of Falcone's heads alongside Mooney.

Moroni's own number two, Frankie, is very suspicious of Cobblepot and decides enough is enough and plans on taking the weird man out but his plan backfires as his own crew hold him still after being offered more money by Cobblepot and the Penguin kills Frankie with a knife. A truce meeting is called between the two Dons with Falcone gifting Cobblepot to Moroni in return for some land, a disused area near the asylum that Cobblepot suggested to Moroni he wouldn’t need.

After handcuffing the Mayor, Gordon and Bullock make their way into Falcone's mansion to arrest him but find he has Zsasz holding Barbara hostage after she returned to Gotham to be with Jim. Finally an agreement is reached and Bullock, Gordon, and Barbara being released unharmed, much to the anger of Zsasz who likes to kill people. After everything has calmed down, Falcone retires to his rain sodden garden to feed his chickens when an umbrella wielding Penguin sneaks up to the coop. But this is not an assassination and the two men embrace and remember when they first met. The flashback shows Cobblepot begging Falcone for his execution to be handed to Gordon who he believed would let him go and he would return to Gotham and work his way into the Moroni family and report back to Falcone. If Falcone agreed then Cobblepot would tell him a secret that would help him with the future of his organisation - Mooney and Nikolai are lovers plotting his demise!

A lot happened this week as some stories were tied up nicely but they then led to future story arcs being started and this is what a television show should be. The double crossing Penguin is my favourite person to watch on television at the moment and long may Robin Lord Taylor rule the roost. Nikolai is now out of the equation and we learned that Falcone knows of Fish Mooney's plan to topple him, which will be interesting to see develop. Moroni now only has one right-hand man in the shape of Cobblepot and don’t be surprised if the land Cobblepot suggested Moroni give away to Falcone comes into play in future episodes. Bullock softening on Gordon and deciding to help him showed a great change in their relationship and, whilst I don’t for one minute expect Bullock to stop being corrupt, having Gordon's hands untied even slightly will allow future storylines to flourish.

Superb, just absolutely superb television.

Image - IMDb.