Gotham 01×16 – The Blind Fortune Teller (SPOILERS)
SPOILERS
I know, I know. I’m late. And this is going to be a short one because my brain just isn’t working right now, and I still also have to do the Face Off review, and I’m just like “UGH”.
Honestly, seeing the previews for this episode with hints of seeing The Joker, I didn’t know how to feel. I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t go there, but it was actually kind of cool, and the kid they cast was actually pretty perfect. And DING DING MOTHERFUCKERS was his dad!!!!! Hector Salamaca FTW. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Mark Margolis was in Breaking Bad, and if you haven’t watched Breaking Bad – what’s wrong with you?)
Jim and Lee go on a date to the circus where we see a glimpse of the Flying Graysons before Dick Grayson is born. A fistfight breaks out between the acrobats and the clowns because they have a Montague and Capulet thing going on over a horse that was stolen before World War I. Yep, those clan feuds are usually started over dumb shit. But not mine. The Campbells vs. the MacDonalds started because the Campbells betrayed us. BETRAYED US. Scots don’t forgive that shit.
Anyway, they wind up finding a dead body – the snake dancer. Gordon uses her ADORABLE boa constrictor as a scent dog, and it’s so cute. I was squeeing like it was a fluffy kitten (I love snakes), but my dad was squirming in his chair. The snake finds her owner, who is also the mother of Jerome, and he’s very sad (but he’s actually just a very good actor). So, GCPD becomes a circus as Gordon brings in everyone. Bullock’s reaction is priceless. Mark Margolis comes in. He’s a blind ‘psychic’, and gives a clue about Satan’s servant in the garden of the Iron Sisters. Lee figures it out (Gordon wants nothing to do with psychics), and they find a bloody hatchet in a park under the Arkham bridge. It’s got some Satanic Hellfire Club markings etched on it, but that doesn’t fool Gordon.
He brings in Mark Margolis, and calls him out on protecting someone, and planting that evidence. Turns out that he’s protecting dear Jerome, who actually killed his mother, and he’s also Jerome’s father (hence why he went to so much trouble to protect him). Jerome acts all sad, and then starts laughing. He goes into full-on sociopath mode without a twinge of remorse for hacking up his ‘whore’ mother because she nagged him too much. So, I’m pretty certain he’s off to Arkham for a while. The last laugh that the actor gave was just SO JOKER. So, is this like the ten millionth origin story of the Joker? I kind of like that he was pretty much born bad. It’s a different take than falling into chemicals or whatever. He’s just FUCKED.
Sidestories! Oswald sucks at running the club, so Victor Zsasz shows up with Butch (I thought he was dead!). Butch has been in Victor’s care in his basement for a couple of weeks, and now will do anything you tell him. He’s so broken, or really good at faking. But I’m pretty sure he’s broken, because Zsasz’s basement is NOT a place I’d want to be for two weeks. I bet that’s one damn scary basement.
Fish has her group organized, and she calls the bluff of the people ‘caring’ for them. Props to the dude who lets himself get beaten to death for the greater cause. After all, if you’re harvesting peoples’ organs, you kind of need them alive… and better cared for, I imagine. Organs start acting funny if you don’t give them proper food and such. Dumb organ harvesters. So, after this, Fish gets to meet the ‘manager’, who I bet is from Wayne Enterprises or something.
… BECAUSE, they all look guilty as FUCK when Bruce calls a board meeting to ask questions about the bad shit they’ve been doing. At first they’re all like “awww, he’s so cute in his little suit and tie”, but then they get all uncomfortable and couldn’t look innocent if their lives depended on it.
And then a stumble-drunk Barbara comes back to her apartment, and doesn’t even seem phased that Selina and Ivy are still hanging out there. She just kind of lets them stay. Junkie decision making is the best kind of decision making. She should see if Mark Margolis can hook her up with some blue meth. She then goes to the cop shop to find Jim making out with Leslie, and she’s all horrified and betrayed looking. I kind of think she has ZERO RIGHT to be mad, since she’s the one who ditched him, and then went and fucked someone else. Hypocrisy! Plus, I like Leslie better.
I was worried about this episode, since I didn’t really want them to ‘go there’ with the Joker, but I was pleasantly surprised. I’d give it a solid 8.
