Gotham 01×14 – The Fearsome Dr. Crane (SPOILERS)
SPOILERS
I’m already excited about the title. We start with a poor bastard who’s suspended off a tall building (and is obviously afraid of heights), He’s then dropped off the building on a rope with a doctor watching on.
We then go to Maroni’s restaurant. They’re celebrating (premature), and Fish calls Maroni and blabs about Penguin. I was wondering when they were going to sort this out. Maroni decides to take Penguin on a road trip, which I’m sure will be highly unpleasant.
The cops find the body on the roof, and Edward has to be warned that he’s not supposed to be doing medical exams on bodies, and that he’s got official complaints against him from the M.E. (and he later gets suspended because he literally gets caught with his hand in a corpse) The Captain also warns Bullock that him and Gordon will have to watch their backs because Flass had a lot of friends, and they DID arrest him and all. Gordon’s got ‘personal stuff’, which means visiting Barbara’s apartment to drop off his keys. He catches Selina there, and she tells him what she so cruelly told Bruce last week – that she lied about seeing his parents’ murder. She then parkours outta there.
Gordon goes to visit Bruce, and Bruce politely tells him to get the fuck out, and that he’ll investigate his parents’ murder on his own, releasing Gordon from responsibility for pretty much sucking at his job. Alfred warns Gordon not to try to talk Bruce out of it, and that he’ll look after things.
We now have Maroni driving into the scene of a horror movie, a cabin in the woods. Where are the redneck inbred killers, or the secret organization run by people trying to sacrifice people to their evil gods? Maroni all but says ‘don’t worry, your food’s not poisoned’ as they have a very horror movie dinner. Look out Penguin, you’re at Camp Crystal Lake! And he totally knows he’s in trouble.
“Don’t be an ass” should be a motto that everyone says while dealing with Bullock. A woman named Ms. Mullins comes in who knew the victim coins the perfect phrase when he’s about to make fun of her phobia support group. Bullock’s got the hots for her, and it makes him actually want to do work and follow tiny leads.
Only in Gotham will you have a guy walking down the street insidiously petting a piglet (and it’s sooooo cute!). Apparently this is a phobia of someone, and he runs straight into a dude with a stun gun. I guess his fear really is pigs (and not just dudes petting pigs like they’re Bond villains), because after Gordon and Bullock have a little guy talk about relationships, they find the frightened guy tied to a chair and have to shoot a dude wearing a pig mask. I’m getting Manhunt flashbacks (man, I love that video game). Still not the weirdest crime scene Gotham’s ever seen.
Back at the Gotham Horror Movie set, Penguin’s in full paranoia mode, and Maroni’s all but put on the Michael Myers mask. They start playing a ‘secrets’ game, and we learn that Penguin hates oatmeal (OMG REALLY???? He actually said that?!), and the whole Fish calling Maroni thing. Penguin’s secret is that he took Maroni’s gun. Too bad it’s filled with blanks. Penguin strikes out AGAIN. He’s still got a long way to go to become one of Gotham’s biggest crime bosses.
Gordon then has the shortest date in history with Thompkins because the pig guy woke up, and he said he was attacked by two men. Bullock uses the opportunity to see the lovely Ms. Mullins at the phobia group. He makes fun of phobics again (“Don’t be an ass”), and Ms. Mullins admits to being afraid of swimming pools. Harvey doesn’t admit to a specific phobia, and then meets the doctor of petting piglets without even knowing it. I guess if I were going to be a victim of this guy, he’d have to get me pregnant while dressed as a clown, since clowns and pregnancy are my two big phobias.
Maroni’s got Penguin in a junkyard, and he’s about to take a trip to Car Cube Town. He tries to snivel his way out of it, saying that he can still be useful, but Maroni’s not listening to him anymore. Oswald calls Maroni from within the car, and then calls Duffy, the guy who’s currently crunching him into a Jill Sandwich (sorry, been playing a lot of Resident Evil). He threatens him with Don Falcone, since he is still more powerful than Maroni. It works, and Maroni’s left with his wiener blowing in the wind.
We also have a couple interludes with the very bad at being suspended Edward Nygma. He visits Miss Kringle, and then breaks into the locker room and puts body parts into the M.E.’s locker. He gets caught with an armful of arms, hands, and legs, and all he can think to say is ‘it’s not what it looks like’. Oh Edward, date me.
Bullock’s in the phobics group. He’s afraid of dying alone in a gutter while his murderer loots his corpse, and OMG the doctor is Julian Sands!!!!! He’s deathly afraid of failure (I have that one too), and he says he’s passing it onto his son. So, this isn’t Jonathan Crane. It must be his dad. Who fakes out a breakdown so Ms. Mullins will go after him. He’s totally kidnapping her right under Harvey’s nose. Harvey may be a crass drunk, but he’s not dumb, so he realizes something is wrong when they don’t come back for a while. So, he’s gotta find a swimming pool, quick! They find the one that she nearly drowned in as a girl, and we get a glimpse of Jonathan Crane (who becomes The Scarecrow) as a teenager. He’s aware of what his father is doing, but isn’t quite on board with the whole thing yet. Give him 15 years. He’ll be on board.
Bullock and Gordon come in time to save the girl, but not the day. The Elder Dr. Crane escapes. Penguin also escapes Car Cube Town, and is discovered by some nice church-going black ladies. They let him on their bus back to Gotham, and he pouts in the back, plotting revenge.
Dr. Thompkins shows up at the station to say that the adrenal glands have been removed (and that Dr. Crane is still out there to steal more of them), and he offers her a job because of the whole M.E. and the body parts thing (and Edward’s got his job back!). They kiss for everyone to see, and everyone’s like ‘ooooooooooh!’ (at least, that’s how I imagined it in my head).
