open/close all folders
Season 5
5x 01 Year Zero
- Mummer pops up in Gordon's police station, coming and going without being seen, leaving behind only a disturbing message. She and Jeremiah are still out there...and they can get to Gordon any time they want.
5x 02 Trespassers
- The "dark zone", a section of Gotham where the power was never restored, leaving it reduced to a Mad Max-level hellhole of warring gangs.
- Exploring a basement in a seemingly abandoned building, Bullock finds evidence of murder - watches, gold teeth, burnt bones, wedding rings still on the fingers - literally everywhere. And then Mother, in her creepy doll mask, jumps him from out of the darkness.
- Ivy has turned a park into a Garden of Evil, with corpses wrapped up in vines that are slowly devouring them.
- The plant from Ivy that Bruce gives to Selina seems to have cured her of her paralysis but from what Ivy mentioned before and the last shot of Selina eyes the cost might be too great.
5x 03 Penguin, Our Hero
- The Dark Zone continues to be the most nightmarish section of Gotham. The first thing Bruce and Selena encounter is a panicked old man running for his life. They consider helping him, but then they notice that he's got a bomb taped to him. Then he explodes right in front of them, scattering nails everywhere. If they hadn't taken shelter behind a car, they'd most likely be dead or horribly maimed.
- Then they meet the people responsible — the Gotham version of the Mutants, a gang of utter psychopaths who kill people for fun and like to carve the word "kill" into their victims' flesh over and over.
- Once they reach Jeremiah's territory, Bruce and Selena meet Ecco again, and she's fully transformed into Gotham's version of Harley Quinn. We see what this kind of character would be without Harley's trademark charm and zaniness: a terrifying, fanatical lunatic. The "initiation" she puts hopeful Jeremiah followers through is a game of Russian Roulette that only half of them survive. And that includes her: she apparently still has a bullet rattling around somewhere in her skull.
- Selina's Sanity Slippage as she becomes more and more obsessed with finding Jeremiah and getting revenge.
- The Paranoia Fuel ignites with the climax to this episode. First someone shoots down the Wayne Enterprises chopper with a rocket launcher, and now someone bombs Haven, completely destroying it. None of the usual suspects had either the means or opportunity to pull it off; Penguin admitted he'd have no reason to deny it if he had. Someone unknown, and very well-equipped, is operating in Gotham, and they are targeting Jim Gordon's faction.
- More than likely they're also the same heavily-armed force we see assaulting Gordon's position in the future prologue of "Year Zero." But who, exactly, are they? Well, let's see: what member of Batman's Rogues Gallery has the backstory that would justify that level of private military power, and more importantly, hasn't shown up yet but definitely will before the end of the season? Bane.
5 X 04 Ruin
- The aftermath of the Haven attack. Jim eventually reports that 311 people died, 49 were injured, and at least 2 dozen are still unaccounted for.
- Selina repeatedly stabbing Jeremiah as revenge for shooting and crippling her to hurt Bruce is bad enough. What's worse is that he begins to taunt her as she does it before she finally shuts him up for good. Even seeing his body, the audience knows his "death" is unlikely to last longer than an episode or so because of the trailers.
- Riddler throwing the wheelchair lady out her own window.
- Near the end of the episode, Gordon demonstrates how scary he can be when he's at the end of his rope. Zsasz gloats that Gotham will never be the city that Gordon wants it to be, that it will always belong to criminals and killers like him. Gordon immediately tells Harvey to give Zsasz his gun, so they can finally have it out in an old-fashioned shootout. Both Harvey and Zsasz are profoundly disturbed when it becomes clear that Jim's not joking. Zsasz actually backs down.
5 X 05 Pena Dura
- Riddler gets put through the wringer this episode:
- A family of hillbillies straps him into a makeshift electric chair and plans to slowly torture him to death.
- He finds out that he's being controlled via a chip embedded in his brain.
- Strange operating on him to fix said chip by opening up his skull while he's fully conscious.
- The way Ed's eyes roll back into his skull whenever said chip activates looks incredibly creepy.
5 X 06 13 Stitches
- Walker and Eduardo make it clear they intend to simply kill anyone in Gotham they consider a criminal, and to hell with any innocent people who get in their way.
- Selina taking the fingers off a couple of goons who attack her. Penguin looks thoroughly freaked out by the sight of them.
- This is reversed when Penguin executes Magpie when she tries to steal from him again, and also not so subtly threatens Selina with the same if she crosses him.
5 X 07 Ace Chemicals
- Jeremiah's chemical weapons, which cause the victims to suffocate to death while their faces turn purple and bloated.
- Jeremiah's latest insane scheme? Kidnap random people, have them surgically altered to look like Thomas and Martha Wayne and get Jervis to hypnotize them into truly believing they are Bruce's parents (and Alfred accepting it all). Then murder them in front of Bruce to let him feel that pain all over again.
5 X 08 Nothing's Shocking
- The C-plot features Bruce and Alfred trying to rescue a man who's been abducted into the sewers by another man who's been mutated and driven insane by Jeremiah's chemicals. Cue a vicious attack in dark, cramped tunnels, straight out of a horror movie.
- Jane Cartwright/Doe is made of nightmare fuel, being able to take on anyone's appearance with just a touch, with no way of knowing she's done it until she attacks.
- We're treated to a graphic scene of Jane rearranging the bones in her hand to escape her handcuffs, complete with icky sound effects.
5 X 09 The Trial of James Gordon
- Some of Gordon's hallucinations while hovering near death are downright disturbing, including the jury of people who died at Haven, the wake being held for him by all his enemies, and the part where he's being electrocuted.
- His hallucination of Lee holding a baby, heavily implied to be the child they lost when Lee miscarried; she ends up dropping the baby onto the concrete floor with a cold expression. Even knowing it's a hallucination, it's enough to make viewers flinch.
5x 11 They Did What?
- The Riddler's Motive Rant where he not only demonstrates how sociopathic he's become - claiming he felt not a thing for the men and woman he fought beside to keep Gotham safe, and that he only saved it to take it himself - but with a few well-chosen barbs about how Gordon will only ever see Penguin as Fish's umbrella boy, reawakens Penguin's darker side as well. After the two have demonstrated how genuinely heroic they can be in the same episode, it's a frightening reminder of how dangerous the two actually are.
- In addition, just as in seasons 2 and 4, the Riddler discourses at length to a mirror - but this time, there's no other personality answering him, indicating the good Ed personality has finally been dispelled for good.
- Nyssa's behavior towards Barbara's baby during the episode. Nyssa tells Barbara that after Gotham has been wiped out, she's going to kill her and take her baby to raise her as an al Ghul.
5x 12 The Beginning...
- If you're a Gotham criminal, this episode marks the beginning of your worst nightmare. Some mysterious thing is terrorizing Gotham street gangs, moving like a shadow just out of view. When it finally makes itself known, it goes straight for the throat, taking out Riddler and Penguin, Gotham's two most powerful crime bosses, like they were nothing at all - terrifying them into complacency afterwards - and then curbstomping the monstrous Jeremiah with very little effort. Even those who know this is just a man in a costume are still too afraid to confront him. He's less a man as he is a presence throughout the episode, bringing a reckoning to Gotham's underworld. Criminals beware. The Dark Knight has come.
- Then there's Jeremiah's new look, though it's also awesome. Not only does he have his signature permanent rictus grin, but his eyes are sunken and bloodshot, and his complexion is cracked and leathery.
- The sheer terror Bullock displays when he gets roped into Jeremiah's plot. Jeremiah is an Evil Genius who seemingly has the whole town wired. Bullock's afraid to even speak his name out loud.
