Recap / Gotham S 3 E 14 The Gentle Art Ofmaking Enemies

Directed by Louis Shaw Milito

Written by Seth Boston, Megan Mostyn Brown, & Tze Chun

The night of madness continues, with Jerome kidnapping Bruce Wayne and bringing him to his circus of horrors. Meanwhile, Ed finally has Oswald right where he wants him, and he finally moves to take his revenge.

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• Anguished Declaration of Love: When Ed gets Oswald to confess to killing Isabella, Oswald finally admits his love for Ed. Ed counters by saying that love is selfless, unlike what Oswald claimed. By the end of the episode, Oswald comes to understand.
• Attention Whore: Bruce knows that Jerome is this, and buys time by asking Jerome why he would kill him without an audience there to witness it.
• Big Damn Heroes: Jim gets to Wayne Manor in time to save Alfred from Jerome's goons.
• Blofeld Ploy: After applying some makeup around Bruce's eyes, Jerome appears to threaten him with a knife, then kills a random follower to use his blood for Bruce's "frown".
• Bond Villain Stupidity:
  • Subverted. Ed finally has Oswald in a Death Trap, and walks away instead of waiting for Oswald to die. This allows Oswald to talk a guard into helping him escape. However, even this apparent finishing move was part of a deeper strategy before Edward really killed Oswald.
  • Jerome also falls into this trap, when Bruce taunts him into not killing him - without a cheering crowd watching - while at the mansion. Even as Jerome openly admits he knows Bruce is trying to talk his way out of certain death, Jerome also knows he does need that audience, giving Bruce a chance to fight back.
• Circus of Fear: Jerome takes Bruce to one. The citizens of Gotham, freed from their inhibitions, have fallen decidedly into two categories: the victims and the vicious. The entire "appeal" of the circus is in its violence - people playing Whack-a-Mole with victims, victims getting plunged into a dunk tank filled with piranhas, victims being the targets in baseball toss, etc. Bruce is nearly executed on stage in front of cheering people, and then of course, there's a house of mirrors...
• Cue the Sun: The rising sun peering through all the windows signals the end of Jerome's night of terror.
• Death Glare: Just before literally beating Jerome's face in, Bruce fixes him with a wicked one of these. Guess who was just born.
• Devilish Hair Horns: Jerome, who normally has this once an episode, has it especially noticeably here, with the tips of his red hair sticking up like devil horns when he's at his most violent.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Court of Owls is horrified by the actions of Jerome's followers.
• Facial Horror: Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse from last week, Jerome's face is apparently falling off in places and he has to staple it on even more. Then he and Bruce fight, and Bruce punches him until his face is sagging off. Jim gets the final punch in, sending Jerome's face flying into a puddle of water.
• Face Palm: Penguin, when Butch and Tabitha descend into a lover's quarrel while in the middle of threatening to kill him. Barbara also can't help but roll her eyes.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Jerome throws away his gun in the house of mirrors, Bruce can be seen in the reflection behind him, preparing to attack.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Inverted. Jerome wears a white straitjacket with a black hat and Bruce wears his usual black turtleneck with a little bit of white face paint.
• Hall of Mirrors: Much like that climactic scene in The Killing Joke, Bruce and Jerome wind up in the circus's house of mirrors, except here their roles are reversed: Bruce is the prey (initially) and Jerome is the hunter. Using the mirrors and his training, Bruce gets the jump on Jerome, beats him, and makes the fateful decision not to take his life. Here, the relationship between Batman and Joker is born.
• Hope Spot:
  • As Oswald begs Edward not to shoot him, the latter pauses for a moment and looks as if he's actually going to reconsider his decision. In the end, however, he ultimately decides to pull the trigger.
  • Also, Jerome makes as if to set down the Court of Owls statuette intact, only to casually toss it over his shoulder so it smashes to bits against the fireplace. So much for that Macguffin...
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: The point Jerome is trying to make by subjecting Gotham to a blackout.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Oswald's reason for killing Isabella was to spare Nygma from murdering her like he murdered Kristen.
  Nygma: I guess we'll never know now, will we?
• Keystone Army: Of a sort. As the figurehead messiah figure of the Neo-Maniax movement, once word is out that Jerome's been captured, his followers stand down and begin surrendering.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Butch and Tabitha have a petty argument on who can make Oswald talk faster.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Before falling over, Jerome responds to Gordon literally punching his face off with no more than a dizzy "Ow."
• Mythology Gag:
  • The way Jerome paints Bruce's lips with blood is strikingly similar to an infamous variant cover for◊ The Killing Joke, in which the Joker did the same to a crying Batgirl.
  • When Jerome sees that Bruce has escaped into the mirror room, he maliciously utters, "Bruce, darling..."
  • This isn't the first time that the Penguin sank into a body of water in a cloud of his own blood.
  • Ed's entire Death Trap for Oswald is straight out of the 1960's TV series.
  • "You, with the crowbar, you gonna bash my head in?!"
  • "Gotham has no heroes." Yet.
  • Bruce savagely beating up Jerome, who's enjoying it.
  • Near the end, when Bruce gets up from his seat and turns, what sounds like a cape flapping can be heard.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If Jerome hadn't put staples in Bruce's arm, he wouldn't have had the lock pick needed to escape his handcuffs.
  • In a larger sense, Jerome may well have just created Batman. After going through a weird and terrifying ordeal he wasn't supposed to survive, Bruce emerges stronger than ever, with a more clearly-defined moral code and a clear purpose: to become the hero Gotham needs. Nice job, proto-Joker.
• Repulsive Ringmaster: Jerome takes a whirl at this when he aims a cannon at a handcuffed Bruce's face in front of a cheering crowd.
• The Reveal: The man that Katherine of the Court of Owls is working with is actually Gordon's uncle Frank.
• Rule of Symbolism: Among others - Jerome returns in his white straitjacket-scrubs, later adorning it with a ringmaster's jacket, and Bruce is wearing all-black clothing. Sort of a small nod to their future counterparts' costumes, as well as their characters, as well as the stark contrast between them.
• There's No Kill like Overkill: Jerome attempts to kill Bruce in the grandest, most theatrical way possible, by blasting him with a cannon that's been stuffed with knives.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Bruce firmly decides never to take another person's life, even Jerome's.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Lee remembers this episode that Jerome mentioned Bruce Wayne during their conversation. She fails to remember that she was the one who confirmed for Jerome that Bruce Wayne was still alive, leading Jerome to go after him again.
• Villain Ball: Not once, but twice this episode! First, Ed puts Oswald in an overly elaborate deathtrap and then walks away rather than actually watching him die. (Though that turned out to be part of a larger plan.) Second, Jerome lights a ridiculously long fuse with a cannon aimed at Bruce's face and then runs off in the chaos. Especially egregious - both villains had guns and later tried to resort to just shooting them (with one success).
• Wham Episode: And how. Gotham City is plunged into utter chaos, the man working with the Court of Owls is revealed to be Jim's uncle, Bruce firmly solidifies his no kill rule after his encounter with Jerome, and Nygma enacts his bloody revenge by shooting Oswald and throwing him into the bay.
• Wham Line: Jim opens his door to find the man working with the Court of Owls on his doorstep.
  Jim: Uncle Frank?
  Frank: Hello, Jim. It's been a long time.
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • The horror circus is filled with ordinary people making victims out of other ordinary people. The police precinct is filled with neo-Maniax and normals alike being arrested.
  • Ironically, the house of mirrors is very well-lit, but it is here that Bruce makes the solid decision not to kill Jerome. He is aware of the line and, in a conversation later with Alfred, makes the conscious choice that this will be his first moral he will never cross.
  • Zig-zagged with Oswald. He believes he's taken "love is selfless" to heart, but while he's willing to exchange Ed's life for his own, he isn't willing to respect Ed's choices. He knows now that he should have accepted their love, but continues to disrespect Isabella's memory & is unwilling to accept responsibility for the pain he's caused Ed.