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Recap / Gotham S 3 E 8 Blood Rush

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Directed by Rob Bailey

Written by Tze Chun & Megan Mostyn Brown

The GCPD attempts to track down a plastic surgeon who removes people's faces, while Barnes's sanity continues to slip; meanwhile, Isabella's resemblance to Kristen begins to unnerve Ed further.

  • Bait-and-Switch: Near the end of the episode, Isabella dresses up like Kristen and puts Ed's hands on her throat. It looks like Ed's about to snap and kill her, but then he pulls her in and kisses her.
  • Became Their Own Antithesis: Barnes, a former By-the-Book Cop, becomes willing to rough up and even kill lawbreakers without due process.
  • Carpet-Rolled Corpse: Paulie Pennies transports body parts to the place where he's planning to destroy them with acid in a folded-up carpet.
  • Everyone Can See It: It's pretty obvious to everyone paying attention that Jim and Lee still have feelings for each other, despite both their denials about it. Mario is not happy about this, especially when Lee downplays Gordon's return to the GCPD.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Mario's jealousy over Gordon and Lee's remaining feelings for him becomes much harder for him to control, culminating in him punching Gordon. Gordon even calls him on it, telling him that jealousy makes him look weak.
  • Hallucinations: Barnes at the end of the episode, as his sanity completely fails, starts seeing people's faces distorting into monstrous forms.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Tetch to Barnes, when the latter is trying to get answers from him about what Alice's blood is doing to him.
  • Hearing Voices: Barnes begins to hear voices whispering "guilty" when he's near a lawbreaker. According to Tetch, this is a common side effect of Alice's blood.
  • I Am the Noun: After Dr. Symon manages to dodge charges, Barnes tracks him down at Lee's engagement party. When Symon points out that Barnes is a cop and should follow the law, Barnes declares "I am the law!"
  • Internal Reveal: Gordon finds out that Barnes's sanity is slipping.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Barnes uses this repeatedly to get information out of suspects.
  • Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Barnes now considers himself this.
  • Kick the Dog: Tetch mocks Barnes by momentarily pretending that there's a cure for the effects of Alice's blood, only to reveal there isn't.
  • The Lost Lenore: Isabella invokes this when she makes herself over to look like Kristen Kringle, so that Ed will confront his fears about killing her.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: When trying to sabotage Ed's new relationship fails, Oswald simply has a henchman cut the brakes on her car.
  • Mythology Gag: By now Barnes is pretty much The Judge, a mentally troubled former lawman who decides to deal with criminals in a more hands-on fashion, eventually decides the whole city is corrupt, and states that he is the law.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: There is something off about Isabella. Previously, she revealed that her favorite stories are the ones where Star-Crossed Lovers wound up dying together instead of living apart. Also, after learning about Ed killing his past girlfriend who looks exactly like her, she decided to keep dating him. When he tries to break up with her this episode, not only will she not allow it, but she dresses up like his deceased girlfriend and then puts his hand on her own throat, in a way recreating the scene of Kristen's death. In other words, she puts herself in the exact same situation as Ed's ex, to help him move past his fears, but judging by her favorite stories, perhaps she's planning for her and Ed's love story together to have a tragic end.
  • Sanity Slippage: Barnes, due to Alice's blood.
  • Slasher Smile: Barnes sports a particularly unnerving one when, at the end of the episode, he's surrounded by hallucinations of demons instead of Falcone's party guests, with the voices practically singing, "Guilty! Guilty!" in his head. He seems to be looking forward to killing some lawbreakers.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: Symon has a young woman gagged and strapped to his surgical table, and is already drawing lines on her face in preparation to cut it off, when Barnes interrupts him.
  • The Unfettered: By the end of the episode Barnes has decided to stop fighting what's happening to him and become a full-on superpowered vigilante monster, able to mete out "justice" unencumbered by the law.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Mario briefly confronts Gordon over the latter's willingness to let Tetch shoot Lee earlier.

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