Gotham recap: Season 4, Episode 21, “One Bad Day,” Aired May 10, 2018
This show just gets more and more intense every week. I LOVE IT!
This week’s episode reveals Jim Gordon’s fate from the last episode, and we get a quirky little team-up between some old friends. Oh, and Bruce Wayne has a flip phone. One of the richest kids in the world has a flip phone. For some reason, I’m insanely amused by this.
All it takes is “One Bad Day” to drive a person insane, and Jeremiah experienced exactly that. Let’s find out more about that insanity.
Yes, Harvey, yes
The entire city of Gotham seems to just believe that Jim is dead after the catastrophic blast, but Harvey steps up and takes control of the GCPD, ordering them to search for Jim, Jeremiah, and Bruce. Jeremiah makes himself known pretty much immediately after the order is given, and he is even more insane than his brother. He gives Harvey six hours to evacuate Gotham before his bombs demolish the city.
“I’m a builder”
Jeremiah refuses to be compared to his “short-sighted psychopath” of a brother, and he claims that Jerome just wanted to destroy things, but Jeremiah is a builder. Jeremiah plans on blowing Gotham to the ground and building a new city in his image.
In the meantime, Jeremiah shows Bruce film of Alfred getting tortured, followed by Alfred laughing and cutting his face. Along with a generous spray of Scarecrow’s fear gas, this whole event was set up to drive Bruce insane.
Turns out the form Bruce thought was Alfred was the gas working, and the real Alfred is rescued by Selina. Phew.
Jeremiah’s followers start to turn on him when they think he’s lying after some events he claimed happened turn out to be different than expected (more on those later), so he burns each and every follower. As one does.
Womanpower
Penguin is running short on manpower – womanpower – so he proposes a team-up with Barbara and Tabitha, who agree at the prospect of curing Butch of his Grundy form.
Our new team-up takes Jeremiah’s trigger switch, and they claim they will return it in exchange for $50 million. As usual, things don’t really work out for this group. Jeremiah fails to deliver the money, instead attacking the group and revealing a back-up plan to kill them. Oh, and he’s no longer going to honor the six hours he gave Harvey. As soon as he gets somewhere safe, the city is coming down.
When they inevitably escape Jeremiah’s lackeys, Butch announces that he is done with Penguin, but Penguin plays the Hugo Strange card (again). Butch and Tabby were so close to attacking Penguin, who always seems to know what to say to just barely save himself. Maybe Strange will come back next week for the finale.
Jim Gordon, back from the dead
“Jeremiah claims to have killed me. Well, bad news. I’m alive.”
The first time we see Jim, he is waking up in a hospital-looking bed, and Lee comes in. Looks like he’s been in good hands. I mean, Lee and the Riddler only kept Jim there to use as leverage, but at least he’s alive. But because of all the painkillers he’s on, he’s out of commission – see what I did there? He did think to grab some papers from Jeremiah’s bunker before the blast, and Lee takes off with them.
When Jim manages to escape the drugs Lee gave him, he goes to help the Riddler figure out Jeremiah’s plans. Now isn’t really the time for a battle of Lee’s lovers, but Jim and the Riddler have that debate anyway. Umm… priorities?
Seriously, Harvey to the rescue
Harvey and Lucius work to figure out how to deactivate Jeremiah’s bombs. When Penguin tells them that their six-hour window is shorter than initially thought, they are able to use Jeremiah’s own words about the bombs communicating with each other as a clue to how to stop them. Harvey is able to reach the bomb before Jeremiah sets out to detonate them, but there are two wires: One detonates the bombs, one stops them.
With a lucky guess, Harvey cuts the right one and saves the city. Yes, Harvey, yes. He so deserves the applause Lucius has the GCPD give him upon his return. And if I applauded with the tv, so what? He deserves it.
Holy plot twists Batman!
Whoa. Just… whoa. Just when I thought the episode was resolved and things were calm, Jeremiah comes in and ruins everything. We finally get some BatCat, and Bruce was thinking about himself and why Jeremiah is obsessed with him. Well, this little moment is interrupted by the Jeremiah himself, who shoots Selina right in front of Bruce!
What?! Whaaaat?! I so did not see that coming. Moment of appreciation for Alfred tackling and beating Jeremiah as Bruce tends to Selina.
Next week is the season finale! At the end of this week’s episode, we see Ra’s al Ghul attempt to form a partnership with Jeremiah. I’m guessing we’ll be seeing a lot more of them next week as we wrap up both Ra’s al Ghul’s plot and delve deeper into Jeremiah’s. Both of them seem pretty focused on Bruce Wayne, so I’m sensing some Batman in our future. Not to mention what appears to be the Bat signal in the trailer for next week. Oh, and Selina isn’t dead yet. I’m so hoping she stays that way. Next week looks so, so good. Perfect for a season finale. Fingers crossed Gotham gets renewed for another season!
Next week:
What did you think of “One Bad Day”? Let us know at @PureFandom on Twitter!
Gotham airs Thursday nights on FOX at 8/7c.
(Image: Fox)
