Note: There may be spoilers contained in the review
Recap
On this week's episode of Gotham, a group of bank robbers goes into a back and attempts a robbery. One of them is wearing a red hood. Said red hooded bank robber is a bit of a jokester. They get outside but the cops are coming. The red hooded robber tosses money into the streets, which causes citizens to go for the cash and it blocks the cops.
Gordon and Bullock investigate the robbery. They find a week prior a smoke bomb triggered the alarm. The robbers were casing the joint weeks before. An old friend visits Alfred, Reggie. Bruce insists he stays a few days.
Fish is brought to an old hospital. In the rooms, people are missing limbs. She enters a room and a man behind a desk asks her to sit. Back at the station, Gordon sees the man in the surveillance tape light the fire. He has his workshirt on in the video.
Meanwhile, at the auto place, the Red Hood is excited about the press the gang is getting and the Robin Hood aspects of the group. One of his men shoots him and takes the red hood. He's now the gang leader. Back at the hospital, Fish talks to the man behind the desk. She wants to talk to the owner of the facility and no one else. Fish wants the doctor's name. It's Dulmacher.... YES! Dollmaker is back!
Penguin is learning that running a club is not an easy job as another entertainment act fails. He finds that they are out of alcohol. Butch says Maroni deals the booze and he's not happy with Penguin.
Gordon and Bullock enter the autoshop. No one seems to be there. Bullock demands to know the particulars of Gordon's date with Thompkins. Bullock finds the dead body of the old Red Hood. Meanwhile, the new Red Hood is with his gang and robbing a new bank. Some of the hostages are hoping for some money. The Red Hood tosses it and the crowd goes wild.
Gordon and Bullock find out about the new robbery. They have a witness who saw the Red Hood take off his mask. Reggie sees Bruce come in the house and offers to help him learn to fight. Reggie tells him never to lose his cool. Reggie tells him to use what's around him to his advantage. Penguin goes to where Maroni holds his liquor. Butch sends in a few fake cops to shut it down.
Selina visits Barbara on the balcony, where she's having an alcoholic drink, early in the morning. Barbara tells Selina she's beautiful. Barbara offers up a bunch of her clothes as she drinks a glass of wine. Mixing wine and hard liquor? Oh my! Gordon and Bullock have an old fashion police line-up and plan on following the guilty party home.
Fish talks to the man behind the desk again. He says that there are clients all over the world who need their services and Dulmacher has his own experiments. The man says he's going to take Fish's eyes. Fish takes her own eye out with a spoon and squishes it.
Bullock and Gordon follow the Red Hood leader home. Another gang member is in his apartment. He wants the hood because his girlfriend thinks he's a loser. The leader says no because they only have one last job left before they skip town. The kid shoots the leader and leaves. Gordon and Bullock find application loans and all of them were denied. He wanted to open a pastry shop. Gordon finds the third bank they're going to rob.
Alfred finds Reggie stealing stuff from the house before he heads off after getting kicked out by Alfred. Reggie says he's in trouble. Alfred wants to help, but Reggie stabs him and walks off. Bruce finds Alfred and calls the police.
The new Red Hood puts on the mask and enters the bank with his two other gang members. All of the GCPD shows up. Cue gunfight. The GCPD ends up gunning them all down.
Gordon gets the call about Alfred and heads to the hospital where Alfred is pretty out. At the Wayne corporation, Reggie is there with information about what Bruce had against them.
Outside of the bank, a kid finds the Red Hood mask and puts it on. The end.
Thoughts
I loved how the Red Hood gang operates. The idea where the most powerful in the group or the one who just gets a quick upper-hand is the leader is a pretty great move for this group, since there's no distinct leader of the gang.
As far as the adaptation goes for the Red Hood Gang from comic to television, it really works out well. There's power within the mask and nothing else and that's what this episode really says. It doesn't matter who is wearing the mask, as long as someone is in it. It's different but a really cool translation.
Wow. I can't believe the show went there by showing Fish take her own eye out with a spoon. That's a pretty intense scene and a decently gory one at that. I really like how her story is progressing and it's easily one of the better ones during this second half of the season.
What a freaking amazing turn with Reggie. The guy was living on the streets and I thought that maybe he's just in trouble with some mobsters or something, but nope, he was playing Alfred and Bruce the whole time and working for Wayne Enterprises. What a great idea to make the company the Waynes built to be the enemy.
Really pumped to see Dollmaker back, since he hasn't been around since the second episode of the show, even though he was only mentioned by name. This would have been even better if the show mentioned here and there that someone was still stealing kids or people. Again, we don't see him, unless the man Fish talks to is actually Dollmaker, but it's still great to see this show moving forward with a story line.
While that last gunfight was pretty fantastic, the CGI blood looked terrible. Remember when CGI blood wasn't a thing in television? Those were the days. Corn syrup>computer blood.
The scenes with Barbara, Ivy, and Selina continue their pointless voyage through this show, Barbara tries to show Selina that you can use sex to get what you want and Selina calls her out on it because Barbara is oh so alone. That was a pretty great moment but everything about these scenes feels like filler. It's not moving anywhere or adding anything to the show.
Back on the great side of things, Butch really grows into his own in this episode. He makes a statement that he doesn't want to be a sidekick anymore and this episode really makes him stand out. He's no longer standing behind anyone and taking orders. He's taking things into his own hands for the greater good, even if the greater good involves some illegal activities.
This was the first time, since the return from winter break, where Gotham feels like it has direction again and isn't a villain of the week television show. The Red Hood story was pretty great, the Alfred/Reggie story was pretty great, and Fish Mooney spooning out her own eye was pretty great. This episode restored a lot of my faith in the show and there's a few doors opened in this episode which the show can build on in the upcoming weeks. I'm surprised and happy that this show made a big turn-around.