Wow, that long, excruciating wait between Game of Thrones seasons 5 and 6 would have been way less suspenseful if we knew all along that cuttlefish DNA would bring Jon Snow back from the dead no problem. Come on, Melisandre! Read a book or something. In a way, Fish Mooney’s return to Gotham is exactly like Game of Thrones‘ recent resurrection except, you know, no one asked for it. Or wanted it. And Jon Snow didn’t immediately ask Davos for a grilled cheese sandwich because, as my father says, “nothing screams I’ve just emerged from the eternal blackness of death like melted cheddar and buttered toast.” My father is quite insane.
It’s appropriate that as Fish returns, rising from the waters of Gotham City harbor like a Lovecraftian beast in a Party City wig, Gotham itself reverts back to all it’s worst habits, the ticks that made its first season less Cesar-Romero-as-Joker campy fun, and more Jared-Leto-as-Joker sending dirty condoms through the mail. Yes, “A Legion of Horribles” just sent me a dirty condom through the mail, which sounds like it’s pretty par for the course these days over at DC. Like early-days Gotham, this episode felt strongly as if the creators fully fleshed out which comic book characters they would parade on to screen, sent the film reel to FOX, then looked at each other and said “Shit wait…did we write a plot?”
Bruce Wayne needs to get into Arkham Asylum to rescue Selina Kyle, who managed to avoid last week’s episode-closing fire blast from Bridget Pike because something something cat-like reflexes something strong bones from drinking milk so much. The future World’s Greatest Detective comes up with the idea of asking Hugo Strange for a tour, not seeing how the mad-genius that had Bruce’s father assassinated despite their shared love of Raquetball could see through this plan immediately. Luscious Fox is all like “I invented a device basically only useful in this scenario!” Jim is all like “I can’t be part of this plan. Arkham has stairs and doors, it’s all too much!” Luscious is all like “Nah, put on this Arkham security costume we have for some reason.”
Jim is all like “I’m in.” (Meanwhile, absolutely no one is all like “Shouldn’t you call your wife and let her know you’re not in prison anymore, Jim?”)
But there’s some stuff happening inside Arkham Asylum that points a dent into Bruce’s already incredibly dent-able plan. For one, Indian Hill has basically become the San Diego Zoo for genetic abominations that occasionally eat people. It’s also being funded by a shadowy, all-powerful organization with a flair for flamboyant party masks, which we’ll get to later. On top of this, Hugo Strange gives Eddie Nygma free reign to ensnare Jim Gordon because no one understands Jim’s weaknesses like his mentally unstable former co-worker. Despite this, Bruce, Lucious, and Jim stroll into Arkham like, “We got this.”
They do not got this.
Bruce responds to Strange’s vague statements with “YOU ADMITTED YOU KILLED MY PARENTS, CAUGHT YOU.” He’s immediately captured. Lucious’s constantly beeping device and plan to draw arrows in chalk all over Arkham is not nearly as subtle as he thinks. He is immediately captured. Jim trips over his shoelace walking up the stairs and is immediately captured. Basically.
Look, this is all fine. Nothing on Gotham has to make sense all the time. I loved Balloon Man. I thought Mr. Freeze’s Buzz Lightyear cosplay was adorable. I wept tears of joy, and still randomly do throughout the day, at the thought of Butch blowing up Theo Galavan with a bazooka he happened to own. But at its lowest, Gotham has a nack for blatantly showing the hand that moves the plot along, all for the sake of getting to an obvious place. Bruce and Jim needed to be in Arkham for the finale, so we’re going to get them there no matter what, and maybe the audience won’t notice if enough familiar faces show up along the way.
It’s occasionally fun, definitely, but it’s not great in the long run. Plus, Gotham is setting up a universe where the origin story for 90 percent of Batman’s rogues gallery is “Hugo Strange mixed the right amount of monkey DNA together in his basement.”
As always, let’s run down every reference, fact, and nugget of Bat-history brought up in the season 2, episode 21, “A Legion of Horribles.”
THE COURT OF OWLS
Underneath “A Legion of Horribles'” legion of horribleness was this awesome, long-time-coming reveal that Hugo Strange’s experiments are backed by the Court of Owls.
As far as comic books go the Court is fairly recent, first appearing in a storyline that kicked off writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo’s critically acclaimed 2011-2016 run on Batman. The Court’s deal is simple; they’re Gotham’s Illuminati, secretly running the show from the shadows since the city’s earliest days. The owl aesthetic later turned out to be a solid choice because did you know owls eat bats? Because now you do!
The in-universe reason why the Court of Owls would push Hugo Strange to develop a death-cure is their hired assassins, hulking, unkillable warriors that have quietly wiped out the Court’s opposition through the years. Also they’re called Talons, because the Court’s marketing team really understands the brand.
CLAYFACE
Let me begin by saying I spent roughly 45 minutes in pure ecstatic glee thinking that this dude was False Face, and my deep-dive, multi-week-long theory was correct. But no, his name is Basil, presumably last name Karlo, better known as Clayface.
Like Killer Croc, the character of Clayface evolved since his first appearance from a criminal with a strange skin condition to a massive, inhuman creature shunned by society. Back in 1940, Basil Karlo was a horror film actor that adopted the persona from his best known work, The Terror, to murder all his coworkers because acting is stressful, y’all. Nowadays, he looks more like the Great Mighty Poo from Conker’s Bad Fur Day had a baby with Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Either way, Clayface’s thing is that his face is malleable like, uh, clay, and he can steal a person’s identity, usually for heist-related reasons. We get a glimpse of this at the end of “A Legion of Horribles,” in the fanfic-igniting moment Hugo Strange creates a feux-Jim Gordon. I hope this plan falls apart when the fake Jim returns to the GCPD and actually solves a crime.
CORNELIUS STIRK
The Cornelius Stirk of the comic books is able to put his victims under a hypnotic spell, forcing them to see what he wants them to them. He often uses this to disguise himself, or manifest a person’s greatest fear in front of them, making him a sort of mid-point between Clayface and Scarecrow. Stirk also operates under the belief that in order to survive he has to eat human hearts for the nutrients inside.
Gotham, in typical Gotham fashion, read this and said “Okay…but what if he just had sharp teeth and screamed I’M HUNGRY a whole lot?”
