FOX's Gotham season 5, episode 3 recap: Penguin, Our Hero

In Gotham’s latest episode, Penguin and Selina embark on revenge missions, but Jim and Bruce try to reign them in. Plus, Harley Quinn makes her grand debut.

Last week’s Gotham ended on a relatively hopeful note with Selina’s paralysis being cured, and Lucius establishing a safe zone in the city, now known as Haven. Naturally, this week delivered season five’s most emotionally turbulent episode yet.

We finally got a Bat-Cat team-up, which has been long overdue! However, as they go on the hunt for Jeremiah, Bruce grows concerned about Selina’s violent methods, much to her frustration.

Meanwhile, an increasingly maniacal Penguin goes on the warpath when his followers start defecting to Haven, which puts Jim’s ability to protect the shelter and its residents to the test. Here’s a look at what went down in “Penguin, Our Hero.”

“I’m not yours to lose.”

Selina decides it’s finally time to seek revenge against the man who shot her and goes to Bruce, hoping he’ll back her play. Bruce doesn’t want her to go up against Jeremiah, fearing for her life, but Selina reminds him that she wasn’t asking for permission. Bruce ultimately agrees to accompany her, on the condition that they use non-lethal force against Jeremiah, and Selina kisses him.

Out in the field, aka the sector of Gotham where people have apparently gone insane and Jeremiah has been recruiting followers, Bruce is alarmed by Selina’s tactics. While trying to get information on Jeremiah, she beats a man almost to death, even after he gives up Jeremiah’s location.

To her point, the man had tried repeatedly to kill her just moments before, and she still let him live, though that’s partly because Bruce intervened. Selina has always had more of an edge than Bruce, and that gap is only widening now post-cure. Their dynamic is coming ever closer to that of their future alter egos.

Hot on Jeremiah’s trail, Selina and Bruce find his base, a church. A mysterious woman (Harley Quinn!) is offering people dressed like extras from The Book of Mormon a chance to prove themselves to Jeremiah. Selina joins the recruits and finds herself in a multi-player game of Russian Roulette, in which she has to fire at the person in front of her and the person behind her has to fire at her.

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Selina is in no hurry to get shot twice in the same year, so she prevents the person behind her from firing. She also refuses to shoot her own gun. When Harley confronts Selina, she reveals that, as Jeremiah’s confidante, she is well aware of Selina’s identity because of Selina’s connection to Bruce.

The two eventually come to blows, and Selina has the chance to shoot Harley in cold blood. However, when Bruce arrives and begs her not to, Selina hesitates. (Maybe Selina couldn’t have brought herself to do it, anyway, though.) In any case, Harley slashes Selina’s leg and escapes.

Furious at Bruce for interfering and subsequently insisting that she call it a day and get medical help, Selina handcuffs Bruce to an iron gate and takes off (or, more accurately, limps off) after Harley.

“I take it that didn’t work out the way you’d hoped.”

Honestly, this one line is basically a summary of both Penguin’s and Jim’s lives over the past several years. They always rise up, only to have everything fall apart all over again, usually due to a slight miscalculation, a betrayal, unintended consequences or a combination thereof.

In this case, Jim, who had just been taken prisoner by Penguin, taunts Penguin for being taken prisoner by the very gangbangers he’d led to Haven. Penguin was only after the people who’d abandoned his sector — unaware, until a dying Mr. Penn clues him in, that “everyone hated [him].”

The Low Boys and Undead, on the other hand, have larger ambitions and start taking back their labor slaves. Jim makes Penguin realize that the only way both of them can get what they want is by working together to send the gangbangers packing. Haven becomes a haven once more, and Penguin gets all the glory he’s so narcissistically been craving.

“Tomorrow’s another day.”

In one of Gotham’s most brutal, shocking and devastating twists yet, tomorrow is no longer another day for the residents of Haven. After lifting their spirits with a rousing speech, Jim finds himself outside trying to save Penguin from Barbara. (Earlier in the episode, on Jim’s orders, Harvey had recruited her as Haven’s insurance policy against Penguin.) As the situation escalates, Haven suddenly explodes behind them.

Presumably, all of the innocent people Jim had been trying to save, including his newly appointed “deputy” Will Thomas, who can’t be more than eight years old, were still inside.

We’ll have to wait until next week to find out if any of them survived. But there’s an even larger question: Who’s responsible? Given that Jim teams up with Penguin again next week, Penguin seems to be in the clear. Plus, what motive would he have for killing people who were literally singing his praises?

Next. Gotham: Penguin and Riddler comics-accurate costumes revealed. dark

Riddler was suspiciously absent from this episode, and he seems to be the person who framed Penguin for the Low Boy massacre, which led to the Low Boys to attack Penguin at the beginning of the episode. Could this have been another attempt at framing/assassinating Penguin?

What did you think of this episode? Be sure to tell us in the comment section below!

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