Gotham season 5, episodes 6 and 7 recap: Bane and the Waynes

Catherine Palmer

As conditions in Gotham continue to deteriorate, unlikely alliances are formed, and Jeremiah unveils his sadistic plan to connect with Bruce.

After Dorrance and his troops reveal their true marching orders, heroes and villains join forces in an effort to liberate their city from the unwelcome intruders. But an even larger threat looms when Jeremiah resurfaces and tries to ruin any chance Gotham has of reuniting with the Mainland. Here’s a look at what went down in episode six, “13 Stitches,” and episode seven, “Ace Chemicals.”

Squad Goals

You know things are pretty messed up in Gotham when Ed and Barbara are working together, let alone working with Jim, Bruce, Alfred, and Lucius as well. But after Dorrance reveals his true intentions — to “clean house,” aka murder everyone left in the city — it’s all hands on deck.

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After Lucius surgically removes the chip in Ed’s brain, Jim has the perfect leverage to use against Dorrance and Walker. With help from Bruce’s Mainland media contacts, he can out them as the cold-blooded masterminds behind Haven and garner national support for Gotham. But, alas, complications arise when Dorrance finds leverage of his own: threatening the life of the long-lost Lee Thompkins.

Fortunately, the unlikely band of heroes and villains proves to be quite the team. Thanks to some Riddler-ing, knockout gas and a very conveniently placed iron rod, Dorrance finds himself at death’s door and his troops are forced out of the GCPD. While the battle is lost, the war is far from over, though.

As Dorrance is asphyxiating, Walker rolls into town with a back-up plan. She’s sending him to Dr. Strange for a makeover (Rise, Bane!), and a new agent is going to take out Jim.

Revelations

Over at the GCPD, a distressed Lee is trying to figure out why she can’t remember anything from the past three months. Jim doesn’t have answers for her… until she suddenly tries to kill him. Yep, she’s the other agent. She was also “treated” by Strange after she stabbed Ed and Ed stabbed her.

Meanwhile, after surprising Jim with uncharacteristic acts of altruism, Barbara drops a bombshell on him (and Lee and Harvey who happen to be standing there). As I suspected, she’s now pregnant following her one-night stand with Jim. See you soon, Barbara Gordon!

Out in the streets, Alfred gets jumped by Jeremiah and wakes up as a hostage at Wayne Manor. Jeremiah reveals that he has quite a homecoming planned for Bruce.

DC’s Runaways

Friendless and feeling that he has nothing more to achieve in the city, Penguin wants to escape. And he’s not the only one. After becoming an overnight celebrity for “killing” Jeremiah, Selina learns that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. With every low-level thug in the city looking to make a name for themselves by killing her, she wants to go back to living in the shadows, which she can only do by starting over somewhere new.

The two join forces when a thief known as Magpie steals a huge diamond from Penguin’s secret vault. Penguin reluctantly agrees to let Selina keep the diamond if she can help him catch Magpie. Magpie’s proclivity for explosives makes her quite a frustrating adversary for the dynamic duo, but her luck eventually runs out.

A booby trap in Penguin’s vault critically wounds her when she returns in search of more loot. To Selina’s horror, Penguin proceeds to shoot the dying Magpie twice at point-blank range. It seems that Selina still has a bit of a conscience, after all, but she’s relying on Penguin to be her ticket out of town nonetheless.

A Family Reunion

Well, if you can’t be friends, at least you can murder the other guy’s fake parents, right? Determined to connect with Bruce, Jeremiah lures him home to Wayne Manor via the newly completed tunnel and elaborately recreates the night that Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed.

Thanks to hypnotist extraordinaire Jervis Tetch, aka Mad Hatter, the fake parents (who Jeremiah forced to undergo plastic surgery) and even Alfred are completely under Jeremiah’s control. Before taking the fake parents back to the city for the main event, Jeremiah triggers explosives to blow up the manor. Bruce manages to get Alfred out just in time, but he can’t save his childhood home.

This Time Around

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When Bruce arrives at the theater, he finds himself watching a black-and-white reenactment of The Legend of Zorro, complete with Jeremiah carves Zs into extras with a real sword. As Jeremiah reveals, it was the movie Bruce’s parents had taken him to see that night, and Bruce had apparently gotten scared, so they’d left early.

At the final stop on memory lane — the alley, Bruce argues that Jeremiah’s plan has failed. He knows the couple isn’t his real parents, so he doesn’t have any emotional stake in the inevitable outcome.

Or does he? After Jim and Lee get captured by his Tetch, Jeremiah makes them his new Thomas and Martha and finally gets the reaction from Bruce that he was looking for. But something else is different this time around.

Despite telling Bruce that she didn’t intervene that night because she only cares about herself, Selina immediately comes to Bruce’s aid and (from that same fire escape) lassoes the gun out of Jeremiah’s hand just in time.

The Last Laugh?

Unfortunately, Jeremiah has another trick up his sleeve: toxic chemicals. While Jim prevents them from getting airborne, they contaminate the river, which makes the Mainlanders call off an impending reunification with Gotham. So, once again, the citizens are on their own.

But Jeremiah doesn’t come away unscathed, either. In the midst of a fistfight with Bruce, he falls into a vat of the very same toxic chemical. He survives but has severe burns and seemingly no brain function.

Jim & Lee

Will they, or won’t they? Maybe both. Is that an option? Thanks to Barbara’s announcement, tensions are understandably running high, but we can’t help feeling that Lee is being a bit unreasonable.

Three months ago, she was in that super weird (and super fun) relationship with Ed. Granted, she did double cross Ed to save Jim’s life, and she didn’t choose to then go AWOL for three months. But still. Was Jim just supposed to wait around for her to maybe return and maybe want to be with him?

Considering that kiss, though, I’m predicting that they will be endgame and will raise his Barbara’s daughter together.

DC’s Runaways (Part II)

Thanks to a hot tip from Selina (who actually was still furious with Penguin for killing Tabitha), Barbara tries once again to take him out. But, fortunately for Penguin, pregnancy is making her go a bit soft.

Wanting a better life for her child, she hears out the escape plan that Penguin and Ed (yeah, they’re friends again) have come up with. They’re going to build a submarine that will be able to sense and avoid the mines in the river.

What do you think of Gotham‘s final season so far? Do you agree that Jim and Lee will be endgame? Let us know in the comments section below.

Catherine Palmer

Catherine Palmer is a Southside Serpent and former editor and columnist for The Johns Hopkins News-Letter. She wishes she could have majored in TV Studies but settled for a creative writing degree.