Gotham season 5, episode 9 recap: The Trial of Jim Gordon

Love was in the air on tonight’s Gotham — quite literally. Jim’s life hangs in the balance after he gets shot, and Ivy resurfaces with a radical agenda.

Tonight’s Gotham — directed by Erin Richards and written by Ben McKenzie — finds Jim coming to yet another crossroads and pondering a disturbing question: Would his loved ones and everyone else in Gotham actually be better off if he were dead?

Meanwhile, Ivy launches a new eco-terror campaign with the help of some unlikely allies, including Bruce, and Barbara tries to show Jim that she’s changed. Here’s a look at what went down in “The Trial of Jim Gordon.”

Jim & Lee

After getting into a big fight with Lee about how often he puts himself in the line of fire, Jim gets shot while holding a summit with the gangs at Penguin’s compound. With Gotham’s supply of clean water getting dangerously low, Jim wants to enact a ceasefire so that the government will send aid ahead of reunification.

light. Also. Gotham season 5, episode 8 recap: Nothing’s Shocking

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The gangs are about to agree to the truce when Jim suddenly gets hit. Back at the precinct, Lee removes the bullet and stops the bleeding, so Jim is stable but still in critical condition. Lee anxiously waits for him to wake up, but Jim has some reckoning to do. Writer Ben McKenzie, aka Jim Gordon, has Jim Gordon put Jim Gordon on trial.

That’s right. While hallucinating, Jim prosecutes himself and doesn’t pull any punches. He calls Lee as a witness, and she eventually asserts that everything Jim touches dies. She wishes he were dead. Lawyer Jim then turns to a horde of burning ghosts standing in the gallery. If it weren’t for Jim, Haven would never have existed, and the people he’d promised to protect would never have died in the explosion.

Although there’s a random judge overseeing the case, lawyer Jim decides to take matters into his own hands and determine the verdict himself. Guilty.

Meanwhile, Harvey immediately suspects Penguin or Barbara of trying to kill Jim. Penguin is even suspicious of Babs, too. Would she go to such lengths to guarantee getting custody of her child? Nope.

Victor Zsasz is actually the culprit… sort of. He’s just the hitman, working on behalf of Ivy. Well, “working” might be the wrong word. Ivy used her plant juju on him, so he’s basically her slave, and she’s not done with him.

Ivy secretly breaks him out the GCPD interrogation room and gives him a new mission. He needs to reign down fire on the cops to keep them busy (Harvey eventually subdues him), while she goes to finish off Jim.

Still hallucinating, Jim attends his own pre-death “wake” at the precinct. From a holding cell, he watches as the villains of Gotham celebrate his impending demise. Even Harvey is rather chipper. (Granted, he is drunk on Mai Tais.)

But not everyone is having a good time. A somber Will Thomas, covered in horrific burns, appears in Jim’s cell and opens it, explaining that it’s time for Jim to leave.

Meanwhile, Jim’s condition is starting to deteriorate. Just as Lee prepares a syringe that could save his life, Ivy comes calling. Armed with a scalpel, Lee tries to fight her off and naturally questions what Ivy goal is anyway. Why does she care so much about killing Jim?

Ivy reveals that she’s fighting to save Gotham — not the people, but the land itself. With Jim out of the way, reunification will fail, and the city will be free to devolve into its natural primitive state. As Ivy is monologuing, Lee lets her think she’s gained the upper hand.

Just as Ivy thinks she’s won, Lee pulls a gun and shoots her point blank in the chest. Ivy flees, but not before destroying the syringe. Meanwhile, Jim arrives at his destination, the electric chair, and simultaneously goes into cardiac arrest.

As Lee starts chest compressions, hallucinogenic Lee arrives holding a baby and offers the child to Jim. When Jim says that he doesn’t know if he can accept responsibility for the child, Lee nonchalantly drops the infant, to Jim’s horror. Then, right on cue, Will electrocutes Jim.

Fortunately, the “shock” wakes up the real Jim. He immediately admits to Lee, “I need you.” (In a heart-to-heart with Alfred earlier, Lee had said that she was tired of Jim refusing to admit that he relies on her.) And Jim has another surprise for Lee, too: a proposal.

After a complicated courtship (getting engaged, breaking off their engagement, losing a child, Jim killing Lee’s new fiancé, an infected Lee trying to revenge kill Jim), the star-crossed lovers finally tie the knot a month later in a cute ceremony at the GCPD, officiated by Harvey.

Bruce & Selina

Jim and Lee aren’t the only ones feeling the love, though. Leading Selina to believe they’re going on a supply raid, Bruce arranges for them to have a candle-lit canned dinner in an abandoned mansion. Selina teases Bruce about it being a date, and then actually admits that she’s okay with it being one.

Unfortunately, Bruce puts a bit of a damper on the evening by revealing that he wants to leave Gotham. He feels responsible for the atrocities that have resulted from criminals targeting him and thinks that maybe Gotham would be safer without him.

While Bruce is, of course, not at fault, his guilt is understandable. But he also hasn’t really considered Selina’s feelings. She immediately tries to talk him out of it, but Ivy crashes the party to abduct Bruce.

Selina tries to protect Bruce, just as Ivy knew she would, so Ivy brings out her insurance policy: that guy Selina almost beat to death. Ivy infects Bruce and leaves Selina to die, but not before reminding Selina that she’s the one who saved her life after Selina fell out that window.

Selina survives yet again, though, because, as she notes, “Ivy didn’t make me strong. I made me strong.” Selina wraps her whip around her would-be killer’s neck and gets him to give up Bruce’s location.

It turns out Ivy needed Bruce because he can access the plant that’s been cleaning up those toxic chemicals. Lucius is hard at work and surprised to find Bruce in a hilariously weird mood and saying things like, “People, ugh!” Bruce manages to spray Lucius, who breaks into an amazingly ridiculous grin, and they happily shut down the plant together.

When Selina breaks in, Bruce goes off to confront her. Selina doesn’t want to fight him, but she also doesn’t have much of a choice. Plus, she’s still upset about Bruce potentially leaving. When she overpowers him, she repeatedly punches him in the faces. Fortunately, it does the trick and snaps Bruce out of his stupor, but Selina still apologizes.

It’s actually Lucius who gets the worst of it. Bruce tries to reason with him. Selina, however, realizes that tactic won’t work and kicks Lucius in the head, while Bruce gets the plant up and running again.

At the end of the episode, Bruce and Selina attend the wedding together. Selina jokes that Jim should look happier, considering he’s marrying a woman who’s “smarter and better-looking” than him. Knowing she’s talking about them, Bruce tries to broach the subject of him leaving but gets cut off by Lee’s procession.

After the ceremony, Bruce realizes that he doesn’t actually need to tell Selina that he’s changed his mind, and he kisses her.

Barbara & Penguin

After Jim gets shots, Barbara steps up and single-handedly keeps the gangs in line. She invites them to The Sirens Club under the pretense of celebrating Jim’s death. When she brings up the ceasefire, the gang-bangers scoff, until she reveals that she poisoned their drinks and one of them subsequently drops dead. Babs says they have 48 hours to get their sectors of the city in order and bring all their guns to the Club. Only then, will she give them the antidote.

Next. Gotham finale: 5 things we want to see (and 5 we really don’t want). dark

One month later, it’s clear that her good deeds didn’t get her into Jim’s good graces like she thought they would. Penguin tells Barbara that Jim will not only never see her differently, he’ll also hunt her down if she leaves Gotham. Resigned to her fate, Babs replies, “Let him.”

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

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