Gotham Knights season 1, episode 8 recap: Belly of the Beast

Just like they’ve done in the past few episodes, the Gotham Knights are out on the town, being heroes and stopping the bad guys. On a routine criminal bust (that happens mostly offscreen for budget reasons), everything goes smoothly except that Cullen is late with the getaway car.

It seems like he lost track of time since the watch he was using stopped working.

Gotham Knights season 1, episode 8 recap – Beware The Court of Owls, that watches all the time…

Once they get back safely, Cullen goes to get a new watch from The Court of Owls watches that they stole, only to discover that all of the watches are telling the same incorrect time. It turns out that the watches are sending a code to all Court of Owls members about when the next in person meeting is.

The Gotham Knights decide to try and sneak into the meeting of the Court. Fortunately, the Gotham Academy where they’re hiding has what must be the greatest 3D printer in the world, because it is able to print out two perfect masks in just a few hours, that are identical to the ones that the rest of the members will be wearing.

Turner and Duela are the ones who sneak into the Court meeting, while the others work recon on the outside. Once the gathering has begun, the head Owl reveals that the reason the Court had been looking for the paintings in the earlier episode, was that they were looking for a map hidden in one of the paintings.

The Court believes that the painting will lead them to a substance called electrum that will let them live forever. At this point, Turner and Duela decide to turn this recon mission into a heist and with no planning, decide they’re going to try and steal the map from The Court of Owls.

Fortunately, The Court decided to keep the precious map that they’ve been searching for, for over 100 years, in a big room with pretty much no security. So, after beating up two guards, Turner and Duela grab the map and are apparently going to get out with pretty much no issue.

Gotham Knights season 1, episode 8 recap – A poorly thought-out plan, somehow goes wrong…

But before they can fully escape, the head Owl shows back up and claims that there is a traitor in their midst. Only, he’s not talking about the two people that just stole his special map.

He’s talking about Cressida, who was about to reveal top secret Court of Owls information but was captured by the Talon before she could. Now, with Cressida’s confession, the Court orders the Talon to kill her.

Turner decides he can’t let Cressida die, and saves her by cutting off The Talon’s head. There’s  a lot of chaos all at once and Duela gets away with some help from Carrie.

Meanwhile, Turner takes Cressida into the woods to interrogate her about why she turned on the Court. She tells him that the idea of The Court gaining the power of immortality was too much.

But before she can tell him the name of the head Owl, members of The Court show up and kill her. Apparently they’re saving Tuner for something special, because they take him away leaving the rest of the Gotham Knights trying to figure out a way to regroup and save him as the episode ends.

Also, Lincoln March is the head Owl. They show us that at the end.

(There are some minor side plots in this episode as well, with Stephanie dealing with her mother’s pill addiction, and Harvey getting triggered into his alter ego again by some music. But the real takeaway is that Harvey wakes up at the end of the episode with blood on his hands an Owl mask on his face and no memory of how any of that happened.)

(So, we’re probably going to address that in the next episode as well.)

Gotham Knights season 1, episode 8 recap – This bad guy plan makes no sense

On one hand, The Court’s plan seems like a perfectly good villain plan. I mean they’re bad guys and if they’re also immortal, then they can be bad guys forever.

Good motivation, and good reason for the heroes to have to stop them. But this plot is uniquely bad, specifically because the bad guys in question are The Court of Owls.

The Court isn’t a single bad guy, but is instead an organization that has been around, lurking in the shadows since the earliest days of Gotham. Plus, the members of The Court are meant to be anonymous.

Pretty much every member of The Court is somebody in a mask. Without one specific villain, the idea of making the members of The Court immortal doesn’t do anything to up the stakes.

The Court of Owls, as an antagonist for the series, is already functionally immortal. It’s existed for 100 years and plans to continue to exist forever into the future. Who cares if the person behind the mask is 30 years old, or a 130?

As characters, the members of The Court are specifically designed to be generic and interchangeable. The one, lone exception to this, the Talon, already has immortal juice, so this doesn’t even work for him.

A different member of Batman’s rogues gallery wanting to live forever? That would have worked.

The Court of Owls wanting to achieve a different sinister goal? That would have worked too.

But in this case the antagonist chosen, and the primary goal given to them are working against each other and making the whole plot feel less engaging.

What did you think of Gotham Knights season 1 episode 8? Leave your answers in the comments below!

Stay tuned for a new episode May 23 on The CW.