TV Review No. 12: Gotham: By Fire (S2, Ep6)

Strong points:

Gordon getting a strike in his record

Indian Hill reveal

'Fire'fights are always great

Firefly costume 

Butch's add-on weapon

Bruce and Alfred's sparring session

Lee and Selina's conversation with milk and cookies

Music montage 

Weak points:

Pacing is a bit odd - some story arcs drag and some don't develop

The only place they could rob was a sex slave shop

All the violence happening to children is a bit hard to stomach

Spoilers ahead:

In-depth review:

Another villain has risen from the 'fires' of hell this episode only to promptly return. I am, of course, talking about Bridget/Firefly and her eventual burning that was the subject of this episode. Not that anyone else got off lightly this episode either though, with Ed killing Miss Kringle and Butch getting tortured so as to break Penguin's hold on him. We'll start with Firefly. 

After escaping with Selina last episode, Bridget wants to get out of Gotham (a luxury most people seem to want) and the only way to do that is with money. The only logical step then is to raid a sex slave shop isn't it? Well, that's what happens and Bridget is about to escape when... She gets captured by her brothers again, gets flash bangs thrown at her and ends up burning her 'brothers' alive in a turnaround of emotion so quick it didn't quite work. The actual events did, with the flash bangs serving as a reminder that her brothers are bad and burning them alive is what Firefly would do, but it all happened so fast. 

Anyway, Bridgett then decides it is her mission to get revenge on all the bullies and her first port of call is the sex slave shop. Now, being an underground shop, you'd expect everyone to be equipped with guns (that have a larger range than flamethrower) but alas, everyone is scared witless by the awesome power of fire. 

Of course, Firefly finally gets burned (as they say: 'If you play with fire then you're gonna get burned') and is presumed dead, until the end of the episode where it is revealed she is alive and in a secret sciencey place called Indian Hill. The same Indian Hill that Penguin was bartering off to the gangs in the first season as it was supposedly worthless. That's interesting. Especially due to its new owners - the now-seeming-very-corrupt Wayne Enterprises. Now onto the other characters. 

Penguin's plan at the end of last week's episode was to send Butch (his personal slave) to Galavan to find out where his mother was. How would Butch gain Galavan's trust? By cutting off his hand of course. Anyway, Galavan sees straight through this rouse, but not before they equip a mallet to his hand, which is great. They then proceed to torture Butch so as to break his conditioning to Penguin. Not so great. 

Why can't they just let Nygma be? After his relative normality and happiness in last week's episode, things were looking up for Nygma. Then he had to kill Miss Kringle. Oh dear. After confessing that he had killed her previous lover (she kept going on about how she was scared he would hurt her if he ever came back) she, understandably, freaked out and tried to leave. Nygma tried to explain but his body seemed to have a mind of its own and strangled her. Poor, deranged Nygma. The episode ends with a music montage with the various characters in different states of emotion and I personally, thought this was used to good effect.  

Conclusion: overall, it was a nice episode and it will be interesting to see what Indian Hill has in store. And sparring between Bruce and Alfred is always great as is a supposed 'hostage' taking of Lee by Selina in which Lee sets out some milk and cookies. 

Rating: 80%

Thanks for reading, Satamer.