Final Thoughts from the Gotham Episode "Mommy's Little Monster"

In fact, I pretty much predicted that last week. However, while Galavan's decision to murder Penguin's mother wasn't that much of a surprise in retrospect, it was still a bit further than I honestly expected him to go. At most, I figured he would continue to hold his leverage by keeping her prisoner.

In addition to making Penguin an enemy, I'm fairly certain he's not going to be in Galavan's good graces after filling Gordon (Ben McKenzie) in on some of the missing details involving the new mayor.

However, Butch is a tough guy with plenty of skills and street smarts so I fully expect him to play some sort of role in the coming episodes. We already know he's trying to form his own gang and, even though his first attempt failed miserably, it would not surprise me to see him become another potential threat for Gordon and the Gotham City Police Department.

It sure did take him long enough to figure out Galavan's secret. Even without the first-hand knowledge viewers were given about who he was and his motivations, the man has acted pretty suspiciously since he showed up to Gotham City and, as Gordon finally realized, there were an awful lot of coincidences that quickly propelled the once relatively unknown Galavan to the mayor's office.

Of course, now that Galavan does have that office, Gordon will once again be facing an uphill battle to remove him.

Captain Barnes (Michael Chiklis) seems like an honest, no-nonsense guy. But, despite that, I can't help but wonder if he's going to believe Gordon if/when he tells him about Galavan or hinder his efforts to prove the mayor isn't who he says he is.

Part of me also quietly wonders if maybe Barnes isn't who he says he is either and is actually working with Galavan. The latter does have resources and, up until this season, we didn't even know who Barnes was. So, it's very possible he's one of Galavan's henchmen.

Am I surprised Silver (Natalie Alyn Lind) is knowingly helping Galavan by keeping the hormonal Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) preoccupied? No. But, I am disappointed the writers decided to go that route with her character rather than maybe having her genuinely like Bruce, be in a relationship with him and not know Galavan's real plan for fixing them up.

At minimum, I wish the writers would have kept her role a mystery so we could form our own theories about her instead of already knowing she's working for the bad guy.

Barbara (Erin Richards) seems to have faded to the background recently. At one point, she seemed like Galavan's favorite pet project. Now, we see her for a few moments, she has very few, if any lines and doesn't really seem to have much of a purpose any more. 

I'm hoping, now that Galavan and Gordon are officially enemies, that will change. But, I'm not sure how the show is going to put her back in a more prominent role without detracting from the other, stronger, villains.

It took a while but Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) seems to finally have crossed over to the dark side after disposing of Kristin Kringle's (Chelsea Spack) and coming to terms with his evil personality. I'm not sure what that is going to mean to the show in the short-term since Gordon and crew seem to already have more than enough villains, but I'm sure his new persona is going to have some sort of impact at some point, especially since he still works for the police department.

I was a little concerned this show was starting to lose some focus but this episode did a great job of drawing lines and setting up a war between Gordon and Galavan that will likely include Penguin and others. I'm definitely interested in seeing what will happen next.

My Grade: A