Final Thoughts From the Gotham Episode "Strike Force"

This new addition, Captain Barnes, is definitely ambitious and is determined to clean up both Gotham City and the police department. Plus, Chiklis brings quite a bit of energy to the character. However, I'm still not sure if that's really a good thing or not.

I think the fact he is taking on the Penguin head-on is going to turn ugly very fast. And, let's face it, as good of a detective as Jim Gordon is, he wouldn't be nearly as successful if he didn't rely heavily on the crime boss. Barnes may want to end the police department's association with the Penguin and criminals like him. But, I think that will ultimately backfire.

Much like their new boss, the team of newbies are ambitious and maybe even talented. But, as their standoff with Victor Zsasz (Anthony Carrigan) showed, their lack of actual field experience could ultimately prove to be fatal, especially since they were quick to laugh off their defeat.

Since we are on this subject, was I the only one who was reminded of the movie "The Untouchables" when learning of Barnes' plan to bring in fresh blood to reduce the corruption in the GCPD?

The Penguin is easily one of the most recognizable people in Gotham City and he surely has to know even the most basic description of him will tip of the Gotham City Police Department. Plus, he's a crime boss. He has plenty of henchmen who could be committing the actual murders for him.

At first, i thought maybe Galavan was requiring him to commit the assassinations himself. But, then he used Zsasz, throwing that theory out the window.

My only thought with this is maybe he wants the GCPD to suspect him in the hopes Gordon and Bullock (Donal Logue) will put the pieces together, figure out he's being pressured into it and start looking at Galavan. Either that, or he has some other master plan. After all, he is the Penguin and usually stays at least one step ahead of people.

I'm fairly confident Jerome (Cameron Monaghan) pulling Bruce (David Mazouz) out of the crowd so he could kill him and Galavan's last-second rescue wasn't a random occurrence. And, considering Galavan is going out of his way to be extra friendly to the teenager does make me wonder what his intentions are.

Heck, he even brought in his ward, Silver St. Cloud (Natalie Alyn Lind) in an obvious attempt at distracting the hormonal Bruce. That's pretty devious when you think about it.

I fully suspect he is one of the people behind Bruce's parents being murdered and maybe he's digging into what the teenager actually knows about their death. At minimum, I think Bruce may be in danger.

It took a murder and his newly split personality, but Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) finally got Kristen Kringle (Chelsea Spack) to have dinner with him and, other than him almost accidentally confessing to murder, it went really well.

However, I've always suspected there was something more to Kringle than she was letting on and this episode just strengthened that suspicion. I have a feeling she is manipulating Nygma and, now that she knows he has a split personality, I think she's going to start exploiting him.

In other words,I'm not convinced she is as innocent as she pretends to be and, ultimately, will be the reason he turns to crime.

Overall, I thought this was an interesting episode. There was quite a bit of action in it along with some drama but, at the same time, I think it's pretty obvious it wasn't revealing everything just yet. It'll be interesting to see what happens next week.

My Grade: A