The Case
As the Ogre decides that Barbara is his soulmate and keeps her captive in his apartment, Gordon rushes to save her before she’s killed. Bullock finds an informant on the street that knows who the Ogre is, or at least has seen him frequent a high class brothel called the Foxglove. While the Foxglove is a well known underground establishment, its mobile location is kept a highly guarded secret. Desperate, Gordon seeks out another favor from Cobblepot, obtaining both the location and an invitation. Gordon sends Bullock to infiltrate, where he is able to force some information from one of the sex workers who once had a nasty encounter with the Ogre. She is able to tell them roughly what part of town his apartment is in, what kind of apartment, and part of a neon sign she could see from the window. This leads Gordon and Bullock straight to the Ogre’s apartment, but find that it has been abandoned. The Ogre calls to taunt Gordon, and they are able to make out from background clues that the Ogre and Barbara are headed to Barbara’s parents’ house. Gordon and Bullock arrive too late to save Barbara’s parents but are able to take down the Ogre before he kills Barbara.
Barbara
Once Barbara finds out that the Ogre is a serial killer, she is understandably disturbed. We know that Barbara doesn’t have the strongest of constitutions when it comes to danger, so by the end of the episode she seems vacant and shell-shocked, some kind of empty barbie doll who had come to accept her fate. In fact, it was Barbara who chose her parents as the Ogre’s final victims when he forced her to chose a target – a murder that he claimed would set her free. Thus far, Barbara has been a pitifully weak character, so it might be interesting to see how her traumatizing experience affects her or if the death of her parents actually changes anything about her life. Was the Ogre right and were her parents a sort of chain holding her back? Certainly the one interaction she and her parents had together felt awkward, forbidding, and disapproving. Will she recover her wits or will she end up convalescing in Arkham?
Cobblepot
We were lead to believe that Cobblepot was planning the death of Don Maroni by buying the bar where he is to celebrate the release from prison of an associate, planting weapons in the bar, and hiring a pair of hitmen to do the deed. Turns out, in classic Penguin fashion, it was all a set up from the start. Cobblepot hires hitmen known to work for Falcone, tells them to give a message to Maroni from Falcone before killing him, and then sabotages the entire hit. The enraged and very much alive Maroni therefore thinks that Falcone has declared war on him, which causes Maroni to retaliate against him, which effectively declares war against Falcone. Cobblepot’s intention is to have his enemy and his oppressive boss take each other out, leaving Cobblepot to work his way further up the organization.
Bruce
Bruce infiltrates Wayne Enterprises in order to search Bunderslaw’s safe, but the canny Bunderslaw is waiting for him. He tells Bruce that both his father and his grandfather knew all about Wayne Enterprises’, that at first they objected but then came to accept the wisdom of their methods. Bruce is understandably upset by this and leaves in a confused daze. This is where we have our first encounter with the young Lucius Fox, who tells Bruce that his father was a good man and that he only outwardly supported the company’s illegal dealings. Bruce goes home, tells Alfred about his investigation and the death of Reggie, and adds his father to his investigation board. Based on the preview of next week’s episode, Bruce unveils some kind of secret lair within Wayne Manor belonging to his father. Will this lair become the Batcave one day? And just what was Thomas Wayne up to?
Nygma
Nygma smuggles the dismembered body of Officer Dougherty – Kringle’s deceased boyfriend – into the GCPD, where he dissolves his body in a chemical solution and disposes of the pulverizes bones. He then forges a letter from Dougherty to Kringle, telling her he left town and not to wait for him. The letter itself is a riddle, which will likely be the beginning of Nygma’s undoing, with the first letter of each line spelling out his last name.
