Awesome / Gotham Season Three

Season 3

3x1: Better To Reign In Hell

• Gordon takes down a freak by tricking it into the street where it's run over by a GCPD truck.
  • Probably not just any freak, based on the design it's very likely that this was Killer Croc.
• As the mayor tries to assure the public there's no danger at a press conference, Oswald storms into it to tell the media how Fish Mooney is alive and leading the escapees and implores the citizens of Gotham to go after her. In the space of ten seconds, Penguin has not only exposed the truth the police are hiding but gotten the entire city to consider Fish a public menace, proving himself a Magnificent Bastard.
• Penguin visits Nygma and shows him a puzzle box created generations ago, the hardest puzzle ever created, a mathematician once going mad trying to figure it out. Nygma opens the box in five seconds.
• A gang leader comes by Barbara and Tabitha's new club to shake her down for protection money. He slaps her with Barbara seemingly crying. Her tears turn into laughter as Tabitha slides up and slits the throats of two of the goons. Barbara knocks down their leader, grabs his gun and bashes him over and over, laughing hysterically the entire time.

3x2: Burn the Witch

• Bruce effectively bluffing his way into a detente with the Court of Owls.
• The GCPD's raid on Fish's base and fight with several of her empowered goons.
• Penguin, despite his well known criminal reputation, manages to make himself the hero of Gotham, by rallying an angry mob and using them to take out several of Fish's gang.
• Gordon playing Fish and Penguin, in order to save his and Harvey's lives.

3x3: Look into My Eyes

• After the whole mess of the past season, Gotham remained without a mayor. So the councilmen that had been running the city in the meantime have appointed Aubrey James... And then, out of nowhere, Penguin calls him out on the illegality of the move and demands emergency elections for the office of mayor, to which he obviously names himself as a candidate as those present chant his name.
  • Later, James gets Penguin to meet him in an Italian restaurant, and when Penguin reacts to his provocations, he has the wait staff pull guns on him. Then Penguin snaps his fingers... And everyone else pulls guns on James' men. After which he puts one of his election pins on James and leaves.

3x4: New Day Rising

• Not-Bruce showing up Just in Time to beat the crap out of a couple of goons and save Selina's fingers.
  Selina: I did not think you had that in you.
  Not-Bruce: Neither did I.
• Gordon works out that Tetch's mindfuckery was connecting with his issues with Lee, pushing through them enough to throw off the suicidal impulse and shoot the metronome that Tetch was using to re-trigger him.

3x5: Anything For You

• Upon seeing Nygma again, Lee promptly punches him in the face, and informs him that Falcone is about to become her father-in-law in case he's thinking of getting back at her. Barnes congratulates her when he hears about it.
• How much does Barnes hate Nygma? Both of them get back-to-back CMOA's at each other's expense earlier on. Nygma, now the Penguin's Chief of Staff, pulls rank on Barnes and makes it clear who's running the Red Hood investigation. Barnes then makes it clear that he's only tolerating Nygma's presence and position after everything he had done in the past season because he likes his own job more than he hates Nygma, in no uncertain terms and in the form of an eight-word comeback.
  Barnes: Every dog has his day, Nygma. Enjoy yours.
• Barnes is told that Butch has escaped, and gets so upset he stands up...and then realizes he forgot his cane, and Alice's blood has healed his leg.
• During the fight at the Sirens, Butch has a moment. Zsasz has shot him and has him on the ground. When Tabitha provides a distraction, Butch suddenly stands up, smacks Zsasz, and throws him over the bar. Considering that Zsasz had just shot him and was the one who originally tortured and programmed him to follow Penguin, that had to feel cathartic.
• Bruce finally tells Selina he has feelings for her!
  • Selina's pre-kiss line is just as awesome:
  Bruce: There's something between us. I know there is. You have to see that.
  Selina: Rule One. Don't ever tell me what I have to do.
  [The Big Damn Kiss happens]
• Nygma effectively outgambits Butch to reveal his treachery to Penguin, and further improves his status with the new Mayor.

3x 6 Follow the White Rabbit

• Not only did Tetch see through Gordon's attempt to use reverse psychology to save Lee and Valerie, but he also predicted he would bring Mario as backup, and had the foresight to unload the gun he kept in a downstairs closet.
• Gordon giving Tetch "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how his sister hated him and would rather die than live with him, which actually drives him to tears.

3x 7 Red Queen

• Subconscious!Barbara finally gets tired of Jim's rudeness, breaks a cocktail glass, and holds the shard against his neck. "I know you're lost! You wanna find your way home?! Play nice!" Those of us who are finding Jim Gordon hard to root for at the moment might have found it cathartic.
  • Sure, Barbara could have done it because she was jealous about Jim mentioning Lee, but nevertheless, it was cathartic!
  • Since it was in his subconscious, one almost wonders if Barbara did it because Jim thought he deserved it.
• The police taking down Tetch. Bonus point for Barnes, who got to punch him in the face.

3x 9 The Executioner

• Gordon refusing to side with Barnes' insane crusade, even when facing down a shotgun. And when the GCPD arrive and distract Barnes, Gordon tackles him and fights for control of their guns, before finally putting a bullet in Barnes' shoulder, disabling him.
• Nygma quickly deducing that Isabella's death was engineered, in a very short amount of time, and with little available evidence.

3x 10 Time Bomb

• Barbara's determinator status in this one. She goes from pointing a gun at Penguin in a meeting in front of the other crime families, to bribing Penguin's maid successfully for information, to tricking a bondage salesman into shackling himself up so she can whip some information out of him, to showing up where Nygma has kidnapped Butch and Tabby - all in order to rescue Tabby. It recalls the episode where Tabby hired someone to kill Gordon because he'd hurt Barbara. Barbara will similarly go to any lengths for Tabby. Even Evil Has Loved Ones, indeed!
• Don Falcone for being the first one all-season to make Kathryn of the Court of Owls briefly nervous, when he warns her and the Court to stay away from his son Mario.
  Falcone: If my son gets hurt, I will come after you with everything I have.
  Kathryn: You won't win.
  Falcone: If my son is dead, winning won't be the point--GOTHAM WILL BURN.

3x 11 Beware the Green-Eyed Monster

• Gordon figuring out how to pry information out of Tetch with what is perhaps the simplest of mind games: Playing on his obsession with rhymes. The smug loon's resulting Oh, Crap! face is tremendously satisfying.

3x 12 Ghost

• Gordon not only managing to foil Zsasz's assasination by first killing his two accomplices, but then proceeds to take on Zsasz in a hand to hand fight and win! Compared to what happened last time Jim fought him in season 1, this is a supreme badass moment for Gordon.
  • Hell, if it wasn't for the fact Zsasz's pistol was empty, Gordon would have killed him right then and there.

3x 13 Smile Like You Mean It

• Though this is more a case of Creepy Awesome, Jerome's resurrection and subsequent return in all his hammy glory. Even better that he improvs on the spot while missing his face, takes down any police officer in his way, and by the end of the night is back on the loose and creating chaos. Bonus points for his nerves of steel when he staples his own face back on!

3x 14 The Gentle Art of Making Enemies

• Bruce manages to talk Jerome into delaying his execution by saying he needs an audience. He follows that up by picking his handcuffs with staples Jerome stapled into Bruce, and after escaping, leads Jerome into a hall of mirrors where he beats Jerome in a fistfight, effectively beating the Joker for the first time ever.
  • Extra points of awesome for the Hall of Mirrors scene - it's very, shall we say, "reflective" of the climactic scene in The Killing Joke, where Batman chases Joker through a house of mirrors. Here, instead, their roles are reversed: Bruce is the prey (initially) and Jerome is the hunter. Using the mirrors and his training, Bruce gets the jump on Jerome, beats him up, but holds off on the decision to take his life. So many moments have led up to this one: here, the relationship between Batman and Joker is truly born.
  • And when Jerome stumbles out of the tent a few minutes later, Gordon runs up and decks him hard enough to knock his stapled-on face off, and knock him out.
  Harvey (impressed): At least you get to say you punched a man's face off!
• This whole episode was basically a keg of awesome for Bruce. Throughout the entire episode he displays quick thinking, courage, and probably most important of all his morals of never taking a life as he spares Jerome even after thinking he had killed Alfred. But what truly might be the best part is this conversation we get between Bruce and Alfred after all the craziness:
  Bruce: I almost killed him, Alfred.
  Alfred: Oh, but you didn't, you controlled your anger.
  Bruce: It wasn't just anger, after everything Jerome had done, all the pain he'd caused, the idea of killing him...
  Alfred: It felt right.
  Bruce: Yes, it felt like Justice.
  Alfred: There's a very fine line, Master Bruce, between Justice and Vengeance.
  Bruce: I know, but it doesn't mean there isn't one. I knew where the line was tonight, and I didn't cross it.
  Alfred: Well that's the first rule then. I've been training you so you can defend yourself, but we're well past that. So what's all this training for? What are you going to do with it?
  Bruce: I don't know.
  Alfred: Nor do I, but if you keep going, you're going to need rules; rules that you cannot and will not break, no matter what reason or what circumstance.
  Bruce: I will not kill.
  Alfred: Say it again.
  Bruce: I will not kill!
  Alfred: Then let's get to work.
  • The look in Bruce's eyes after this as we see this is no longer the young frightened boy who we saw in the very first season, but the eyes of a young man now ready to push himself to become the man that the city will need, and the man that the criminals will fear!
    • Even better, as Bruce stands up after this scene, he quickly pivots away from the camera. You know every Batman fan saw it, they could see the cape and cowl upon him, the swoosh of the cape as he made his dramatic exit. The first signs of BATMAN!!
• The look in Bruce's eyes at the end showed resolve, but there's an earlier look during the stapler scene with Jerome, when Jerome taunts him that there are no heroes in Gotham. Bruce pauses for a few seconds and you can see that a decision is being made. Nice job, Jerome. You've just created a legend.
  • Said stapler scene is so awesome that even the background music knows it. Jerome puts two staples into Bruce's arm before Bruce cries uncle. It's just as Jerome places the first staple — only to be met by no reaction other than a squeeze of the eyes from Bruce — and sees it's somehow not affecting this boy. The music starts softly building to something EXTREMELY Batman-ish.

3x 15 How The Riddler Got His Name

• True to the title of the episode, Edward finally takes on his iconic supervillain persona at the end. Now sporting the iconic green suit and bowler hat, it's safe to say that his transformation into the riddle-obsessed rogue that we all know and love is now complete.
  Edward: I just killed the best friend that I have ever had. My search for a teacher or an enemy, that was just me trying to hold onto him for a little bit longer. But now I know who I am without him.
  Lucius Fox: So, who are you now?
  Edward: Oh, come on, Foxy. I'm the Riddler.
• When Ed appears in the backseat of his car, Lucius is remarkably unafraid. Face to face with a homicidal, gun-wielding cuckoo-pants, and the only emotions he shows are boredom and concern.
• Bruce initially takes some hits from the four goons with Selena, but after she leaves he decides he's had enough of that crap and proceeds to take them down. For bonus the fight is shot in silhouette, reminiscent of the many portrayals of Batman where he's shown fighting using that technique.
  • Bruce's first move in the fight is elbowing someone behind him. It's hard not to see an homage to Batman The Animated Series in what looks rather like his famous Offhand Backhand (take note of the picture on the trope page).

3x 17 The Primal Riddle

• A Villain Episode if there ever was one as the heroes play a backseat to the bad guys
  • Barbara recruits Riddler to find out more about The Court of Owls which involves Ed, as Barbara puts it, does a big production which involves kidnapping newly-reinstated Mayor James and broadcasting his threat of using a bomb around his neck on live television if The Court doesn't reveal themselves. The kicker? It not only works, they recruit him!
    • Which is awesome in-and-of itself given how often his schemes fail simply from being too complicated.
  • The opening sees Penguin and Ivy are traveling across a frosty and frozen landscape towards a structure. We know who lives there as the two of them enter and find Mister Freeze who they recruit with the promise of resources so he can cure his condition. Their next stop? A smelting factory where we find none other than Firefly who only takes a little encouragement from Ivy to team up with them.
• Out of nowhere, it turns out the show is incorporating Catwoman's origin from Batman Returns, as Selina is pushed out a high window and a bunch of cats crowd around her body.

3 X 19 All Will Be Judged

• Arrested, Kathryn is smirking about Jim thinking she's the leader of the court and in control. Alfred bursts in, demanding to know where Bruce is and Kathryn laughs about "Good Cop/Bad Cop." In response, Alfred grabs a knife and jams it into Kathryn's hand, pinning it to the table.
  Alfred: I'm not a cop, am I? I'm a butler.
  • He goes on to twist the knife further and Kathryn might well have cracked before Barnes showed up.

3x 20 Pretty Hate Machine

• Alfred interrogates Strange by taking him to the roof of the police station and holding him over the edge backward by his tie. To his credit, Strange still refuses to talk until Alfred promises his freedom.
• Even caught by surprise and completely unprepared, Oswald is still able to escape Eddie and the Sirens with a simple bluff - he knows Ed so well that he knew simply looking smug would be enough to have Ed second-guessing himself as to the possibility of a trap. Essentially, he buys time for himself and Ivy by having Ed outthink himself.
  Oswald: (smugly) Oh Ed! So smart.
  Ed: (impressed after his escape) Bravo, Oswald!
• Eddie has Oswald captive, Oswald refusing to call him "Riddler" and Eddie is about to kill him. Suddenly, footsteps appear, each side accusing the other of planning a trap...and Fish Mooney walks into the room to announce her return to Gotham.
• Even after infecting himself with the Tetch virus, Jim Gordon refuses to allow it to corrupt him mentally, instead concentrating on heading for the clock tower at Union Station. And like a berserker he tracks down the Tetch bomb, shoving aside anyone in his path even if the unlucky individual happens to be a fellow police officer, and he ends up no-selling a Talon who's guarding the bomb. Unfortunately, he fails to stop the bomb from exploding, but hey, it was worth a try.

3x 22 Heavydirtysoul

• A major one for Bruce. After stabbing Alfred right in front of a Lazarus Pit, he realizes that he had killed the butler who had cared for him since the death of his parents, and he uses its waters to revive him. Alfred comes to right before the Gotham title is shown, with the music at the usual pitch of E.
• The season ends with several characters taking some major steps forward toward their comic identities:
  • Selina is cast off by Bruce for good, and upon learning Barbara is dead takes up with Tabitha instead, where her eye is quickly drawn to her new mentor's whip.
  • Butch is shot in the head by Barbara, but the medical examiners discover his real name is actually Cyrus Gold, i.e. the zombie supervillain/anti-hero Solomon Grundy.
  • The Penguin unveils his plan to open up a brand new nightclub, the Iceberg Lounge.
  • In the final scene, a family is held up just like the Waynes were at the start of the show. But this one has a happy ending as a figure in black attacks the mugger before vanishing into the shadows. As the family looks around in bewilderment for their mysterious savior, Bruce appears on top of a nearby building in a proto-Batsuit, looking out over the city he's just begun his journey to become the savior of.
• At long last, the mastermind behind the Wayne murders, Hugo Strange's experiments, even the Court of Owls is revealed: Ra's al Ghul himself, played by Alexander Siddig in a truly memorable One-Scene Wonder.
• Penguin Lampshades the fact that, while Riddler might be The Chessmaster where pre-planned scheming is concerned, he's a master of Xanatos Speed Chess: he had no idea that Barbara's gang would interrupt Ed's attempt to trade Tetch for him; he just took full advantage on-the-fly of the opportunity that chance presented, then proceeded according to how he knew Nygma would respond, if properly goaded by his taunts. The Riddler may know how to steer circumstances, but the Penguin steers people.