Headscratchers / Gotham

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Popping the balloon

• So, Lt. Bill Cranston is being dragged slowly to his death by a weather balloon. Instead of just yelling, "No!" over and over, why not, you know, pull out his service revolver and just pop the balloon?
  • Panic. Plain and simple. You don't tend to think U9 clearly in situations like that and once the initial shock faded, it was probably too high up for Cranston to risk popping the balloon.
  • For all we know, he did try to shoot it, but couldn't aim well enough to hit the thing without blowing his own foot off. It was nighttime, his coat was hanging down into his face, etc. Plus, some people just get too dizzy and nauseous to function when they're hanging upside-down.
  • Of course, he could easily have regained his composure after a while... but think about how high up he must have been by then.
  • And all of this is assuming he managed to grab his gun: the holster was in a bad position for someone upside-down, and the gun could have well fallen off while he was still panicking.

Non-Corrupt MCU

• If the GCPD, and the entire Gotham administration, is so corrupt, then how come the Major Crimes Unit, specifically Montoya and Allen, are able to freely investigate the Mob and the truth behind the Wayne murders? In the pilot, Fish Mooney seems to be genuinely concerned when Bullock tells her that the MCU suspects that she had a hand in framing Mario Pepper for the Wayne murders.
  • The GCPD, the Mayor's office, and possibly the District Attorney are in Falcone's pocket and it's in his best interest if the police appear to be doing their jobs. "You can't have organized crime without law and order", after all. No matter what Montoya and Allen find, Falcone has no fear of going to prison because he owns the people who have the power to send him there. If you had the entire might of the mob, the police department, the mayor and the DA on your side, would you be worried about a couple of cops investigating on their own?
  • And yet, Gordon started interfering with their conspiracy after he found out about it from Montoya. If Gordon knowing the truth necessitated him being killed (according to Mooney) or being forced to demonstrate his loyalty 'to the program' (according to Falcone), then why is the source of his information (and her partner) left untouched?
  • Given that Gordon sparing Cobblepot turned out to be all part of Falcone's long-term plan, the whole "you're dead if you don't do it" might have been posturing on his part. If he's not really worried enough about Gordon to actually want to kill him, then it would make sense that he has a similar lack of concern for Montoya and Allen.

Balloon winds

• Why did the bodies still fall back to Gotham? Shouldn't the wind have taken the balloons miles away?
  • If Gotham is meant to be as big as New York City, they very well could have drifted for miles and still landed in GCPD jurisdiction.
  • Bigger question is how did both Jim and Harvey not realize that balloons come down? It's treated as a legitimate shock and reveal that the bodies come down eventually. The guy who is treated as an idiot in-universe is the one to tell them this. Even if they don't know exactly what happens, you'd think after two murders by balloon, they'd Google "weather balloon."
    • They don't have Google.

Gratuitous clues

• In episode four, Gordon realizes that the letters C L M, that were written on a piece of paper, referred to the police officers guarding the mayor. What I don't get is this: Why did the assassin have those letters written down to being with? The theory that it might have been supposed to be a reminder of the names doesn't hold water, because there could very easily have been several officers with the same initials. And besides, memorizing the names doesn't seem like such a difficult task. It's just three names — anybody could do it. It seems as if the piece of paper was left there only because the plot required there to be some clue for Jim Gordon to find.
  • Possibly GCPD has several teams of officers specifically trained for bodyguard duty, who always work together. The letters would be a reminder of which team was on guard at the time the assassin is planning to attack, and it's unlikely that any other team would have that combination of initials.
  • Or maybe the assassin had an accomplice bribe some of the security-detail officers to turn their backs and give him an easy shot, and the piece of paper is a note from the accomplice to tell him which ones were successfully bought off. It is Gotham City, after all.

Year the show takes place

• So when is the show supposed to take place? They have cell phones and other modern items. But the cars all seem to be decades old and the GCPD have typewriters instead of computers.
  • It's not supposed to take place in a particular year.
  • They do have some computers that have CRT monitors and seem to run on Windows 95 or 98. But yeah, it's supposed to have a general feeling of the past, not any specific date.
  • Every noir period in Hypertime collided together into one period that's not quite 40s, 70s, 90s, or modern, but all noir nonetheless. Kinda like how the 40s and 90s collided together for BTAS.

Harvey Dent and his two-headed coin

• Okay, so Dent's all about giving juvenile offenders a second chance and he convinces them to take it by challenging them to a bet where he has them call a coin toss and lets them go if they get it right. He knows that most of them call heads, so he uses a two-headed coin. Does that mean that any kid who has the bad luck to call tails is just screwed? Cause that seems like a lousy way to decide whether to charge someone.
  • Maybe he has a two-tailed coin hidden on him for such a case, that he would surreptitiously replace the first one with, like a magician.
  • Alternatively he gives them a "best two out of three" option or at the very least a second chance to get it right.
  • He can always just lie to the kid, say that the coin came up tails and never show the coin to the kid again. Even if the kid notices, he/she will not call Dent out on it.
  • "Uh oh, looks like it's heads. Your bad luck, kid... come to think of it, you've had a lot of bad luck in your life, haven't you?" {kid nods} "Well, come to think of it, maybe I won't make your rotten luck any worse, and we'll cut you some slack anyway... but don't you forget how your luck runs when you cross the law, okay? No more causing trouble, because this coin just showed you how luck will turn against you if you do."

Copperhead is incompetent?

• Copperhead is made out to be a master of subterfuge, a professional assassin and an all around badass. So, what kind of prof. killer has such a bad impulse control that the moment she sees her mark she gets this predatory gaze on her face, that is screaming: "I'm after you" in front of her and several other people? Why bother with the pretence to be hurt if she's just going to drop it immediately after?
  • She's only human. She can't be perfect all the time. And in her defense, it probably would have worked out fine if Alfred hadn't been a Retired Badass Battle Butler. If Alfred were more of a Jeeves type of butler he would have been all "I say, young lady, that's an odd expression indeed" and Copperhead would have just killed him on the spot and then shot Selina.
  • It wasn't Copperhead's expression that gave her away, it was Selina's. Alfred only becomes wary when he sees Selina's scared shitless staring at the woman.

That one guy's thumb

• That one guy in The Mask gets his thumb bitten off, but ultimately wins. And then he just forgot about it? Didn't even think of getting it reattached, didn't so much as look for it?
  • It's all fun and games until someone loses a body part, then it, well if you are working for Sionis then it is even more fun for him and you just have to suck it up like the peon that you are. This job market, I tell you. Of course even in Gotham, the most corrupt city in the world, there are still limits as to what you can do if you are paying even lip service to flying under the radar. A Mob Doctor might be able to sterilise the wound and patch it up, but you need a top flight surgeon with a high class operating theatre combined with a lot of follow-up care and physio to re-attach an appendage. That is expensive and hard to hide, and does Sionis really come across as the kinda guy to go to all that expense and effort?
  • Probably he went to the hospital and spun a story about being attacked by some random psycho on the street. Sionis wouldn't have let him take his severed thumb along to get it reattached, because the tooth marks and saliva residue could be used as evidence matching the now-thumbless guy to his dead opponent.
  • Maybe Francis Dulmacher fixed it.

Nygma and corpses

• If Nygma has such a liking for examining corpses, and he's clearly good at it, why can't they just allow him to do it? Name him assistant to that examiner dude. Is it forbidden by the law for a guy to be both in forensic and medical examination?
  • It's strongly implied (read: all but outright said), that the original ME was incredibly corrupt and egotistic. For Nygma to even be allowed to do a little bit of the procedure would hurt both his ego and possibly his ulterior motives. Examining the bodies is his job not Nygma's by golly and he doesn't look like he'd share his position.
  • Nygma may not have the qualifications to apply for that particular job. Being a forensic analyst doesn't necessarily also make one a trained medical pathologist, or even a trainee for pathologist. Even if he's self-taught better than the real M.E., he'd need legitimate credentials if his testimony were to hold up in court.
• Also, I'm not sure I got Nygma's plan. He stuffed the ME's locker with body parts... First of all, it only works if other cops enter at the exact moment the ME opens it, or else he just puts them back and waits until the night to dump them. Second, how was that frame supposed to convince anybody? Ok, let's assume ME was stealing the body parts (although I can't think of a reason to do so, since there's probably even less market for them than for the adrenalin glands. Was he building a Frankenstein monster?). Why would he stuff them in his locker of all places? It's ridiculous, he works in the morgue, surely he would find a more discreet and convinient way of smuggling the parts out, like in the garbage or something. Also, it happens right after he got Nygma suspended, and NOBODY made a connection? They just fire the ME, after Essen told Gordon how they have to tread carefully now, because they're in the spotlight!
  • Bone remains suitable for grafts for some time after death, even after the various soft tissues have degenerated too badly for transplantation. Also, morbid curiosity-shops and shady online dealers have been known to sell human remains as ghastly novelty items to equally-morbid black market buyers, and we know Gotham has no shortage of grim/dark/creepy weirdos.
  • For the second part, it depends on whether the powers that be were more interested in getting at the truth or in getting the incident wrapped up quickly. The latter seems more like the way things work in the GCPD.
  • It could be Fridge Brilliance actually. Nygma knows that the M.E. routinely lies on his autopsy reports to suppress investigations that might embarrass the cops and/or get whomever's been paying him off arrested. There were a lot of arms and legs in that locker, and the ends of them looked burnt. There's an obscure riddle that could very easily account for it, if Nygma's already started to develop his future compulsive habits:
    Q: "I have 13 arms, 10 legs, 2 heads and smell like burnt denim. What am I?"
    A: "A liar."

Pointless cabin

• If Maroni was going to kill Penguin in the car compactor, why bring him all the way to his cabin?
  • A false sense of security, of course. He wanted to give Penguin the illusion that they were still friends before knocking him out.
  • More likely it was to isolate Penguin and keep him from any possible witnesses or help while he sussed out just what was going on.
    • Perhaps also from any possible help, just in case Penguin might've suborned some of Maroni's own people. The little weirdo is very good at that sort of thing, after all.
  • He simply wasn't sure that Fish' tip was true, and brought Penguin there to test him. After all, as Maroni himself pointed out during the phone call, she already wanted Penguin dead for her own reasons and the former umbrella boy just told him he took over her club, he just couldn't take her word at face value.

Bruce in the woods

• What exactly was Bruce doing in the woods in "Scarecrow?" I assume there was a point to him going there, but I don't get what it was.
  • Alfred's words suggest that Bruce and his father used to go up to that spot to watch the sunrise once a year. To keep his memory of Thomas alive, Bruce chose to go there on his own this time. The piles of stones that Bruce added rocks to, then tore apart in an outburst of anger, were cairns the two of them had erected, each Wayne adding another rock to his pile for each sunrise they watched.

The show's "predictability''

• A main criticism of the show is that it can be very hard to get involved in the show because we all know what has to happen.....but do we really? What really makes us think that this show has to end with Gordon failing to save Gotham and Bruce becoming Batman...because that's how its happened before? I mean stuff like the Penguin working for Fish Mooney, Zsasz working for Falcone, Ivy being a vegetarian, Gordon dating Leslie Tompkins, and countless other details definitely didn't happen in the comics.
  • Oh sure, we do have all these things floating around, or how Penguin's rise in the underworld is a bit of a different angle on how Cobblepot rose in the world, but all of this is really just window dressing. You see, when you have a young Batman on the cast list, almost anything at this point is a Foregone Conclusion. So much of what old school comic book fans or even as general Batman fans (of things like The Dark Knight Trilogy) know about Batman is what he'll do as an adult, and given that we have so many iconic characters (and not so iconic) showing up in various ways isn't seen by us as giving fresh new takes on the characters per se. Rather, there a general current among the learned fans that the show's really just stalling for time. We "know" that Falcone and Maroni are eventually going to fall to the rising rogues such as Penguin. We "know" that the child Johnathan Crane being haunted by a scarecrow will eventually lead him to take on the moniker. We "know" that even someone like "Fish" isn't going to last because penguins eat fish. We "know" that Bruce Wayne will eventually swear to war on criminals to protect Gotham. What this show really needs to do is introduce a plot element in such a way that we didn't see it coming, and throw our "comic book goggles" out the window. It'd need to be something dramatic like how Lex Luthor was a good guy for the first season of Smallville, how Malcolm rather than Tommy is the dark archer, or say, in a different kind of twist, how Heart of Ice reinvented Mr. Freeze for the audience watching him, getting us more invested in the show. Gotham's "prequel" vibe it has at the moment sure might have plenty of twists and turns, but it hasn't turned out anything groundbreaking yet to make us finally say that this is a story we don't know its general direction. We as an audience are looking for that before we'll say the show isn't predictable anymore.
  • The closest the show has ever gotten to being unpredictable would be that Edward Nygma works in forensics and there's apparently a conspiracy going on behind Thomas and Martha Wayne's murder (as opposed to it being a random mugging).
  • The unpredicted plot twist may have been there since the beginning: this is the first time there's a conspiracy about the Waynes' murder. In the comics the versions were three (a random mugging gone wrong (initial version), a hit ordered by criminal Lew Moxon out of revenge (Golden Age version: Thomas Wayne had beat him up and got him arrested), and a hit ordered by Moxon out of spite (possible post-Zero Hour version: he ordered the hit because Thomas Wayne was too honest to accept money for extracting a bullet from his nephew's shoulder, but it's unclear if he actually went through with it)) and none had a conspiracy in it, while here there's a conspiracy that most likely involves the board of Wayne Enterprises and may or may not involve this show's version of the friggin' Court of Owls.
  • The show is not about the destination but about the journey, to use an old cliche. Yes, we know that Bruce will become Batman, Gordon will become the Commissioner, Penguin will replace Falcone and Maroni as the top crime-lord etc. But the thrill of the show is in seeing how that happens...and the how is very much still a mystery to us. If nothing else, the ending being a Foregone Conclusion puts added pressure on the writers to ensure that the journey is as interesting and laden with twists and surprises as possible.
  • The finale seems to have somewhat Jossed the Foregone Conclusion presumptions, at least with regards to Maroni's death and Barbara going Ax-Crazy.
  • Yeah they can do whatever they want but the writers have a "promise" with the audience that certain fates will happen.
  • They have a "promise" that certain fates will be adapted. So long as they make enough references to keep the fans happy, hey've got a lot of leeway to play things out their own way.

The Ogre

• It is stated that noone dares to investigate the Ogre's murders because he targets the relatives of those who do. Horrible as it may be, isn't that rather standard behavior for criminals? In fact, I recall in one of the earlier episodes Zsasz holding Barbara hostage. I guess the difference may be that you cannot reason with a lone maniac, and he won't bother with taking hostages, but on the other hand, he's just one mentally unstable man - obviously he has far less opportunity to find out who's investigating him and harm their relatives than the mob has. So all in all, I see it as just a terrible reality of a law enforcer's life - they deal with terrible people, and it puts them and their loved ones in danger. Hell, the entire point of masked heroes is to protect their loved ones from retaliation from criminals. Thus I cannot understand why this case is treated as something completely unique and unexpected. Why is Gordon so furious with Loeb? It's not like he tricked Jim into thinking he's dealing with some petty thief- Jim knew from the get-go he's after a murderer.
  • Huge difference between "going after a murderer" and "your boss is deliberately trying to get your girlfriend killed." Most criminals don't go after cops' families, mainly because the vast majority of criminals do not have some kind of personal vendetta against cops, but also because if you go after a cop and a cop's family, the other cops take it really personal. The whole idea of non-organized criminals regularly targeting a particular cop's family just does not happen outside of TV and movies.
  • Presumably the big difference between the Ogre and other criminals is that the Ogre successfully hunts down the family of cops who investigate him. With other criminals there's a chance your family might be killed, but with the Ogre it's a certainty. Chase after the Ogre, your family dies. Simple as that.

Penguin's Murders

• How does Penguin, who isn't the type to get physical, ever manage to tie up and take hostage the driver of the SUV in "Selina Kyle?" Or kill the person in the beginning of "The Blind Fortune Teller?" It seems he has no problem killing civilians, but fellow criminals usually give him trouble in a physical fight.
  • Because no one probably expects him to be this murder-happy, and while he's not in a shape for a prolonged combat, he's surprisingly quick and adept with sharp objects.
  • In "Selina Kyle," he kills one dudebro by surprise, and has a broken bottle to the neck of the other. It's entirely the element of surprise.

The Season 1 Finale

• Where the hell was Zsasz during the entire showdown and before, when Falcone was in the hospital? The whole city seems to be aware of his whereabouts but not his right hand man?
  • Knowing the Penguin, he probably waited until Zsasz was a long way out of town to kick off the mob war, to ensure he'd have an unimpeded run at Falcone himself. That, or he fed Zsasz bogus information about where Maroni might be hiding out, so Falcone's attack-dog would go off chasing a false lead.
• How did Selina Kyle join Fish Mooney's gang? Are the producers saving the explanation for her behavior & actions in Season 2?
  • You see Fish come to where Selina's hanging out in the start of the episode, and Fish has a habit/talent for recruiting basically anyone she can get to listen to her for five minutes in a row. It's pretty clear.
  • Also, cats do like fish...
  • I'm more for asking why than how. First of all Fish was among people who tried to have her killed for witnessing the Wayne Murder. Second of all her turning bad is one thing, she's Catwoman, she started out as a Batman Villain. However she ends up doing it in the worst way imaginable, by joining up with people whom represent the same monstrosity that killed Bruce's parents.
  • We don't know that Fish had anything to do with the hit on Selina. Second, even if she was, Selina doesn't know about it and has zero reason to suspect it. And she doesn't even "turn bad." She accepts a job offer from a charismatic, powerful person who she thinks can give her something she wants and/or needs, and she still helps Gordon when she gets the chance. You're acting like the situation is a lot simpler and more extreme than it actually is.
  • She held him at Machine Gun point twice and when Gordon thought she was playing The Mole and tried to get her to help him escape. Not only did she not, but she also loudly stated to Fish and the gangs that he was trying to get her to help him. How is that helping him? Not only that but since Gordon lived through it, what's to stop him from telling Bruce of Selina's betrayal?
  • Unless I'm remembering the episode wrong, when shit hits the fan later, Selina does help Gordon escape.

Homicide investigating robbery

• In '"Red Hood", Gordon and Bullock are investigating the bank robbery, but aren't they supposed to be Homicide? Unless the guard was killed, they shouldn't be in charge of the case, Robbery or even Major Crimes should be. Which begs the question, where's Montoya and Allen?
  • Possibly they'd been tracking the culprits of a previous bank robbery that did result in a death, and got called to the scene because the M.O.s (aside from the new red hood) were similar. Either that, or Gordon's reinstatement was as a detective, but not necessarily a Homicide detective.
  • This is a common trope in fiction. Most tv cops work whatever case happens to be up and their departments are chosen either because most cases the show is going to deal with are in that department or as an unofficial rank. Homicide obviously being the "highest" rank. As for Montoya and Allen it seemed heavily implied that they were supposed to be internal affairs which makes them that much less likely to be put on a case that would eat up a lot of time and keep them from keeping an eye on other officers.
  • Many Real Life police departments will assign non-fatal crimes to Homicide if it's an extremely notorious case and/or if there's a strong expectation that it will result in death(s) if not resolved quickly. It's usually in Homicide that you'll find the most experienced and respected investigators in a department, so that's who you call on when you need veteran officers with a proven track-record.

The cop Zsasz and his henchwomen killed

• Why is she never mentioned again? I mean she was a cop and the Gotham PD was up in arms over the corrupt Cranston, but she is not even mentioned afterwards. How come?
  • Different circumstances, Cranston was killed by a vigilante. The female cop was killed by Victor Zsasz, Falcone's chief Hitman and Psycho for Hire. They can't go after Zsasz without having to deal with Falcone, who would never let such a useful operative go down. Besides this is Victor Zsasz were talking about, AKA Gotham's most feared Serial Killer.

Arkham doesn't have separate male and female wards?

• Wouldn't Arkham Asylum be the last place in Gotham you'd want male and female inmates having free and unrestricted access to each other? Unless Barbara is the only female inmate...which brings up a whole lot of other creepy implications.
  • They should be but they aren't because it's Gotham and everything in Gotham is terribad.
  • First Arkham isn't actually a prison, it's an Asylum and even if the rules are the same in real life most people have no knowledge of that. Second Arkham is very rarely depicted as having a ladies wing. Quite possibly because in most versions it's a fairly small facility all things told and doesn't have that many inmates.
  • Actually, there is. In the episode 'Rogue's Gallery' that Leslie is stationed in the Female ward of Arkham.
  • With Jim and Leslie no longer working there, Arkham's staff is bound to be as corrupt as any other city institution. Barbara probably vamped one of the guards to let her wander into the men's wing.

The Gotham Gazette Incident

• How did Jerome and the other Maniax get away with calmly throwing people to their deaths without a single police officer showing up? Even for the typical Gotham Police's lack of competence, there ought to have been a squad car within five minutes of this happening, never mind they were dressed in highly visible clothing.

Bodies landing

• For that matter, what are the odds that all seven bodies would land in a neat row, with their painted letters all showing? You'd think at least one or two would land on top of another body, or flip over thrashing in panic on the way down. What, did the psychos practice throwing people off roofs somewhere else, first?

That innocent man who was shooting me

• In the pilot, there seems to be an odd disconnect between how the cops described Mario Pepper and what he was. Jim and Harvey kept calling him "innocent" and spoke like shooting him would be a career-ending incident, and his wife said he'd never kill anyone. Sure, he didn't murder the Waynes, but after a very brief discussion he does flip out, assault a police officer, shoot at said police officer, and was about to kill him when his partner shot him. Waynes or not, that's a thoroughly righteous kill. But throughout the rest of the episode everyone talks as if these actions never happened.
  • They feel guilty over it because the whole incident would never have happened if they hadn't been investigating him. Sure, in the moment, it would've been justifiable to kill him in self-defense, they feel that they never should have been there in the first place.
  • They should have been investigating him though. It's their job. And he's an unstable man who, at the idea of being questioned by the police (who were quite reasonable by real-life standards, let alone Gotham standards) decided "let's kill some cops!" I mean, I get Jim's frustration at everyone thinking the guy killed the Waynes, but it's just odd there's such a disconnect between what happened and how they describe it.

Blackmailing Loeb once, and then never again?

• Okay, so Jim figures out the Commissioner Loeb's daughter killed her mother and uses this to blackmail Loeb into giving him Harvey's file. But when Loeb says he's willing to resign, Jim says no, because someone just as bad would likely take his place, and he has leverage over Loeb. Reasonable enough. But why didn't he ever bring this up again? And why did Loeb keep provoking him? Endangering Jim's loved ones by sending him after the Ogre isn't exactly a smart move if Jim really did have the leverage over him that they both said he did. And when Loeb has him thrown out of the force, Jim acts like the only recourse he has left is a favor from Penguin, so did he just forget about his information about Loeb's daughter? Between Loeb making stupid plays against someone with dirt on him and Jim not using said dirt when Loeb continues to exert control, it's almost like the creators want us to forget all about the blackmail.
  • By that point, Loeb's probably had time to re-locate his daughter to some other hiding place, watched over by different caretakers. Gordon could only coerce Loeb into reinstating him because he threatened to reveal the girl's crime right then; once Loeb moved her out of reach, Jim's word alone wouldn't have been enough to prove anything and the Commissioner was free to sabotage his career for a second time.
    • But that returns to the question of Jim's reasoning of letting Loeb go. If Jim would know that Loeb could simply just move his daughter than why not demand his resignation? (Jim isn't stupid, he'd clearly know this would be Loeb's first move.) He has zero leverage and now Loeb is out for blood, the better option would be to have him resign, since while his successor may not be less corrupt, he probably won't have any particular grudge against Jim.

Penguin killing mayoral candidate personally?

• Why does Penguin kill one of the mayoral candidates personally? Sure, Galavan has his mother hostage, but Galavan never said Penguin himself had to kill the candidate. Seeing as how Penguin was now the crime boss of Gotham, he could have sent one of his many underlings to kill her to keep his hands as clean as possible, and Penguin is easily intelligent enough to realize that.
  • Those killings were completely counterproductive to him, so if he ordered someone else do them, questions would inevitably rise as to why. And he cannot't let his cronies to know he's dancing to another man's tune - it will make him look weak, especially if they know the reason. He lets Butch and Zasz know because they're loyal.
    • That begs the question why he didn't just send Zsasz both times to begin with, considering he would probably be less conspicuous than Penguin, and more efficient.

Firefly burned despite the suit?

• Firefly was wearing her fireproof suit, when she was engulfed in flames. Why didn't it protect her? Ok, maybe not completely, since it was homemeade, but still, she was presumed dead, which implies severe burns of the majority of her body.
  • She burned because the fuel leak in her pack caught fire after the suit slightly ripped.
  • The suit was fire-resistant, not fireproof. And even if the material couldn't burn, it could still get hot enough to sear skin when it's drenched with flammable liquid that is burning.
  • This troper works with fuel and fire, and can comment that "fireproof" is a misnomer in this case. Firefly's suit was designed so as not to ignite on surface contact with flames, and therefore being made of a non-flammable material would prevent combustion. Fuel transfer, on the other hand, is always a risk when dealing with fuel-ignited flames, unless someone is wearing material that is completely fire- AND heat-resistant. (In fuel transfer cases with material that is fire-resistant, like cotton, the resulting heat will still severely damage the wearer) Firefly's suit was designed not to ignite when brought into contact with fire, but very few materials can maintain integrity after being doused in fuel and then lit the way hers was. End result is that the fuel sears her suit to her body much in the way it was shown, but does not actually ignite the suit itself.

What is Galavan's plan, exactly?

• His plan seems unnecessarily convoluted. Okay, so he wants to become Mayor of Gotham, redeem his family name, and punish the Waynes. It seems like there are more efficient ways to do that than orchestrating a crime wave and making enemies of the Penguin. And what did the knife used on Caleb Dumas have to do with it? Is there something supernatural going on here, and he needed it for some kind of ritual?
  • We're still in the middle of the season. His plan will be revealed as it happens. Also, it's Gotham. Villains in Gotham don't do ruthlessly efficient. They do over the top, symbolic gestures. That's how Batman villains have always worked.
  • Taking over the mayor's office, and doing so in a way that put Bruce in his debt for "saving" him, now seems to have been part of his plan to acquire Wayne Enterprises. Presumably he's convinced that, had his family not been exiled, they'd be the ones running Gotham's most powerful corporation, so conning Bruce into signing it over was part of the "redeem his family name" scheme and his "punish the Waynes" agenda. Becoming Mayor wasn't important to Galavan at all, but making Bruce think he'd have a much better chance to clean up the company than a thirteen-year-old kid was.
  • As for pissing off Penguin, remember that Cobblepot has only been Gotham's crime boss for a few months. Galavan's plans for Gotham were surely concocted long before then, so he may have been expecting to do business with Falcone, not Oswald: he'd originally intended something far more subtle than I Have Your Wife for any potential dealings with Carmine, but the jumped-up little weirdo with the umbrella launched his takeover plot first.

Patron Saint of the Dumas Family

• Just curious... is it common for families (wealthy ones with, probably, no immediate connection to royalty) to have their own patron saints, as the Dumas family apparently did?
  • It's not at all unusual for Catholic couples to choose a patron saint for their family. Families that adhere to the same saint for untold generations are less common, but they exist. Having a saint for a "patron" just means you consider them to be your primary advocate when seeking God's favor and support; it's not something the Church has to formally approve or that your family can only earn by being wealthy or important.

Character Ages

• I know they've aged up Bruce Wayne from the canonical eight years old, but by how much? Are he, Selena, and Silver all supposed to be in their early teens? Are they too young for the weird love triangle to be working?
  • Bruce starts off as a 12-year-old, and Selina as a 13-year-old at the beginning of the show. All the seasons are roughly a year apart - confirmed in the season 4 premiere when Bruce says his parents were killed 3 years ago - so Bruce and Selina are 15 and 16 years old by season 4. Silver should be Bruce's age, as they were in the same year in private school. But if we're assuming that Bruce was precocious and young for his year, then she's Selina's age.
  • If you don't think early teens have romantic drama, you don't remember high school very well.

Gordon's murder

• If Gordon killed Galavan in cold blood, what's to stop him from killing someone like the Joker in the future?
  • Plot Armor or just, in a similar way to how Batman V Superman Dawnof Justice intends to handle a similar issue, showing him disturbed and contemplating how far he had to go to stop a guy, and what that means for his future.
  • Also, Galavan's murder was as much a Mercy Kill as payback. Had Gordon not done it, it's very likely that Penguin would've drawn his demise out for weeks. There's not much distance between finishing him off quickly and an outright vigilante execution, but it is some, nonetheless.
• Not only that: at this point he's in the bag to Penguin for two homicides. How on Earth-One is he going to be an effective cop, let alone future Commissioner, when Cobblepot's got that kind of hold on him?
  • I could see Penguin not holding the Galavan thing over Gordon's head. It does Penguin more good to be seen as the killer of Galavan himself, which is why he stuffed the umbrella down his throat. He'd want to take full credit.
  • And besides, Mr. Cobblepot is also mortal.
  • The first killing was arguably self-defense. As for the second, it's shown there's no physical evidence Gordon was involved and the only witness confessed to doing the crime himself. If Penguin tried to hold it over Gordon in the future, who'd believe a known multiple murderer with a ridiculous bodycount who confessed to the crime, is known to have taken Galavan away before his death, left trademark evidence behind sticking out of the victim's mouth, and had a whole heaping bunch of motive and justification for the murder and actually participated in it, if he suddenly tries to blame it on someone else? Besides, by this point Theo Galavan has been outed as a mastermind behind the prison break that released Jerome and crew on the city and a religious cult that attempted the human sacrifice of Bruce Wayne as well as a bunch of other murders, and had manipulated the system to get away with some of his crimes. Even if people believed Cobblepot, they might very well think it was a case of Gordon justifiably taking out the trash.

Going with Penguin

• If Gordon knew that Penguin was going to kill Galavan, did he really have to go with him? All that would do is make him look guilty, since he probably didn't plan on killing Galavan himself. He could have easily said that Penguin took Galavan at gunpoint after knocking out the other cops. But by going with Penguin, he makes himself look complicit (which he was) without actually needing to.
  • He doesn't want to go along, but if he doesn't, he's going to worry that Galavan might escape and come after Bruce again. Or worse, that he'll come after Leslie to get back at the cop who'd messed up his previous scheme. Remember, Galavan considers revenge worth pursuing for offenses committed hundreds of years ago; if he'd survived, even Gordon's great-grandchildren might potentially be in danger.

(S 2 midseason finale spoilers within) Last second introduction

• Is it me, or does shoehorning in Freeze like this kind of ruin some of his future storyline? Like, a lot of what made him popular is his determination and how he interacted with an adult Batman in Batman: The Animated Series, and it feels like, just from his costume appearance and smug grin, that they're going to be ripping off some of The Flash (2014)'s take on Captain Cold. Why would they go for so many of the popular characters and set them up like this? It makes little sense for so many of the major players in the bat-mythos to be 20+ years older, and for some of them to be even active at all at this point in the story.
  • It's pretty understandable for people to think that it's too early for him to be a supervillain at this point. Just keep in mind that in adaptations like this, alternate story interpretations are inevitable. It's obvious that in this universe, Fries went bad much earlier than expected. However, it's highly possible that even with the suit and freeze gun, he still isn't fully Mr. Freeze yet; judging by his appearance, it appears that he has yet to be exposed to the cryogenic chemicals that basically turned him into a human ice cube. At most, he's just a "proto-Freeze". Even his Captain Cold-esque costume is pretty much a prototype suit that he probably put together before he got his signature armor. Just think of it as an Alternate Universe where Fries became a supervillain earlier in his life (after all, this isn't the comic book universe, it's the Gothamverse). Who knows, maybe he's just as sympathetic as always and will make a Heel–Face Turn, only to be exposed to the cryogenic chemicals in the future (once Bruce becomes Batman) and become Mr. Freeze for real.
  • Also, regarding his Age Lift, Freeze is a villain who can probably get away with being 20+ years older than Batman (the Adam West show comes to mind). Besides, since he's cryogenically enhanced, his aging is much, much slower than normal, so it wouldn't really matter anyway.
  • For all we know, that may not even have been Fries wielding the weapon. Could be that it's only the freeze-ray technology that's making an early appearance, same as the prototype for Bane's drug appeared long before Bane himself.
  • Do keep in mind that Freeze's sympathetic status was completely invented by Batman: The Animated Series and prior to that, he was nothing but a ruthless career criminal/Mad Scientist. If Freeze does turn out to not be a Jerkass Woobie, it's hardly unprecedented, and has even been done again relatively recently, in both The Batman and The New 52
  • ....aaaand it's revealed that this Victor Fries is a Jerkass Woobie, combining the relatively sympathetic backstory of the BTAS Mr Freeze in being motivated by trying to save his wife's life with the Mad Scientist willingly killing people in experiments to perfect his cryogenic stasis technology and quite willing to kill others in order to get away or delay pursuit.

Where is Victor Zsasz?

• Penguin does not seem to be using Victor to his fullest potential now that he's working for him. For example, he sends Victor out to kill Butch after Butch betrayed him but doesn't think to ask his help in rescuing his mother from Galavan? And for that matter, when assaulting Galavan in the winter finale, why didn't he have Victor with him for some more firepower? Or does Zsasz just have a lot of vacation days stored up?
  • Possibly Penguin still had hope of keeping his mother in the dark about his criminality, back when he was trying to rescue her, and Zsasz is notorious enough for even Gertrud to have seen his face on TV. For the finale, Zsasz may have sought other employment after Cobblepot went missing and was recovering from his wounds at Nygma's place.
  • I was actually waiting for Zsasz to show up and save Gertrud and Cobblepot, revealing that he was hiding in the shadows all along. That, unfortunately, did not happen. Even if Penguin wanted to keep his mother in the dark, it would've been smarter to at least have Zsasz on standby just in case. The only explanation I can think of for why he didn't do so was because he went directly to where his mother was being held as soon as he learned about it. He probably tried contacting Zsasz on the way there, but by then there wouldn't be enough time for the Zsasz to tag-a-long.

Galavan siblings

• They must be simply half-brother and sister at most, right? It would be the only way a white man and black woman can make sense. Or are they adopted? Is this explained at some point, because if so I missed it.
  • Mixed raced couples do not by definition produce children who have a great deal of features from both parents. Speaking from personal experience a close friend of mine is half black and half white but looks just like any other white person.
  • I guess that's a possibility too, as we've never seen their parents.
  • The Aylmer twins◊ show that siblings can have radically different colorations. It's not terribly uncommon for people with mixed race heritage to look a lot more like one race than the other. I wouldn't have guessed that Barack Obama has a white parent nor Rashida Jones a black parent just by looking at them. All that said, I think the casting was intentionally made to provoke a "Siblings? Really?" reaction.
  • Good point.

Bruce 2. 0

• The other Bruce at the end of "Transference" has been referred to as both Thomas Wayne, Jr. and a straight-up clone of Bruce. Has there been any official confirmation on which he is, or is it still speculation at this point?
  • Several conversations in Season 3 confirm he's a clone created on the Court of Owls' orders, and not a long-lived one at that.

Ivy acting her age

• Considering Ivy went from being 15 to being 27/28 (the age of Maggie Geha while filming), she seems to have adapted very well to suddenly being an attractive, grown woman. Shouldn't she still have the mind of a teenager? Not to mention young Ivy always kept covered, she had her iconic huge, stripy sweater, but adult Ivy seems happy enough to flaunt her looks and dress scantily as soon as she can, it's like she's a completely different character. Could there be any plot reason, or did the producers just decide they'd had enough of Ivy not being a sex symbol?
  • It is possible she just didn't think she was attractive as a 15 year old, but after she aged up realized men found her attractive and decided to use that to her advantage.
    • Explicitly shown in "Executioner" when she both reveals to Selina that's she's discovered the power of I Have Boobs, You Must Obey! but that she's still an absurdly naive teen mentally, as when she thinks $1000 for a diamond necklace with a ridiculously huge gemstone is a good deal, and when taken aback by how quickly Bruce agrees to that price to buy it off her, decides maybe it's worth....$2000.
    • Indeed, I wrote the question before "The Executioner", becomes much more obvious in that episode she's still mentally 15.
  • Also, if it's just the unflattering sweater-to-sexy dresses transition that you're finding especially incongruous, remember that pre-age-up Ivy was a street kid who slept in alleys a lot of the time. She needed a big bulky sweater because she was cold, not necessarily because she was body-shy. Aged-up Ivy can schmooze her way into horndog guys' apartments for the night, then knock them cold and dump them in an alley while she sleeps in a warm bed.

Alfred sabotaging Bruce's investigation?

• I can't help but find Alfred takes the least amount of effort into helping Bruce find the killer of his parents. Like when he burned those records in the Batcave in season two, or how he constantly takes aim in making Bruce give up his investigation (while, you know, avoiding in giving him ANY actual therapy). Not to mention how Bruce has never not been in danger since Alfred took guardianship nor has he really tried to improve this, let alone finding away to stop Bruce from going anywhere he wants to unsupervised. It makes Alfred look like someone whose utterly unfit to help Bruce in everyway yet the show keeps letting him do these things, including HITTING A FUCKING TEENAGE GIRL ACROSS THE FACE!
  • Alfred is in a bit of a unique situation when it comes to Bruce. He's legally his guardian and the closest thing to a father he has. He's also employed by Bruce and while Bruce is still a bit young to be on his own he's so wealthy that he could almost definitely hire lawyers to drag it any potential fight with Alfred until he was eighteen. Not to mention Alfred has made it clear that if Bruce wants him gone he'll leave. He clearly doesn't want Bruce pursuing this at all but he lacks any tools to stop Bruce. Also some of the danger wasn't his fault. The Galvans would have come one way or the other.

Piranha really?

• Jerome doesn't plan, like at all. He's clearly to some extent based on the Dark Knight Joker as just an agent of chaos and crazy. But the thing is that when you look at the crimes at the circus this wasn't random at all. Molotov cocktails through the GCPD is random. Raping the first pretty girl you see is random. A circus of suffering complete with a piranha dunk tank requires planning and logistics.
  • It's stated the cult took over the zoo, the piranhas are probably from there.
  • Using Heath Ledger's version of the Joker doesn't help the argument: despite what he said about disdaining people with plans, the Joker in The Dark Knight was a brilliant planner, as demonstrated right from the start with the bank robbery. Then there was his successful con into getting people on the ferries, switching the hostages and hostage-takers in order to have the SWAT team kill innocents, his escape from jail, and so on. The only reason his plans fail is because of the direct intervention of Batman or individuals proving to be better than they themselves think they are. In that case, Jerome is very much like that Joker.
    • Indeed. When Heath Ledger's Joker claims he doesn't "plan", what he really means is that he doesn't have any agenda to speak of. He's perfectly capable of planning once he actually gets some crazy idea for a goal into his head, there's just no larger rationale for such ideas ... or at least, no rationale a sane person would accept as one.
  • For all we know, one of the Jerome-cultists keeps piranhas as a hobby. The sort of people who'd be nascently-psycho enough to find Jerome's philosophy enticing are also the kind of people who'd get a thrill out of collecting deadly-dangerous things - knives, guns, bombs, pit bulls, cobras, piranhas, whatever - before they joined his lunatic-squad.

"The Joker has no past, no real origin story, nothing connecting him to anything-" "Hey what about that Jerome guy and his freaks?"

• Okay, so this kind of relies on the whole "Jerome Valeska is The Joker" theory, but it still applies. Correct if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the best, most valued thing about the Joker is he has no real past? No nothing? That's fine, but I'm fairly certain that people in Gotham aren't just going to magically forget Jerome Valeska, the teenage lunatic, or his whole Neo-Maniax group. You know, who cut out all of Gotham's power, and started a whole Circus of murder, and tried to blatantly murder Bruce Wayne, the "Prince of Gotham"? I mean, when the Joker comes rolling around, I'm pretty sure the citizens of Gotham (Some who probably lived through it), the GCPD (Who'd definitely remember him, and have case files and reports on him) and Batman (Who fucking fought the guy repeatedly, had a front row seat to their crazy, and is the World's Greatest Detective) are going to connect the Joker to Jerome, and the Neo-Maniax at least.
  • Presumably in this Verse, the enigma about the Joker's origins isn't "Where'd this psycho get this crazy Evil Clown schtick from?", so much as "Which of the thousands of potential Jerome-wannabees is it this time?"
  • Alright fine, but if we go The Killing Joke style or however they do it, A. Jerome will probably be there when the Joker is born due to his whole Attention Whore thing and Rule of Symbolism B. Unless he's dead or incarcerated or whatever around the time Joker shows up, people will connect the dots and C. As you made the point of the whole "thousands of potential Jerome-wannabees", they won't just go to whatever guy who's absolutely crazy, its Jerome or nothing. D. As the show is using more comic book stuff (Freezes technology, Alice's blood, Indian Hill resurrections) the Joker most likely will have the standard chemical vat origin. That's just gonna bleach his skin, turn his hair green, make his lips red and a permenant smile, not a total facial structure reworking. The GCPD has mugshots and eyewitness accounts and drawings, along with all of Jeromes broadcasts, people will likely go "Hey, the Joker looks a whole lot like that Jerome guy." E. The Joker has the hugest ego ever. He wouldn't go for anyone even remotely comparing him to Jerome, aside from maybe one or two "Thanks, I loved his work!"(Guts you like a pig). He would never admit to being inspired by Jerome, or being a follower or believer in him. Unless he's Jerome.
    • Or believes he might be. "We are Jerome", after all, and the Joker did name the Multiple-Choice Past trope himself: there's no cause to assume he'd be any more certain of his own origins than anyone else.
  • The Jokers lack of backstory is popular right now, but not necessarily the most valued things about him. There's been many previous versions of the story with a completely unambiguous origin. It's entirely possible that the Gothamverse Joker either is Jerome or directly connected to him, without any of that being a mystery to the GCPD or the public.
  • In the Gothamverse, people might be aware that the Joker had a real name and a past, but that doesn't matter, what matters is the unpredictable monster that he is. For a real life example, who is best remembered, Georgian seminary student Iosif Dzhugashvili or genocidal Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin?
  • Since this a prequalverse that focuses heavily on villain origins, the whole Joker-has-no-certain-origin thing that has become popular in the past two or three decades simply isn't true in this universe. I'm not even sure this qualifies as a headscratcher, so much as just an aspect of certain versions of the Joker that don't work in this universe, and so was jettisoned.

What are The Court of Owls' plans?

• They fund research to make "freaks", they make clones of kids so to switch them around, kill people, and a whole bunch of weird crap. What is this accomplishing?
  • Considering their comic counterparts goal is to make their ideal Gotham, it's probably something like that. For example, they Fund freaks, freaks tear up Gotham, the Court members swoop in and offer to fund rebuilding, in the ways they want Gotham to be. They cloned Bruce Wayne so that they effectively have the Wayne fortune under their control when "he's" legally old enough to get it. I'll probably be proven wrong in a later episode, but that's the best I can think of now.
  • Late in season 3, it becomes evident that the Court's seemingly-disjointed plans are that way because their leader, the Shaman, hasn't been in touch for years, leaving his underlings (who don't know the Court's real purpose) flailing a bit as they seek to maintain the status quo in his absence.

Barnes' Ultimate Fate

• At the end of season three, an aerosolized cure for the Tetch virus is developed and distributed across Gotham with 90% of the victims cured, and the police armed with distributors for the stragglers. However, no mention has been made of Barnes/The Executioner, especially whether he's been cured and driven by the guilt of his crimes while affected by the virus or still on the loose.
  • The cure wasn't created until the season finale, including Barnes would have cluttered up the pacing. Chances are we'll see what happened to him in season 4.
  • Even if he's recovered, he's likely to be off the force, between being short a hand and having failed to report getting Alice's infectious blood on himself, in the first place.
  • Then, even if Barnes takes the cure there's no guarantee it will really help him, considering that he was infected with the Tetch virus for months while everybody else has been infected for a few days at the most. Banres might be irreparably mentally damaged and thus still completely nuts after being cured anyway.
  • Mentally restored or not, at least administering the cure should ensure he's 100% non-contagious. Best-case scenario for humanity would be if the Tetch virus were completely extinct.
  • It was mentioned at the end of Season 3 Episode 19 that Barnes had escaped his transport to Arkham after taking out three guards. Alvarez told Bullock about it and that was the last we ever heard from him. Which means that as of Season 4 Episode 11 his location is still unknown, making your original question of what happened to Barnes valid but in a different way. (As in the real question is, after Barnes escaped his transport and the cure was created, where the heck did he go? It's almost as if he vanished from the face of the Earth.)
  • The show ended before he could ever come back. So,short of some kind of comic continuation, his final fate is now whatever you want it to be.

How does Gordon not realize Bruce is Batman?

• In most versions, Gordon either never met Bruce as a kid or only met him once after the Waynes' murder. Here, he's close friends with Bruce and knows him well, even seeing him pull of the classic disappearing trick right in front of him. So, how is it that years later, when a ninja-like vigilante who pulls of the same disappearing trick and has the same personality as young Bruce appears, he can't figure out who it is?
  • Who says the personality Bruce lets Gordon see when he actually has the Bat-suit on will be the same as the one he displays when he's dressed like a Wayne? For that matter, who says that this continuity's version of Gordon won't know who Batman is, right from the start? Quite a few incarnations of Gordon have been Batman's Secret-Keeper on the force.
    • Ever since the publication of Batman: Year One in 1987, when Gordon uses his missing glasses as an excuse why he doesn't recognize an undisguised Bruce Wayne standing two feet away from him after Bruce saved his son's life, it's been all but outright stated (when it hasn't been simply outright stated) in the main comic continuity that Gordon's known Batman's real identity since then.
  • There's a difference between not knowing for certain who Batman is under the mask and not having a single clue as to who Batman is under the mask. The latter is the standard of the Silver Age and the Adam West series. The former (and the Plausible Deniability of it) is the standard for the modern day.
  • Besides, who says Bruce Wayne is the only person who's pulled that stunt on Gordon before now, or will be the only one to do so in the future? The guy's a police detective; he could have a couple of dozen confidential informants who use a Stealth Hi/Bye on him, every time they consult. Gordon's ex-military too, and may have worked with special forces troops and local guerrilla-fighters who did that all the time.

Sofia's Season 4 fate...

• Episode 15 ends with Lee giving Sofia the good old Boom, Headshot!. There's a big gaping hole in her forehead, she bleeds out the mouth, her eyes remain wide open, etc. Then later, Harvey informs Gordon that she's... in a coma, and not dead, even after suffering what was very clearly a lethal shot to the forehead. What kind of powerful Plot Armor is this lady wearing?
  • The same Plot Armor that's kept half of this city alive.

When Did Jervis Infect...

• When did Jervis infect Mario? He just seemed to get the infection out of nowhere a few episodes later and Jervis admits to infecting him, but when did it happen?
  • It is shown in Season 3 Episode 11 in a flashback that Jervis put Mario under a spell at the hospital and injected him with the virus while he was under the spell. This happened right after he dosed Gordon with Red Queen.

Why Her?!

• Out of all the people Ra's Al Ghul could have chosen to lead the league of shadows, why the hell would he choose Barbara?! What sense does that make? Even if you were to make the argument that she was just the backup to Bruce, it still doesn't explain why her in particular. She doesn't care about justice or cleansing the world or all that crap. She's just in it for herself.
  • Could be that Ra's was only in it for himself when he was first resurrected, and assumed she'd outgrow such petty thinking and "see the light" once she'd gotten used to her new status. Fanatics tend to believe that their personal "one true way" is something that anyone would agree with, if only they took the time to consider it. But he'd forgotten that it had taken centuries for him to "see the light", and his own loyal followers in the League certainly weren't inclined to allow Babs that much time.
  • Plus, if you look at it from Ras' point of view, he's got a young woman in fairly good physical health, who's got a heady body count, is pretty smart, has ties in the GCPD, Gotham's underworld etc., and who's easily manipulated. From that angle, having Babs as the demons head would make sense.

Jeremiah During Seasons 2- 3

• It's stated that Jeremiah only hid in his underground bunker since he was 10 to hide from Jerome and his craziness, but what about for the period of time Jerome was dead (the first time)? Jerome was dead for over a year (from Season 2 Episode 3 to Season 3 Episode 13), and at the time of Jerome's first death nobody had come back to life yet, which means that there was no reason for Jeremiah to hide in fear anymore after Galavan killed Jerome for the first time, yet he still remained holed up in his underground bunker even though Jerome was dead. Why? With Jeremiah's sole reason to remain in hiding (Jerome) gone, he could've easily ventured into the world unafraid, yet he didn't.
  • Jerome was dead, but Jerome's crazy followers weren't. For all Jeremiah knew, Jerome might've ordered his fanboys to hunt down and murder his twin as a tribute to him if he died.
  • Also, keep in mind that most of the other Maniax were alive. Jeremiah comes out to get some groceries, Theo or Barbara spots him, thinks Jerome's somehow survived, and then Jeremiah gets killed.
  • Heck, even the cops might be a danger to Jeremiah if he'd come out of hiding. Jerome massacred a whole precinct house; in a PD as corrupt as Gotham's, there's bound to be a few officers who'd think kicking the crap out of his lookalike brother would be a fair payback for their fellow cops' deaths.
  • Not to mention the risk that some random Gotham citizen who lost a loved one in Jerome's rampage might mistake him for Jerome, assuming his psycho twin faked his death somehow, and either attack him or kick off a panic.

Zsasz and Ivy's hypnosis

• It's been proven time and time again that one solid hit to the head can break you out of Ivy's hypnosis, with Lucius being hit once by Gordon and Selina on two separate occasions of being hypnotized by Ivy and regaining his will immediately afterward, and Selina punching Bruce a few times and managing to get him to regain his will as well. How did Alfred punching Zsasz and kicking him out not break Zsasz out of Ivy's hypnosis?

How can Barbara just return to normal life again in the final episode?

• Presumably Jim gets DA Harvey Dent (who owes him a favour anyway) to grant her immunity from prosecution as an informant who aided the GCPD. Plus, this IS Gotham!

Nygma no longer wanted?

• Why didn't Gordon arrest Nygma when he encountered him in season 4? Pretty sure he's still wanted for his serial killings in the last season. Nygma says he backs Leslie, and right after meeting Nygma, Gordon hears Leslie's speech about a better Narrows, but A. Leslie is apparently the one calling the shots in the project, so losing Nygma's support wouldn't hurt it that much (probably save Leslie and the project from a future backstab), and B. Is Gordon, for all the compromises he's made, willing to let a serial killer run free and possibly grow more powerful for the sake of possibly improving a neighborhood (or to avoid pissing off Leslie again?)