As Joe Chill faces execution, he has a special request for Harvey. The team turns to an unusual aid to solve a cipher.
Tropes
- Adaptational Nice Guy: This incarnation of Joe Chill is still a criminal who's doing a hired job of scaring the Waynes. However, he notably didn't have any intentions of killing them and didn't even load the gun. Instead, he was set up as part of a Frame-Up to make him look like the Waynes' killer and ended up spending years in prison for a crime he didn't really commit and eventually received the death penalty, dying as a relatively innocent man who may have been a criminal but definitely wasn't a murderer.
- Age Lift: Given that Joe Chill had been on death row for 50 years, and Bruce was 8 when his parents were killed, this means that Bruce would have been at least 58 when he was killed in the pilot episodenote .
- Broken Pedestal: Played for laughs as Duela is dismayed at the idea that Joe Chill, the original Gotham bad guy, was innocent all along.
- Cassandra Truth:
- Chill told just about anyone he could about the Court of Owls but of course, no one believed him.
- Harvey tries to warn Lincoln of the Court but Lincoln thinks Harvey left the coin as some sort of game. He pays for it by being stabbed by Talon.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Four unarmed teenagers with little to no combat training (and missing Carrie and Duela, the best fighters in their group) taking on an entire group of heavily armed drug traffickers, relying only on the element of surprise? Yes, it ultimately works, and none of the good guys die or are seriously injured.
- Delighting in Riddles: Of course, Arthur Brown (who is supervillain Cluemaster in the comics) has to be this, as even his "help" to Stephanie is leaving her with a riddle.
- Frame-Up: Joe Chill says he was only hired to scare the Waynes and the gun wasn't even loaded. It was someone behind him making the two fatal shots and the young Bruce was too traumatized to \understand the bullets didn't come from Chill's gun.Chill: Two perfect shots. I couldn't have made those if I tried!
- Insistent Terminology: Joe Chill addresses Turner as "Turner Wayne"; Turner tells him that it's Hayes (since Bruce didn't want to displace his birth parents) and that the media usually makes the same mistake.
- Real After All: Between Chill's confession and seeing Talon stab Lincoln March, Harvey finally accepts the Court of Owls is real.
- Sarcastic Confession: When Stephanie's dad asks if the cipher is for school, Stephanie replies, "No, it's the secret McKillen family ledger recounting all their crimes." They both laugh as Brown lets her go.
- Spotting the Thread: A drunk Stephanie talks about her father being no help as his advice to her was "fear not, Sherlock, you'll get it at last." A slightly more sober Harper realizes Arthur was referencing The Valley of Fear, the last Sherlock Holmes story, which features a book cipher.
