Directed by Erin Richards
Written by Ben McKenzie
After Gordon is shot in an attempt to establish a cease-fire, he hallucinates a trial for his life that could have deadly real consequences. Meanwhile, Ivy (guest star (Peyton List)) returns and puts her spell on Bruce, leaving Selina to defend herself. Lee has a life-changing moment as Barbara and Penguin consider their next move.
Tropes
- A Fool for a Client: The court in Gordon's nightmare doesn't even pretend to be impartial, so Gordon is forced to represent himself (and every attempt he makes to plead his case gets ignored by the prosecutor or shouted down by the judge.)
- Attending Your Own Funeral: While comatose, Jim dreams that he's attending his own wake at the GCPD; he sees cops and criminals alike getting drunk and singing to celebrate Captain Gordon's demise. When Jim points out that he's still alive, his hallucination of Bullock responds that it just wouldn't be as fun if they waited until he died.
- Beat the Curse Out of Him: Selina punches Bruce repeatedly in the face to free him from Ivy's influence. She also kicks Lucius in the head.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Jim and Lee at their wedding. At the same time, Bruce takes the opportunity to have one with Selina.
- Breather Episode: Like the previous episode, the stakes are relatively low here and the threat is dealt with quite easily and is mostly used as a character study of Gordon as well as to develop Bruce and Selina's relationship. This prepares the audience for the next episode.
- Call-Back: Bullock wears the bomb suit Nygma used a few episodes ago to get close enough to Zsasz to knock him out.
- The Cameo: One of Jim's final hallucinations takes place at his wake, where a good number of past villains show up to celebrate. Among them are the Scarecrow, Mother, Kathryn Monroe, and Professor Pyg.
- Continuity Nod: Bullock references the time Ivy hypnotized the precinct.
- Death Seeker: It turns out deep down Gordon has become this, wishing to die so that the people around him can have a better life. He finally realizes that he wants to live when he sees his baby dying and finds protecting it to be his purpose in life.
- Enemy Within: Jim's main antagonist in the episode is himself. More specifically, his crippling guilt that seems to encourage him to just give up and die.
- Epileptic Flashing Lights: When Jim's coma nightmare culminates in him getting the electric chair, the audience is shown a rapid-fire burst of flashing colored lights interspersed with split-second cuts back and forth between Jim frying and Lee reacting before Jim finally wakes up.
- Fake Shemp: Scarecrow, Mother, Professor Pyg, and Kathryn Monroe are all played by body doubles to save the time and money required to bring back their usual actors for what amounted to a brief cameo; all four are silent and wearing their signature masks so the audience won't be able to tell the difference.
- Foregone Conclusion: We know that Jim will survive his injury so he can be part of the group protecting Gotham on Day 391 as seen in the first episode of the season.
- Guilt Complex: Gordon feels extremely guilty over all the indirect destruction he has caused in the lives of others. Most notably, he feels like Lee and the Haven refugees would be better off if he were dead.
- "Hey, You!" Haymaker: Alfred gets Zsasz's attention, then knocks him out.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Between Bruce and Selina, with Selina trying to snap Bruce out of Ivy's control.
- Kangaroo Court: The titular "trial" is a coma nightmare Jim faces as a manifestation of his ceaseless guilt and subsequent desire for death. The trial is more-or-less rigged against him from the start: the Judge ignores Gordon's refusal to accept the charges. From there, the prosecutor — who is a clone of Gordon — calls Lee as a witness and basically uses leading questions to goad her into making a vague statement that the court accepts as evidence of Gordon's guilt. Any attempt by the real Gordon to object is either ignored or shouted down, and the Judge even threatens to hold Gordon in contempt when the latter points out that he's bleeding out from a bullet wound. Gordon doesn't even get a chance to defend himself before being declared guilty by a jury consisting entirely of people who died in the explosion at Haven. Gordon's self-loathing is so severe that he can't even defend himself from his own subconscious.
- Moment Killer: Ivy interrupts Bruce and Selina's date.
- Lampshade Hanging: When Zsasz breaks free and shoots up the GCPD building, Bullock takes cover and exasperatedly explains how tired he is of getting shot at in his own precinct.
- Not Me This Time: Oswald vehemently denies trying to kill Gordon, saying that he would not have invited him and all the gangs in Gotham to his house if he had really wanted him dead. Harvey punches him anyway when Oswald said it was Gordon's own fault.
- Talk to the Fist: When Bullock bursts into the Penguin's lair demanding to know who shot Gordon, Penguin callously insists that it's Gordon's own fault for making himself a target. Bullock gets him off his high horse with a punch to the gut.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: After getting the leaders of the remaining gangs to her bar under the guise of celebrating Jim being shot, Barbara reveals that the drinks they just had were poisoned and that they have 48 hours to hand over all their guns and agree to a truce before she'll give them the antidote. She's not bluffing as shown by one of the leaders dropping dead in front of everyone since he had a few more drinks beforehand.
- Time Skip: A month passes between Jim waking up in the morgue to his marriage to Lee.
- Tsundere: Barbara proves that underneath all her bitterness and vitriol, she still loves Jim Gordon. Penguin points out that while she claims it is for her own benefit, she does exactly what Gordon would want her to when he is injured and prevents the gangs from destroying Gotham. It doesn't mean she'll give up her baby, though.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Zsasz attempts to kill Gordon even though he had saved him from being lynched by Penguin a few episodes earlier. Subverted in that he was hypnotized by Ivy.
- Wedding Episode: Jim and Lee finally get married.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Ivy just abruptly disappears from the episode after being non-fatally shot by Lee and is never mentioned again. And this is her last appearance in the series, ending her on the note of being a Karma Houdini.
