My Review of Gotham's 2x05: "Scarification"

Written by Jordan Harper
Directed by Bill Eagles

Bridget: "Who cares if you're free? What good's freedom if you're alone?"
Selina: "What good's family if you're a slave?"

I tend to be mixed on gender swapping characters. Sometimes it can work but other times I feel it would be better if there was more concentration on writing stronger female characters than changing a male character but then again, one of my favourite character is Missy on Doctor Who at the moment and that was one gender swap that has actually worked in that show's favour.

Anyways, back to Gotham and keeping with origin stories, they've decided to gender swap Firefly into a shy girl named Bridget - bullied by her arsonist 'brothers' into taking part in a series of fires against Wayne Enterprises, only for her to develop an addiction for pyromania and inadvertently kill one of Barnes Strike Force lot (bye, bye, Garrett) but on the plus side, at least Bridget has Selina to count on as the latter offers to get her away from being arrested.

Firefly is without a doubt one of my least favourite Batverse of villains so gender swapping the character wasn't a big deal for me. It also helped that the episode made Bridget into an instantly sympathetic character and it's these sort of twists (her fear/newfound addiction to fire) that are the sort of thing that this show is becoming quite good at. After the mini arc with the first three episodes, it's nice that we're back with another one just as quickly.

Having Selina on Bridget also helps the character too as she's been at a loose end since the first season finale. I did like that Oswald sent Butch to get Selina in order to appeal to Bridget's awful brothers in order to carry out Theo's plans in this one. One of the brothers died in this one, so I'm hoping the next two are bumped off in the next episode for good measure.

As for the reasons behind the arsons on Wayne Enterprises properties - it seems that Theo is after some good old fashioned revenge as flashbacks to 200 years ago showed that the Waynes screwed his family over (the then called Dumas clan) and along with a rather creepy monk/priest at the end, it seems that Theo intends to kill Bruce before the season is out. I have to admit this whole plot suddenly got a lot more interesting than expected now.

As for Oswald - when he wasn't gaining a little advantage by learning about Theo's history, he was still hopelessly under the man's thumb which led to his getting madder and madder throughout the episode. Unfortunately for Butch, this meant that Oswald took his frustrations out on him in a way that really did make me slightly dread the next time we see Butch.

Also in "Scarification"

Aside from pointing out how batshit Barbara is, Tabitha still hasn't grown on me as a character. She needs better stuff to work with.

Tabitha (re Barbara): "She's kind of crazy."
Theo: "That's the best part of her."

Bunderslaw from last season had the misfortune of getting his eye gouged out so the Pike brothers and Bridget could retrieve the knife for Theo.

Leslie: "You go strike with your force but what are we doing tonight?"
Gordon: "Sleep."
Leslie: "Nah aw, it's date night, mister."

Tabitha (to Oswald): "Get your head together little man and get it done."

Theo managed to eventually get Gordon into endorsing him for Mayor by the end of this episode. I'm surprised that Gordon isn't a tiny bit suspicious of him but that'll come later I guess.

Selina (re Fish): "She might come back."
Butch: "I was there, darling."
Selina: "She might."

Leslie (to Gordon): "Don't tempt me. I could psychoanalyse the hell out of you but I'm gonna resist the temptation."

I liked the double date moment with Gordon/Leslie and Nygma/Kringle in this one.

Edwidge: "You're in deep waters, Mr Penguin."
Oswald: "Thank you, Edwidge. That's where Penguins thrive."

Bridget: "Where are we going?"
Selina: "Home."

No Bruce, Alfred or Barbara in this one. Considering how much of the plot hinged on the former, kinda surprised he was missing this week.

Father Kreel (to Theo): "Gotham will be redeemed in blood and Bruce Wayne will die."

Chronology: Not long from where Strike Force left off.

This was a brilliant episode. Scarification gave a pretty fantastic twist to the one of the verses least compelling of villains for me, has added a nice cult/league sort of feel with Theo's general plans for the city and with Oswald descending into further madness, things seem like they're going to get even crazier over the next few weeks.

Rating: 8 out of 10