My Review of Gotham's 2x16: "Prisoners"

Written by Danny Cannon

Directed by Scott White

Oswald: "You have demons?"

Elijah: "Sadly I do. You too I fear."

Wow, this was a bit of a departure from the usual, wasn't it? You know you're watching something out of the ordinary when even the bulk of Gordon's storyline is genuinely compelling and sending him to Blackgate certainly managed to do that. I wasn't expecting myself to be that immersed in his scenes but there you go.

Yes, there was some predictability to be had - inmates who wanted to kick the crap out of him, making threatening comments about Leslie and a corrupt warden who seemed fine with the idea of Gordon not surviving the World's End wing but none of that took away from how great the storyline actually was.

First off all, Bullock's unwavering loyalty to Gordon reach new heights this week when he willingly broke the law and allied himself with Falcone (nice to see him again) in order to break Gordon out of Blackgate so the latter could clear his name. I was wondering when Falcone was going to resurface in the series and this was a good way of adding him back into the mix. As for Gordon, I really hope he does manage to clear his name (even if he can't implicate Nygma) by the end of the next episode.

Keeping with the prison, I also quite liked Puck as a guest character. I thought at first he might have been pretending to side up with Gordon to later betray but he was actually a nice guy and I found his death at the end rather poignant too. That's some great guest acting work there.

Of course, this episode wasn't completely focused on Gordon's spell in Blackgate. We also had Oswald getting to know his family of sorts and they're an odd bunch. I mean, Elijah turned out to be genuinely remorseful for abandoning Oswald and seemed eager to make things right with him. Grace, Sasha and Charles on the other hand were less charitable.

Keeping with the cliches, the three of them were with Elijah for the money and their attempts to kill off Oswald only resulted in the latter being done in rather quickly than they expected. I really liked that Elijah wasn't a bad man and seemed genuinely sympathetic towards Oswald's darker impulses. I also get the feeling that his death is going to be the thing to break Strange's conditioning on Oswald pretty soon, especially when he finds out who murdered his father.

Also in "Prisoners"

Leslie lost the baby. I genuinely wasn't expecting that to happen but I guess the writers need a reason to write out her character for a few episodes.

Warden (to Gordon): "Follow the rules and perhaps you'll survive. Break them and you certainly won't."

For a moment, I thought Nygma was going to let slip to Bullock that he was involved in framing Gordon. 

Oswald: "Believe me, I've done bad things."

Elijah: "We're all sinners my boy."

Oswald: "To be fair, I never raped anybody."

Grace: "Oh, that's a mercy, now isn't it?"

Sasha's attempts of seducing Oswald were daft. The fact that Charles offered to do it - does that possibly mean we finally have a gay male character on this show?

Oswald (to Sasha): "Restrain yourself woman. I'm practically your brother, what are you thinking?"

Bullock: "You have every right to tell me to go to hell but I got no-one else to turn to."

Falcone: "You know Harvey, it's rude to wear a hat indoors."

No Bruce, Selina, Alfred, Barnes, Leslie, Butch, Tabitha or Barbara in this episode.

Grace (re Oswald): "The vermin has to go."

Charles: "But he likes it here. How can we persuade him to go?"

Chronology: A few weeks since the end of Mad Grey Dawn.

Something of a departure episode, Prisoners was a nice little shake up from the normal stuff with both Gordon and Oswald getting their moments to shine. I actually having episodes that are lighter with the cast could be a good thing, especially if they're as great as this one.

Rating: 9 out of 10