In Review: Gotham: A Dark Knight – Hog Day Afternoon

Synopsis: Gordon and Bullock are hot on a serial killer who has been assassinating cops and dressing his victims in the severed heads of pigs as his signature mark. Meanwhile, Sofia tries to win Penguin, and Thompkins, Nygma, and Grundy find themselves an unlikely home at Cherry’s place.

Review: This week seemed to be one of those by the numbers episodes, which acts more like a placeholder than progress the plot too much. The Pig made an interesting nemesis for Gordon to go up against and it is likely that we’ll see him again in episodes to come, but I’m not sure if he will be the main villain this year. Having Gordon and Bullock go up against a nemesis that is knowingly murdering bent coppers made for a fun element given that Bullock is far from a saint.

We get more of Nygma and his unlikely friendship with Soloman Grundy and that plotline is moved along somewhat but has a funny turn when Thompkins winds up telling Nygma how he should have blackmailed her because he does not have the thought processes to do it himself. She also tries to play Grundy off against Nygma by telling the new guy that Nygma is only using him for his own ends. Of course, Grundy does not believe her due to his misguided sense of loyalty. I quite like this more underworld version of Thompkins over the somewhat goody two shoes that she was in the earlier seasons. You have to wonder if there is a theme here. Barbara Keen was Gordon’s first onscreen girlfriend and she broke bad. Now, Tompkins, his second onscreen girlfriend breaks bad, but ever so shady.

As far as Penguin goes. He is still highly suspicious of Sofia and her motives, but these suspicions are amplified by the fact that she brought a hotel before she’d even moved back to Gotham and had waxed a few palms to get zoning permission to add to it. This relationship with Sofia and Penguin is proving to be fun to watch given that we are seeing move and counter move. She seems to be several moves ahead of Penguin.

Overall. This was an okay episode but felt a bit more like a placeholder. I look forward to seeing next weeks where we’ll hopefully learn the identity of Pig. I have my suspicions.