Bruce has a visitor at the mansion; he’s an ass, demanding
money from Bruce for Salina’s mother’s freedom. Salina’s mom asks Bruce if he is sure he wants to pay the money
the man wants; he says, he owes her for saving their lives. Salina says they should call the police and
have him arrested, saying if they pay him, he will just come back for more; she
suggests Bruce start keeping a lot of cash around if he pays it. Her mom says another option is for her to
just leave again – Salina gets mad and tells Bruce to pay it if he wants. He pays it and her mother takes it to
deliver it to the ‘blackmailer’ (and they laugh about a great ruse it
was). When Salina discovers her mother
was pulling a scam all along, working with the man who was demanding the money
and only came back to town to work a con after finding out Salina and
Bruce were “a thing,” she is angry and tells her mother – right up in her face
– not to ever come back to this town again.
Salina goes back and hits Bruce after he admits that he suspected her
mother was just after the money; she’s pissed that he gave it to her
anyway. Then she gets more pissed about
the fact that he lied to her – although he says he just didn’t tell her… same
thing, she says. She hits him again and
again, then demands that he fight her.
She kicks at him; he catches her leg and says he won’t fight her. She leaves angry.
Two security guards sit,
playing cards in a restricted area; they see a man round the corner, with an
entourage behind him… they tell him to stop or they will fire; he laughs. One guard fires, hitting one of the bunch
behind this man; then he tells the other guard to call for backup – that guard
pulls out a knife and stabs him. The
man laughs again. The group of them
walks to the cryogenic storage containers, and find the one with Jerome “the
joker” in it, still grinning. The man
says, “it’s really you” and he laughs once more. The scene changes; it’s obviously later… Jim Gordon, Harvey and
some other detectives – they look at the containers, trying to determine how
they got there and what is being done with them. Jerome’s container has the word “HA” written in spray paint with
all over it, and big eyes over the window.
They hear a noise; it’s the goon who was shot.
Jim has an idea. He
takes him back to the station; this weirdo says he is impressed to be meeting
Jim Gordon. He tells Jim they are a
“large band” and they “are everywhere” adding, “Jerome is just the first
step.” Gordon orders a citywide call to
look for the symbol painted on the container.
Harvey and Jim look at dozens of pictures of areas around town that have
been painted with the same “joker” symbol; they wonder how they’ve missed this
until now. Abandoned buildings and
warehouses indicate that there’s probably more than one group, with different
chapters all over town. Harvey thinks
there’s only fifty “wackadoos” at most out there; Jim says maybe, maybe not. A
detective brings in plans of the electric grid in to Jim and Harvey; they
locate exactly where the surge occurred when that girl, Melanie Blake, was
electrocuted. He says there were
multiple surges as recently as fifteen minutes ago; Jim and Harvey take off for
that address. When they get there, they
find Jerome with his face missing; they find a phone, but it provides no
information. Jim announces that the
precinct has a mole; he shows them the phone and says there is only one number
on it – he acts like he is dialing it, as he says, “let’s find out who the
traitor is, shall we?” One of the
officers jumps out of his chair and takes off; they get him.
Jim and Harvey interrogate the imposter –
but he gives no answers; Jim slams him up against a wall and smacks him in the
mouth, but he just laughs at Jim.
Harvey grabs him and punches him HARD a couple of times, then smashes
him up against the wall again. Lee
walks in and injects the man in the neck and tells them to give him a few
minutes and he’ll talk. Jim wants to
know why she did that; he tells her it was against the rules (haha) and she
points out his hypocrisy. He tells her
she’s better than that; she responds with sarcasm. He tells her that he thinks she came back to work too soon; she
threatens to tell the commissioner he was punching a suspect in the face, if he
says anything about her and walks off.
She goes back to the examination room to find an empty table and
security guard dead on the floor; Jerome jumps out from the door behind her and
holds a gun to her head and sits her down.
He asks her where his face is.
Barbara reads from the newspaper, as Penguin wakes from a
nap on the couch; it’s a slam article written about Mayor “Crumblepot” – she
mocks him and basically tells him he needs to get his shit together, clean up
and be his old self again; she is calling a meeting with the heads of the
families, at 1:00 and instructs him to be there… she says the gangs are rising,
saying the king is dead and he needs to get things in order. He asks why she is helping him and she
replies, “because people think you like me” adding, as long as they are scared
of him, she gets to keep breathing.
Oswald is dressed and properly groomed; Barbara stands behind the
bar. The room is empty; she claims she
called everyone, and sent his invitation, but no one showed. Penguin doesn’t believe her now; he accuses
her of not even calling them. He says
maybe he should call any of the families and ask if they were really invited to
this meeting… the phone rings. It’s
Tommy Bones; he tells Penguin he is done, saying they don’t work for him
anymore. They have Ed and are holding
him hostage; they tell Penguin to step down from the business and they will let
him keep being mayor.
Nigma manages to sneak a phone call to his friend;
Penguin vows to find him. Barbara and her girlfriend talking about the con they
have pulled off, Penguin thinks one crew kidnapped Nigma and is still looking
for Tommy Bones, who Barb mentions her girlfriend already killed. They laugh about the “nimrods” that are
there terrified for their lives, with their guard down. Barb’s girl reminds her that she gets to
kill Nigma when this is all over; Barb seals it with a kiss. Then Barb says they are going to go with
option “b” and her girlfriend jumps up with an automatic rifle and shoots all
the men who are waiting there.
In a warehouse somewhere, the man who was laughing
endlessly when the security guard was killed, is now hooking up a bunch of
equipment to a bluish-Jerome, laying on an operating table, connected to wires,
now hooked up to the machines. He pulls
a lever and Jerome’s eye twitches; he gets frustrated though when he doesn’t
immediately reanimate. The ‘laughing
man’ gets frustrated because Jerome is still dead; his assistant yells at him,
which pisses him off and he electrocutes the man by sticking a huge ‘hot’ cable
right into his chest. Jerome’s
followers are getting impatient; this man promised them Jerome would
return. He panics, thinking all they
want is to see his face – and he CUTS OFF Jerome’s face (and not very well, I
might add). He puts it on a string and
wears it like a mask, descending the stairs and everyone cheers; he announces
himself, as Jerome, but when they all get a good look at him, they are like,
“what the hell?”
The smile is gone from
Jerome’s now amputated face and it is torn at the corner of the mouth; the man
seems surprised when the people don’t fall for it – they all start shouting
that they want Jerome; where is Jerome?!
He thinks quickly and tells them all Jerome is right there; he says, “he
never really left us” and tells each one of them that Jerome is in them. They are Jerome. Harvey comes running out and tells Jim it
worked; he talked… they have to go to the Channel 9 newsstation to make an
announcement on the 6:00 news. The
laughing man wheels an automatic rifle and plods down the steps into the studio
where news crews are filming, live; he shoots the newscaster and as people
start to scatter, tells them that no one is going anywhere. Sirens blare as police cars pull up to the
station; a man stands in the window with a gun to the head of a hostage,
sitting in a chair.
Jim gets the
now-not-so-laughing man on the phone; he makes his threats, claiming to ‘be’
Jerome and Jim calls him a fraud, saying he’s just the understudy, and tells
him he’s boring him. This makes the man
very angry. The man wearing Jerome’s
face without the smile, is on the stage speaking to the camera as Jim and his
officers storm in and arrest him.Outside of the news station, Jim gets a call;
it’s Lee. She says somehow, Jerome is
alive, and he’s coming after Dwight (the former laughing man)… he takes him,
drives back to his warehouse, takes his face back and STAPLES it on. He then hands Dwight what looks like a car
battery with cables hooked up to it; he asks what they are doing, and Jerome says,
“you’ll see.” He somehow gets a
broadcast out; he has Dwight, dressed up like an officer tied up to a chair,
with dynamite sticks strapped to him; he lights the end of a wick and leaves
laughing.
Jim runs out onto a balcony
in time to see an explosion that knocks the lights out, grid by grid, all over
the city.