Gotham Season 3, Episode 19 Review: All Will Be Judged

This Gotham review contains spoilers.

Gotham Season 3, Episode 19

Barnes is back in full force (this time, complete with Executioner ax-hand!) in the latest episode of Gotham. But what starts as a ploy by the Court of Owl’s Kathryne, ends up backfiring big time. Barnes chops off her head, more loyal to his twisted idea of justice than to any one person.

But, as we know from Marvel (and, you know, Greek mythology), if you cut off one head, more will grow back in its place. This isn’t the last we’ve see of the Court of Owls, especially given that Kathryne wasn’t even their main head. (Duh, Jim.) Here’s everything that went down in “All Will Be Judged”…

Doppel-Bruce is found out!

Well, it only took three weeks and literally getting hit over the head for Alfred to figure out that he’s been living with a clone of Bruce Wayne rather than the teen he’s known since he was a boy. I kind of love this, actually. Bruce is such a weirdo and Alfred is so stubborn that this entirely makes sense. Besides, Doppel-Bruce had the turtleneck sweater fashion down. Alfred never stood a chance.

It’s Selina who busts the truth wide open, showing up at Wayne Manor to kill Doppel-Bruce, as she vowed to at the end of last week’s episode. It’s slightly disconcerting to see Selina and Doppel-Bruce beating up each other because Carmen Bicondova and David Mazouz are still kids. It’s especially jarring to see Doppel-Bruce fight a fully grown man (aka Alfred), especially because we have seen Alfred hit children before when he slapped Selina back in Season 2. (Yeah, still not over that.)

As much as I hate how Alfred treats Selina like something he continually has to scrape off his butler shoe, I did enjoy the conversation between the two about saving Bruce. When Selina feigns indifference (even though we saw her defend Bruce to Doppel-Bruce just a few episodes ago), Alfred calls her out on it, not only telling her that Bruce would do anything to help her, but comparing Selina to her terrible mother. Well played, Alfred. Sometimes, your skillset comes in handy.

While Alfred and Selina are running around trying not to get killed by Doppel-Bruce and coming up with a plan to save their missing friend, the real Bruce is seemingly enjoying his training with the Shaman. While I get why he wants to stay, he seems to have completely forgotten that Doppel-Bruce is pretending to be him, putting the people he cares about most in danger. I suppose this is very teen kid, isn’t it? You get caught up with your new friends and forget about your family and all their nagging.

Little does he know, he’s seemingly hanging out with the man who is currently masterminding the destruction of Gotham (in order to rebuild it — yada, yada, yada). The Shaman seems to be the man behind the Court of Owls, giving Bruce insight into his role in the organization and his anger at the deaths of Bruce’s parents. It’s that last part that, unsurprisingly, seems to seal the deal for Bruce. He may have put his mother’s metaphorical pearls in a metaphorical vault, but it’s still his parents’ deaths that motivate him best.

Ed and Oswald join forces to get out of jail.

The best storyline of the night, as usual, belongs to Penguin and Ed — sorry, the Riddler. After last week’s cliffhanger, which saw the two come face-to-face for the first time following Ed’s attempted murder of Oswald, we were blessed with a bevvy of tense, but delightful interactions in which Ed and Oswald both try to prove that they are the most wronged by the other, putting their petty argument over their own escape for the first half of the episode before deciding to join forces to escape.

It’s nice to see these two working together — fake Jello blood and all — even if it is just temporary. And, on any other show, their temporary alliance might seem ludicrously impossible, but, on this show (and with these two characters), it makes total sense. And, besides, as much as these two claim to hate one another, they still delight in one another’s company. As Ed’s hallucinations and Oswald’s fury prove, these two don’t know what to do when they don’t have the other to help define them. The #Nygmobblepot relationship continues to be the absolute best part of Gotham Season 3.

Lee purposely injects herself with the virus.

Lee is the worst. And that’s saying something on a show that includes Jim Gordon, a man who is like that hall monitor kid from school who seemed to revel in his power and his very specific idea of justice. (Though, to be fair, Jim was kind of great in this episode).

Now concinved that Mario’s death was not Jim’s fault, but her own (oh my god, it was Jervis Tetch’s fault!), Lee decides to punish herself, I guess, by stealing the virus and injecting it into her own bloodstream. For someone who is constantly (and rightly) accusing Jim and Bullock of inefficiently protecting the city, this is a supremely out-of-character move for Lee.

What, exactly, does this accomplish? It probably makes Lee hurt less, but I’ve never considered Lee to be a coward or someone that would put her own feelings above the safety of others. (After all, she did date Jim Gordon.) This felt like a contrived move for a character Gotham wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

That being said, as a character that Gotham wasn’t quite sure what to do with, I’m pretty darn eager to see what Lee does next.