Previously on Gotham: Selina Kyle.

And the teenage girl leaves the cop standing in the mud down the sewers.

In the meantime, Fish Mooney lays it all out, nice and neat, for Montoya and Allen, and they just gobble it up. It’s all very convenient, isn’t it? Plot-wise, murder-wise, ridiculous-love-triangle-wise.

I cringed so, so hard when Montoya went straight to Barbara to tell her that her Jim is a corrupt murderer, that she hates to see her with a man like this, and that she deserves better. It’s so obvious that she still has feelings for Barbara, and it’s also obvious that that is literally the only value the writers see in that characters canonical bisexuality — that, in fact, her bisexuality and thus her ability to break up the one remaining functional relationship (well) is the only reason why she’s got any lines at all. Ooh, and they used to do hard drugs together, that’s… wow. Sexually transgressive relationship plus drug past plus Barbara doing better now that she’s with a cop and in a straight relationship equals why am I watching this again?

Whilst Cobblepot murders his way through Gotham and into some money and practical shoes, Alfred and Bruce do some fencing, and nearly no time is spent on the actual murder-solving. ’cause that’s kinda boring anyway. Oh, and Selina didn’t actually help. Gordon, please get her to a damn sketch artist.

The dialogue continues uneventfully…

“Piece of advice. Take a shower. Cause you stink like a sewer!”

Oh, wow. I bet that stung. Like, sixth grade.

FOX calls Gordon and Bullock “two very different sides of the same coin.” And I’m like, man, they’re not even living in the same wallet. The radically different settings could be — should be — the show’s strength, but instead it just feels disjointed. The narrative just… hops. It’s hops and hops and hops, trying to do all the main and supporting characters justice, but it’s not working. There’s no glue between those scenes, and you never stay with one scene long enough to forge a real connection.

Ooh, nice foreshadowing.

“Everyone has to matter, or nobody matters. Otherwise, people lose faith. That’s how you get vigilantes.”

I also love (note the sarcasm) how Barbara only seems to be there to ask Gordon if something’s wrong, to tell him that he’s having trouble sleeping, and to listen to him while he makes heartfelt speeches about justice and Gotham’s future and to comfort him and tell him how great he is. Oh, and to defend him to Montoya. Yeeeeaaaah, love that. Does this woman have a life of her own?

Then again, that’s the trouble with all of these characters: they’ve got one default state, pretty much one default facial expression, one default mood. And they’ve all been running on that track for three episodes now.

Oh for god’s sake, Bruce, eat your greens.

Next on Gotham: Arkham.