‘Gotham’ Season 2 Episode 14 Recap and Review: This Ball of Mud and Meanness

Gotham Season 2 Episode 14 Ben McKenzie and David Mazouz
Ben McKenzie and David Mazouz in ‘Gotham’ season 2 episode 14 (Photo by Jessica Miglio ©2016 Fox Broadcasting Co)

“My name is Bruce Wayne. You killed my parents,” says Bruce (David Mazouz) to the hitman who gunned down his mother and father two years ago, and who Bruce has finally tracked down to kill, in episode 14 of season two of FOX’s gritty comic-book inspired crime thriller, Gotham.

As the episode begins, Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) is suffering through another mental treatment at the hands of Dr. Hugo Strange (BD Wong). During the treatment, Penguin hallucinates that he’s tied to his old chair at home as his mother lectures him about eating his food, which is absurd since he is also gagged. Penguin then sees another version of himself sneaking up behind his mother and beating her to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat which causes the Penguin still tied to the chair to start screaming. In reality, Penguin is strapped down in the torture chamber (aka treatment room) while Hugo and Mrs. Peabody watch and comment on how successful the treatment to strip Oswald of his violent side seems to be going.

Down a dark alley walks a lone, slim figure approaching a young street woman. It’s Bruce who’s meeting up with Selina (Camren Bicondova) to get the gun he asked her to get for him. Selina hands Bruce the gun and he pauses before he takes it. “What? You asked me to get it for you! If you don’t want it, I’ll just…” Selina doesn’t have time to finish her sentence because Bruce takes the gun from her hand. Selina tells Bruce that guns are for one thing only and that it’s not protection. Slowly Bruce seems to be building both his confidence and determination although it seems that Selina is almost hoping he will change his mind.

Back at the GCPD, Lee (Morena Baccarin) approaches Jim (Ben McKenzie) about Kristen Kringle and she’s become worried because there hasn’t been any word of or from her since she ran off with Tom. Gordon tells Lee he’ll look into it and moments later approaches Ed Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) asking if he’s heard from her. Nygma asks if anything is wrong and Jim plays it off saying he’s following up because she hasn’t cashed any of her paychecks for over a month.

Jim gets a call and has to leave and no sooner is he is gone than Nygma starts to talk to himself as his dark side surfaces, saying that Gordon is on to him and is trying to trick him to reveal what really happened to Miss Kringle.

At Arkham, Penguin takes his lunch tray and sits across from another inmate. The hulking man notices that Penguin has ice cream on his tray and thus begins the ice cream experiment, with Oswald commenting that it’s strange he has ice cream. The very large inmate gets more and more upset about Penguin having ice cream when he doesn’t have any, and Penguin tries to offer the man his ice cream but gets attacked by him and is finally saved by the guards after being told to intervene by the ever-watching Dr. Strange.

On the streets of Gotham, Alfred (Sean Pertwee) and Bruce find a man nicknamed Cupcake at his makeshift fight club. It seems that this man should know the whereabouts of Matches Malone, the man who killed Bruce’s parents. Bruce interrupts Alfred, who is doing a solid job of talking to Cupcake to try to get the information, and reveals who he is and offers Cupcake money for the information. Cupcake likes young Bruce’s determination and decides on $50,000 for the information and that Alfred has to fight him. Bruce offers Cupcake $100,000 and no fight, not wanting to see Alfred get hurt. But unfortunately, Cupcake is all about the fight and won’t talk unless Alfred beats him.

Alfred, none too happy with Bruce, tells him to always pick your battles and not to have your battles picked for you. He gives the young man his coat as he takes on Cupcake who is twice his size. Alfred also uses the fight to teach young Bruce techniques in street fighting and how to use someone’s large size against them. Alfred wins the match but not before taking some serious hits. He winds up passing out right after Cupcake gives them the name of a person who will know where Matches is. Cupcake tells them they need to find Jeri.

Bruce takes Alfred to the hospital where Alfred tries to make Bruce promise not to go after Matches alone. But before he can make the young man promise, he passes out from his pain medication. Bruce leans in and whispers, “I’m sorry, Alfred,” and leaves on his mission to find Jeri and then confront Matches. When Alfred wakes and sees Bruce is gone, he calls Bullock (Donal Logue) and Gordon to finally include them in on his plan. Bullock is not too pleased with Alfred having left them out of the loop on the whole manhunt for the killer of Bruce’s parents.

When Alfred tells the two detectives how Bruce is going to try to kill the man and how he told Bruce that he would do it. Bullock says, “You know we’re cops. You’re not supposed to tell the police your plans on how you’re going to attempt to commit a murder.” Gordon still feels responsible, however, for all of this since he promised Bruce two years ago on the night his parents were murdered that he would find the killer, so he goes off to find Jeri.

Bruce finds Jeri (Lori Petty) at Celestial Gardens, which is a club that pays tribute to the Maniax as video clips are played of their evil acts against the city. Truly this is Gotham’s den of thieves. Jeri herself is covered in white makeup with a Joker-like smile painted on. Jeri already knows that Bruce is looking for Matches and asks if he has a good reason to find him. Bruce offers her money which she says she has no interest in. He then tells her he has a gun. She laughs and says that’s a good enough reason.

Just as Bruce is about to leave, Jeri tells him where to find Matches. Bruce asks her why she told him and she tells him that he is the “childish hand of fate” and that sort of makes her God in a way and who doesn’t like to play God after all?! On his way out of the club Bruce and Gordon see each other and Bruce tries to make a run for it, but Gordon grabs him and tells him he’ll handle it from here. Jeri spots Gordon holding Bruce and turns the spotlight on him, telling her club junkies to get him. They pick him up and carry him on top of the crowd as if they were at a concert and he was in the mosh pit. This allows Bruce to escape.

Gotham Season 2 Episode 14 Robin Lord Taylor
Robin Lord Taylor in ‘Gotham’ season 2 episode 14 (Photo by Jessica Miglio ©2016 Fox Broadcasting Co)

Back at Arkham, Dr. Strange tells Penguin that he’s almost cured and after only a few more treatments he will be a free man, which Oswald is happy to hear but really doesn’t want any more treatments. Hugo insists it’s the only way Penguin will be cured of his anger issues and Oswald agrees to it, not really having much of a choice.

Bruce makes his way to the address Jeri gave him and finds Matches apartment. Bruce makes up a story that he has a job for him so Matches will let him in. Matches (Michael Bowen) tells young Bruce that his price for killing a man is $10,000, double for women and triple for kids but that he doesn’t kill babies – that’s a deal-breaker. While Bruce talks to the man who killed his parents Gordon has Jeri and some of her partiers arrested.

Back at the GCPD Gordon is interrogating Jeri trying to find out where she told Bruce to find Matches. Jeri enjoys goading Gordon and trying to get him to lose his temper so he’ll hurt her, but Gordon is in no mood for games. Jeri asks him what time it is and when she looks at his watch, she says that she’ll tell him now and he should just make it in time for the cleanup. (I’m sorry but this whole scene is stolen from the now-famous great interrogation scene between Batman and the Joker in the film The Dark Knight.)

Back at Matches’ apartment Bruce reveals to the hired killer who he really is and how two years ago he killed his parents. At first, he doesn’t remember, which bothers Bruce, but when Bruce starts to talk about the murder in detail Matches remembers that night. Bruce tries to get him to tell him who hired him but Matches tells Bruce he has a “killer’s code” and that no matter what he does to him he won’t reveal his client. (Wow, won’t kill babies and would rather die than give up the evil person who hired him. And they say you can’t find good help these days.)

Bruce tries but just can’t pull the trigger because he realizes that Matches isn’t some monster but just a sad, pathetic man. He puts the gun on the table and leaves. As he walks down the hallway he sees Gordon and tells him which apartment Matches is in and it’s then they both hear a gunshot. Jim goes to investigate as Bruce walks on. Matches has committed suicide.

At Arkham, Penguin gets locked in the torture chamber again only this time he is not alone. The man who freaked out about the ice cream is there but restrained. Knives are on the table across from him and Penguin picks one up. Penguin comments on how sharp the knife is and the restrained man’s eyes get wide as he fears Penguin is going to use the knife on him. He doesn’t. Instead, Penguin cuts him loose and lets him have a drink of water. Penguin just passed Hugo Strange’s final test. He’s a free man.

At the GCPD Gordon is finishing up the file on the Wayne murder case when Ed approaches him asking about any leads on Kringle. Jim tells him they don’t have any but that he’s been preoccupied lately and when he does hear something Ed will be the first one he lets know. Nygma doesn’t believe Jim and as he starts helping another officer with a case Ed says out loud to himself that he – meaning Gordon – might have plans but that Ed has plans of his own.

Back at Wayne Manor, Alfred is looking for Bruce who left him a note saying that he has gone to live on the streets for a while with Selina. “You can’t kill murder. You can’t get revenge on evil. You can only begin to fight such things by not doing them. And you can only fight them where they live – not just at Wayne Enterprises – in the streets, the slums, in the bad parts of town. So that’s where I’m going.” He promises Alfred that he’ll be back and asks his good friend and mentor to trust him and not come looking to take him back. This leaves Alfred upset and not knowing what to do next.

In the final scene Nygma is at home with a newspaper that has a photo of Gordon with the title “Hero Cop.” Nygma circles the photo and draws a question mark. (The Riddler Rises!)

Gotham Season 2 Episode 14 Review

Dark and suspenseful, episode 14 titled “This Ball of Mud and Meanness” focuses on the change and growth, both good and bad, of three major characters in the show. Bruce finally finds and faces down his parents’ killer only to realize that simple revenge won’t be real justice for his parents and that it won’t give him peace. Oswald, through Dr. Strange’s weird treatments, might be a calmer, less-lethal Penguin or it might just be an act to get the hell out of Arkham and who could blame him? And Ed Nygma’s darker side seems to be taking over and the birth of the Riddler’s crime spree seems closer than ever.

The stand-out performance in this episode goes to David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne as he hunts down the man who killed his parents and finally gets to meet with him face-to-face. Mazouz’s performance is stellar as he shows how Bruce isn’t quite ready to take the gun from Selina early in the episode and slowly works up the confidence to not only carry the gun but almost pull the trigger and kill the hired goon who has caused Bruce’s greatest heartache, the death of his parents. This is without a doubt HIS episode and he truly shines in it.

With Penguin back out on the streets of Gotham, Nygma’s dark side taking over, and Dr. Hugo Strange experimenting with reanimation as well as other bizarre things, it seems dark and violent times are ahead for Gotham.

GRADE: B