Knight Moves: Gotham Episode 412, "Pieces of a Broken Mirror"

GOTHAM returns from hiatus, but doesn't really move its story forward all that much, as this season's overarching title is "A Dark Knight," which ostensibly means we're going to see more of Bruce Wayne (DAVID MAZOUZ) on the road to becoming Batman. And, indeed, early in the season we were seeing just that. But then he became a brat, which he remains to this point in the series, firing Alfred and living a life of drunken partying and debauchery.

Also confusing things is the evolution of yet another version of Ivy Pepper, who emerges from a botanical pod this episode transmogrified into PEYTON LIST (FREQUENCY, THE FLASH). This Ivy has the ability to infect people with, literally, poison ivy. But not the itching skin, watery eyes variety. It grows within them, filling their whole body. She has little memory when she first emerges, but when she sees an absolutely horrid 80s-hair commercial for the Sirens Club, she recognizes Barbara (ERIN RICHARDS), Tabitha (JESSICA LUCAS) and Selina (CAMREN BICONDOVA), she remembers that she hates them.

Now that Alfred (SEAN PERTWEE) is without a job, he's taken to living in The Narrows, but still dressing impeccably. He befriends a waitress (CAISSIE LEVY) who has an abusive boyfriend (MATTHEW C. FLYNN), and ultimately becomes framed for her murder when he gets on the boyfriend's bad side.

The bulk of the action happens in The Narrows, as Dr. Lee Thompkins (MORENA BACCARIN) solidifies her leadership of the impoverished into a unified movement for improvement. She has Edward Nygma (CORY MICHAEL SMITH) on her side, but he's fighting--and losing--an internal battle against his psychotic alter ego, The Riddler. When an assassin who uses deadly toys tries to eliminate Thompkins, James Gordon (BEN MCKENZIE) investigates, ultimately discovering Lee's presence in town. Gordon finds the toymaking assassin (THOMAS LYONS), and has to shoot him, but only after Nygma finds out who hired him to kill Thompkins in the first place, a fact he hides from Gordon. This will no doubt serve as a catalyst for the assassin's son, Cosmo Krank (CHRIS PERFETTI) to take on his villainous identity as the Toy Master.

Just as Ivy begins to remember her past life, so does Solomon Grundy (DREW POWELL) start to recall that he's Butch Gilzean, after Tabitha beat him senseless in the prior episode. He's cognizant now, but not letting anyone know.

And Harvey Bullock (DONAL LOGUE) is still off the force, rebuffing Gordon's attempts to pull him back into service. But we're pretty sure he still has a larger role to fill, since we see him tending bar and coming to Alfred's rescue later in the episode.

It's a little sad to see Nygma struggling with MPD, but when he does go full Riddler again, we hope that he's a bit more of a brilliant strategist than a joke. He's supposed to be brilliant. We need to see more of that side.