Bruce doses off on his couch while following the corporate trail.
At his club, Gertrude performs on the stage. Badly.
Fish wakes the other prisoners up and they go about their daily routine.
Barbara returns home, drunk, and finds Ivy and Selena camping there.
Selena tells her that Jim left his keys a week ago, and Barbara finally
figures that she's had enough of him. She then asks the girls who they
are.
Jim and Leslie go to the circus and watch the Flying
Grayson perform their high-wire act. Once they finish, clowns come into
the ring and start attacking the Graysons. The Graysons fight back and
Jim finally flashes his badge and tells everyone to stop.
Gertrude finishes singing and Oswald leads the audience in a round of
reluctant applause. One foolhardy drunk insults Gertrude, and Oswald
attacks him with a broken bottle.
Once everyone has calmed down, Jim talks to the Lloyd clown family and the Graysons. Neither one of them
Jim questions the clowns and the performers, but none of them have any
idea why they fought. Leslie tends to John Grayson's injuries, and
another performer, Mary Lloyd, snaps at him. John and Mary argue and
John explains that their families don’t get along. They blame each
other's families for starting the fight, and Mary mentions Lila Valeska.
Jim apologizes to Leslie, who is fine with the situation. She's done
some checking and confirmed that Lila is a snake dancer in the sideshow.
Jim offers to have a patrolman drive her home, but Leslie convinces him
to let her tag along. He gives in and asks the ringmaster where they
can find Lila.
The ringmaster takes them to Lila's trailer and a
young man, Jerome, comes out and says that she isn't there. Jerome says
that he's her son and he hasn't seen Lila since that morning. The
ringmaster says that Lila probably went on a drinking spree, but Jerome
points out that she didn't take her coat or purse. Jim tells Jerome to
release Lila's python Sheba. They follow the snake to the back of a
truck and find Lila's bloody corpse there. Jerome breaks into tears,
sobbing, and Leslie goes over to comfort him. Jim realizes that the
ringmaster knew Lila was there, and the ringmaster finally admits that
Lila was like that when they found her.
Fish tells her new
subjects that their captors are using them as transplant donors. She
tells them to do what she says and she'll get some of them alive. The
crowd hesitates and Fish warns that some will die, but they will die for
dignity and they will die as a family because they are all that each
other has. The crowd applauds her and cheers.
At the circus,
the ringmaster shows Jim where they found Lila's body, and explains that
only he and the heads of the families knew. He assures Jim that if it
was someone in the circus then they would have made sure that the killer
was punished. Unimpressed, Jim arrests him.
The next day at
the station, officers bring in the circus performers as a bemused Harvey
looks on. Jim and Leslie arrive and Jim questions Jerome. The teenager
insists that his mother was perfect and didn't have any enemies. Jerome
says that Lila had lovers but no boyfriends, and Alphonse Grayson and
Owen Lloyd, the heads of the two families, were her lovers. Jim asks
Jerome how he felt about his mother's love life, and Jerome says that
he'd be fine. The boy insists that sex is a healthy human activity. Jim
asks if he has any other family, and Jerome says that the circus is his
family.
Jim questions Owen, who insists that Alphonse killed
Lila because she was going to choose Owen over Alphonse. Owen explains
that the families have been feuding for three generations over a stolen
horse. Alphonse tells Harvey the same thing, and insists that Owen
killed Lila. Meanwhile, Alvarez questions Mary about her Uncle Owen, and
John overhears them and insists that his brother Alphonse is innocent.
They argue back and forth and Mary admits that she can't understand how
she ever loved John.
The prisoners hear the captors coming and
Fish rallies the prisoners. When the head captor, Thomas Schmidt, calls
for Inmate 57A, one man finally answers. However, Fish steps forward and
says that they need to talk. She introduces herself and says that there
are some things that need to change. Fish demands food, water, and
magazines in return for the inmate. Thomas wonders what she'll do if he
refuses, and Fish says that she'll kill the inmate. The captor gives her
to the count of three to get out of the way, and Fish has several of
her prisoners beat the inmate to death. Fish repeats her offer, and
Thomas says that the Office Manager will want to see her. She says that
she'll be right there and Thomas says that the Office Manager never
comes down. After a moment, Fish offers to go in return for Thomas as a
hostage. He tells Fish that they'll be back and leaves with his men. The
prisoners cheer at their triumph, and Fish turns to the dead inmate and
kisses him gently on the forehead.
Jim reports to Essen what
he's learned so far, and Leslie and Edward report that Lila was killed
with a large knife or a hatchet. Alphonse and Owen have alibis for the
estimated time of death, and Essen tells Jim and Harvey to keep working
the case. Jim releases everyone except Alphonse and Owen, and tells the
others to stop fighting over a stolen horse. Leslie congratulates Jim on
acting tough and invites him to her place for dinner that night. Jim
accepts just as a blind psychic, Paul Cicero, enters the station and
finds his way to Jim's death. He explains that he's received a psychic
message from his old friend Lila from the Other Side, and she has a
message for Jim. Jim doesn't want to hear it, but Leslie insists and
Cicero says that "the servant of the Devil lies in the garden of the
Iron Sisters." Once he leaves, Jim dismisses the psychic as a fraud but
Leslie isn't so sure.
Alfred tells Bruce that his meeting with
the Wayne Enterprises board is confirmed. He insists that it's still bad
an idea, but Bruce refuses to reconsider.
At the club, Oswald plays the piano.
That night, Barbara tries on dresses to impress Jim. Selena and Ivy give her fashion tips/.
As Jim and Leslie have dinner, they talk about her sister and she
realizes that Cicero's message refers to the two towers on the Gotham
Bridge, and the garden to the park beneath it. She wants to check it out
and convinces Jim to do so and take her with him. As they search the
park, Jim suggests that Leslie go home and she accuses him of being a
hypocrite who wants a woman who is her equal, but only wants her to cook
for him. Before Jim can respond, they find a bloody hatched with THFC
carved into the handle. Jim remembers that the initials stand for the
Hellfire Club, a Satanist group that committed a series of murders 10
years ago. However, he doesn't they killed Lyla. He calls the station
and tells the officer on duty to pick up two people from the circus,
without letting each one know the other was brought in. When Jim gets to
the station, the two suspects are waiting. Leslie figures that Jim
wants to send her home, and admits that she gets overly enthusiastic.
However, Jim admits that she was right about his being a hypocrite and
invites her to come with her for the interrogations.
Jim and
Leslie meet with Cicero and Jim accuses him of being an accessory to
murder. He figures that Cicero told someone how to plant the axe and
knows who the killer is, and figures that Cicero is desperate to protect
the person responsible. An officer brings Jerome in and Jim accuses him
of killing Lila. Jerome denies it, and Jim tells him that Cicero is his
father. The teenager insists that his father was a sea captain that
died at sea, but has no facts to back his claim up. Jim offers to
perform a paternity test to prove that Cicero is Jerome's father. Cicero
finally admits that he is Jerome's father, and that Lila loved him in
her way once upon a time. He tells Jerome that Lila loved him and gave
him a better, albeit imaginary, father.
Jerome starts laughing
and says that his mother was a cold-hearted whore who would never go
near Cicero. Cicero insists that he helped Jerome because the boy is his
on, and Jerome admits that he killed Lila because she kept pushing him.
Later, Jim finds Leslie in the locker room, and she admits that seeing a
cold-blooded killer was shocking. However, she tells Jim that the whole
investigation was thrilling as well. Leslie thanks Jim for taking her
along and they kiss. Barbara comes in and sees them together, but they
don't see her as she leaves.
Zsasz goes to the club and tells
Oswald that Falcone realizes that he is losing money in the club. He
brings Butch in, startling Oswald, and the hitman explains that Butch is
harmless. Zsasz worked Butch over in his basement for a couple of
weeks, and now he'll do whatever Oswald says. Falcone wants Butch to
help Oswald run the club and turn a profit. Zsasz assures Oswald that
Butch will do whatever he orders, and Oswald has Butch dance for him.
At Wayne Manor, Alfred makes sure that Bruce is ready and they go to
the meeting. Bruce tells the assembled board members that he believes
someone in Wayne Enterprises is manufacturing illegal chemicals and
selling interests in the company to the underworld as part of the Arkham
project.
At the station, John and Mary thank Jim for helping
their families end their feud. The couple is now engaged, and Mary
kisses Jim on the cheek while John promises to name their first son
after him. Once they leave, Harvey smells woman's soap on Jim and
realizes that he spent the night with Leslie.
Bruce warns the
board that he plans to raise his concerns at the next shareholders
meeting, and tells them that he hasn't revealed everything that he
knows. One board member comments that Jim is too young to deal with the
legal issues, Bruce says that the only difference his age makes is that
he's not in a position to deal with it directly.
Thomas returns
to Fish and tells her that the Manager has agreed to see her while
Thomas stays there. Fish takes his weapons and promises him that her
family will show him a good time, and then the guards escort her away.
Written by Gadfly on Jun 26, 2019